The concrete floor of the Navy Yard compound shook as the lead intruder lunged forward, twin blades of crackling rift energy extending from his gauntlets.
He moved with terrifying speed, targeting the center of our ring, but Neak was already in motion. His heavy wooden staff whistled through the air, knocking the left blade off course with a sharp clack of high-impact Boran defense. Beside him, my sister Nimol slipped under the attacker’s right guard, striking two quick elbow thrusts into his ribs before sweeping his foot out from under him.
"Focus on the flank!" Neak barked. "Show them what we built!"
The remaining three masked assassins surged forward, thinking they could bypass the veterans and overrun the younger generation. They miscalculated completely.
My youngest son, Kiri, stepped out to meet the largest intruder head-on. Standing taller than anyone else in the room, Kiri utilized his long reach perfectly, stepping into an open-palm Boran stance. When the assassin jabbed with a shock-stick, Kiri didn't flinch—he deflected the blow upward with his forearm, rotated his hips, and delivered a devastating palm strike directly into the intruder’s silver mask. The force drove the heavy fighter back three steps, his boots skidding across the wooden floorboards.
"Channya, lock his left!" Kiri shouted, his voice echoing with the calm authority of his grandfather's namesake.
Channya, my second daughter, darted in like lightning. Smaller and fast on her feet, she swept low, executing a flawless Boran leg hook that brought the towering attacker down to one knee. Before he could recover, my eldest daughter, Sorya, stepped in from the high perimeter, bringing down a heavy iron training rod in a fluid downward arc, shattering the intruder’s shoulder guard and pinning him to the floor.
To our left, the second masked attacker tried to charge toward the younger kids in the back.
"Not today!" Sophea yelled. Nimol’s eldest son stepped forward to intercept, his sister Bopha right at his shoulder. They fought in perfect synchronization—Sophea absorbing the initial energy wave with a reinforced wooden shield, while Bopha used her speed to strike at the intruder’s exposed joints. Behind them, Arun—Neak’s adopted son—flanked the enemy with a sweeping staff technique, knocking the shock-weapon clean out of the assassin's grip.
Even the mid-tier cousins held an impenetrable line. Dara and Devi worked together to block the narrow hallway leading toward the storage rooms, their Boran footwork seamlessly covering each other's blind spots. Nearby, Vanna kept his hands high, ready to protect nine-year-old Samnang, while Rath and Neary held firm behind the heavy dining table, keeping watch for any secondary breach.
The Golden Lotus flared brightly against my chest, casting a golden radiance over the entire hall. The ancient artifact pulsed in harmony with our movements, weaving light through our strikes, not as a weapon, but as an amplifier of our shared blood and discipline.
The lead intruder scrambled backward toward the shattered gate, gasping as he looked around the room. All three of his squad mates were neutralised or pinned, surrounded by three generations of fighters who hadn't given an inch.
"You... you're just survivors," the leader hissed, spitting blood onto the concrete.
"We were survivors thirty years ago in the killing fields," I said, stepping past Kiri, Sorya, and Channya to stand at the front of my family. "Then we were survivors when the world broke. But today? We are a wall."
With a unified step forward, the entire family—from Neak down to the teenagers—assumed the final Boran stance, their breath rising in a single, steady rhythm.
Realizing he was completely outmatched, the leader threw a smoke canister onto the ground, dragging his remaining men out through the ruined iron gate into the cold night air.
Silence fell over the compound, broken only by the steady breathing of twenty survivors standing shoulder to shoulder.
Kiri lowered his stance, turning his head to check on his sisters. Sorya gave him a brief nod of approval, while Channya patted his arm. In the back, little Samnang let out a quiet sigh of relief, stepping out from behind Vanna.
I looked around at the hall—at my children, my siblings, my nieces, nephews, and cousins. Grandma Dary and Grandpa Kiri had left us with no riches, no grand legacy of empire. But in this room, bound by discipline, love, and an unbroken refusal to ever leave anyone behind, they had built something far more indestructible.