It began as nothing more than a rumor—a distant whisper, barely audible, that slipped like smoke through the laughter and the clashing of cymbals during the height of the banquet. Just a murmur, lost in merriment. But soon after, the ground itself began to tremble, ever so slightly at first, as though the earth below had begun to stir, growling from a deep, primal hunger. And by the time the soldiers under An Lu's banner raised their eyes in confusion, it was already far, far too late.
The water did not fall.
It devoured.
What surged down from the mountains was not rain, but a monstrous wall—an unholy flood of thick, churning mud, jagged rocks, and splintered branches, cascading with unstoppable force. It tore through the valley like a beast unleashed, erasing everything in its path. The silk tents, once majestic and fluttering like the wings of butterflies, were ripped apart like cobwebs in a storm. The horses, still tied to posts, screamed and kicked in terror until the mud climbed into their nostrils and suffocated them. The soldiers—drunk, careless, unprepared—ran in wild, helpless circles, slipping over the bodies of comrades who had been laughing with them just moments earlier.
Yuan Guo stood frozen, a jade cup still clenched between his fingers, as if the feast had never ended. His fleshy face, once flushed red with wine and pride, drained of all color, turning waxy pale.
"Shields! Formation!" he shouted, the voice of a commander trying to summon order from chaos. But his command was lost—drowned in the deafening roar of the flood.
A massive tree trunk, torn whole from the mountain's roots, slammed into him with the force of a battering ram. The impact hurled him like a ragdoll against a rock, and the floodwaters pinned him there, pressing with the weight of a giant's hand. His final thoughts, fragmented and incredulous, were not of glory or gods, but of betrayal by nature itself: Luo Wen… did he defeat me with water?
An Lu, ever more cautious than his comrade, had been at the edge of the encampment when the first rumble echoed through the air. He ran at once for his horse, only to find the beast already maddened—eyes rolling white, hooves slashing at the air in blind panic. With a desperate leap, he mounted and spurred it toward the nearest hill.
He allowed himself one glance back.
The valley was gone—no longer a place of banners and tents, but a nightmarish ocean of sludge, churning with the remains of men. Armor pieces floated like the hollow shells of drowned insects. A young soldier, the very one An Lu had promoted that same morning, clung to a half-buried standard like a man clinging to a memory. The rising water lapped at his neck.
"Save yourself!" An Lu shouted, though deep down, he knew it was already too late.
The young man raised a hand in silent plea, but a second later, a wave of debris crashed over him and swept him away. An Lu gripped the reins so tightly that his palms began to bleed. But he did not cry. Hawks do not cry.
The flood, in truth, lasted no more than an hour. But the echoes of its destruction would linger in legend for centuries to come. Of the twenty thousand soldiers who had served under An Lu and Yuan Guo, only a mere three thousand managed to scramble up the steep hillsides. The rest lay buried beneath the mud—some already dead, others entombed alive, their screams fading as the earth hardened around them.
One grizzled veteran, his leg shattered and useless, was dragging a younger man through the mire.
"Let me go!" the injured one howled, trying to break free. "Run! Save yourself!"
"Shut your mouth and keep kicking!" the older man barked, using a broken spear as a makeshift crutch to drag them forward through the muck.
But their efforts came to nothing. A supply cart, swept along by the current like a toy boat, slammed into them and crushed them both against the trunk of a tree.
Later, on the hill, An Lu gathered what remained of his once-proud force. No armor. No banners. No provisions. Only fear and shame. A captain, his arm freshly amputated and crudely bandaged, dropped to his knees before him.
"Your Excellency... shall we retreat?"
The word fell heavy. Retreat. It landed like a stone in An Lu's stomach. A man who had never taken a single step backward in three decades of relentless campaigns now tasted bile in his throat. But he looked at his men—barefoot, trembling, their faces caked in drying mud like masks of defeat.
"Yes," he whispered. Then, louder—rage crackling in his voice—"Yes! Retreat! Head west! Move before that demon Luo Wen finishes what he started!"
There were no cheers. No nods. The men simply turned and began to walk. No songs, no standards, no soul. Behind them, the wounded wailed, begging for a swift death.
As the shattered army limped toward the distant horizon, Luo Wen stood silently upon a cliffside, watching. Behind him, his generals were taking stock—counting the prisoners, weighing the spoils of war dragged from the mud: swords, warhorses, command maps, relics of the fallen.
"An Lu got away," Kang muttered, spitting into the dirt. "Rats always do."
"It doesn't matter," Luo Wen replied coldly, wiping his blade clean with a cloth soaked in oil. "A general who runs from his own shadow will never lead again."
Wei, the youngest among his commanders, gazed down at the valley now turned into a watery grave.
"Was it worth it?" he asked. "All those lives?"
Luo Wen was silent for a long time. Then, without looking at Wei, he pointed to a small flower blooming in the cracks of a nearby stone. Its petals were stained a deep, dark red—like old blood.
"The mud nourishes," he said at last. "And now, the world will remember what happens when you underestimate a dragon."
Far to the north, An Lu galloped onward, unaware that a poisoned arrow—lodged deep in his left shoulder—had already begun its deadly work. By the time he reached his fortress, the fever had taken hold. Delirious, he spent his final days dictating apology letters to the emperor—letters that were never sent.
And in that valley, years later, when peasants came to plant rice in the rich, dark soil left behind by the flood, they swore that during nights of the full moon, one could still hear the whispers rising faintly from below the earth:
"Retreat... retreat..."