For one terrible hour, Castellan’s keep was breached.

“Enough,” Castellan growled. “Assemble the .”

He smiled. “Let him run. Then take his empty castle.” Zhao reached the oasis first. His soldiers drank deep. The sultan’s gift—a chest of Thunder Crash Bombs —was his.

By night, five grim-faced sappers dug beneath Zhao’s eastern wall. They carried no swords—only picks, timbers, and jars of pig fat. The plan: collapse the foundation, pour in knights, end it.

Zhao laughed—a broken, desperate sound. “All this. For dust.” The sultan’s envoy arrived at noon. He declared both lords victors. Neither had held the oasis at the exact moment of the blood moon—Castellan was in Zhao’s keep, Zhao was unconscious by the water. So the prize was split: Greek Fire for the Crusader, Thunder Crash Bombs for the Warlord.

watched from a misty hill. He did not see dirt; he saw feng shui . His peasants did not mine—they cultivated. Rice paddies terraced the wadi. A bamboo watchtower sprouted where Castellan would have built a gallows. Zhao’s strength was not stone but speed . His horsemen, mounted on hardy steppe ponies, did not carry lances—they carried flaming arrows and whistling darts. His elite unit, the Monkey Warriors , could scale any wall not covered in pitch.