Chapter 226
Chapter 226
The Iron Emperor — Chapter 226
Chapter 71: I Am the Yeolje
"The enemy's offensive has been sealed off! Do not stop—keep climbing!"
The commander's voice urging on the soldiers storming the fortress carried clearly even through the screams and clashing steel. The troops climbing at the front knew the commander was right.
"Damn it!"
The problem was not a matter of right and wrong.
It was true that the North Roselin army's resistance had been minimal thanks to the high command's strategy. But minimal resistance was still resistance, not the complete absence of it, and more importantly, even minimal resistance unquestionably meant soldiers were dying.
Thwack!
"Aagh!"
With a long scream, a man's head was crushed and he plummeted below the fortress wall. It would have been better if any part of his body had at least caught on the net, but as luck would have it, he screamed the whole way down and slammed straight into the ground.
That was already the fourth.
Marcus, a South Roselin soldier climbing the net, had neither tears nor time to spare for his fallen comrade. Unless a man had spare lives, how could he afford to look anywhere else in a situation like this?
"Do not flinch! Climbing is your only way to live!"
Clinging to the net as he climbed, Marcus cursed inwardly through clenched teeth.
'Fuck.'
Marcus himself had definitely been a soldier who volunteered for this war. But volunteering did not mean his life was worthless. He wanted to take revenge on North Roselin for murdering his relatives, survive the war no matter what, and use the state's compensation money to start a business.
"Those damned bastards are safe themselves, is that it...?"
Someone had to get over the wall no matter what, but the amplified shouts from below still made Marcus want to curse them.
The message was simply to fight hard, but to Marcus—watching soldiers scream and fall to their deaths all around him—it sounded like an order to climb up and die. That was not what they meant, of course, but in a life-or-death situation like this, who would not curse even a king?
"Hurry it up, get on up there!"
"Fuck, I'm climbing, ain't I!"
At the urging from below, Marcus let loose a stream of profanity.
"What's that, where? You say fuck?"
"Keuk, you're going to live a long life, sir."
"Puhahaha!"
Strange accents drifted up from below Marcus, and he could even hear laughter.
They were definitely madmen.
"Son of a bitch! Get on up here before I split your ass in two!"
At the curse that erupted from directly beneath him, Marcus—despite the threats of tumbling stones and arrows—turned his head downward and shouted at the lunatics who had hurled profanity at him.
"Hey, you! Crazy— I obey your command!"
...After shouting his answer, Marcus began scrambling upward like a madman. If ever there was a time to say someone climbed as if he could fly, this was it. Moving his hands and feet like a man possessed, he wondered whether what he had just seen was a hallucination.
'I'm... dead.'
The men in his sight were unmistakably Gauri commanders. And the first person he had seen—was that not the Yeolje of Gauri in the red cloak?
Only then did Marcus feel the heat at his back, accompanied by a tremendous roar of voices.
"Uwaaaaah!"
As the enormous war cry shook the ramparts, Duke Palsieon, issuing commands from the watchtower, furrowed his brow. With his side already being pushed back, the enemy's morale rising even higher was the last thing he wanted as a commander.
Enemies were already swarming onto the walls in several places and fierce melees had broken out. They were still holding because the alliance's earlier offensives had not been intended to inflict heavy casualties. Even so, if they were pushed back now, defeat was certain.
As if having made some resolve, Duke Palsieon threw himself forward.
"Your Grace, it's dangerous!"
When Duke Palsieon left the watchtower and dashed toward the ramparts, his escort knights followed behind him even as they tried to dissuade him.
They understood that what Duke Palsieon was doing now was to raise the morale of his own troops, but the risks he would have to shoulder for it were too great.
"Haap!"
With a tremendous shout, Duke Palsieon cut down two soldiers who had climbed onto the rampart at once.
"The Duke has come!"
"Waaah!"
Centered on the splendidly armored Duke Palsieon, his escort knights rushed in one after another and began clearing the melee. Even so, the allied forces' war cry only grew louder.
"What in the world...."
Though the ones falling from the wall as if being swept away were unmistakably allied troops of Gauri and South Roselin, the fact that their morale was rising instead was clearly abnormal.
KABOOM!
"Kuaaagh!"
"What the hell!"
A deafening roar cut through the uproar of battle, and every eye naturally turned toward it.
BOOM!
At yet another thunderous crash, Duke Palsieon, the supreme commander of North Roselin, who had turned his head, felt a cold chill run down his spine. An axe the size of a human torso, after smashing through the fortress wall without losing force, had soared up and embedded itself into the very watchtower where he had been standing only moments before.
No human could have done that.
"Monsters!"
"Shattering boulders with bare hands!"
The soldiers hurling rocks were thrown into utter panic.
"Bare hands...?"
Sensing something ominous, Duke Palsieon shook off his knights' dissuasion and leaned out past the fortress wall to examine the source of the commotion.
"That is...."
Men covered head to toe in magnificent armor, waving crimson banners, were climbing upward as if flying onto the wall. Moreover, a massive dwarf was continuously shattering boulders with his fists as he followed behind those men, and the rest trailing behind them were also batting aside every incoming arrow with dazzling movements.
"No way...."
The staff officers beside Duke Palsieon exclaimed in disbelief. The man in the red cloak climbing at the very front was unmistakably someone they all knew.
How could they not know?
That man was none other than the enemy king, the Yeolje of Gauri.
"An enemy stratagem!"
Duke Palsieon concluded as much.
Only now did he understand the enemy's war cries and soaring morale. Presuming that this was someone disguised as the Yeolje and climbing up precisely to achieve that effect, Duke Palsieon shouted to his subordinate knights.
"They must not be allowed up! Kill them without fail!"
Issuing the order, Duke Palsieon gritted his teeth. If they could kill those men, their own morale would rise in turn. He could not understand why the enemy, despite holding the advantage, would employ a double-edged plan—no, one so likely to fail.
"Surely not."
For a moment, Duke Palsieon wondered whether it really might be the Yeolje, then smiled bitterly without realizing it.
* * *
"Guaaaaaagh!"
From below they pushed and shoved, and from above boulders and the like poured down....
The phrase caught between a rock and a hard place might have been coined for this situation. But for Marcus, the only thing he could do was scream like a madman and move his hands and feet as fast as possible.
Another house-sized boulder came tumbling down, but whether by coincidence or luck it brushed past him and fell. One thing was certain: the enemy's attacks were raining down on Marcus—or, more precisely, on Go Jin-cheon and his commanders forcing their way up from beneath him.
"Kill them!"
"Kill them for certain before they climb up!"
Blades bristling with killing intent leveled themselves before Marcus. With those grim faces above him and nowhere to go, he kept climbing in despair, unable to move either forward or back.
"Pour the boiling oil!"
"Keuheok!"
He could see a large oil jar being carried toward him from one side. Which meant....
"I'm... almost there!"
Marcus had now realized it.
That he had nearly climbed all the way to the top....
Of course, spearheads were aimed at him from above, but if things went well, there was at least a chance he could avoid being doused in boiling oil.
"Move the oil jar faster!"
But as if mocking Marcus's hopes, the oil jar was coming toward him even faster.
CRASH!
"Kuaagh!"
"Get out of the way!"
An arrow that had flown in from somewhere pierced through the soldiers carrying the oil jar, and the boiling oil being transported spilled downward into the fortress, pouring instead onto the North Roselin troops.
"Phew."
As he breathed out in relief, black shadows shot past him as if flying.
A crimson cloak, fluttering as though it would conceal the sky, cast its shadow over Marcus's face and swept past him upward. Seeing it, Marcus felt a strange emotion alongside his relief.
* * *
"Truly... magnificent!"
King Alsein kept exclaiming in admiration. But Eulji Uru, the object of that admiration, silently nocked another arrow and fixed his gaze on the top of the fortress wall. Another arrow flew through the air.
"Good."
Lowering his bow slowly, Uru smiled.
With the help of a wizard, King Alsein was just barely able to confirm the trajectory of the arrow Uru had sent flying.
His near-divine archery had gone beyond astonishing—it inspired something close to faith. There seemed to be nothing he could not hit once he chose a target. Remaining in the rear, he devoted himself to covering the assault by eliminating threats before they could develop.
* * *
"Damn it all!"
In a fleeting instant.
In the end, the situation they had feared came to pass.
The moment the magnificently armored group set foot on the fortress wall, a massive war cry erupted on all sides, and the morale of the Gauri–South Roselin allied army seemed to soar to the heavens.
Shing!
"Spare not a single one. Strike off their heads and hurl them outside the fortress."
"Yes!"
As Duke Palsieon drew his sword and shouted with eyes brimming with murderous intent, the knights around him, as if in complete accord, raised their swords to their chests and answered.
"Knights, follow me!"
"Uyaah!"
When Duke Palsieon shouted and strode forward, the knights arrayed nearby each let out a war cry and shot forth ferociously.
Go Jin-cheon wrapped his red cloak around the spear shafts thrusting at him and snapped them, then his Hwandudaedo carved a horizontal arc.
SLASH!
"Kuaagh!"
"D-don't fall back... keuheok!"
Where the Hwandudaedo had swept through, severed heads and fountains of blood erupted upward. One knight tried to rally the terrified soldiers, but Eulji Buru lunged in and a kick left the knight's face a bloody ruin.
Around the time a dozen or so soldiers were reduced to pulp and others met their deaths standing upright, impaled on spear shafts and unable to collapse, the Gauri commanders who had climbed up behind him took their places proudly around Jin-cheon.
"Mm."
Buru sidled up beside Jin-cheon, who was slowly surveying the top of the fortress wall as if he were out sightseeing despite the blood spraying everywhere, and began to chatter.
"Those bastards are just bristlin' with killing intent."
"Keung, you bastards, lower your eyes!"
Samdopyo seized on Buru's remark and bellowed. As if putting on a show of force, Gye Ung-sam and Buyeo Gi-yul adjusted their grips on their weapons while Mong Ryu-hwa stood before them, slowly twirling his spear.
"Eut-cha!"
"General Gowin, you are late."
Gowin, who had climbed up belatedly, stared with an incredulous expression at Jin-cheon and the Gauri commanders who had positioned themselves on a stretch of the fortress wall. They wore expressions as if they were savoring a long-missed excitement.
'But... somehow.'
Looking at them, Gowin unconsciously smiled and drew his sword, taking his place on one side.
'Somehow it stirs a strange excitement.'
In his mind, these men were the mightiest battle line.
They were not people who had risen to this point solely through bloodlines or political maneuvering, but pure warriors.
With the thunderous war cries at his back, Gowin found the enemy knights charging toward him almost welcome. Wrapped in that strange excitement, he heard a quiet but forceful command.
"The soldiers are watching. If you do not wish to become a laughingstock, handle yourselves accordingly."
"Keung!"
"Understood!"
And no sooner had Jin-cheon's words ended than they flung themselves toward the curtain of men rushing at them.