The world had gone gray.

What was once a fertile valley, carpeted with emerald fields and old oak groves, was now nothing more than scorched earth and drifting smoke. The ground cracked under the weight of so many boots; rivers ran dark with soot.

And then, without warning, the air began to twist.

It started as a low hum.

A vibration that crawled beneath the skin and made every soldier on both sides stop mid-step.

From the Central lines, hundreds of mages raised their staves toward the sky, their collective chants forming an echoing, spiraling chorus. Runes pulsed across the air like living veins.

Within seconds, the horizon vanished behind a moving wall of earth and dust — the soil itself rising, pulled into the air by a surge of mana. The green valley became a storm of black and brown, clouds of dirt swirling like a living thing.

"Commander! Visibility dropping—!"

The report cut short as static filled Noah's comms. He could barely hear anything beyond the wind's roar. The dust storm was so thick he couldn't see five meters ahead.

"Ren, report!" Noah barked into the radio.

Only static answered.

Then came the screams.

Faint, then louder.

Somewhere to the east, a Northern formation had been swallowed whole.

Noah tightened his cloak and stepped out of the command tent. The moment he did, the storm slammed into him like a wall. Grit filled his eyes, his lungs burned, and the smell of iron hung heavy — blood mixing with scorched soil.

The storm wasn't natural. He could feel it — mana woven tightly within each gust. Every current of wind carried purpose.

"May!" he shouted over the howling wind. "Artillery, fire flare shells!"

No reply. Only the hollow sound of dust clashing against his armor.

He looked around and saw figures moving through the haze — at first, he thought they were his soldiers, until he saw the shimmer of blue mana across their blades.

"Central knights," he muttered.

They advanced like shadows through smoke. Silent. Deliberate. Their armor gleamed faintly beneath layers of dust.

The first one lunged. Noah caught the blade on his gauntlet, sparks flaring as steel met mana-forged metal. He countered with a heavy strike to the man's chest, sending him crashing into the ground. The moment the knight hit the dirt, his body dissolved — turning into a mist of mana.

Illusions.

He cursed under his breath. This storm wasn't just a smokescreen...

Somewhere deeper within the haze, real soldiers screamed as illusionary ones cut through their lines, confusing their formations until friendly fire erupted across the field.

"Damn it—hold your lines!" Ren's voice crackled faintly over comms, broken and distorted. "Don't shoot without sight!"

But they couldn't hear him. The dust muted everything. Sound, light, even magic transmission. The North was fighting blind.

May's artillery batteries, once the pride of the army, were reduced to guessing. They fired blind into the haze, the explosions lighting brief flashes of hell across the battlefield.

"Elevation 12, distance 300!" one shouted.

"It's useless, we can't see them!" another yelled, coughing through the dirt.

Each shot landed with thunderous force, shaking the ground, but for every explosion, more enemy soldiers advanced through the smog — real or false, they couldn't tell anymore.

Noah knelt beside a wounded soldier crawling across the mud, his leg torn open. "Stay still," he said, his tone steady.

The young man's eyes were wide with fear. "Commander… I can't see them— they're everywhere. They're laughing—"

Noah turned, scanning the swirling haze. And then he heard it too.

Faint laughter.

High-pitched, mocking. It came from nowhere, yet everywhere at once.

Central mages were playing with them — layering auditory illusions on top of visual ones. They wanted panic.

Noah clenched his fists

He reached for his sidearm and fired three times into the sky. The runes carved into the bullets ignited, bursting into a green flame. A flare signal — his last way of marking their position.

He hoped someone could see it.

Somewhere in the distance, Ren's unit tried to regroup. Mud splashed under their boots as they stumbled forward, eyes red and coughing. A soldier tripped and fell into a crater filled with corpses — faces half-buried in dirt, their insignias barely visible beneath layers of ash.

The North had lost hundreds already. Maybe more.

Ren grabbed the soldier by his collar and pulled him out. "Move, damn it! You stop here, you die here!"

Their breaths came in ragged gasps. The world was nothing but mud and screaming wind.

Up above, the airships that had been circling for support vanished from sight. The storm stretched even higher than the sky. Communication runes flickered and died.

For the first time since the war began, Noah couldn't command his army.

He was deaf, blind, and surrounded like crazy.

He stood in the open field, dust curling around him like smoke from a dying fire. He could hear faint footsteps — dozens of them — closing in.

He spread his stance and waited.

A flash of steel appeared in his peripheral vision and he blocked. Another came from the left. Then another from behind. The blows came endlessly, and for a moment, he wondered if he was fighting illusions or if the dead themselves had come to claim him.

Then one cut landed. A deep slice across his arm.

He hissed and retaliated with a charged punch, the shockwave blowing back the figure who'd struck him. The man's body hit a rock, shattering into nothing.

"Tsk... another illusion."

He gritted his teeth. "They're wasting their magic on illusions," he muttered into the storm.

"But I'll burn every one of them if I have to."

As if in answer, lightning tore across the sky, illuminating the battlefield for a split second.

What Noah saw made his breath hitch — his army scattered across the plains, cut off into pockets, each fighting their own small war. Dead horses. Burnt siege engines. The entire northern flank reduced to mud and corpses.

Noah's vision blurred as rage welled in his chest. He took one step forward before the storm howled louder, swallowing everything again.

The world went blind once more.

He stood still, breathing heavy, blood trickling down his arm.