Paranoia spread through the allied camp like an incurable disease, a sickness that took root in the minds of men and festered with each passing day. It was not an explosion, not a sudden upheaval that shook the foundation of the army all at once. No, it was a slow and insidious poisoning, a fever that burned hotter with every ambush in the dead of night, with every hushed whisper exchanged between anxious soldiers, with every lingering glance filled with suspicion among officers who once trusted one another.
Zhao Qing struck with an eerie precision that defied explanation. He knew exactly where to find the weakest convoys, precisely which sectors had the most fragile discipline, the specific roads where patrols had grown lax. For the officers in command, there was only one possible conclusion: someone was feeding him information.
There were traitors in their midst.
And in the desperate attempt to unmask these supposed spies, the coalition turned inward. A beast caught in a trap, gnawing at its own flesh in blind panic.
The first blow did not fall upon high-ranking commanders or influential strategists. It came down upon the lowest rungs of the officer corps, the men who had the least power to defend themselves.
In the suffocating stillness of the pre-dawn hours, six lieutenants were ripped from their tents, their protests drowned in the commotion of their forced march to the center of the camp. Their crime? They had patrolled a route that, on that very night, had been ambushed by Zhao Qing's forces.
Gao Shi, his expression carved from stone and his voice dripping with disdain, addressed them with barely concealed contempt.
—What excuse can you possibly offer?
One of the lieutenants, his face slick with cold sweat yet his voice unwavering, dared to answer.
—We were ordered to patrol that road. We did nothing beyond what was assigned to us.
A scoff rang out from among the gathered officers.
—And yet, you were attacked. How terribly convenient.
The trial was brief, hastily arranged, and, like many to come, a farce. One by one, the accused were forced to confess to their so-called "mistakes." Some pleaded for mercy, others accepted their fate in grim silence. But when the first rays of dawn brushed against the blood-soaked dirt, their heads lay separated from their bodies, staining the earth beneath them.
To many, this was justice. A necessary purge to cleanse the army of rot.
But to others, it was something far more terrifying.
The fear no longer came from the enemy beyond the battlefield. It came from their own leaders.
The execution of the six lieutenants was merely the first crack in the dam.
The following day, another officer was seized. Not for strategic blunders. Not for negligence. No, his crime had been speaking too freely during supper, allowing doubt to creep into his words as he questioned the competence of the high command.
The next day, a sergeant was arrested. A bag of gold had been found in his tent—proof, according to his superiors, that he had been paid off by Luo Wen himself.
What had begun as targeted suspicion against a handful of officers quickly spiraled into an unrestrained purge.
Commanders began to watch their own subordinates with hawk-like vigilance, their gazes brimming with mistrust. Meetings among junior officers—once common for the sake of tactical coordination—were now seen as conspiratorial gatherings. The accusations multiplied like wildfire, each one more damning than the last:
—He was seen leaving his tent late at night.
—Someone overheard him speaking with a messenger from outside the camp.
—When Zhao Qing attacked, his unit miraculously suffered no casualties.
It became impossible to separate the truly guilty from those who had simply been unfortunate enough to find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. But for Gao Shi and the noble commanders, the truth mattered little.
The coalition needed blood to calm its terror.
And so, the blood continued to flow.
It did not take long for An Lu and Yuan Guo to grasp the full gravity of what was happening.
Paranoia was not merely shaking the army—it was dismantling it from the inside out. Officers, though not all brilliant tacticians, at least possessed experience and leadership. If the executions continued at this reckless pace, the army would be left rudderless, devoid of competent commanders before the true battle had even begun.
It was An Lu who first raised his voice in protest.
—If this continues, we will weaken ourselves far worse than anything Luo Wen could ever hope to achieve —he stated during a heated meeting with the high command—. There is no solid evidence that traitors are among us.
Gao Shi sneered.
—No evidence? Do you need Zhao Qing himself to march into this camp and personally thank them for their assistance before you will believe it?
An Lu's expression remained icy.
—What I am saying is that we are killing officers with no strategy and no control. At this rate, any man can simply point at another and watch him disappear. Is that what we want?
Zhao Heng, the eldest among the noble lords, slammed his fist onto the table.
—What we want is to root out the traitors before they destroy us from within.
Until this moment, Yuan Guo had remained silent, studying the exchange with sharp, calculating eyes. Now, he finally spoke.
—If you believe there are spies among us, then catch them intelligently —his voice was as cold as the steel of a freshly sharpened blade—. But if we continue executing officers at this rate, Luo Wen will not need to lift a finger against us.
We will destroy ourselves.
His calm words cast a heavy shadow over the gathering. And for a brief moment, the paranoia was forced to a halt.
An Lu and Yuan Guo succeeded in limiting the purges at the highest levels, restricting executions to cases where at least some "reasonable indication" of treachery could be proven.
But the damage had already been done.
The stain of fear had soaked too deep into the bones of the army.
Soldiers began to turn on their superiors, denouncing them over old grudges. Officers eliminated political rivals with the mere whisper of espionage. Groups of soldiers no longer watched the enemy beyond the camp—they watched their own comrades, convinced that the real threat lay beside them.
The allied army was no longer a cohesive force.
It had become a nest of hornets, each one poised to sting another. The battle against Luo Wen loomed ever closer, yet it seemed more distant than ever, overshadowed by the war they waged against themselves.
From his vantage point beyond the allied encampment, Luo Wen surveyed the scene alongside Zhao Qing.
The fires of the funeral pyres flickered in the distance, their glow reflected in the wary eyes of soldiers who stood watch over their own men rather than the enemy. The tension in the camp was palpable, thick enough to be tasted in the air.
A slow, satisfied smirk curled Zhao Qing's lips.
—We haven't even needed to lift a single finger. They are tearing themselves apart.
Luo Wen's sharp gaze traced the movement of the restless troops below.
—Mistrust is a poison far deadlier than any sword —he murmured—. And the poison is already coursing through their veins.
There was no need for a full-scale attack yet.
All that was required was to keep the pressure steady, to continue whispering doubt into the cracks, to watch as the coalition collapsed under the weight of its own paranoia.
Because when the true battle finally arrived, they would not be facing an army.
They would be facing a corpse, still standing on shaking legs, waiting for the final blow to send it crumbling into dust.