Type-Moon: Does even a sneak peek make it official?

Only those close to Eltrouce—the Black Princess—and Avia knew of Van-Fem's visit, and his true purpose.

As for when the Black Princess would give her answer, or whether she would travel to the Millennium Castle, Avia never pressed her. His thoughts were simple:

If he were invited, he would go with her. If not, it did not matter.

After all, the burdens of the Hunnic Empire already weighed heavily upon him. Though the Huns boasted no shortage of warriors, when it came to governing a realm and wielding political acumen, almost all responsibility fell upon Avia and a few others. Such was natural for a people born of the steppes.

Even in his ceaseless busyness, Avia had Attila carry out reforms. Across the vast and chaotic dominion, filled with displaced and rootless peoples—be they the bankrupt refugees fleeing West Rome, the opportunists from East Rome seeking profit, or those who came from lands farther still—Avia declared but one law:

"Whoever returns to us shall be my people. Whoever dares plunder the realm, kill without mercy. Whoever seizes horse, ox, sheep, fowl, or swine from the folk, punish them."

Alongside this, he strove to perfect the system of military organization…

Yet though simple, such measures required silver, and the Hunnic treasury was nothing like Rome's. Worse still, both Eastern and Western Rome imposed strict restrictions on Hunnic trade. And though Avia believed his Huns could overcome the Eastern Empire alone, he knew that if East and West united, the outcome would be far less certain. Thus he could not even demand "peace" on his own terms, lest it invite disaster.

So he waited.

Waited for the day when the Western Empire's lifeline of grain in North Africa would be severed. Waited, too, for an earlier spark: the war between the Sassanian Empire of West Asia and the Hephthalites—the so-called "White Huns," descendants of the Great Yuezhi of Han Dynasty lore.

From the 420s onward, the Hephthalites had ceaselessly crossed the Oxus to raid the Sassanian lands.

Once war broke out in earnest, the Hunnic Empire could march over the Caucasus and join hands with the Hephthalites, striking Tisfun, the Sassanian capital, and forcing a treaty at sword's edge.

Would East Rome intervene? Unlikely. For the Sassanians were Zoroastrian, enforcing harsh religious decrees. With the Avesta completed, heresy and apostasy were punished with brutal severity, and Christians were often persecuted. Thus the Sassanian Empire had long stood opposed to Rome's Christian faith. Even before the Roman split, Armenia had already been the source of many clashes between the two great empires.

Moreover, the sorcery of the Sassanian court belonged to neither East nor West, but to a third lineage—the incantations of the Middle East.

In the Sassanian realm, nobles wielded immense power, often hereditary, monopolizing positions for generations. Governors of the frontier held their own silver thrones, while those stationed at vital places such as the Caucasus held thrones of gold. In war, these lords became battlefield commanders, and even lesser officers could muster armies under their banner.

Avia had taken time to study the Caucasus defenses. He found the region teeming with sorcerers—adepts in the arts of transformation. It occurred to him then that the werewolf tribes brought south by Sinfjötli would blend in with them without raising suspicion.

Sinfjötli's werewolves, carried from the islands of Scandinavia, numbered in the tens of thousands. Though many were weak, old, or unwilling to fight, some three thousand remained battle-ready—true elites, and all of them Phantasmal Species.

With them stood the Princess's three hundred Royal Guard, the Three-Headed Dragon, the Golden Wolf, Attila, and the Hunnic host. This force, once past the Caucasus, could match the Sassanian dynasty in open battle. And above them all—Avia still had Typhon…

Though Typhon preferred to remain hidden, at most allowing Avia to don her transformed armor upon the battlefield.

Since that day when Avia introduced Typhon to Attila, the red-haired girl had grown meeker—but at the same time, far more talkative toward Avia in her mental whispers.

As for Attila, each day she sought him out for a spar, then silently returned to her tent at night.

And so, time flowed on.

Six months later, beneath the bright sun of the Eastern European steppes, countless creatures basked in its warmth as they always had.

The earth glittered beneath the light. At that very moment, scouts from the Sassanian Empire brought news to the Huns:

Just as Avia had foreseen, the Hephthalite Empire had crossed the Oxus and invaded the Sassanian realm.

But there was one twist he had not foreseen.

The King of the Sassanians was dead.

Reliable word claimed that, while leading his army against the Hephthalites, the king was ambushed at the Oxus and slain. Victorious, the Hephthalites pushed their war from the river deep into the heart of the Sassanian Empire.

The king's death—and his lack of an heir—threw the realm into chaos. Though the nobles hastily crowned his brother, it was plain: if the Hephthalites could not be driven out, the dynasty would shatter.

And if peace were forced upon them, the new king would be deposed sooner or later, perhaps even blinded.

None of this mattered. For in the Caucasus, the governor revealed himself to be no loyal servant of the throne.

Believing the Huns outside the mountains knew nothing of this, he recalled the greater part of his armies and sorcerers, intending to seize spoils in the capital. Before leaving, he dispatched an envoy to the Huns, feigning talk of peace and trade—a ploy to buy time.

But before the envoy could even reach the Hunnic lands of Eastern Europe—

He beheld the plain swallowed in dust and smoke, the sun trembling in the haze, the earth groaning beneath the hooves of warhorses.

In the glow of sunset, the world seemed nothing but the thunder of hooves, each strike pounding upon reality itself.

Though the sun had not yet set, the envoy felt the sky grow darker and darker, until the road before him was all but lost.

And then he saw it—

A vision of countless black crows wheeling over the Sassanian skies.

No hesitation. No mercy.

Only slaughter without end.

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