The Almighty Dominance novel Chapter 675

Gaia’s calm voice resonated in Alex’s mind. “The enemy’s primary supply depots have been identified. They are located forty kilometers behind the vanguard. Three major stockpiles are currently supplying the main host. Satellite reconnaissance indicates only a light guard presence.”

“Great.” Alex said. “Neutralize the guards. Clean sweep. Loot what you can carry. Burn or remove the rest. Leave nothing they can use.”

“Understood,” Gaia replied instantly. “I’ve already moved ten thousand drones to the three supply depot locations. Ready to execute the order on your command.”

Alex turned to Zhuge Liang. “Yuan Shao fights a ground war. He sees only what his scouts and messengers bring him. We see everything. The air is ours. The logistics that keep his army alive are already in our hands.”

Zhuge Liang inclined his head. “A three-dimensional battlefield, my lord. He does not yet understand the rules have changed.”

Alex allowed himself the smallest nod. “He will.”

***

Forty kilometers behind the advancing columns, in a narrow valley ringed by low hills, the main supply depot sprawled across ancient terraced fields.

Massive granaries of packed earth and timber stood shoulder to shoulder with rows of covered wagons. Sacks of rice and millet rose in mountains high enough to feed an army for weeks.

Salted meat hung in long sheds. Barrels of pickled vegetables and dried fish lined the perimeter like a fortress wall.

The guards—veterans of a dozen campaigns—moved with the relaxed confidence of men who believed the real fighting lay far ahead. Fires crackled. Dice rattled on a blanket. One man laughed at a crude joke about the softness of southern women.

Then the sky changed.

A low, mechanical hum rose from the darkness, growing faster than any bird could fly. Black shapes resolved into sleek, angular forms—drones, dozens at first, then hundreds, then thousands—moving in perfect, silent coordination.

Their hulls drank the starlight. No banners. No war cries. Only the soft whir of rotors and the faint blue glow of sensor arrays.

“Look out!” a sentry screamed, pointing upward. “There—those things in the sky!”

Men scrambled for bows and crossbows. Someone rang the alarm bell, its frantic clanging swallowed by the rising drone of the swarm.

The first volley came without warning.

Needle-like projectiles hissed from underbelly pods—thin, almost invisible in the dark. They struck with soft, wet thuds. One man slapped at his neck, eyes widening in confusion.

Another staggered, sword slipping from nerveless fingers. Within seconds the depot erupted in chaos. Soldiers tried to run. Tried to fight. Tried to form any kind of defense.

The darts found them anyway—throats, shoulders, exposed skin. Sedative qi mixed with engineered neurotoxin spread like fire through their meridians.

Bodies dropped where they stood. Some managed a single choked shout before their eyes rolled back and they crumpled into the dirt.

No one escaped. The drones did not miss.

Then the second phase began.

Gravity fields activated with a low, resonant thrum that vibrated through the earth. Massive crates of grain—each weighing hundreds of pounds—lifted as if invisible hands had seized them.

Wagons rose whole, creaking and groaning, their axles spinning uselessly in the air. Barrels floated upward in neat, orderly lines.

The drones coordinated with surgical precision, anti-grav projectors and manipulator fields working in tandem.

Ten thousand machines moved as one living organism. In less than ten minutes the entire depot was stripped bare.

What could not be carried was reduced to ash by precise plasma bursts that left only blackened earth and the smell of scorched grain.

By the time the last drone climbed back into the night sky, the valley that had fed an army looked like it had been visited by locusts and then scoured by fire.

***

In the war room, Gaia’s update arrived without ceremony. “Depots neutralized. One hundred percent of enemy food stores in the primary sector removed or destroyed.”

Alex studied the map. The red markers representing Yuan Shao’s supply lines flickered and dimmed. “Begin the psychological operation. Drop the notices across their entire formation. Every company. Every camp.”

Thousands of drones climbed again, this time carrying not weapons but paper—thin, lightweight sheets printed with clear, block characters that would be legible even by torchlight. They released their cargo in coordinated waves. The papers fluttered down like pale snow over the vast encampments of the northern army.

Soldiers looked up in confusion. Some caught the sheets in mid-air. Others picked them up from the ground where they had landed among bedrolls and cooking pots. Fires crackled. Men gathered in clusters, reading by the flickering light.

The message was simple. Direct. Brutal.

People and soldiers of Xia,

Your supply of food is gone. Surrender now and you will receive rations and safe transport back to your homes. If you attempt to flee, know that your capital cities and supply bases are already under our control.

If you seek glory, strike down the traitor who led you here and bring the head of Yuan Shao to the Prime Minister. We accept the surrender of high-ranking officers. You have one day. After that, all who remain under arms will be treated as enemies of the throne.

Men stared at the words. Some laughed nervously. Others cursed and crumpled the paper. A few looked toward the distant front with sudden unease. Most simply folded the notice and tucked it away, unsure what to believe.

In his command tent at the heart of the host, Yuan Shao received his copy from a pale-faced messenger. He read it once. Twice. The paper trembled slightly in his grip.

“This is a trick,” he said, voice low and dangerous. “Bai Xiaochun plays games with paper and shadows. Send riders to the depots. Now. I want confirmation within the hour.”

The riders galloped into the night. They returned before dawn, faces streaked with dust and fear. The lead man dropped to one knee, unable to meet his lord’s eyes.

“My lord… the depots are empty. Stripped bare. The guards… they were found unconscious or dead. No signs of struggle. The grain, the meat, the wagons—everything is gone. As if the sky itself took it.”

Yuan Shao’s face darkened to the color of old blood. For a long moment he stood perfectly still. Then the rage broke.

The dam broke.

Thousands upon thousands of men threw down their weapons. They streamed toward the Xia lines with hands raised, shouting surrender. Some wept with relief.

Others walked in stunned silence, the weight of weeks of propaganda and fear finally lifting.

They would not die hungry and forgotten for a leader who had gambled their lives on a throne that was never his to claim.

In the command pavilion at the center of the chaos, Yuan Shao received the reports with growing disbelief that curdled into fury.

“They are deserting? My own men? Bring me the governors. Now.”

The two allied governors who had thrown their lot in with him arrived under guard, faces pale. One—a grizzled man from the northern marches—spoke first.

“My lord, the men have not eaten since morning. The supply train is gone. The city is empty. If we press them further, we will have a mutiny on our hands, not an army.”

Yuan Shao’s eyes burned. “You dare speak to me of failure? You were supposed to secure the rear. You were supposed to guarantee the food. And now you stand here and tell me your soldiers are not cowards?”

The argument escalated fast. Voices rose. Accusations flew. Yuan Shao accused the governor of mismanaging the depots, of secret dealings with the enemy, of cowardice. The governor—exhausted, hungry, and pushed past the point of political survival—pushed back.

“You sent us to war without proper logistics. You ignored every warning about Bai Xiaochun’s machines. You killed the only man who might have salvaged the supply situation. And now you want us to die with you for a crown that is already lost.”

Yuan Shao’s hand went to his sword. “Kill him,” he ordered his personal guard. “Kill them both. Make an example.”

The guards hesitated for a fraction of a second—long enough for the governor to draw his own blade. Steel rang. Men shouted. In the cramped space of the pavilion, discipline shattered.

The governor’s men surged forward to protect their lord. Yuan Shao’s guards lunged to obey their master.

The melee that followed descended into pure chaos. Warriors bellowed and grappled with one another in the dust and blood, and in the end, no one could identify who had landed the fatal strike.

A sword found Yuan Shao’s side between the plates of his armor. Another took him across the throat as he turned. He staggered, blood pouring down.

He fell amid the overturned maps and scattered papers.

By the time the sun rose over Guangdu, the northern host no longer existed as a fighting force. Seven hundred thousand men had become a tide of prisoners and deserters streaming west under escort.

The banners of Yuan Shao’s alliance lay trampled in the dust. His body was found hours later, stripped of its finery by looters who no longer feared his name.

In the war room in Changyi, Alex received the final report from Gaia without expression.

“Yuan Shao is dead. His army has surrendered or dispersed. Guangdu is secure. The northern threat is neutralized.”