High in the hills, Krugger did not hesitate.

If anyone had asked him why, his answer would have been simple: It's not that I don't want to stay. It's that I can't.

Cracks were spreading across the mountain's skin, long black veins tearing through stone and soil, crawling outward until they nearly encircled him and his men. Pebbles rattled loose under their boots. The ground groaned, deep and strained, like something alive being pushed too far.

"Move!" Krugger barked. "Ghost Forest—now!"

A shallow tremor rolled through the heights, strong enough to knock balance from the unwary.

"What the hell…" Krugger growled, staring at the fractures. "Those shells almost tore the mountain apart."

His men were pale, breathing hard. None of them had expected it—no one plans to break a mountain. Krugger narrowed his eyes, scanning the slope.

"That was all?" he muttered.

The guide swallowed. It was his first time seeing something like this."I… I don't know, sir."

One soldier stepped closer to a crack, curiosity overpowering fear. He placed his boot on the edge, testing the stone.

"Sir, I think it's stable. Look—"

He jumped.

Krugger's eyes widened."Get out of there!" he roared.

Too late.

The soldier's weight touched something deep—some fragile balance holding the slope together. The mountain answered with a sharp, violent crack.

Boom.

The ground gave way. Stone collapsed inward, dragging the soldier down in a screaming blur of dust and falling rock.

"You asshole, Andrei!" someone screamed as the man vanished into the void.

Far below, in the canyon, the captain felt it.

The ground trembled beneath his boots. Dust fell from the canyon walls. Horses reared, screaming. His face drained of color as he looked upward.

"Run!" he shouted. "What the hell are you waiting for—run!"

The column broke into motion, men scrambling over one another, boots slipping in the mud. Then—

Nothing.

No sound. No tremor.

Silence.

The captain exhaled slowly."…It seems the mountain held."

The officers nodded, relief washing over their faces.

Then—

Boom.

The mountain answered again.

This time it did not crack.It fell.

An entire section of the pass collapsed in a roaring avalanche of stone and earth. Soldiers were swallowed whole—screams cut short, bodies crushed and buried as the slope erased them from existence. The shockwave knocked men flat. Dust filled the air, thick and choking.

When it ended, sixty percent were dead.Another twenty percent lay wounded—broken, bleeding, screaming.

The Boquerón Pass was gone.

A wall of rubble now divided the army in half.

From above, Krugger stared down through the settling dust. He could hear the distant wailing of the wounded, faint and broken, echoing through the canyon.

He sighed.

"Well," he said calmly, "that entrance is blocked from now on."

The soldiers stared at him in silence, faces pale. With only a handful of shells, he had destroyed half a mountain and erased an army's path. Whether it was luck or God, none of them could say.

Krugger turned away.

"All right," he said. "No reason to stay here any longer. Medellín awaits—food, women, beds. Move."

They followed him, heads lowered, unwilling to meet the gaze of the man who had made the mountain fall.

Far away, in Medellín, the tremor was felt as well—faint, distant, but unmistakable. People paused in the streets, glasses rattled, and many turned their eyes toward Boquerón, uneasy, wondering what force could shake the mountains themselves.

"Sir… did you feel that?" one of the servants asked quietly.

Carlos frowned. "I did," he replied. "It came from Boquerón."

He paused, rubbing his temples.

"The fanatics, maybe. Did they tamper with something?" He let out a dry, tired chuckle. "Or perhaps they invoked an angel."

The servant stared at him, speechless. Since the news from Santa Fe, Carlos had barely slept. His humor had grown darker, more blasphemous—less like wit and more like exhaustion bleeding through his words.

"Send a rider to the scouts at Boquerón," Carlos continued, his voice heavy. "Tell them to be careful. We don't know how far their army has advanced."

The servant nodded and mounted a horse at once, galloping through the outskirts of Medellín.

The city itself looked marginally better than after the last defeat. Carlos had managed to reopen supply lines through the slave traders of New Granada—an unsavory solution, but an effective one. Coin flowed again, just enough to keep the city breathing.

After finishing the last of his paperwork, Carlos let himself sink into a luxurious sofa left behind by the previous government. For the first time in days, sleep claimed him.

His butler entered quietly. Seeing his master finally at rest, he fetched a quilt and gently draped it over Carlos's body.

Half an hour later, the scout returned.

His expression stopped people in their tracks. Those who saw him couldn't tell if he carried good news or catastrophe. Worse still, he said nothing, his face caught somewhere between disbelief and dread.

Inside the government mansion, he knocked.

Carlos stirred. "Mm… what is it?" he muttered groggily.

The knocking came again.

"You may come in," Carlos said, forcing himself upright. He yawned deeply and slumped into his chair.

The scout entered, his face pale.

"Sir," he began slowly, "the Boquerón Pass… it's blocked."

Carlos, still half-asleep, reached for a cup of coffee."That's fine then," he said absentmindedly.

He took a sip.

Then froze.

Pfft.

Coffee sprayed across the table—and directly onto the servant's face.

"What the hell did you just say?" Carlos demanded.

The servant wiped his face with visible effort and spoke carefully."Sir, the Boquerón Pass has been completely sealed."

Carlos stared.

"The scouts aren't certain how it happened," the servant continued. "They were preparing to return and warn us of the fanatics' approach when they heard what they described as thunder. Then the mountain collapsed. Rocks fell—crushing part of the fanatic army."

He explained everything as the scouts had seen it: the sound, the dust, the chaos, the sudden silence.

When he finished, the room was utterly quiet.

No one spoke.

No one quite knew what to think of a mountain that had decided to fall on an army.

Carlos was able to recover quickly and asked, his voice calm but sharp,"Was it natural?"

The servant shook his head. "The scouts don't think so, sir. They swear they heard thunder—like gunpowder. Someone… intervened."

Carlos narrowed his eyes. Suspicious as always, he replied,"Or perhaps someone wanted that column dead. They slaughtered a lot of people—mostly elites. Plenty would be happy to see them buried under a mountain."

The butler nodded. It was a very real possibility.

Carlos exhaled slowly. "Then Santa Fe is no longer an immediate threat. Even if they try another route, it will take months. The distance alone will bleed them dry in supplies—and after losing so many men, they'll need time just to recruit replacements."

He paused, his gaze distant.

"The real question," he continued, "is whether the viceroy will move once the news reaches him."

The butler frowned. "I believe he will, sir. If he does nothing after such a loss, the Crown will see it as weakness. Even fear won't save him—inaction would be unforgivable."

Carlos nodded. "Honor, if nothing else, forces his hand."Then, more quietly, "But invading is easy. Winning… is another matter."

That question lingered heavily in the room. The butler wisely remained silent.

Carlos straightened. "Enough. Summon the bureaucrats of Medellín. Now that the city is safe, we move forward. We begin preparations to expand toward the Black River. Once we control that corridor, we open our own trade routes to Cartagena. No more dependence."

The butler bowed and hurried out.

Carlos turned to the servant, pressing a few pesos into his hand."Leave scouts at Boquerón. Make sure no one tries to reopen the pass. Send the rest to the towns under Spanish influence. We expand while the Crown and the fanatics bleed each other. Also, send men to capture any survivors—and warn every settlement in the area about the fanatics who escaped."

The servant nodded eagerly, then hesitated. He lowered his voice."And the wounded, sir? Do we leave them to die… or do we save them?"

Carlos remained silent for a long moment. Then he slowly shook his head."Speak with the doctors and the medical experts in the region. Save those who can be saved. For those who cannot… give them a quick death." He paused. "We may not share their ideals, but in the end, we are all human."

The servant bowed and hurried away.

Carlos sat back and looked toward the mountains surrounding the valley. He exhaled quietly, thinking of how small humanity was before nature—and how an army that seemed invincible had been crushed, not by men, but by the land itself.

Of course, Carlos was also troubled by those who had made the mountain fall. Yet the very fact that they had resorted to using nature itself told him enough. If they truly possessed the strength to face the fanatics head-on, they would not have needed to collapse a mountain to stop them.

At best, they were equal in strength to his own forces in Medellín.At worst, they were nothing more than a handful of desperate men, striking where brute force could not reach.

Either way, they were not an immediate threat—but they were a variable, and Carlos had learned long ago that unmeasured variables were often the most dangerous, his family was the best example.

Between his troughs the door of hi office opened, and someone else entered the room—quiet, familiar. Arms wrapped around Carlos from behind.

This time, he didn't pull away.

"My dear," Carlos said softly, a faint smile touching his lips,"what are you doing here?"

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