Cheon-gyeong-suroe: Heaven-Shocking Naval Mines
Even though Haeseong had swallowed dozens of river pirates and dragged them down into the Yangtze, the pirates' assault had only just begun.
Judging their ambush exposed, the river pirates abandoned all thought of stealth. Like a school of carp swarming over breadcrumbs, they dived and swam straight for the merchant ship.
And into the midst of the group that had drawn nearest to the hull, a pitch-black lump of iron punched its way through the water.
It was a Cheon-gyeong-suroe thrown by Dang Su-jeong.
One pirate who had no idea she had deliberately thrown wide smirked to himself.
You think it's easy to hit a man underwater with something like that?
That starfish-like iron net was certainly a threat. But even iron nets had a finite number, and the rest of their hidden weapons would be useless like this.
Just as the thought crossed his mind—
Giiiiiii…
The mainspring, freed the instant the safety pin was pulled and the thrower's hand left the lever, had begun to unwind. Precisely timed by Michelangelo's calculations, it ran out without a single error and finished at exactly eight seconds.
Because the device was meant to detonate underwater rather than on land, the delay had been deliberately lengthened—to account for the drag of the water and to give the mine time to sink deep enough.
Giiii… clang.
Inside the waterproofed iron casing a little larger than a fist, the small awl-like firing pin at the end of the fully unwound spring struck the detonator charged with mercury fulminate—the same principle as a percussion cap.
That tiny blast woke the sleeping TNT.
And the TNT answered with a stretch of flame and shockwave.
Kuaaaang—!!!
The flame died the moment it was born underwater. The shockwave did not.
Traveling at roughly 6,900 meters per second, it screamed outward like a newborn howling at birth and slammed into the water that filled every direction. Water—far denser and more viscous than air—shrieked under the blow and fled in every direction.
A blast wave propagating faster than the speed of sound: detonation, a phenomenon observed only with high explosives such as TNT or nuclear weapons.
That was the first death sentence to fall upon the river pirates.
Those closest to the epicenter were the lucky ones. They never felt pain; they simply became a cloud of bone and meat.
The true killing power of a Cheon-gyeong-suroe exploding underwater, however, lay not in the detonation itself but in the chain reaction that followed.
Superheated, high-pressure gas shoved the surrounding water aside. In the void left behind, a massive bubble formed. The bubble expanded at terrifying speed, then collapsed under the crushing water pressure, then expanded again—over and over in a violent cycle known as bubble oscillation. The successive shockwaves of that oscillation produced a bubble pulse train, and finally the devastating phenomenon called a bubble jet: a concentrated lance of force capable of breaking a warship in two.
Of course, the bubble jet from a fist-sized charge of TNT was a pale shadow of the one created by a proper torpedo. Still, it was more than enough to annihilate every pirate nearby.
That bubble jet was the iron mace of the Dang Family, swung against the men who had hidden beneath the river.
Pukwakakakaka!! Gugugugugung!!
There were no screams.
Pirates caught by the primary shockwave were shredded into fine red mist. Those farther out raised weapons against the pale wall of foam rushing toward them and were pulverized along with their steel, becoming nothing more than fish food for the Yangtze.
The few who had been distant enough to survive the initial blast suffered a worse fate. Superheated steam, born of the enormous heat and pressure, chased after the shockwave and boiled them alive.
Every attempt at defense or flight was futile thrashing. Shockwaves travel farther and faster through water than through air; water's greater density means far less attenuation. An explosion of identical size therefore claims a vastly larger kill zone underwater—which meant that no matter how desperately the pirates swam, there was no escape from this wave of death.
Kugugugung…!
Even standing on the deck, they felt the ship shudder.
Pukwaaaaa!!
The bubble jet finally breached the surface, met the open air, and collapsed. Water rushed in like a ravenous beast to fill the void; the collision of those masses produced a thunderous roar of pure inertia and hurled a towering column of water skyward.
Dozens of such columns erupted all around the merchant ship.
In the space of a heartbeat the Yangtze turned scarlet.
Hudududuk—!!
The water columns collapsed. A rain of bloody spray hammered the deck. Looking at the shreds of flesh mixed into that crimson deluge, Dang Su-jeong found her gaze drawn, almost against her will, to Hwiyeom.
Even she—accustomed to killing and being killed—could only stare in horror at the weapon's sheer atrocity.
"What in heaven's name did you create…?"
Her understanding of life-and-death combat had already shifted some time ago. When she had used Dangroe to crush the Jeokha Sword Ghost, when she had stood with the Hagyeongchong and forced the Jeomchang Sect's successor to yield, she had already discarded the old notion that warriors must settle everything with polished martial arts alone.
This, however, felt like something that went further still.
Power of this magnitude was no longer mere throwing arts. It rivaled the sword qi of a Transcendental Peak master—perhaps even the Gangqi wielded by those who had reached the Realm of Transformation.
Hwiyeom, still lobbing Cheon-gyeong-suroe over the rail, answered without looking up.
"Power, Aunt."
"Power?"
"Yes. Overwhelming power that will make every soul under heaven think twice before casting greedy eyes on the Dang Family."
Kuaang!!
The ship heaved. The river itself seemed to writhe, as if the riverbed were shaking.
Standing on the pitching deck, Hwiyeom fixed the blood-red water with eyes cold as winter steel.
"This is only the beginning. For the Dang Family I will create things far greater than this."
A shudder ran through Su-jeong.
Was it joy—that such a ruthless genius was the future of their house? Or was it fear of the even more terrible weapons this boy would one day forge?
She asked before she could stop herself.
"Why go so far?"
"Because I don't want to fight."
Hwiyeom wiped the blood-rain from his face.
"Peace requires power. We need strength so absolute that no one dares challenge our family. That is all."
"The way of the hegemon, then. Planning to become emperor?"
It was the sort of remark that could get a person executed, but the only people aboard were of the Dang Family, and every last one of them was busy fighting. Only Hwiyeom and Dang Su-jeong heard the words.
"Hardly."
Hwiyeom smiled.
"I have no desire to waste an entire lifetime waging wars of conquest just to seize the vast Central Plains. Life is short enough already when you try to build every business you've sketched out in your head."
"…That is so very like you."
At last Su-jeong's frozen expression softened into a smile.
"Since you are so diligent in your duty as young family head, I suppose I should be equally diligent as your bodyguard."
"Please do. Look—some guests without a shred of tact are rushing over."
Where Hwiyeom's finger pointed, small fast boats that had been hiding behind the reed beds now charged forward like sharks scenting blood.
Jiaolong Stronghold Leader Lee Chae-jun kept driving his men forward even after witnessing the monstrous power of the Cheon-gyeong-suroe for one simple reason: he had no clear picture of what was happening beneath the surface, and therefore could not grasp just how lethal the weapon truly was.
Of course, the river turning to blood in an instant and the columns of water flinging shards of bone and meat in every direction gave him a rough idea. The problem was that "imagined power" and "actual power" are worlds apart.
Worse, because he could not see underwater, he still believed that at least some of the diving teams must have reached the ship's hull by now and begun boring holes.
"Close in! Loose arrows, throw grappling hooks! Hurl spears into her flanks—punch holes! Keep them too busy above to notice what's happening below their feet! Even the Dang Family loses if the ship goes down!"
"Boss—Boss, it's suicide! Just let them go!"
One terrified subordinate shouted the words. Lee Chae-jun cut the man's head off without a second thought and held it high.
"No retreat! Anyone who falls back loses his head to me personally! The Provincial Military Commander of Hubei put us up to this! If we back down now, the next thing that hits our stronghold will be the imperial army itself!
"Which do you prefer—fighting the regular army, or punching a few holes in the bottom of that ship?! Push them!"
Too many men had already died. If this assault failed, Lee Chae-jun's head would roll—figuratively as stronghold leader, and quite literally as well. In the underworld, the odds of the second outcome were roughly nine in ten.
So he had no choice but to feed his own men into the meat grinder while spouting words he himself no longer believed—exactly like a gambler who swears he will walk away after just one more win.
Cold sweat poured down his back.
What the hell is this? Martial arts? Or some kind of weapon?
Every time the Dang Family warriors hurled those long cylindrical objects into the water, another water column erupted. He could not see the slaughter below, but the blood and flesh raining down with the spray told him nothing pleasant was happening down there.
And Lee Chae-jun had seen something similar once before.
Back when he was still a green foot-soldier, a river stronghold had made the mistake of harassing a Shaolin monk who was simply trying to cross the Yangtze. The problem was that the monk already ranked among the top of the Ten Great Masters of the age—the Thousand-Handed Living Buddha, Hyeondeok Daesa.
An even bigger problem was that a man nicknamed "Living Buddha" still possessed palm Gangqi so vicious it could shatter boats. Floating on a tiny skiff, the master had simply risen into the air and flung his energy downward. The Gangqi had plunged beneath the surface and detonated, producing water columns exactly like these.
Hududuk!
Lee Chae-jun tore a scrap of someone else's flesh off his own cheek and screamed in near-hysteria.
"Board them! Just get close! They can't attack their own feet!"
That was not the only problem, however.
Each fighter had been issued only five Cheon-gyeong-suroe, and they had burned through the stockpile far too quickly in the opening volleys, never expecting so many enemies to come swarming at once.
Second, once the fast boats closed in on the surface, the Dang Family could no longer ignore the threat above the waterline either.
The leader of the Hwamangdae poured internal energy into his voice and roared,
"Conserve the Cheon-gyeong-suroe—throw Haeseong instead! Hwamangdae! Execute Hour of Timely Rain!"
"Yes, sir!"
"A good rain knows its season." The technique, named after Du Fu's poem, was the Hwamangdae's signature throwing art: a dense net of hidden weapons flung in every direction like a sudden downpour.
The internal energy riding each projectile was modest, but every needle and scrap of metal had been coated with Manneunggo saturated with the Dang Family's special poison gas.
"Aagh!"
"Keuhk!"
"Glllurk?!"
How skilled could river pirates truly be? And even among the skilled, how many possessed the mastery to bat aside every tiny needle or to raise Hosin-ganggi strong enough to stop them all?
Pirates struck by the rain of metal staggered, then frothed pink foam from nose and mouth, clawed at empty air, clutched their chests, and toppled into the river. Had the fight been on solid ground they might at least have worn heavy armor; no one boarding for a river battle was stupid enough to wear plate.
"Into the water! Dive!"
They leapt from their boats—
Puffuffuffung!!
—and became fresh prey for the last of the Cheon-gyeong-suroe.
But the mines were not infinite. In fact they were dangerously few. Exactly as Lee Chae-jun had hoped, a handful of pirates finally managed to cling to the underside of the merchant ship.
You're all dead now!
One pirate ground his teeth in vengeful fury and stabbed his short spear into the hull with all his strength. After several thrusts he felt the thick planking give way—
Kaaang!!
The jarring impact that ran up his wrist made him grin.
Steel cargo in the lower hold, is it? Fine. She'll still sink.
Plenty of other pirates were already boring holes alongside him. Once water started pouring in, nothing could stop the ship from going down.
When she starts to list, even the Dang Family will be nothing but tigers tossed into a river!
(Tigers, of course, swim extremely well—but that was only one of the many facts the pirate did not know.)
He waited with a vicious smile for the deck above him to tilt. Then, suddenly, his expression went rigid.
Why… isn't the ship sinking?
Something was very, very wrong.