Monopolizing Fortunes (224)
Monopolizing Fortunes (224)
No Song-guk took up position directly behind the ten thousand soldiers. Ordinarily, a supreme commander was supposed to direct operations from the safest position in the rear.
But with Do Tong-dal and Ju Seo-in fighting the enemy at the very front, there was no way he could look after his own safety from a secure spot.
Behind No Song-guk, a thousand archers had taken position. Even if the Mongol army was skilled at blocking incoming arrows with shields, they could not block every arrow.
In Sapung Valley, fifty jang wide, there was no need for aimed shots—roughly one man in ten could be put out of action.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The signal rang out that the enemy was closing in.
"They really are coming."
Do Tong-dal's words had never once missed the mark. The more one came to know Do Tong-dal, the more he seemed like a divine being beyond human ability.
The battle was commanded directly by No Song-guk.
"Archers! Make ready!"
The wind was blowing from the rear toward the front. Sapung Valley had gotten its name because sandstorms raged through it in every season of the year. The sand-laden wind would obstruct the charging Mongol soldiers' vision to some degree.
"Even the heavens are helping us."
No Song-guk muttered to himself and waited for the next signal. The scouts who had risked their lives to go into Sapung Valley would report the Mongol army's position.
The faces of the soldiers who had nocked arrows to their bowstrings were plainly taut with tension. Among them, not even one in ten had seen actual combat.
Boom-boom-boom! The drums sounded again.
"Ready!"
At No Song-guk's shout, the archers raised their bows at an angle. The tension was drawn as taut as the bowstrings themselves.
No Song-guk, who had been counting numbers in his head, shouted.
"Loose!"
A thousand arrows tore through the sky at once in a magnificent display. Whether the arrows that left the bowstrings struck true could not be seen. Whether they hit the Mongol soldiers or not could only be left to luck.
"Don't stop—keep firing!"
No Song-guk urged the archers on. The more they reduced the enemy's numbers, the safer Do Tong-dal, Jang Yu-seom, and Ju Seo-in would be.
Do Tong-dal glanced at the arrows passing over his head and vanishing into Sapung Valley.
Rrrrrumble!
The sound of hoofbeats shaking the earth did not diminish or slow even as the rain of arrows poured down.
Because of the hoofbeats, it was impossible to tell how many Mongol soldiers had taken casualties. Even if every single arrow missed, there would be nothing to regret.
Rrrrrumble!
Along with the thunderous hoofbeats, a faint vibration could be felt. In his previous life, when he had been sentenced to penal military service, he had fought the Mongol army several times.
It had not been a war on this scale, but a mission to stop small numbers from crossing the border to plunder.
Even when the Mongol cavalry numbered no more than thirty, they had overwhelmed three hundred soldiers. Riding in like the wind and cutting down their allies' throats, they had seemed like ghosts.
Of course, comparing the Do Tong-dal of back then, only three months into his penal service, to the present was absurd.
Do Tong-dal drew the Makya Blade. The faintly glowing red blade already seemed to have drunk a gourdful of blood.
Do Tong-dal spoke to Jang Yu-seom and Ju Seo-in on either side of him.
"Be careful not to fall."
Jang Yu-seom asked.
"You're going to use the Earth-Shaking Step?"
"Yes."
"Your Internal Energy consumption will be severe."
Jang Yu-seom was also capable of making the ground tremble to some degree, but even to produce enough force to lightly bounce gravel into the air consumed an enormous amount of Internal Energy. That was why he had never bothered to use the Earth-Shaking Step all this time.
But the Earth-Shaking Step Do Tong-dal had displayed at the military camp was on a different level. If it had enough force to knock down people standing perfectly upright, then against a galloping horse it would be a fatal attack.
The problem was Internal Energy. At the military camp, there had been little chance of fighting after using the Earth-Shaking Step, but here, they might have to fight all day long.
"The problem isn't Internal Energy—it's my legs."
With enough force to make the ground tremble, the shock transmitted to the legs could not be ignored. Unless one had an indestructible diamond body, a few uses of the Earth-Shaking Step would shatter the kneecaps.
The Mongol cavalry's method of attack in Sapung Valley was obvious. First, lancers would break the enemy's spearhead, and then cavalry with the speed and ferocity of the wind would come from behind and cut down the enemy infantry.
To this day, no one had produced a solution to that obvious attack. They had used archers and countered with their own cavalry, but before the overwhelming Mongol cavalry, every method had proven useless.
The hoofbeats grew louder and the vibrations rougher. Because of the thick sand-laden wind, visibility did not extend beyond thirty jang, but he could tell they had closed to within nearly eighty jang.
Do Tong-dal raised his Internal Energy step by step, as if stacking bricks. He had to break the lancers with a single Earth-Shaking Step.
"Husband!"
At the sudden call, Do Tong-dal turned his head.
"What is it?"
Ju Seo-in spoke with her gaze fixed on the direction the Mongol cavalry was coming from.
"If we survive today, acknowledge me as your real wife!"
"We already had a wedding ceremony!"
"Not that formal stuff!"
Ju Seo-in looked at Do Tong-dal. Her eyes somehow seemed to glisten with moisture.
"Your real wife!"
He knew what Ju Seo-in wanted to say. Do Tong-dal grinned.
"Survive! I'll do anything you ask!"
She smiled brightly.
"Really! You promised!"
"Of course!"
Jang Yu-seom shouted.
"They're coming!"
The lancers burst into view through the rough sand-laden wind. The lancers charging in with thick sand trailing behind them looked like one enormous sandstorm.
"Kki-yat-ho! Kki-yaaah—!"
The Mongol lancers, shrieking bizarre war cries at the top of their lungs, were far faster than the Mongol cavalry in Do Tong-dal's memories.
Behind the roughly two hundred lancers, an immense cloud of sand was rising. If only the Central Plains army had been here, they might have fled at the sight of that terrifying spectacle alone.
But before them stood Prince Consort Do Tong-dal and imperial kin Ju Seo-in. The shields holding the enemy back were these two people, not the rear.
No matter how afraid they were, they could not run. If those three held the front, then they had to guard the rear.
So the hands gripping spears, swords, and blades tightened, and fighting spirit blazed in their eyes.
The reason they could summon courage even before that enormous sand cloud, as if raised by a violent god, was because Do Tong-dal, Ju Seo-in, and Jang Yu-seom were there.
When the Mongol lancers came within fifteen jang, Do Tong-dal unleashed the Earth-Shaking Step.
Boom—!
The Earth-Shaking Step, unleashed with his Internal Energy raised to the twelfth level, truly seemed to overturn the surface of the earth. Had they not been warned in advance, even Jang Yu-seom and Ju Seo-in would have lost their balance and staggered.
So there was no way a horse running at full speed could withstand that shaking.
Neigh—!
The lead horses, their hooves catching on the churned ground, crashed down violently.
"Aaaagh—!"
"Wh-what is this... Ghhk—!"
The shouts and screams of the panicked Mongol lancers filled the front. The fallen horses, unable to overcome their momentum, slid forward and bore down on Do Tong-dal.
Do Tong-dal leaped high into the air and swung his blade at the dismounted lancers. The lancers who had been rolling on the ground died helplessly under Do Tong-dal's attacks without even a chance to regain their senses.
Not every lancer fell to the Earth-Shaking Step. The force of the step had not covered the entire fifty-jang width of Sapung Valley.
The lancers on both flanks who had not fallen were Jang Yu-seom's and Ju Seo-in's share. Jang Yu-seom faithfully followed the maxim, "To catch the rider, bring down the horse."
Each time his sword moved, a horse's leg or head went flying. He dodged incoming spears far too easily for them to pose any threat.
No matter how much of one's life had been spent on horseback, no one could remain unharmed when a horse running at full speed pitched forward.
Most passed by Jang Yu-seom with broken necks or limbs. The lancers thus put out of action became the share of the soldiers standing firm behind the three.
The foremost spearman drove his spear into a twitching lancer. The lightly wounded enemies did resist, but having fallen from their horses, their fighting power inevitably dropped sharply.
Unlike Jang Yu-seom, Ju Seo-in kept her word. She killed everything in her path, horse and man alike. Scenes of horses and men being cleaved in two by a dagger were common.
Do Tong-dal shouted at Ju Seo-in, who was moving ferociously.
"This is only the beginning! Conserve your strength!"
"I can fight all day!"
She had eaten elixirs from the Imperial Palace Secret Archive like meals, so Internal Energy was not a concern. The problem was stamina, but thanks to training without a single day of rest, she was confident in her endurance.
After finishing off all the lancers, Do Tong-dal shouted.
"The real fight starts now!"
A tidal wave of sand crashed over them. A battle against a great army was certainly different from one in the martial world.
Attacks coming from higher than his own height were unfamiliar, and there was not even a moment to rest. It was certainly not an assault ordinary soldiers could withstand.
Conversely, to the Mongol army, Do Tong-dal's group was a disaster. Do Tong-dal fought at full strength from the very start. Since there was no need to worry about exhausting his Internal Energy, there was no need to conserve strength either.
Do Tong-dal's Makya Blade swept from left to right toward the charging cavalry. It surpassed the power he had displayed the first time he faced the locust swarm.
The blade force, accompanied by searing heat, covered ten jang to the front and both sides. It was sheer carnage.
Because the attack was aimed at the height of the horses' necks, the Mongol cavalry were cut through the lower body or waist. Dozens of horses toppled over, and the riders on them were hurled to the ground.
It was not only the cavalry directly struck by Do Tong-dal's attack who took damage. When the horses directly in front fell, the riders caught behind them were also sent flying and tumbled across the ground.
With that single move from Do Tong-dal, more than fifty cavalry lost their fighting ability. Around Do Tong-dal, the corpses of cut-down horses and men piled up thickly. It was hard to believe the scene had been created by a single attack.
Though they did not match Do Tong-dal's martial prowess, Jang Yu-seom's and Ju Seo-in's skills were also astonishing. They maintained perfect control over the front and three jang to either side.
Even that was only because their opponents were cavalry, which narrowed their attack radius; without horses, no one would have gotten past them within five jang.
Of the Mongol cavalry charging through Sapung Valley, not even half made it past the three. Even those who did get through were too shocked to fight effectively.
The spearmen attacked them, and the well-trained cavalry interspersed among them slaughtered the Mongol riders whose formations had broken apart.
The neighing of horses, the screams of the dying, and the sound of the wind in Sapung Valley mingled together, like a glimpse of hell.
The Mongol cavalry charged in without pause, heedless of the slaughter at the front.
Do Tong-dal likewise did not stop swinging the Makya Blade. The hundreds of human and horse corpses piled up before him stirred no more feeling in him than pebbles rolling on the ground.
This slaughter was different from killing bandits. That had been one-sided butchery; this was war.
If that butchery, unfamiliar to him as a thug, had left a corner of his heart uneasy, war was a familiarity he had experienced countless times in his previous life.
"Aaaagh—!"
"What is this!"
The reason the Mongol cavalry could keep charging without fear even as their comrades died horribly was their blocked field of vision.
Because the sand-laden wind obscured their sight, they could only confirm the carnage before their eyes once they had drawn near.
No small number of horses tripped over the piled corpses of men and beasts, and those who barely avoided being thrown were set upon by the three's attacks.
The three were drenched in enemy blood from head to toe. By now, they could no longer even smell the rank stench of blood.
Their movements were almost mechanical. Cutting down the enemy in front, striking the enemies to the sides, checking the enemies who had slipped past—the sequence continued without pause.
Do Tong-dal had the stamina to run for six shichen straight, yet two and a half shichen of bloody combat was far more exhausting than six shichen of Lightness Art.
His Internal Energy still filled his limbs and entire body, but he could feel the strength gradually draining from his arms and legs.
'I thought I could fight all day.'
Do Tong-dal still did not fully understand his own body. In truth, fighting for two and a half shichen against cavalry that pressed in without a moment's respite was already remarkable.
Do Tong-dal checked on Jang Yu-seom and Ju Seo-in. Do Tong-dal himself was beginning to tire, so the other two went without saying.
They were still displaying astonishing martial prowess, but ragged breaths were spilling from their half-open mouths.
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