The Weak Prince Is A Cultivation God

The swamp mist clung to the air like it had breath, around branches, hanging heavy over the stagnant water.

The cries of unseen birds echoed across the marsh, thin and slightly off in the damp stillness. Somewhere far ahead, stone rose from the mire — a rough line of walls cutting across the landscape like the spine of a long-dead beast.

Blackwater Crossing.

It was the only truly stable route through the Southfang March. Every other path led to mud pits, sinkholes, or stretches of swamp where the water could swallow a man whole.

The mercenaries who controlled it charged extortionate tolls to let traders, armies, or refugees pass. And when payment wasn't enough, they took whatever they wanted from the travelers instead.

Now their fort stood between Lan's army and the open road to Verdelane.

Lan sat astride his black warhorse on a low rise overlooking the causeway. The swamp around them breathed with faint ripples, insects skimming across pools of dark water.

His eyes moved slowly over the walls, the towers, the armed figures patrolling the parapets. He took in the layout the way a butcher measures a carcass before cutting.

Beside him, Miller squinted through a spyglass. "Solid stone, twenty feet at the lowest point. The causeway's only wide enough for two carts abreast. They'll have the advantage if we rush it head-on."

"Then we don't rush," Halmer said. "We siege it. Starve them out."

Lan's gaze stayed on the walls. "A siege wastes time."

Miller frowned. "We have the men to wait them out. Their food stores won't last."

"We break them now," Lan said, his tone calm, unshakable. "Or not at all."

The other commanders exchanged glances, weighing the cost of such an attack. But no one questioned him directly. Not anymore.

The order was given in silence — a gesture, a nod. Garran and his demolition crew moved forward under cover of the mist, heavy satchels slung over their backs.

Siege talismans etched into the leather glowed faintly with runes.

The first arrow fell from the wall, splashing into the marsh a few feet from Garran. He didn't even look up. When they reached the base of the gate, his men worked quickly, fixing the talismans to the wood and stone.

The runes pulsed once, twice, then flared with blinding light.

The gate exploded outward in a storm of splinters and shattered hinges.

Before the dust had even settled, Venom and Bragg were already moving. Bragg's massive frame tore through the smoke like an avalanche, his warhammer breaking bones and shields alike.

Venom followed in his wake, a blur of curved steel and blood. The moment his Blood Siphon Aura spread, the screams began — men clutching at their throats, collapsing as their strength was drained from them in ragged gasps.

From the parapets, mercenaries tried to rally, loosing arrows into the chaos below. But the Northern God Sect's vanguard was already inside, cutting through them like wet parchment.

Lan entered the breach last, not with the urgency of a man in danger but with the steady pace of someone who owned every stone he stepped on.

His blade was bare, gleaming dully in the light, but he struck only when needed. Each cut was a death. Each death looked effortless.

A mercenary captain lunged at him, screaming defiance. Lan sidestepped, caught the man's wrist, and with a single twist and pull, drove his own sword into the man's chest. He let the body fall without a word.

Another man tried to flee past him. Lan's sword rose and fell once, the head rolling in the mud before the body even hit the ground.

Inside the fort, resistance crumbled quickly. The shock of the talisman blast, combined with Venom's aura and Bragg's raw force, left the mercenaries disorganized.

Garran's troops cut off the towers one by one, burning the stairs and forcing the defenders down into the courtyard, where the slaughter was waiting for them.

By the time the sun had burned away the morning mist, the ground inside Blackwater Crossing was slick with blood.

The survivors were on their knees, stripped of weapons, breathing in ragged gasps. The clangor of battle had faded to the groans of the dying and the crackle of fire from the breached gate.

Garran dragged the captured mercenary captains forward, their armor dented and bloodstained. They were forced to kneel in the mud before Lan, some glaring in defiance, others already looking away in shame.

Lan studied them.

He gestured toward the ruined gate, where the causeway stretched back into the swamp like a narrow ribbon. "Now it belongs to me. And every man who passes here will remember why."

At his signal, Garran's men stepped forward. Blades rose, then fell in perfect unison.

The captains' heads hit the mud one after another, the air filled with the wet thud of execution. The bodies were dragged aside, but the heads were taken to the causeway, mounted on tall poles driven deep into the ground.

By the time the army began moving again, Blackwater Crossing had been remade into a corridor of death — the impaled heads marking the entrance, their dead eyes staring at anyone who dared approach.

The swamp breeze carried the copper tang of blood far out into the marsh, a warning no traveler could miss.

Lan walked the length of the causeway himself, pausing once to look back at the fort. Smoke rose from the breached gate, curling into the pale blue sky.

The men were already stripping the fort of anything useful — grain, weapons, armor, even the timbers from the walls. What couldn't be taken was burned.

Venom approached, wiping his blade clean on a mercenary's cloak. "They broke faster than I thought."

"They weren't ready for us," Lan said simply.

Bragg snorted. "I don't think they ever will be."

Miller joined them, a scroll of notes in hand. "With the Crossing taken, the road to Verdelane is open. No more swamps, no more bottlenecks. We can be at their gates in less than one week."

"Then we march in two days," Lan said. "Give the men time to rest, patch the wounded. The rest of Southfang will hear about this by nightfall. It's best they choke on their fear."

Halmer, who had been silent until now, gave a slow nod. "Verdelane will know we're coming."

Lan's gaze returned to the mounted heads, the poles lined like grim sentinels over the marsh.

"Good," he said. "I want them to."

Southfang March's largest stronghold was gone, its defenders dead or scattered. The resistance was broken.

Lan stood at the water's edge, the swamp behind him and the road to Verdelane ahead. In the dark, the poles along the causeway looked like black fingers clawing at the night sky.

When they moved again, it would be toward richer lands, higher walls, and deeper spoils.

The March had been bled dry.

Now it was Verdelane's turn.