The day of the operation arrived. Clive stood near Azura, checking his equipment for the third time.

  "You look nervous," Guma said as he passed Clive a waterskin. "Here. Drink."

  "I'm not nervous," Clive said as he accepted the water. "Just... trying to focus."

  "You checked your paintbrush four times in the last five minutes."

  "I was making sure the bristles were—" He stopped, realizing Guma was right. "Okay. Maybe a little nervous." The thought of seeing Jill again sent butterflies down his stomach. What would he even say to her? Hey Jill, its been a while…

  Around them, the camp hummed with activity. Soldiers formed into columns. The infantry would march first. Two thousand men heading directly into the Twilight Zone's corrupted ground. They knew what awaited them. Clive could see the conviction in their faces.

  Grand General Louis moved through the ranks on horseback. He stopped occasionally to speak with officers. When he reached the dragon area, he dismounted.

  "Dragon Knights," Louis said. "Your objective remains unchanged. Wait for the enemy to commit. When they pursue our infantry into open ground, you strike. After that, you break contact and return to base. Understood?"

  "Yes, sir," Sion said, standing beside Ignis. The Dragon King had remained in human form, arms crossed.

  Louis turned to Clive. "And your... illusions?"

  "Ready, sir." Clive had briefed him yesterday about the cloud mirages and concealment techniques. Louis then spent an hour recalculating his battle plan. "I can maintain fifteen phantom dragons and keep our real formation hidden until we're ready to strike."

  "Good. The enemy has scouts watching from the Zone's perimeter. I want them to see an overwhelming force. Make them hesitate, make them doubt." Louis's gaze swept across all six Dragon Knights. "Remember. This is not about valor or glory. This is about breaking their forward position and buying time. Fight smart, not hard. Dismissed."

  The officers dispersed. Clive mounted Azura.

  How are you feeling? she asked.

  "Ask me again after we're airborne."

  The infantry columns began their march at precisely six o'clock. Three separate formations, each advancing toward different sections of the Twilight Zone's boundary.

  "Fifteen minutes until we launch," Sion said, checking the sky. "The boundary should be visible from altitude. We'll have a clear view of the enemy's reaction."

  Miranda adjusted her riding straps. "Just remember, don't commit until Louis gives the signal. No matter what we see down there."

  "Even if—" Yarra started.

  "No matter what," Miranda repeated firmly. "We follow the plan."

  The minutes crawled past. Clive used the time to center himself, reviewing the techniques he'd practiced. Dragon mirages in the clouds. Fog shrouds for concealment. The ability to appear, strike, and vanish before the enemy could coordinate a response.

  A horn sounded in the distance. The first infantry column had reached the Zone's edge.

  "Mount up," Sion commanded.

  The dragons stirred. Ignis shifted back to his true form. Verdania stretched her wings, Emberwing snorted smoke.

  Another horn—the second column had engaged.

  "Now," Sion said.

  Six dragons launched themselves into the gray sky. They climbed rapidly, ascending through layers of cold morning air. At two hundred feet, Clive could see the Twilight Zone spreading across the landscape like a stain.

  He had been there before, but looking at it from above was a different story. The boundary was visible as a distinct line where color leeched from the world. Inside the Zone, everything took on that perpetual twilight quality of muted grays and sickly purples.

  The three infantry columns were visible as dark masses moving toward that boundary. Even from this height, Clive could see how the soldiers slowed as they approached. Their movements became uncertain, and their formation loosened as they made their way through.

  The rightmost column reached the boundary first. The moment the lead soldiers crossed that invisible line, their steps faltered. One man stopped completely, swaying on his feet. An officer pushed him forward towards the front line. Another man broke formation, wandered left until someone tackled him back into line. Clive could see officers moving through the ranks, keeping their men oriented toward the objective. It was like watching shepherds trying to herd sheep.

  "It's happening to them too," Lucia said.

  Clive glanced at her. She was staring down at the struggling infantry, but her eyes had that distant look.

  "Lucia?" Yarra asked.

  "The fear." Lucia mumbled. "When we were in the Shadowfen. The Warden..." She trailed off, then looked directly at Clive. "You remember."

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  Clive nodded. He remembered as well. Battling the Warden, who had used fear as a weapon. Clive had been immune due to his blessing of certainty, but the others were not as lucky.

  “It was a horrible feeling.” Lucia shook her head. “Like every instinct you have is screaming at you to run, that you're in immediate danger, that death is right behind you."

  Clive reached over the dragons to grab her shoulder. “You’re safe here.”

  She smiled and nodded.

  Down below, the formation was breaking apart. Some soldiers stopped to vomit, hunched over while their squadmates pulled them forward.

  "Can they fight like that?" Yarra asked.

  "They're about to," Guma said. "Whether they can or not."

  The dragons formed up in a wide circle, high enough to be nearly invisible from the ground. Clive scanned the cloud layer above them. Perfect conditions. There were thick banks of cumulus clouds scattered across the sky, with enough density to work with but not so thick they couldn't see the battlefield below.

  "Clive," Sion called. "Time to make them believe we're an army."

  Clive pulled out his paintbrush and palette. He took a breath, centered himself, then began to paint.

  He worked quickly, using broad strokes to shape the nearest cloud bank.

  [Aerial Illustration: Dragon Mirage]

  The cloud-shape moved as the wind moved it, gliding through the air with eerie realism.

  Clive didn't stop. He painted another mirage in a different cloud, then three more in rapid succession. His brush flew across the sky, turning ambient moisture into phantom wings.

  Within five minutes, the sky held fifteen dragons where there should have been six.

  "That's... unsettling," Guma said, staring at a nearby mirage. "Even knowing it's fake, my instincts are screaming that there's a dragon right there."

  "Wait until the enemy sees it," Miranda said. "From the ground? They'll think we brought every dragon in the kingdom."

  Below, the first infantry column had crossed the boundary into the Zone. Clive watched them move deeper, shields raised, weapons ready. The enemy fortifications were visible now—earthworks and spike walls, exactly where Louis's intelligence had indicated.

  Then the enemy engaged. Arrows flew from defensive positions, followed by the bright flashes of combat magic. The infantry met them head-on.

  "They're committing," Sion observed. "Good. Let them think this is the main assault."

  The enemy scouts are watching us, Azura said. I can feel eyes on the sky.

  "Then let's give them something to see."

  Clive began the second phase. He painted fog. Thick, clinging mist wrapped around each real dragon like a shroud. The concealment spell took hold immediately, condensing water vapor into dense clouds that moved with them.

  [Aerial Illustration: Cloud Shroud]

  One by one, the real dragons disappeared from view. They became vague shapes in the fog, impossible to track clearly.

  But the mirages remained visible. Fifteen phantom dragons circled the battlefield in a loose perimeter.

  "I can barely see Ignis," Yarra said, "and he's right next to me."

  "That's the point," Clive said, already feeling the strain of maintaining so many simultaneous effects. His mana was draining steadily, but he could hold this for at least twenty minutes if needed.

  Below, the battle intensified. The infantry pushed deeper into the Zone, meeting fierce resistance from enemy forces. The sound of combat drifted up—the clash of steel, shouted orders, the screams of wounded men.

  Then, exactly as Louis had predicted, the enemy made their mistake.

  A section of their defensive line broke. Soldiers poured out from behind the earthworks to pursue what they saw as a retreating formation. It wasn't a full rout, but it was the beginning. The enemy commanders, watching from their fortifications, saw an opportunity to turn a defensive stand into a crushing victory.

  More troops emerged. First dozens, then hundreds. They chased the "retreating" infantry, breaking their own formation in their eagerness to crush a fleeing enemy.

  Clive watched it unfold, exactly as Louis had called it. The enemy couldn't resist the temptation.

  "They're past the boundary," Miranda said. "In open ground."

  Sion raised his hand. The enemy was streaming out of their fortifications now, six hundred... seven hundred... still coming. He waited, letting them commit further.

  The first horn sounded from the ground. The friendly forces were disengaging.

  "Hold," Sion said.

  The enemy kept pursuing.

  Eight hundred soldiers in open ground. Far from their fortifications. Scattered formation, focused on the "fleeing" infantry.

  The second horn sounded. The friendly forces had withdrawn beyond the safety line.

  Sion's hand dropped. "Now! Dragons—attack formation! Clive, drop the concealment on attack vectors!"

  Azura dove.

  Clive dispelled the fog shroud, letting it dissipate in an instant. The real dragons became visible again. Six lethal forms plummeted from the sky like the wrath of gods.

  But the fifteen mirages remained, creating chaos in the enemy's perception. They saw dragons everywhere.

  The phantom dragons circled uselessly. The real dragons fell like hammers.

  Paint, Azura commanded. Show them what the sky can do.

  Clive loaded his brush with red and yellow. He painted broad, sweeping strokes as they descended, creating a cascade of meteors that fell ahead of them.

  [Aerial Illustration: Meteor Shower]

  The meteors hammered into the scattered enemy formation. Men screamed, dove for cover, tried to raise shields against attacks coming from directly above. But there was nowhere to hide on open ground.

  Ignis breathed fire, a column of flame that turned fifty yards of battlefield into an inferno. Verdania unleashed a barrage of razor-sharp leaves that shredded through armor. Emberwing and the other drakes strafed the enemy lines with coordinated attacks, working in pairs to maximize devastation.

  Below, the enemy formation shattered. Officers tried to rally their troops, but it was impossible. They couldn't tell where the real attacks were coming from. Every time they focused on one dragon, three more seemed to appear from different directions. The mirages distributed their attention, making them second-guess, while real death fell from above.

  "First run complete!" Sion shouted. "Ascending! Prepare for second pass!"

  The dragons climbed, gaining altitude for another attack. Clive wrapped them in fog again as they rose, making them vanish back into concealment.

  From the ground, it looked like fifteen dragons had just appeared from nowhere, struck with devastating precision, then disappeared back into the clouds like ghosts.

  The enemy was in full chaos now. Some tried to retreat back to the fortifications. Others held their ground, weapons raised against an enemy they couldn't track. Their formation had completely broken down.

  "Second run!" Sion called. "Target the retreat path! Cut off their escape!"

  They dove again.

  This time, Clive painted barriers. Frozen clouds that materialized directly in the enemy's retreat path, forcing them to scatter, dividing their forces. Ignis breathed fire along the barriers, creating walls of flame. The enemy was trapped between the burning barriers and the advancing—no longer retreating—infantry.

  It was a slaughter. Louis's plan worked exactly as designed.

  "Third run!" Sion shouted.

  But as they began their descent for the final attack, something changed.

  The air pressure shifted. A gust of wind tore through the cloud layer, scattering their mirage. His fog shrouds evaporated instantly, leaving the six real dragons completely exposed against the gray sky.

  "What just—" Miranda started.

  Lightning split the sky. Thunder rolled across the battlefield. A voice boomed across the sky.

  “I’ve been waiting for you. Artist.”

  All warfare is deception, but even the greatest illusion shatters when the gods take notice. — The Grand General's Annotations, Kingdom Military Archives