The fourth attack came from the south.

  The flanking position I'd tracked. Two signatures circling. One held the position. The other broke toward Wei's right, using the wall's curve as cover.

  Wei felt it and turned with one hand on his sword, his other hand projecting a qi-pulse that caught the flanker mid-approach and slammed him into the wall. Stone cracked. The attacker slid down and stayed there.

  Wei turned back east. The specialist was back. Two more followed him. They were fresh, unhurt. Reserves.

  They came together. Two at Wei's front, one working his left. They coordinated well — complementary timing designed to force split attention.

  Wei met them.

  His movement changed. The transition from individual combat to multiple-opponent awareness — wider stance, peripheral vision, the sword working arcs instead of lines. Each cut served two purposes: offensive and defensive, the economy of motion that was the only viable strategy when outnumbered.

  He caught one. Blade across the forearm — deep, debilitating. The attacker dropped his weapon and retreated.

  The second pressed hard. Forcing Wei backward, step by step, toward the gate. The third circled.

  Wei's core flared brighter. Pulsing. The qi-clock ticking. Each burst of full-power combat accelerating what was already accelerating. He was burning his core to fight and fighting to burn.

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  He broke the press. A surge — raw, unrefined. It costed more than it achieved. But it worked. The attacker stumbled and Wei followed. He cut. The attacker fell.

  The third one engaged. Wei blocked. Countered but missed.

  The attacker hit him in his side. Below the ribs. Qi-enhanced impact. Wei staggered to one knee.

  He got up again. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth. But he got up.

  He killed this one.

  Not by choice this time. It was the angle. The attacker had lunged as Wei rose, trajectories converging, Wei's sword up in defense that became offense as momentum carried the attacker forward into the edge. Through the qi-guard.

  Through completely.

  The attacker's eyes went wide with surprise.

  Wei looked at the man sliding off his blade — the moment when a boy who had been fighting with controlled precision crossed the line between those two categories. A crossing that was permanent.

  He pulled the blade free and turned — more were coming.

  They came from the east, from the positions Guo had arranged. More of them. Fresh bodies rotating into contact. The attrition that relied on one fact — Wei was one and one had limits.

  A sound reached me from the edge.

  Not the combat — behind it. A rhythm. Barely audible. Tapping.

  Knock.

  One. Against wood or bone.

  Knock.

  Two.

  I waited for the third.

  It did not come. Not yet.

  Two knocks. Two phases. The frontal assault. The flanking. Both active. Both achieving their purpose — not victory but expenditure. Making Wei burn his reserves. Spending the finite resource that was accelerating toward empty.

  Guo was at the edge. Invisible. Patient. And counting.

  Not Wei's victories. Not his own losses.

  Wei's flares.

  Each core-burst was counted, each discharge noted. A commander who understood that the target was not the boy's skill but the boy's fuel. And the fuel was running out.

  I could feel Wei's core from the west wall. The oscillation — bright, dim, bright, dim — each peak lower than the last, each trough deeper. The curve I'd tracked for weeks, compressed now into minutes.

  He was winning every fight and losing the war.