Encirclement at Dawn
Returning to his quarters, Dokgo Jin spread out the topographical map he had received from the Heavenly Secrets Hall and studied it at length.
Clear Water Ridge.
It was a rugged expanse of mountainous terrain stretching forty li from east to west and thirty li from north to south. Narrow ravines and steep ridges formed a labyrinthine sprawl, with human settlements clinging sparsely only to the mountain's outer fringe.
The previous three subjugation expeditions had managed nothing more than slaying a handful of stragglers. The moment danger neared, the Nagan-gi scattered in desperate flight, making total pursuit impossible across such jagged wilds.
Their approach was flawed from the beginning.
The moment any large force stepped foot into Clear Water Ridge, they would have tripped the bandits' sentry network. The bandits would have fled instantly, leaving the pursuers with no practical way to corner them.
Before attacking, we must find their stronghold without their knowledge.
It was far easier said than done. The Gwangho Squad lacked the sheer numbers to comb the entirety of Clear Water Ridge, and if the bandits caught wind of the search and relocated their lair, the mission would degenerate into an endless game of hide-and-seek.
Hmm.
Dokgo Jin's gaze lowered once more to the parchment.
It was evening when he summoned Tang Pung-yeong.
"Starting tomorrow, we will spend three days making the rounds through the villages around Clear Water Ridge."
"A reconnaissance mission?"
"An inquiry."
Tang Pung-yeong's brow twitched upward.
"If the Nagan-gi raid these villages periodically, there are bound to be eyewitnesses. From where they appeared, and in which direction they vanished. Things not found in the archives of the Heavenly Secrets Hall will be waiting out there."
"Will the villagers speak freely?"
The Heavenly Secrets Hall had surely conducted their own inquiries. If they had failed to turn up anything, it was because the locals kept their mouths shut out of sheer terror of retaliation. The Northern Heavenly Alliance eradicating the Nagan-gi was undoubtedly in the villagers' best interest, but ordinary folk were wired to fear the blade at their throat far more than they valued some distant, promised relief.
Dokgo Jin's eyes grew deep and quiet.
"Someone wise will speak."
For the next three days, Dokgo Jin and Tang Pung-yeong traversed six villages hugging the perimeter of Clear Water Ridge. The members of the Gwangho Squad were kept well back, out of sight. A mob of armed martial artists marching into town would only sow panic, accomplish nothing, and alert any watching bandit scouts.
The first three settlements yielded nothing. The dread of the Nagan-gi hung over the people like a shroud. Yet Dokgo Jin showed neither haste nor frustration.
In the fifth village, they encountered an old man. He was the father of a young man who had dared resist the bandits three months prior, only to be decapitated on the spot.
When asked which way the raiders had retreated, the old man merely stared at Dokgo Jin in silence.
Any ordinary investigator might have grown impatient, but Dokgo Jin waited calmly until the elder was ready to speak.
At last, the old man parted dry lips.
"You are an extraordinarily patient young man. Most would have pressed and badgered by now. Aren't you going to offer sweet promises of vengeance?"
"I could," Dokgo Jin replied evenly. "But where there is no trust, what worth are empty words?"
"Heh..."
In truth, the villagers harbored nearly as much resentment toward the Northern Heavenly Alliance as they did toward the bandits. They were bitter that the Alliance had never stationed martial artists to fend off the periodic raids. From the Alliance's perspective, the complaint was unreasonable—their forces were limited and the territory under their watch vast, making it impossible to post guards in every backwater hamlet. But logic brought little comfort to those burying their dead.
The elder scrutinized Dokgo Jin's gaze for a long moment before slowly speaking.
"You seem different from the rest. For an old man with one foot in the grave, placing a little hope in you might not be the worst thing." He raised a weathered finger and pointed into the distance. "Those bastards always came down from the northern ridge."
"The northern ridge." Dokgo Jin's eyes sharpened.
"And when they left, that was where they returned. Only once, on a day they were chased, did they flee east... but that was only that one time."
Dokgo Jin unrolled the map. "Where along the ridge would it be?"
The old man did not look at the parchment. Instead, he locked eyes with Dokgo Jin, a fierce, smoldering heat blazing in his sunken sockets.
"Will you slaughter those abominations? Even if it is a hollow lie, I want to hear you say it."
"Without fail," Dokgo Jin said, his voice level and cold. "Not one of them will be left breathing."
"...I will believe you."
With a slow nod, the elder pressed his finger onto the map.
The testimonies painfully coaxed from other hamlets pointed in the exact same direction. The Nagan-gi consistently arrived from the north and retreated to the north, altering their course only when pursued by alliance forces.
Back in his room, Dokgo Jin marked the settlements and coordinates across the terrain map. Tang Pung-yeong stood beside him, watching the lines converge.
"The northern ridge covers an immense area," Tang Pung-yeong noted quietly. "Pinpointing an exact encampment from this alone seems..."
"We narrow it down." Dokgo Jin's finger tapped the map. "The Nagan-gi maintain at least eighty horses. Horses must graze, and horses must drink. Where along the northern ridge can one sustain eighty mounts?"
Tang Pung-yeong leaned in closer. To pitch an encampment of that scale within mountainous terrain, flat ground was essential, and a direct water source was non-negotiable.
"Hmm." Tang Pung-yeong's finger traced the elevation lines before halting over a specific hollow. "This basin would fit the criteria."
Dokgo Jin touched another area just beside it. "And here."
Two locations. Across the entire expanse of the northern ridge, only those two sites satisfied all conditions.
"Must we scout both?"
"No." Dokgo Jin looked between the two markers and lightly tapped the western site. "It is this one."
Reading the unspoken question in Tang Pung-yeong's eyes, Dokgo Jin explained, "The eastern gorge is far too narrow. It would bottleneck their cavalry and prevent them from deploying in force. There is no reason for them to sacrifice their greatest asset—mobility—to camp there."
Tang Pung-yeong studied the topography and found himself nodding in silent admiration. Fascinating... His eye for tactical terrain is razor-sharp.
After a brief pause, Tang Pung-yeong asked, "Will you confirm it yourself?"
Dokgo Jin nodded. "I will go alone, quietly."
That night, Dokgo Jin slipped into the northern ridge of Clear Water Ridge unaccompanied.
It was a moonless night. Enveloped in suffocating darkness, Dokgo Jin allowed himself to slip back into his true nature for the first time in days.
Deep within his dantian, the chilling energy of the Nine Nether Dark Sky Scripture stirred, rising smoothly through his meridians. The disguise he had maintained—restraining his power, concealing his depths, mimicking an ordinary martial artist—melted away without a sound.
His presence thinned.
His footsteps vanished into absolute silence, and even the subtle resonance of his inner qi dissolved into the surrounding night. It was not that the darkness accepted him; rather, he became the darkness itself.
Moving like a wraith, he traversed the ridge for half an incense stick's time.
The scent struck him first.
The pungent musk of horse sweat and the rich aroma of boiling grain drifted on the breeze. Dokgo Jin halted, reading the subtle shift of the wind.
They are definitely here.
Silently creeping to the edge of the overlook, he peered down into the basin below.
It was a modest clearing, ringed on all sides by towering rock formations that stood like sheer folding screens. From below, one would never suspect the plateau existed. Horses were drinking from a mountain stream that cut through the depression, and several crude leather tents were pitched beneath the shadow of the crags.
Two bonfires flickered low, around which men sat scattered in loose groups. Roughly forty bandits in total, their coarse attire and scarred bearings leaving no doubt as to their identity.
Found them.
Dokgo Jin took his time, taking in every contour of the perimeter. The basin was shaped like a gourd; its only viable entrance and exit lay to the south. The sheer cliff walls prevented horses from scaling out in any other direction.
He understood why the Nagan-gi had operated out of this pocket for three uninterrupted years. As a hideout, it was immaculate. Impossible to spot from the outside, and easily defended by a handful of men from within.
Yet that perfection held only so long as they were not cornered. The moment that single chokepoint was sealed, the haven would transform into an inescapable tomb.
Dokgo Jin watched them coldly from the dark.
He could have descended right then and there. Whether forty or sixty, slaughtering them in such confined quarters would have posed little challenge to him. But that was not what the Northern Heavenly Alliance needed from the Gwangho Squad. This was a squad operation; it carried meaning only if his subordinates executed it together. Moreover, hunting alone risked a lone straggler escaping into the wilds.
Dokgo Jin had no intention of leaving his squad's inaugural mission incomplete.
Your time comes at dawn.
Turning without a whisper, Dokgo Jin descended the ridge. His retreat was as ghostlike as his approach, leaving not a displaced stone in his wake.
In the gray gloom of predawn, the Gwangho Squad split into two columns and entered the northern ridge.
Heavy clouds smothered the sky, extinguishing what little starlight remained. Under the thick forest canopy, blackness reigned so absolute that a man could scarcely see his own outstretched fingers. The warriors had dismounted, holding their reins in single file. Every horse's hooves were bound tightly in thick cloth, muting each step into a soft, dull brush against the dirt.
Not a word was spoken. The men scarcely dared to breathe.
Dokgo Jin walked at the point. His gait was unlike any ordinary man's; his heels never struck the ground first. Instead, his soles glided flush against the earth, distributing his weight so evenly that not even a dry twig snapped beneath his tread. Behind him, the squad members stepped strictly within his footprints.
As they crested the upper ridge, the draft turned sharp and damp—a clear sign that running water was close at hand.
Suddenly, Dokgo Jin raised a closed fist behind him. Halt.
The entire column froze as one.
Mok Woo-jeon squinted into the gloom, straining his vision, but saw only pitch-black silhouettes of rock and timber. What is it? Why stop now...?
Dokgo Jin remained still, his sight piercing through the obscurity. Twenty paces ahead, behind a jagged boulder, a figure was crouched low. The slow, rhythmic cadence of the man's breath revealed he was dozing. Tucked deep into the crevice of the rocks, he was positioned so discreetly that any careless party would have walked right past him.
Tracing the line of Dokgo Jin's posture, the squad members finally noticed the hidden sentry.
He caught that in this blackness?
The squad leader's senses are truly terrifying...
Dokgo Jin extended two fingers, pointing left.
Shin Pyeong, following immediately behind him, nodded silently. Gliding through the foliage like a shadow, he flanked around the blind side of the boulder to take the rear. The bandit sentry opened his eyes only when a forearm locked like iron around his throat.
The sentry tried to scream, but the air was crushed from his lungs. His arms flailed frantically, yet he could gain no leverage against the man clamped to his back.
Snap!
The fracture of neck vertebrae was instantaneous. With a stifled, strangled rattle, the sentry went limp.
Dokgo Jin was already moving forward before the corpse even settled. Rounding the next bend of the ridge, two more scouts appeared. These two sat facing each other, whispering in idle chatter. Resting easy in the knowledge that their forward scout had their back, their guards were thoroughly lowered.
It's because they were this meticulous that they remained hidden for three years.
Yet vigilance, when turned into mundane routine, inevitably rots into complacency.
Dokgo Jin gestured for the squad to hold their positions, then stepped forward alone. His entire presence faded into the damp night air. The two bandits never even realized someone was approaching until he stood mere feet before them.
Dokgo Jin flicked his finger.
Thwack!
With a dull, heavy impact, one scout collapsed instantly, his vitals struck numb. The second man jerked in shock at his comrade's sudden fall, but before he could even register what was happening, an invisible spear of wind bored through the space between his brows.
The Returning Seal Finger.
Crack!
The second scout slumped forward without uttering a single groan.
Watching from the rear, the men of the Gwangho Squad swallowed hard in awe. Incredible...Clean and ruthless.
By the time Dokgo Jin halted before the gorge entrance, the eastern horizon was just beginning to faint with pale gray. The indigo sky was cracking with the first thin slivers of dawn.
The Nagan-gi encampment remained peacefully asleep. Above the dying embers of the bonfires, thin wisps of smoke drifted lazily into the morning mist. Dokgo Jin looked down upon the basin in silence.
Behind him, the warriors of the Gwangho Squad fanned out along both flanks of the entrance, drawing their weapons and steadying their breath as they locked the perimeter.
Moments stretched in agonizing stillness as the light crept up the rim of the mountains.
A carrier hawk cut through the gray dawn, descending soundlessly onto Dokgo Jin's forearm. Bound to its talon was a sliver of bamboo parchment bearing just two words in rough, hurried brushstrokes.
Preparations complete.
It was the signal from Tang Pung-yeong.
Whoosh!
A crimson flicker of Samadhi True Fire sparked across Dokgo Jin's fingertips, reducing the note to fine ash in the blink of an eye.
Time to erase the Nagan-gi from this world.
Dokgo Jin drew his white-hilted blade and walked into the valley alone.