Blood of the first age Chapter 28

Chapter 28  The Thirteen-Day Siege

By the time Dragun’s army reached the walls of Baalania

the world had almost ended.

The great desert capital stood beneath fractured heavens like a dying god refusing to kneel.

Once called the City of Ash and Gold, Baalania now resembled a fortress built at the edge of hell itself: colossal obsidian walls stretching for miles, black towers burning with inferno fire and gigantic chains hanging from broken temples above the city.

And overhead

the seven black suns watched silently through storm clouds stained crimson by war.

Everything surrounding the capital had become battlefield.

The dunes themselves were graveyards now.

Mountains of corpses lined the desert approaches: vampire knights frozen beneath black sand, inferno soldiers burned into ash statues and eldritch creatures still twitching after death.

The smell of blood and burning flesh carried for miles across the wasteland.

Even the wind sounded exhausted.

Yet the city still stood.

And behind those walls

Mehmeth waited.

Dragun surveyed the capital from a shattered ridge overlooking the desert while crimson lightning illuminated his black armor beneath endless storm clouds.

Around him stretched the final eastern army: starving soldiers, wounded vampire knights and shattered refugee militias also silver war priests.

The last defenders of humanity.

No reinforcements remained.
No kingdoms remained.

Only this.

General Zerafin approached quietly.

“The men are ready.”

Dragun looked toward the army below.

Thousands stared back at him beneath black snowfall and torchlight.

None looked hopeful anymore.

Only determined.

The Vampire King finally drew his sword.

Black storm winds exploded outward instantly across the ridge while shadow bats erupted into the heavens like living smoke.

And every soldier below raised their weapons in answer.

The Thirteen-Day Siege began at dawn.

DAY ONE

The desert shook beneath the advance.

Massive siege towers plated in silver iron rolled across the dunes toward Baalania’s walls while inferno artillery from the city unleashed catastrophic firestorms into the approaching eastern ranks.

Entire battalions vanished beneath exploding black fire.

Still

the army advanced.

Gigantic Dreadhorn siege beasts emerged from the western gates roaring thunderously across the battlefield.

Towering monsters covered in obsidian armor and ritual chains charged directly into Dragun’s front lines crushing soldiers beneath feet large enough to shatter wagons.

One beast split a silver fortress tower in half with its horns.

Another swallowed cavalry whole.

Then Mordecai met them.

The gigantic Reaper crashed into the first Dreadhorn like a living avalanche wrapped in shadow.

Black armor erupted across his monstrous body while crimson eyes blazed beneath darkness.

His claws tore directly through obsidian plating.

The beast screamed.

Mordecai ripped its head off.

The battlefield exploded into slaughter instantly.

Steel collided with inferno magic beneath crimson storms while vampire cavalry crashed against Baalanian war beasts through oceans of mud, blood, and burning sand.

No formations survived long.

The scale of death became too enormous.

Above the battlefield

Tenji descended from the heavens like moonlight itself.

Shadow crows darkened the skies around the Fairy while silver celestial symbols burned through the storm clouds overhead.

He moved impossibly: gliding across collapsing towers, walking through air itself cutting through enemy assassins before their blades fully left their sheaths.

Soldiers from both armies stopped fighting sometimes just to watch him move.

Beautiful.

Terrifying.

Unnatural.

By sunset

the eastern army had reached the outer walls.

And lost thirty thousand men doing it.

DAY THREE

The dead no longer stayed dead.

The eldritch corruption spreading from beneath Baalania infected the battlefield itself now.

Corpses rose during the night: soldiers, horses and shattered siege beasts.

Entire grave pits attacked nearby camps after sunset while black fog spread across the dunes whispering in forgotten languages.

No one slept anymore.

Father Lucian walked among the wounded beneath flickering lantern light while prayers echoed through overcrowded medical cathedrals built from broken siege towers.

Many soldiers begged not for survival

but forgiveness.

Meanwhile, Mehmeth watched the siege calmly from the highest obsidian tower in the capital.

The Sultan looked unchanged despite the apocalypse consuming his empire around him.

His black robes moved softly beneath inferno winds while silver cracks spread slowly across the heavens overhead.

Azrakar stood beside him.

“We cannot hold forever.”

Mehmeth remained silent.

Then:

“We do not need forever.”

His burning eyes drifted toward the sky.

“Only until they arrive.”

DAY FIVE

The heavens opened wider.

Massive silver fractures spread across reality itself above Baalania while gigantic silhouettes moved slowly behind the broken sky: winged shapes larger than cities, celestial fortresses descending through light and impossible structures rotating beyond the veil.

The Wardens were coming fully now.

And still the siege continued.

Dragun unleashed storms powerful enough to drown entire districts beneath black rain and crimson lightning while vampire knights breached sections of the outer walls under cover of supernatural blizzards sweeping through the desert.

Street fighting consumed the capital.

Every alley became massacre.

Every cathedral became fortress.

Demons roamed openly through the city now.

Infernal beasts fought eldritch horrors through collapsing streets while surviving civilians hid inside burning temples praying to gods long dead.

The apocalypse no longer waited outside the walls.

It lived inside them.

DAY EIGHT

The Black Mosque-Cathedral fell.

An ancient inferno temple near the city center exploded beneath combined assault from Zerafin’s silver guard and Mordecai’s shadow reapers.

The battle lasted fourteen hours.

When it ended

nothing remained alive inside the district.

Not even the stone survived.

But victory meant little now.

Because every mile gained cost thousands more dead.

The eastern army was dying faster than the city itself.

That night, Dragun walked through the refugee camps hidden beneath ruined aqueducts inside conquered districts of Baalania.

Children stared at him fearfully from beneath blankets.

Human mothers bowed their heads silently before the Vampire King.

Not because they loved him.

Because he was all they had left.

One little girl eventually asked him softly:

“Will the sky monsters kill us too?”

Dragun could not answer immediately.

The child looked no older than six.

Covered in ash.
Starving.
Alone.

Finally

the Vampire King knelt beside her.

“Not while I still stand.”

The girl nodded weakly.

As though trying desperately to believe him.

DAY TEN

The Hollow Gods awakened beneath the capital.

The earth split open throughout Baalania as gigantic abyssal creatures climbed from beneath the buried ruins below the city:mcolossal skeletal giants, eyeless titans wrapped in chains and monstrous things resembling living cathedrals made from flesh and bone.

Both armies were forced to unite temporarily merely to survive.

Vampires fought beside inferno soldiers.
Demons battled eldritch horrors.

The battlefield became incomprehensible chaos beneath fractured heavens raining silver fire onto the dying world.

And above all of it

the black suns watched silently.

DAY THIRTEEN

The walls finally broke.

At dawn, Dragun unleashed the full fury of the storm.

Crimson lightning struck the capital continuously while hurricane-force winds shattered the remaining obsidian gates apart beneath exploding thunder.

The final defenses collapsed.

The road toward Mehmeth’s palace opened.

The surviving eastern army charged into the heart of Baalania screaming prayers and war cries beneath black snowfall.

Not for conquest.

Not for glory.

For survival.

For vengeance.

For the last dying hope of humanity itself.

Tenji descended through the shattered skies surrounded by endless shadow crows while Mordecai tore through inferno guardians like a living weapon forged from darkness.

Zerafin led the silver guard directly toward the palace gates through oceans of blood and burning corpses.

And at the center of the storm

Dragun marched alone.

Toward Mehmeth.

Toward destiny.

Toward the end of the First Age.

Behind the fractured heavens above Baalania

something colossal finally began descending through the Black Veil.

The Wardens had arrived.