For five days, the castle stood alone.

Once the heart of Francian splendor, its towers now jutted above a wasteland of ruin.

The surrounding city—what had once been the crown of the western kingdoms—was silent save for the crackle of distant fires and the cawing of crows feasting on the dead.

Only the castle remained untouched, a pale fortress of white stone and golden spires, looming above the devastation like a relic of a vanished world, ringed in black iron fortress walls.

Around it, the Romanus war machine had built a second city.

Siege camps spread in all directions—rows of machines, trenches, and wooden palisades gleaming with fresh iron spikes.

Ballistae and trebuchets loomed like skeletal giants over the smoking plain.

Engines were being rolled into place with chains and oxen, their operators chanting work songs as sparks flew from hammers striking iron.

The castle's defenders had done nothing.

From the highest tower, they watched in silence while Julius and his engineers ringed them in steel and fire.

No arrows, no raids, no desperate sallies.

Only the occasional toll of the chapel bell drifted across the ruined city.

It was not courage that kept them still. It was exhaustion—and despair.

On the morning of the sixth day, Julius emerged from his borrowed villa, clad in the full regalia of command.

His crimson cloak flowed behind him as he walked through the rows of saluting soldiers.

The air was cool, the mist heavy with the scent of oil and burning pitch.

Before him stretched the assembled legions—forty thousand men, shields glinting in the half-light, their armor darkened by soot and blood.

Formed in perfect ranks, they stood like the walls of a living fortress.

Sabellus approached, bowing his head.

"The siege works are ready, sire. The men have rested. The engines await your word."

Julius's gaze lifted toward the distant castle.

The gilded gates shimmered faintly beneath the dawn sun, still untouched, defiant in their silence.

"Good," he said softly. "Then today, we end this."

He walked among the ranks as he spoke, his voice carrying over the field without effort.

"Legionaries of Romanus," he began, "you have taken the walls of their city. You have crossed their rivers, their bridges, their dead. You have broken their armies, their nobles, their faith. And now—before you—stands the last stone of this kingdom's pride."

The men listened, silent, their eyes fixed on him.

"That stone," Julius continued, "is already cracked. The men behind those walls know their fate. They starve as we speak. They pray to a god who does not answer them. Today, we strike—not because we must, but because mercy demands it. End this war. Tear down their sanctuary and let the world remember what defiance to Romanus costs."

He raised his hand.

"Form the testudo."

The legion moved as one.

Shields locked, lines tightened, and a living wall of steel began its slow march toward the castle.

At the center of the formation, Julius walked among his guards—his elite Praetorians, their armor etched with crimson sigils, faces hidden behind blackened visors.

From the battlements above, Francian defenders finally stirred.

For days already they had simply been left to watch, unable to do anything to resist the enemies preparations to take their stronghold.

Not seeing it as the respite the Romanus Legionaires had.

A horn blew—a thin, trembling sound—and figures appeared on the walls.

Archers raised their bows, and a smattering of stones tumbled down from atop the Castle ramparts.

Then came the first volley.

Arrows hissed like rain.

They clattered harmlessly against the roof of shields, few finding gaps between the interlocking plates.

The formation did not slow.

Another volley followed—then another—all in folly as the human tank proceeded to march on unhindered closer and closer to the walls.

Each step brought them closer, their boots grinding over rubble, their march steady as a heartbeat.

When they reached the moat, the engineers brought forward massive timber planks from within the formation and a siege bridge was erected without difficulty.

They laid them across the water under a hail of arrows, sparks flying as iron bolts struck bronze.

One by one, the bridges dropped into place.

Once settled the plan began anew, as the legions Tetsudo shifted, a row of all black shields appeared, in place of the common red one.

Then a unit broke off from the main tetsudo and began to march across the simple siege bridge while the origional formation shifted behind them filling in the gap they left all at once maintaining their position as a mobile fortress for the wall assault team to retreat within should the need arise.

This new formation was the elite guard.

Praetorians fufilling their role as guardians to their emperor who still casually walked within the shield formation as they crossed the wooden bridges and approaching the black iron that made up the Francian mythical walls.

But for Julius these walls were nothing more than a mere annoyance.

When compared to the might of nations they indeed were unsurpassed.

But against wielders of Aura... well they were as flimsy as paper.

Once the praetorian legion reached the walls the interior of the formation shifted ever so slightly as Julius made his way from the center to the front.

Reaching the point where he was now face to face with the black iron that was the Francian castle walls.

Drawing out his Heavenly Demon Rain blade from it's sheath he activated its boost to his power level, before taking the blade, now arcing in a red light of almost electricity.

Raising the blade high before stabbing it into the base of the Castle walls.

[Earth Reonance]

In an instant the very earth in front of him began to twist and shift.

Normally a move ment to inflict AOE damage upon a surrounding outnumbering opponent, but as shown just now it could also be used as a siege tactic.

Walls being immobile as they are, are vulnerable when the earth upon which they stand moves.

With fissure running rampant for meters in front of him, the earth beneath the iron walls gave way, and under the extreme weight of the walls itself stress built up and from atop the walls, panic began to set in as a sag was noticed... one that was only getting worse by the second.

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