Chapter 256
Chapter 256
The Iron Emperor — Chapter 256
Riiiip!
Thud!
"Guuaaaagh!"
A shout that shook the air in every direction, the sound of something being torn clean off, and a long, drawn-out scream like flesh rending all fused together.
Boom!
"Hrrgk! Hrrgh... p-please, someone hel...."
"Hyiik!"
The soldiers who had been watching the scene recoiled, dodging the Avilrun who came flying toward them. But what horrified them was the sight of the man writhing on the ground, clutching his bloodied scalp.
"Hrrgh... s-save...."
He had been seized by the hair and hurled, and the force had torn out every strand that was caught. Yet as if the overwhelming terror had numbed him to the pain, he lay curled up face-down, reflexively begging for his life. The wretchedness of it left everyone frozen—no one stepped forward and no one stopped it.
Flick. Flick.
Dupyo brushed the hair from his grip with a few quick shakes, as though discarding something filthy, and slowly approached. Already in his hand was the ink-black iron staff that had become nothing less than his emblem.
"I'll shatter every bone in your body."
Giyul scanned his surroundings.
Terror was etched into the soldiers' faces. Fear could dominate a group, but in the end it only produced puppets that moved as they were commanded. Still, he could not fault Dupyo's actions right now.
Because it was obvious that if they did not handle it like this, even greater discontent would erupt and create a rupture too severe to control.
"What is going on here?!"
Dupyo, who had raised the black staff over the trembling Avilrun, turned his head. There stood Mong Ryu-hwa, pushing through the soldiers as he approached.
"Tch. Just caught myself one son of a bitch."
Someone spoke coldly. Ryu-hwa took in the surroundings, and as he listened to Giyul's whisper, he sighed with a complicated expression. The situation they had all feared was beginning to unfold.
"Dupyo, hold on a...."
Whatever the case, he could not stop Dupyo in the current situation. If a subordinate commander was seen giving orders to a general who led a large force, control over the soldiers could grow ambiguous. So he had cautiously approached Dupyo and delivered the whisper.
Dupyo's eyes flew wide open as he listened to Ryu-hwa's words.
"Is that true?"
"I’ve been worried someone like this would show up."
As he answered Dupyo's question, Ryu-hwa cast a contemptuous gaze at the trembling Avilrun.
"What's going on?"
Giyul wore a curious expression at the two men's reactions. Ryu-hwa moved over to him and conveyed something. Giyul nodded, his face showing agreement.
"Well, seeing it once for yourself is worth a hundred explanations. Once they see that, no one will be able to spout that kind of garbage."
"Hiiik! Please spare me!"
When Giyul muttered and nudged the face-down, trembling Avilrun with the tip of his foot, the man shook even harder and screamed. Dupyo's face twisted briefly at the sight; he slung the black staff behind his shoulder and looked around.
"Ahem."
As Dupyo's eyes swept the area, the soldiers who met his gaze flinched and shrank back. Fear was dominating them. Dupyo's face contorted further.
"Damn it! Every last one of them."
"Forget it. Can't be helped."
At Dupyo's displeased tone, Giyul clapped him on the shoulder and offered some consolation. Ryu-hwa, who had drawn near, tilted his head and asked.
"Let's weed them out."
At the word "weed out," the soldiers who had been exchanging words with Avilrun flinched. As if their alarm meant nothing to him, Giyul slowly began to speak in Dupyo's stead, whose rage had not yet fully subsided.
"Anyone who has never fought a battle alongside us in the previous war, raise your hand."
At Giyul's words, the soldiers hesitated, then began raising their hands one by one. At the sight, Dupyo swung the black staff again.
Crash!
"Damn it! Look alive!"
"Hiiik!"
Met with his monstrous strength that caved in the earth and a voice that boomed like thunder, the hands of the hesitant soldiers shot up toward the sky like lightning. At the sight, Ryu-hwa let out a snicker and began sorting them out one by one.
"From now on, anyone I point to steps out to the side. You, and you. You too, you bastard! Don't turn around pretending it's not you!"
"Y-yes, sir!"
A soldier who had been glancing behind him as if Ryu-hwa wasn't pointing at him scurried out at his bellow. Ryu-hwa clicked his tongue.
"There's always one of those bastards."
"Pretty sure I had one among my cohort too."
"Heh heh heh."
"......."
His two comrades immediately joined in on Ryu-hwa's remark. Ryu-hwa glared briefly at Dupyo and Giyul, then resumed pointing out a few more soldiers and pulling them out.
"This should be enough."
"Ah, Nel. You come along too."
"Me as well, sir?"
"Yes."
When Giyul singled out Nel and pulled him forward, a glimmer of hope rose in the eyes of the soldiers who had been standing by. Giyul pulled out a few more veterans who had carried out the war together with them, then turned his head toward Ryu-hwa.
"They think they're all being hauled off to die. And the rest of the troops are just as uneasy, so this way is better."
"True enough. Then the rest of you, all of you follow us."
"Yes, sir!"
At Ryu-hwa's words, the twenty-odd soldiers standing off to the side realized that at least they were not being led to their deaths, and answered in a booming voice.
"Tch. You little rat. You're coming too."
"Hik!"
Dupyo grabbed Avilrun by the back of the neck as he lay face-down, stealing glances around him. Ashen-faced, Avilrun was dragged along like a dog in Dupyo's grip, being moved somewhere along with the formation. The soldiers left behind watched them go with an equal mix of unease and curiosity.
Following behind Mong Ryu-hwa, Samdopyo and Buyeo Giyul were trailed by twenty-odd bewildered soldiers. They rode part of the way from the training ground in wagons, then continued on foot. At last the Yeolje Palace appeared before them.
Having escaped Dupyo's terror to some degree, Avilrun trudged forward painfully, now aware of the aching in his head and body. And yet there was no hope in his face. He knew what he had done and how furious Dupyo was. In a way, it was strange that he was still breathing. A situation where dying on the spot would have been entirely unremarkable.
"Salute!"
"Good. Keep up the hard work."
Ryu-hwa accepted the salute of the commander guarding the entrance and clapped him on the shoulder as he passed. The soldiers who wordlessly followed could not hide their confusion when they realized their destination was the Yeolje Palace.
'Just why?'
'No idea.'
They likely thought they were whispering among themselves, but every last murmur reached the ears of Ryu-hwa, Giyul, and Dupyo. Yet perhaps feeling no need to speak, they merely focused on putting one foot in front of the other.
BOOM—BOOM—BOOM!
Crrrack!
At the thunderous sounds echoing from somewhere, the soldiers began pricking up their ears one after another. The place they had entered was the Yeolje Palace, but instead of walking toward the Imperial Hall, they were circling around toward the rear.
And the booming grew steadily louder.
"Everyone, keep quiet!"
When their puzzled murmuring began to rise a bit too audibly, Ryu-hwa issued a low warning. Then, after walking along the inner palace wall and emerging past the enclosure, he stopped.
"That...."
Having arrived at the wide-open training ground reserved for the Yeolje, which unfolded behind Ryu-hwa, the soldiers let out what could only be called a single collective cry—almost a scream—as though they had forgotten the order from moments before.
They saw it.
* * *
Despite the commotion earlier that day, the training that resumed was brutal. The training instructors stressed combat as real as the battlefield and pushed the troops to their limits without restraint.
'What on earth happened over there?'
And yet, the eyes of the soldiers training were filled with curiosity. Ever since the troops who had been led off under Mong Ryu-hwa's command returned, they had all kept their silence. Even stranger was the attitude they brought back to the training.
"Hyaaah!"
They looked just as exhausted, but something about them was unmistakably different. Soldiers who had previously been dragged through training against their will were now throwing themselves into it with fierce determination, grinding their teeth and burning with intensity.
It was only a little over twenty men, but after they returned, the atmosphere of the training had transformed entirely. The soldier named Avilrun—who had been hauled off by the scruff of his neck by Dupyo—did not return.
These questions burned in their minds, yet no one dared to voice them. The punishing training left no room for casual questions; more precisely, the intensity radiating from those who had returned kept anyone from asking.
'What happened to change them all like that? And Avilrun, who didn't come back....'
It was the question consuming the minds of the overwhelming majority of the soldiers.
"Brief rest!"
"Rest!"
At the training instructors' shouts, the soldiers echoed the command and sprawled where they stood. Yet a handful of soldiers kept gripping their weapons and trying to move. They were the very soldiers from earlier.
"You lot rest too. Resting properly is part of training."
"......Understood."
The one to suppress their fervor was Buyeo Giyul. At his calm words, Nel and the other soldiers slumped to the ground. As Giyul withdrew, the soldiers began swarming around them.
"Hey, just what in the world happened?"
"Say something, I'm dying of curiosity here."
"Uh, Nel, what happened? And what about Avilrun? Did he... die...?"
A barrage of questions poured out. The last one—the question of whether Avilrun had died—was enough to seize everyone's attention.
"Hrghk."
"Huh? What's wrong with you?"
"Hrghk, hrghk."
The sound of a soldier sobbing, his shoulders heaving. This was unmistakably the man who had tried to stop Avilrun's grumbling. At his sudden tears, the soldiers had no choice but to halt their questions.
"Uwaaaahhh!"
The tears burst forth as if a dam had broken.
The weeping of a sturdy man is not something easily witnessed. As the soldiers faltered in the face of that violent, grief-laden sobbing, Nel, who had been sitting to the side, slowly began to speak.
"We still have so far to go...."
Tears welled at the corners of Nel's eyes and spilled over.
"What we saw... was a battlefield...."
Nel's solemn voice carried the gathered soldiers back to the place they had stood earlier that day.
BOOM—BOOM—KABOOM!
A thunderous roar resounded.
"Hraaap!"
A voice that tore the very air apart shook the hearts of the soldiers who had set foot in the training ground.
Thump.
One soldier's legs gave out and he sank to the ground, his mouth agape. But no one said a word to him. Every single pair of eyes was fixed on just one place.
Go Jin-cheon.
At the endpoint of the soldiers' gazes, he stood.
"Hooooh."
Jin-cheon let out a long breath.
Whoosh!
The instant his breathing halted, his form shot forward like a flash of lightning. Before him, Eulji Buru charged in swinging his great axe, and at his side, Gye Ung-sam's long sword was arcing in to sever Jin-cheon's leg.
"Gasp!"
A short cry rose from the soldiers. Jin-cheon's two legs had been cut off by Ung-sam's long sword.
"Hup!"
Ultra-swift.
A short exhalation of focused effort.
But what had been cut was nothing more than shadow. Jin-cheon's legs were already folded into the empty air. That did not mean he had leaped upward. With his legs still tucked, Jin-cheon shot forward; his Hwandudaedo and Buru's great axe collided with a deafening crash.
"Urgh!"
"Hraaahp!"