With the flanks pushed back, the spirit of the Persian army also broke.
That iron discipline and flawless coordination that had stood like a shield against the first wave of the Median attack now shattered like cracked glass with every new blow.
The hundred-man units that once moved like a steel wave had now become lonely, stranded islands in the roaring ocean of the Median army.
The communication between the Dehbods and their Sadbods, and the Sadbods with their Hezarbods, was cut off amidst the thick dust and deafening clamor of the battle.
That precise war machine had now turned into a collection of disconnected parts, each fighting for its own survival.
The advanced communication system that Kourosh had designed with such precision lost its effectiveness in the face of sheer chaos.
The sound of the war drums was lost among the screams of thousands of men and the neighing of horses, turning into a meaningless, muffled noise.
The colored flags that were supposed to guide the army like the hands of an invisible leader had turned into vague spots in the sky amidst the crimson dust and smoke.
A young Sadbad tried with a shout to draw his men's attention to the blue flag of their Hezarbod, barely visible in the distance.
But his voice was lost in the roar of the battle, and his soldiers were each engaged in a hand-to-hand fight for survival.
The war was no longer a strategic chessboard.
It had turned into a chaotic and blind slaughterhouse.
There was no sign of those orderly phalanx lines and calculated maneuvers.
Now there were only small, brutal skirmishes; two Median soldiers against one Persian, a Dehbod with his short sword surrounded by three spearmen, and horsemen who rode aimlessly among the scattered infantry, trampling friend and foe under their horses' hooves.
The smell of blood, sweat, and fear, mingled with the smell of metal and dust, had made the air of the plain heavy and unbreathable.
Kourosh, who had moved his command post to a hill closer to the battlefield for a better view, witnessed this collapse in astonishment.
His eyes, those eyes that had always seen the future with calm and confidence, were now wide with terror.
He saw how his flawless plan, the war machine he had created with his own hands, was collapsing like a house of sand in the face of the brutal reality of war.
He was no longer just an analyst looking at wooden pieces from a distance.
He was now standing a few steps away from this hell.
For the first time, he heard the real sound of war.
Not the epic sound he had read about in stories, but the raw and horrific sound of death.
He heard the heart-wrenching screams of young soldiers who fell to the ground with a spear in their chest, calling their mother's name.
He saw the terrified faces of soldiers who had dropped their weapons and were fleeing blindly in every direction, and the Median horsemen targeting them from behind with merciless laughter.
These scenes, these sounds, these smells, assaulted his mind, which until that day had worked only with logic and strategy, with all their force.
This was no longer the theories of the book "The Persian Art of War."
In the book, war was a collection of principles and rules; tactics, formations, and strategies.
But here, on this bloody plain, there was no rule but the law of survival.
Here, courage and fear, loyalty and betrayal, and life and death were separated by the space of a single heartbeat.
This was the real, uncontrollable face of war.
A beast that he had unleashed from its cage with his pride and confidence.
For the first time in his life, both in this body and in his previous one, Kourosh understood sheer terror with his entire being.
This fear was not the fear of defeat or death.
It was a deeper, more existential fear;
The fear of losing control.
He who had always been in command of everything with his powerful mind was now completely helpless in the face of this massive chaos.
He saw how thousands of people were dying because of a plan he had drawn, and he could do nothing to stop this slaughter.
The weight of responsibility pressed down on his ten-year-old shoulders like a mountain.
Every cry of pain that rose from the field was like a dagger in his heart.
He was no longer that young genius who commanded with confidence.
He was a child, terrified by the beast he himself had created.
His mind went blank.
All those flawless formulas and strategies had faded in the face of this red and bloody reality.
He just stood there, watching the collapse of his own dream.