Just like back then. (4)
With grave expressions, everyone gathered in the room fixed their eyes on Chung Myung.
“A preemptive strike….”
Hyun Jong, who had been lost in thought for some time, finally nodded. Then he asked.
“Sect Leader. What do you think?”
At that, Un Am spoke with a solemn expression.
“Master*. To be honest, I am not capable enough to offer an opinion on how we should deal with this matter.”
“How can you say such a thing? You are the Sect Leader of Hwasan.”
At Hyun Jong’s rebuke – which was hardly a rebuke at all – Un Am smiled faintly.
“The Sect Leader does not necessarily have to be the most outstanding person in the sect. Is it not enough that he knows how to listen to the person who is?”
“By that, you mean….”
“Yes.”
Un Am nodded.
“Chung Myung has always possessed an uncanny amount of knowledge about the Demonic Cult. Not only that, but whenever calamity has befallen Gangho, that child’s predictions have almost never been wrong. So is there truly any need to deliberate? Unless there is some particular reason to oppose him, I believe it would be right to do as Chung Myung says.”
Those seated with them nodded before they even realized it. Un Am’s words spoke for everyone present.
Chung Myung had already proven himself more than sufficiently. To demand further proof from him would merely be another way of displaying their own stupidity.
“Then we must gather our forces as quickly as possible and head north.”
“Hmm. Certainly… if the Beggars Sect lends its aid, matters will proceed much more smoothly. Nokrim will help as well.”
Just as Hong Daekwang and Im Sobyeong exchanged subtle glances.
“What are you talking about? Why would we go north?”
At the voice that abruptly cut in, both men turned towards Chung Myung at once.
“Have we not been discussing an attack on the Demonic Cult’s vanguard in the north this entire time, Dojang?”
Chung Myung nodded, as if to say that much was true.
“And?”
“It’s true that I said we should attack them. But did I ever say we had to go north?”
Confusion and doubt filled Hong Daekwang’s eyes.
“What are you talking about, Hwasan Shinryong? Are they not in the north right now?”
“They are now, I suppose. But that is only right now.”
“Right now, you sa…. Huh? Don’t tell me…”
Hong Daekwang’s gaze trembled slightly. But before he could even finish his question, Chung Myung spoke.
“Where is the Northern Army currently stationed?”
“Uh, yes. They should be gathered along the Great Wall north of Beijing. It is something like the final bastion protecting the Central Plains.”
Hong Daekwang even added details that Chung Myung had not asked for.
“Even the Demonic Cult cannot easily break through the Great Wall in the north. Once that falls, Beijing lies directly beyond it, so the Northern Army will fight with everything they have to stop them.”
Hong Daekwang’s words were certainly convincing. Chung Myung acknowledged that fact as well.
“Certainly. Even the Demonic Cult would have a hard time scaling walls defended by elite troops.”
“That is exactly what I’m saying. Even if they cannot win, they should at least be able to buy us some time…”
“That is, if only demonic cultists are the only ones there.”
“…What?”
Hong Daekwang stared at Chung Myung with eyes opened wide in bewilderment.
A strange smile spread across Chung Myung face. It was so cold that everyone who saw it felt an inexplicable chill run down their spines.
“He will be there.”
Deep, venomous resentment [원독(怨毒)] seeped from Chung Myung’s voice.
“Because that is the kind of bastard he is.”
❀ ❀ ❀
“Th-They’re coming.”
The man who had stammered without realizing it swallowed hard.
It was a night so consumed by darkness that the barren plain of nothing but earth and stone seemed bright by comparison. And from beyond that impenetrable darkness, something even darker was slowly drawing near.
“Th-Those bastards…”
“Do not make a fuss.”
The man who cut in with a sharp rebuke immediately raised his voice.
“Pass the order! Every unit is to hold its assigned position without fail! Anyone who retreats will be punished under military law!”
“Yes, Sir!”
The commander** watching the ground below from atop the seemingly endless wall struggled to conceal how stiff his expression grew.
How could he not be afraid? Their enemies were demons who had shattered half an army of tens of thousands defending the Yellow Waters in a single instant. One needed only to look at those who had been driven all the way here from the Yellow Waters, still screaming in terror and unable to regain their senses, to understand just how horrifying those creatures were.
But no matter how shaken everyone else might be, the one in command could not afford to waver. Or rather, even if he did, he could never allow that fear to show before his subordinates.
“Ugh, ugh……”
“W-We’re all going to die…”
Because if he did, those men who were only barely holding themselves together would collapse in an instant.
“There is nothing to fear!”
With the enormous general’s standard*** raised behind him, the commander shouted until his throat felt ready to burst. This was a declaration to everyone, as well as a cry directed at himself.
“It does not matter how powerful they are. What matters is that no one has ever crossed this Great Wall!”
The soldiers who heard his voice raised their heads and looked at him.
“Not even those savage barbarians! Not even the man once called the Iron Warrior of the North – no one has ever crossed this Great Wall. Those bastards will be no different. Whatever they may be, they will never cross this Great Wall!”
Those standing at the edge of the wall instinctively looked down below.
It was immeasurably high.
The wall was far too steep and too high for anyone to scale with their bare hands unless they had prepared siege equipment in advance.
So perhaps it was possible. Perhaps defeating them outright was unrealistic, but merely holding them off…
“We do not need to hold out until the very end!”
At that moment, as though he had read everyone’s thoughts, the commander’s voice rang out once more.
“Three days. Three days will be enough. No, perhaps even two days may be enough. If we hold out just a little longer, reinforcements will arrive. From that moment on, we will no longer be defending this Great Wall – we will open its gates, march out, and hunt those beasts!”
“Oh….”
“Waaaaaah!”
Voices that sounded as though they had been forced out and invigorated cheers mixed together, filling the top of the Great Wall.
Some believed those words, while others desperately tried to believe them. After all, there was no other choice.
“Believe! And endure! They are nothing more than mere savages!”
The commander had not simply spouted empty words to inspire his men.
‘It will not be breached easily.’
He knew that martial artists could cross rivers in a single bound and shatter boulders with their bare hands. But even so, the enemy was few in number.
‘Even martial artists bleed when pierced by a spear, and their bones are crushed when struck by an arrow. In the end, they are no different.’
No matter how elusive and unpredictable they were, they could not evade an endless rain of arrows forever. Even if they dodged the first volley, then the second would follow, and the third after that. Sooner or later, they would fall.
“Come, then. Even if a hundred of us die, if we can take the life of a single one of them in return, we will ultimately prevail. This wall will make that possible.”
He had not spoken expecting an answer. Rather, he could say such a thing aloud precisely because he knew there was no one nearby in a position to respond.
Yet an unexpected answer came. Right beside the commander’s ear, no less.
“Not a bad idea.”
The commander’s blood ran cold, and he froze where he stood.
Was it because a reply had come from somewhere no voice should have been heard?
No. The reason he froze was because the voice that whispered into his ear was so unimaginably harsh and violent.
“To sacrifice a hundred in order to claim one… An admirable mindset. That is what war is. It is meaningless to ask who suffered the greater losses. The only thing that matters is who achieved their objective.”
He could not even breathe.
The mere presence of the man standing behind him seemed enough to crush his very soul. A terror and dread beyond anything he had ever imagined robbed the commander of his senses.
“I am curious, though. Whether it will truly be as you say. Whether this pitiful wall of yours can really stop our followers.”
The man let out a low, quiet chuckle.
“But unfortunately, I am no longer in a position to indulge such curiosity. So let us do this instead. Let us change the conditions just a little.”
In that instant, the commander turned around sharply.
It was not because the invisible pressure radiating from the man had weakened.
Something was coming.
The instinctive certainty that something was about to happen in this very moment overwhelmed even his instinct to survive. But the instant he turned his head, the commander realized that it would have been better if he had never looked.
Fwoooosh.
The man was clad in a black robe. At the tips of the fingers of a man who seemed to have been forged from the very concept of absolute domination**** itself, something swirled. It looked like a black shadow, yet also like brilliant flames flickering in and out of existence.
Before the commander could even comprehend the nature of that power, the man slowly extended his hand to the side. At the same time, the energy resting in his palm drifted through the air with excruciating slowness before descending upon the top of the wall where countless soldiers stood.
What followed happened almost in an instant.
Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!
It surged forth. A power darker than the darkest moonless night swept across the top of the wall like a black dragon ascending into the heavens, devouring everything in its path.
Thud.
The commander collapsed where he stood.
He could not utter a single word.
As though everything he had just witnessed had been nothing more than a fleeting illusion, by the time he came to his senses the black tempest and the black dragon had both vanished.
But it was no illusion. It could not have been an illusion. An undeniable proof lay before his eyes.
“Ah… ah….”
The center of the Great Wall had vanished, as though an enormous blade had carved it clean away.
Along with the dozens of lives that had filled its summit. They had not even been able to leave behind a single scream.
Faced with a sight that transcended terror itself, the commander forgot even how to breathe.
Could such a scene truly have been wrought by human hands?
Yet the man who had created this unbelievable spectacle spoke in the same calm, unchanged voice.
“What do you think? This should be a fair enough condition, shouldn’t it? One that ought to satisfy both sides.”
“Ugh…”
As despair closed in upon him, the commander instinctively curled in on himself.
A fair condition? Even with the wall intact, there had been no guarantee they could stop the enemy. Now that the wall had been torn open, how could they possibly hope to stop them?
“Ugh……”
Despair too profound to become words crawled up his throat. At last, just as the anger that had overcome even his fear was about to erupt into a scream…
“Ah, I almost forgot.”
Crunch.
In that instant, the man seized the commander’s head with one hand. The scream that had been surging up caught in his suddenly constricted throat.
“That does not mean I intend to let you live, filthy unbeliever.”
Crack.
The commander’s head, which had just begun to lift, burst apart on the spot. His headless body staggered for a moment before collapsing to the ground in a mangled heap.
The man’s – that is, Heavenly Executioner’s – gaze fell upon the headless corpse of the commander. Watching the body twitch in its final spasms, as though some lingering attachment to life still remained, he showed not the slightest trace of emotion. Then the corners of his lips curled upward into a chilling smile.
“There is no need to feel wronged.”
At last, he slowly turned around.
His gaze shifted beyond the Great Wall.
To the land the world called the Central Plains.
“Soon, everyone will be following in your footsteps.”
Towards the gaping breach in the Great Wall, where not even rubble remained, a living tide of darkness surged forward.
As though foreshadowing the fate that would soon befall the land stretching beyond, the darkness poured onward without end.
________
*Here Un Am uses 사부님 (sabu-nim) which is how a disciple would address their teacher/master in martial arts.
**지휘관(指揮官) – commander, or commanding officer.
***장군기(將軍旗) – this type of military banner is the one identifying the headquarters or position of the commanding general. Commander here (who is speaking) is being addressed as commanding officer, so this banner identifies not his rank, but the position this force is stationed at.
****패도(覇道) – ‘pae’, like in Paegun – one who dominates through overwhelming force (a hegemon); ‘do’ – way/path.
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