Alaric waited.

  For two days after seizing Larethin City, he stood watch. He had locked Duke Larethin’s family in the guest quarters unharmed, but prisoners nonetheless. He didn't use them as hostages; he didn't need to.

  On the evening of the second day, the horizon turned dark.

  Larethin’s army finally returned. They were frantic, tired, and desperate from the forced march. But despite their exhaustion, the force was by no means small. It was a sea of people stretching as far as the eye could see of nearly thirty thousand men, armed and desperate to reclaim their home.

  Alaric and Kellan stood on top of the conquered city wall, looking down at the approaching mass.

  Kellan swallowed hard, gripping the hilt of his sword. "Their army is really huge," he muttered nervously. "Are you sure we can pull it off? We only have five thousand inside."

  Alaric looked at the swarm with calm, cold eyes. "Yes. No need to get scared."

  Below, in the vanguard of the returning army, Duke Larethin was losing his mind.

  He rode back and forth, screaming at his officers with his face full of rage.

  "We have to take back the city!" Larethin shrieked, pointing his sword at his own castle. "My wealth! My treasury! My castle! Everything is in there!"

  The officers looked at him, then at each other. They exchanged glances of silent disdain. ‘What about your family, Your Grace?’ they thought. ‘Your wife and children are in there too, yet you only speak of gold?’

  But they obeyed. They had no choice.

  Larethin’s plan was blunt force. He ordered a frontal charge to break the siege immediately. He was confident specifically because of the huge hole Alaric’s airship had made in the walls during the initial capture.

  Larethin squinted at the breach. There was no way Alaric could have fixed such massive damage in two days. The rubble was still there. If Larethin could overwhelm the defending army and push through that gap, he could take the city back by sheer weight of numbers.

  The sun died down. It was the time most people ate dinner when light faded to grey.

  "Advance!" Larethin ordered.

  A massive unit of heavy shield-bearers marched forward to take the brunt of the defensive fire. They raised their shields, expecting arrows or magic from the walls.

  But nothing happened.

  The walls were surprisingly empty. No archers. No Magic. The breach was wide open.

  "They are cowards!" Larethin laughed. "Push in!"

  The shield unit reached the rubble of the breach.

  BOOM.

  The center of the shield unit simply exploded.

  It wasn't a trap on the ground. Something had crashed down from the heavens with the force of a meteor. Bodies and shields were thrown into the air like ragdolls. The loud sound made Larethin twitch violently in his saddle.

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  BOOM.

  Another explosion fell towards the front, vaporizing a squad of soldiers.

  Larethin’s eyes widened. He traced the smoke trail back. It didn't come from the walls. It came from behind him. And up.

  He turned in his saddle and looked at the sky.

  There it was.

  Hovering silently above the rear of his army was a monster. A huge, iron ship that seemed to be floating on the clouds. A heavenly castle looking down at them with glowing red eyes.

  Larethin finally felt a chill run down his spine. It was genuine, primal fear.

  "What... is that?!"

  Alaric wasn't inside the city. He never was.

  He was standing on the glass floor of the Sky Sovereign’s command center, looking down at Larethin’s forces like a god viewing ants.

  Alaric had successfully baited them. He prevented them from getting inside the city, clustering them outside the walls in a dense, confused mass.

  "Move the ship," Alaric ordered calmly. "Position us in front of them."

  The pilot engaged the thrusters. The airship’s engines blasted a low, terrifying hum as it moved. It rotated slowly, its massive sail catching the wind, until it came into a face-to-face confrontation with the army of thirty thousand.

  The shadow of the ship covered the Duke.

  Alaric looked at the densely packed formation below.

  "Rain down hell."

  Immediately, all five artillery cannons opened fire.

  THOOM! THOOM! THOOM!

  The main cannon and the four side cannons blasted simultaneously.

  On the ground level, it was hell on earth.

  Each blast landed in the center of the tight formations, killing hundreds instantly.The shockwaves turned organs to jelly. The sound paralyzed their eardrums, leaving soldiers wandering in a daze, bleeding from their noses.

  "Break formation! scatter!"

  But there was nowhere to go. The command structure completely broke. Officers were dead or running. Horses trampled infantry in their panic.

  Larethin watched his army disintegrate. He wanted to fight, to scream, but his survival instinct took over.

  "I... I can't win this," he stammered.

  Then, a thought gave him hope. The Capital.

  "If I reach the Capital... Prince Lucian is there," Larethin thought frantically. "And that Priest... Lancaster. He has dark powers. He will take care of this monstrosity."

  Larethin made his choice. He screamed orders at his personal Knight Order, the elites.

  "Retreat! Escort me! We are leaving!"

  He didn't want to deal with the slow-moving infantry anymore. They were dead weight. He abandoned thousands of his own men to the slaughter and galloped west as fast as his horse could carry him, surrounded by his small but agile guard.

  In the command center, Orban pointed at the fleeing group.

  "Sir, they are escaping! That's the Duke! Shouldn't we kill Larethin to stop his army?"

  Alaric watched the Duke fleeing like a rat.

  "No," Alaric replied coldly. "Let him run."

  "Sir?"

  "We will catch up no matter how fast he goes with the ship," Alaric said, watching the dust cloud of the escaping knights. "From the direction he is moving, he is going towards the Capital. He is leading us exactly where we need to go."

  Alaric turned his attention back to the massacre below.

  "For now, we will make Larethin’s army surrender."

  The bombardment continued relentlessly. It didn't stop until the field was churned to mud and blood. Ten thousand of Larethin's soldiers lay dead or dying. The remaining twenty thousand, broken and terrified, threw down their weapons and fell to their knees, begging for mercy.

  The silence that followed was heavy.

  Alaric turned to Orban.

  "Orban, take care of the soldiers and prisoners. Secure the city until I come back. Larethin City is under your command for now."

  Orban saluted, his face grim. "Yes, my Lord."

  "I will move towards the Capital with the airship," Alaric said, walking towards the door. "I am taking sixty soldiers and forty knights."

  Alaric boarded the ship as Orban disembarked to take control of the captives.

  As the Sky Sovereign turned west, engines flaring to full power, Alaric looked toward the horizon.

  "This is it," he thought. "The final battle."