Upon returning to the Boundary Domain, Wei Yuan encountered two major events: the Witch Clan's attack and Xiao Yu's preparation to return home for a funeral.
The Witch Clan's patience was always poor; they had hardly settled down for a few days before they launched another attack. This time, the assault was clearly a probing one; they dispatched twenty thousand soldiers to attack, with ten thousand backup troops, and another fifty thousand remained in the camp.
At this time, the newly constructed city only had an outline of the city wall, and there were fewer than twenty thousand people in total, all working on excavations underground day and night. When the Witch Clan attacked, according to the prearranged plan, everyone retreated underground. Wei Yuan himself assembled the troops, pulling out ten thousand soldiers to form a line of defense fifty miles behind the new city.