The night fell over Frostveil.

Wind howled across the empty plains, scattering snow over the frozen trail where a southern caravan had stalled for rest.

Lanterns flickered in the dark, halos of gold trembling against the white. Horses neighed nervously, their breath misting like ghosts. The night was too still. Too deliberate.

Then came the screams.

Steel tore through the silence as shadows dropped from the ridgelines, their boots crunching into the snow. Dressed in the navy-black coats of Northern soldiers, they moved like one organism, precise and cruel. No banners. No insignias. Only death.

The southern guards didn't even have time to question why their supposed escorts had turned on them. The first volley of blades struck before the word betrayal could even reach their tongues. Arrows hissed through the air, impaling men to their wagons. A single torch rolled into the cargo—grain, spices, medical supplies—and flames erupted in the snow, devouring color and reason.

"Stop—wait, we're allies—!"

Those were the last words of the caravan captain before his skull cracked beneath a Northern-issue blade.

The impostors worked fast.

They moved from wagon to wagon, ensuring every southerner fell. They stacked bodies like logs, coating the snow in crimson. One of them—a woman with a narrow scar running through her brow—drove a knife into a young courier's heart, then leaned close to whisper,

"Don't worry. They'll blame my uniform, not me."

When the wind shifted, the smell of blood thickened.

The snow around Frostveil glowed faintly pink beneath the moonlight.

---

By the time Noah arrived, the fires had already died down to embers.

His horse slowed as he reached the edge of the massacre site, hooves sinking into soft snow and ash. A hundred meters away, the wagons still burned, black smoke twisting into the frozen air like dark serpents.

Behind him, a dozen Bluerose soldiers halted, their breath forming clouds in the frigid dark. They said nothing. They didn't have to.

Noah dismounted, boots crunching against the frost. He passed the first wagon—charred wood, shattered crates, a man's hand still clutching the broken reins of a horse long dead. The snow had stopped falling. Everything else had stopped, too.

It was a perfect silence, broken only by the faint hiss of dying flames.

He crouched beside one of the bodies. A Southern insignia glinted faintly on the man's breastplate—maroon and gold, unburned, unmarred by disguise. But beneath the corpse's fingers, caught between his palm and the ice, was a fabric scrap. Noah pulled it free. A navy-blue shred. Northern military uniform.

His jaw tightened.

"Sir," one of the Bluerose soldiers said quietly behind him. "Orders?"

Noah didn't answer. He looked over the scene again, letting his mind piece together the pattern. The slash angles—efficient, throat and chest. The boots—military standard issue. But the positions of the corpses were wrong. Too deliberate, too arranged.

He exhaled slowly, a puff of frost in the air. "No soldiers of mine did this," he murmured, almost to himself.

Then he saw it.

Footprints that led away—not toward the north, but circling east, back into the forest. And they were fresh.

His eyes narrowed.

---

They found them less than a mile out—eight men and three women dressed in Northern armor, their coats still bearing the frost of the plains. They'd set up a small camp among the ruins of an abandoned watchtower, laughing softly as they counted coins from a southern chest.

Noah stepped out of the trees alone, the moonlight glinting off the silver of his cane. His presence alone froze the laughter.

"Don't stop on my account," he said. His tone was calm, too calm. "You were having fun."

One of the men—the scarred woman—stood up immediately, hand hovering near her sword. "General Ashen," she said with mock courtesy. "Didn't expect you here. We were told you'd be—"

She didn't finish.

Her throat opened under Noah's strike before her tongue could shape another word.

The cane shifted, its segments sliding with a metallic click. Chrome unfurled into a blade, black and silver glinting in the moonlight. He didn't wait for the others to react. His body moved—cold, efficient, mechanical.

A man lunged from behind. Noah sidestepped and twisted his wrist, snapping the man's arm backward until the bone cracked. Another swung a sword—Noah ducked low, drove his knee into the man's ribs, then thrust the blade upward through his chin. Blood sprayed across the snow, blooming like ink in water.

"Spread out!" one shouted. "It's just one man—!"

Just one man.

He heard their boots crunching behind him as they surrounded him, eleven in total now. Snowflakes fell between them, illuminated by firelight. They moved in, blades flashing.

Noah adjusted his stance.

The gauntlet on his left hand hummed faintly—a Chrome Heart prototype that amplified kinetic energy. Each impact fed into his next strike.

He blocked one sword with the edge of his cane-sword, spun, and slammed his gauntleted fist into the man's chest. The force exploded outward, shattering ribs and sending the assassin flying backward into a tree trunk. The sound of breaking wood echoed in the night.

The others hesitated. Just for a breath. It was enough.

Noah stepped forward, and the snow erupted beneath him as the runes hidden under his coat flared faintly red. A pulse of mana burst outward—quiet, restrained, but lethal.

He cut through the next two with surgical precision, one blade across a neck, another through a spine. When the last man tried to flee, Noah flicked his wrist, sending the cane spinning. It impaled the man through the back, lodging him into the ground. The scream that followed was short-lived.

The moonlight dimmed as a cloud drifted past. When it cleared, the ground was painted in crimson. The assassins lay scattered, some twitching, some still.

Noah pulled his cane free and flicked the blood from its tip.

He looked down at them—at the Northern uniforms, the false insignias, the too-perfect embroidery. He knew quality. These were Central make—crafted to provoke, not protect.

A setup. A message. A trap meant to turn nations into enemies again.

His breath came out in white puffs as he murmured to himself, "So this is how you plan to start it."

He crouched beside the scarred woman, her eyes still faintly open, mouth frozen mid-laugh. From her pocket, he retrieved a wax seal—one bearing the emblem of a golden sun behind a spear. Central Syndicate.

"Of course," he whispered.

Behind him, his men finally arrived, panting, weapons drawn. They froze when they saw the carnage—eleven bodies neatly strewn in a circle, their throats slit, their weapons still warm.

"Sir…" one of them breathed. "Did you—"

Noah didn't answer. He turned to them, eyes unreadable.

"Burn everything," he ordered. "Leave no trace of the uniforms or the insignias. Say the South caravan was attacked by bandits, nothing more."

"But, General—won't that—"

"Do it." His voice cut through the air like a sword. "If this leaks, the war will begin before dawn."

The soldiers exchanged uneasy glances, but none argued. They moved quickly, gathering the bodies, stacking them over the fire pits. Flames rose again, their light reflected in Noah's eyes.

He stood there, watching as snow melted around the blaze, turning white into red, red into steam. His reflection wavered in the heat—half man, half shadow.

The night wind carried faint whispers across the frozen plains—voices that weren't there. Accusations, perhaps. Memories. He let them fade.

When the last body turned to ash, he sheathed his weapon, gaze fixed toward the southern horizon where the sky glowed faintly with the promise of dawn.

"Blood in the snow," he murmured. "That's all they'll see."