The Upheaval (4)
"Protect the Grand Khan──!!"
The most elite cavalry force of the Mongol Empire—known far and wide as the Kheshig, or by some as the Mangudai.
Unlike their fellow soldiers, they charged clad in heavy armor with long lances gripped tight, a sight far closer to heavy cavalry than horse archers.
The strongest force in the Mongol Empire, the final bulwark guarding Genghis Khan himself, now hurled themselves without a shred of fear at the enemies who had smashed into their formation.
"Ugh, seriously! These bastards are pissing me off──!!"
KWAAANG──!!
"GYAAAH!"
"KRAK!"
A single blow from her sent a good three or four Mongol cavalrymen flying at once. Those involved would no doubt deny it to their graves, but Zhang Fei glared at her enemies with blood-red eyes that were the spitting image of Lü Bu's.
"Sister Yunchang! These bastards just keep coming, don't they?!"
"...I am aware."
At Zhang Fei's shout, Guan Yu, who had been carving a path at her side, asked in a level voice.
"So will you withdraw?"
"Say something that actually makes sense!"
KWANG─!
Moving as though she and Guan Yu shared a single body, Zhang Fei kicked away the enemy charge yet again before answering.
"You know as well as I do, Sister Yunchang! How bad that wound is!"
A stomach pierced through by an arrow was a critical injury whose survival rate swung wildly no matter how quickly it was treated. If they didn't end this war right here and race back to Luoyang, her wonderful lord stood a very good chance of never drawing another breath.
"We were born on different days, but we die together!"
"......"
"That's the creed I've lived by my whole life!"
Even as she declared it, Zhang Fei never stopped swinging her Serpent Spear—a monstrous weapon stretching one zhang and eight chi from end to end.
"KHEK!"
The nomad warriors, hammered by a polearm measuring a good four meters and fifteen centimeters by modern reckoning, burst apart one spot at a time and went tumbling across the battlefield.
But the Mongol Empire's finest soldiers were no easy prey.
"Grrrrh... DIE──!!"
An indomitable fighting spirit that fought on to the very last breath. Saving only the unlucky few caught on the Serpent Spear's tip and cleaved in two, every soldier sprang straight back to his feet and flung himself into the attack once more.
"GET LOST──!"
"───!!"
Having at last finished off the Kheshig who had mounted riderless horses and come at her again, Zhang Fei opened her mouth once more.
"What about you, Sister Yunchang!"
"......"
"Are you going to fight like your life depends on it, or just stand there and watch our lord slowly die?!"
"That much should be obvious."
CLAAANG──!!
Deflecting an arrow that threaded with perfect precision through the gaps between the enemies swarming her, Guan Yu fixed her cool gaze somewhere in the distance.
"Had I meant to stop you, I would never have come this far at all."
"Knew it!"
Where Guan Yu's gaze had landed, just as before, a lone figure stood with a horn bow in hand, staring steadily back at her.
KAGANG──!!
The familiar ring of steel striking steel that echoed across every battlefield.
"HUHAHAHA──!! To think I'd cross blades with the fabled butcher himself!"
Kublai—one of the Four Steeds and Four Hounds in whom Genghis Khan placed his trust, and the one who preferred to run wild in person—shouted as though this situation were the finest entertainment imaginable.
Every clash of weapons sent a jolt tingling through his entire body. It was his flesh warning him that one careless slip would cost him his head, but to Kublai, who had lived his whole life on battlefields, mortal danger was a trifling concern.
"KHEK!"
"...If you're going to fight me, quit being a nuisance and come at me properly."
At that, Lü Bu—having just cleaved an entire soldier in half—let out a low growl.
"I'll slaughter you in an instant, exactly the way you want."
"A truly ferocious proposal!"
Kublai, who had been summoning nearby officers and soldiers to serve as his shields whenever he found himself pressed, answered without a hint of embarrassment.
"But I'm afraid I must decline."
"......"
"When hunting a fierce beast, the most important element is the patience to wait for its strength to run dry!"
To face, all alone, a monstrous general who could tear a man apart like wet paper. Kublai did not fear dying on the battlefield—but he was, if anything, even less the sort of man to throw his life away for nothing.
'Honestly, calling this a hunt when I'm barely hanging on is pretty laughable too...'
After that moment of self-mocking, Kublai let the thought trail off and darted forward.
'Our role here was to buy time in the first place.'
Even now, at this very moment, the Grand Khan was holding the enemy at a distance that hovered just out of reach, luring them in. If the Han General-in-Chief grew impatient and chased the Grand Khan, they need only fall upon his divided forces and crush them piecemeal; if he pulled his army back to treat his wounds, they need only pursue the fleeing enemy and inflict catastrophic losses.
KWANG──!
"...Kgh."
Borokhula, who had been taking on Lü Bu alongside Kublai, felt his stomach keep turning over even though all he was doing was blocking.
Two of the Four Steeds and Four Hounds, plus their finest soldiers, had thrown themselves at her—and all they could manage was stalling. So this was what it meant to be hailed as matchless under heaven.
Just as his eyes drifted briefly to the dozens—no, hundreds—of corpses heaped along the path Lü Bu had carved, she spoke.
"Hey."
"...Hm?"
"I'm genuinely curious, so I'm asking—after seeing that little show just now, you really don't feel anything?"
"......"
To Lü Bu's question, Kublai answered in a voice that suggested the matter was hardly worth worrying over.
"The sight of one person holding back a frontal charge all alone was certainly striking."
That a single warrior had very nearly derailed the Grand Khan's plan was, even to Kublai, genuinely astonishing.
"But what of it?"
"......"
"Between here and the enemy's main camp where the Grand Khan sits, tens of thousands of our own still stand in battle array."
No matter how overwhelming one's martial might, a single human being has hard limits. That much was plain just from watching Lü Bu, pinned down by them at this very moment, accomplishing nothing but the passage of time.
"It's far too late now to turn this battle around, wouldn't you say?"
"...Is that so?"
At such an eminently sensible answer, Lü Bu gave a short snort of laughter.
"Then let me make sure you remember this, while you still have the chance."
"......?"
"Wherever you go, there are always exceptions."
"What is that supposed to mea—"
KWAAAAAANG────!!!
A roar that brooked no comparison with anything that had sounded before it.
"...?!"
As if the sky were overturning and the earth itself screaming, the din rolling out in every direction snapped Kublai's head around.
KWADUK─!
A hole had been punched clean through their allied formation, which had been clinging stubbornly to the enemy infantry at the front.
"The enemy's going for the Grand Khan──!!"
"BLOCK THEM───!!"
The horse archers, swiftly confirming that a massive crater had opened in the earth and split their formation, nocked arrows to their bowstrings in perfect unison, panic nowhere to be found.
SHUSHUSHUSHUNG──!!
True to a people who had staked most of their lives on mounted archery, they loosed their arrows at the general riding at the very head of the charge—
HWUUUNG──!!
"Wh-what in the—?"
Not one of those countless arrows found its mark.
The sight of her swinging the greatsword in her right hand and the long spear in her left in the same breath, turning them all aside... Yes. It looked less like deflection and more like the wind pressure alone was brushing several projectiles out of the air even as she knocked the arrows away. And if that wasn't it, then she must have swung her weapons again and again at a speed the eye simply couldn't follow.
"...For the Grand Khan──!!"
The thousands of cavalrymen, confirming that the enemy general had closed the distance in the mere heartbeat of a single volley, drew the curved sabers at their hips and hurled themselves forward as one.
A force vast enough to hold an entire front on its own, charging at a single solitary target. It was, without question, a sound decision—thin out the enemy's breakthrough power and buy time effectively. And with a stroke of luck, they might even claim the staggering prize of cutting down an enemy general.
Then Kublai witnessed the single most unbelievable sight of his entire life.
KWAGAGAGAK──!!
"GYAAAAH!"
Men and horses were soaring through the sky as though swept up in a natural disaster.
"......"
HRREEEE─!
A girl carving a road of ruin astride a colossal black horse the likes of which they had never seen even in their homeland. The girl's dead, expressionless eyes made it feel less like war and more like a trip to the slaughterhouse.
"KHEK!"
The instant the weapons in her two hands flashed, some comrade or other was rolling across the bare earth.
HIHIHING──!
The black horse, its sheer size obvious at a glance, tore across the battlefield at a terrifying clip, as if to ask how anything dared stand in its path. A horse it met head-on died on the spot with a snapped neck, and a man who fearlessly lunged at it was crushed utterly flat.
Horses and men alike, everything that barred the way was being neutralized in the most miserable fashion imaginable.
"CHARGE──!!"
And through the corridor she had punched open, the General-in-Chief's elite cavalry began to advance, shaking the very bones of the earth.
Kublai, taking in a spectacle even Lü Bu had failed to produce, muttered in sheer disbelief.
"How is this even possi—"
KANG─!
"KHK?!"
"You think you've got time to look away?"
Kublai barely turned aside the Sky Piercer Halberd as Lü Bu, somehow already upon him, swung it down.
'This is going wrong... badly wrong...!'
An instinct honed through long years of proving himself on the battlefield. The moment that instinct began screaming its head off, Kublai had no choice but to break out in a cold sweat.