Liu Qian stayed in Crown Town for only a day and a night before rushing back to the Central Heights with the wildfire and a group of Pyromancers.
The darkness before dawn was at its thickest, and both opposing camps in the Central Heights lay shrouded in a deathly chill.
The Highland Fortress crouched atop the hill, its stone walls gleaming cold and hard beneath the faint starlight.
Only scattered fires burned on the towers, and sentries moved sluggishly behind the battlements.
Behind the curtain wall, the mercenary camp was filled with snores.
During the day, their nerves had been stretched taut, fearful that Liu Qian would lead his army in an assault.
Only at night could these exhausted warriors find a moment's rest.
Across the entire hill, there was only the rustling of wind through dead grass and the occasional howl of a wild wolf in the distance.
At Liu Qian's Rammed-Earth Fortress, however, the atmosphere was entirely different.
There were no fires, no clamor, only a deadly stillness poised to strike.
Three specially modified giant trebuchets revealed their menacing silhouettes.
Their throwing arms had been thickened and reinforced, wrapped in heavy ropes soaked in grease, and their winch systems had also been strengthened to bear weights far beyond those of ordinary stone shot.
Most crucial were the special devices fitted to their launching ends.
These were no longer simple leather slings, but multilayered nets woven from tough vines and heavy canvas, lined with absorbent moss and cork shavings specifically to cradle the earthenware jars of wildfire.
Beside the trebuchets, the Pyromancers quietly directed the final preparations.
Under their officers' low commands, squads of carefully selected soldiers worked in pairs, slowly and steadily lifting specially made earthenware jars, each wrapped in thick straw and wet cloth, from purpose-built transport