Natural Fortress — Midstream of the Valley of Sin
Bak Po-kwae.
Tasked with commanding the public-security detachment from the central government, he put the question to his junior officer.
"Night-duty roster finished?"
"Yes, sir. Clean and done."
The junior constable had just completed a full circuit of patrol and now dropped heavily into a seat inside the temporary command post on the government troops' side.
"Senior. Walking the rounds just now… it finally hit me."
"What did?"
Bak Po-kwae drew out two cigarettes, lit them from an oil lamp, and passed one over. The command post was under a night blackout order, so only the barest minimum of lamps had been set out.
"Ah—thanks." The junior took the smoke and answered through a long, savoring drag. "The fact that we're actually garrisoned inside the conquered Valley of Sin."
Bak Po-kwae let out a dry laugh and nodded.
"Yeah… strange business, isn't it."
The Valley of Sin's infamy had not been built in a day. There had been brief attempts by this or that administration to clean it up, but every effort to "normalize" the place had failed in the end.
"Senior—have you heard the rumor?"
"The one about this place becoming a holy ground of the Fairy Cult?"
"Yes. That one."
Thanks to it, the heavy-armed contingent from the House of Compassion, billeted alongside them, was in something close to festival spirits. Even the residents of this hellish slum looked visibly swollen with hope.
"This time… it might actually be possible. To make the Valley of Sin truly born again."
"Right?" The junior agreed. "Watching what the Grand Young Master of the Sword Family does—you start to feel Luoyang itself might really change."
The senior constable looked down into the gorge through a narrow window. Stone buildings raised in the style of the previous dynasty, layered over with the shanties of the poor, had grown into a landscape like a forest. On a night without moonlight like this one, that same chaotic, lawless, even terrifying sprawl somehow looked instead like the stubborn will of people determined to keep living.
"…Hope, is it?"
Beside him, the junior prattled on, half lost in the view.
"…The valley faces south, and you've got the Yellow River laid out below it. Perfect geomancy, I tell you. Once it's properly developed—"
He never finished the sentence. Bak Po-kwae had already shot up from his seat.
"A courier…?"
The junior rose after him and peered out the narrow window.
"It's one of the Fourth Young Master's martial artists!"
A government sentry on the rooftop lookout, recognizing the face, shouted the identification. The man with the courier's banner strapped to his back came hammering up the steep alley, gasping but never slowing.
"I come from Allied Command!"
Allied Command was the Grand Young Master's headquarters—the body that bound men of every affiliation under a single chain of orders.
"Urgent orders! Is the government-side commander present?!"
Urgent orders at this hour? The two constables exchanged a glance; then Bak Po-kwae called out.
"I'm Bak, in command of the government troops! What's happened?!"
The courier was in too much of a hurry even to verify him. He simply began shouting.
"Word from Hyeonwol Pavilion—suspicious movement spotted near the docks on the Yellow River side! They're confirming it now!"
"The Yellow River docks?"
A cool breeze moved through the valley; the place was almost unnaturally peaceful. Not even a neighborly quarrel broke the night. From here the Yellow River lay drowned in darkness, and the docks themselves were invisible.
"Which dock, exactly?"
"That isn't what matters!" The courier waved both hands. "Allied Command has ordered every unit to Level-One alert as of this moment! All command posts are to prepare for combat!"
Level-One alert. Prepare for combat. Bak Po-kwae did not need to think twice.
"Relay it to every man under arms—now!"
"Yes, sir!"
The junior jammed his helmet back on and bolted from the building.
And in that same instant—
Whether it was the thin whistle of something cutting the air that came first, or the world-upending concussion, or the distant boom, or the flash that flared through the narrow window from the direction of the Yellow River—Bak Po-kwae, for the fraction of a second before his mind went dark, could not tell them apart.
"…Senior! Senior!"
His junior's voice drifted in from far away.
"Open your eyes, damn it!"
Kid. Is a grown man crying? Bak Po-kwae thought, meaning to click his tongue—and his eyes snapped open.
"Kh—!"
The moment consciousness returned, pain detonated through his whole body. Whether it was broken ribs or the choking dust that filled the air, he could not draw a proper breath, and he could not tell which was worse.
"Wh-what the hell is—?!"
Through the swirling grit he could see the temporary command post he had just been standing in, half collapsed.
"Senior!"
He had only been out for an instant, it seemed.
"Aaagh—!"
"My leg—my leg!"
The area was thick with the screams and groans of government troops. The junior's face, clean only moments before, was a filthy mask of dust and sweat.
"Orders for the—response—!"
"Response… right. Response…"
Even as Bak Po-kwae muttered it and tried to force himself upright, a hand shoved him flat again.
"Everyone down! Take cover!"
The man pinning him shouted in a voice thick with deep internal qi, ringing like a temple bell.
"The next volley is coming!"
The next volley—?
KRA-KOOM—!
As if an enraged Indra were hurling thunder and lightning down upon the earth. A roar that tore at the eardrums. Even with that powerful hand holding him down, the ground bucked like an earthquake and his limbs jerked of their own accord.
"Aaaah—aaaah!"
"Mother…! Mother…!"
Clods of earth and gravel rained from the sky. The troops, lost to panic, clapped their hands over their ears and screamed.
"Get a hold of yourselves, you idiots!"
Even through it all, the voice of the man holding Bak Po-kwae down cut through with impossible clarity.
"This whole district is stone buildings! Take proper cover and you'll be fine unless a shell lands on your head!"
Those who recovered their wits began crawling, belly to the ground, into the lee of the stone walls.
"Direct hits? Cover?"
Bak Po-kwae finally grasped the situation.
"We're under artillery fire?"
Even under the barrage, the man somehow heard him and answered.
"Yes! Naval guns! Judging by the fall of shot, roughly from the Yellow River docks!"
In the middle of this he was still tracking the direction of fire? Bak Po-kwae looked properly, for the first time, at the man pinning him—protecting him. Shabby clothes, mismatched armor pieced together from who-knew-where. And, utterly out of place with the rest, a sword that was anything but ordinary.
"A martial artist of the War Advisory Corps…?"
"That's right!" The man actually managed a smile down at him. "Looks like your head's starting to work again!"
"Th-this is no time—"
Following the martial artist's lead, Bak Po-kwae tried once more to rise.
"If it's a bombardment, we need a dispersal order—!"
"Stay put!"
The War Advisory Corps man shoved him down again—and in that same heartbeat a shell struck at near range.
"The dispersal order's already gone out! Don't worry about it—just stay where you are!"
Still gripping Bak Po-kwae, the martial artist caught the junior constable's shoulder as the younger man lay pressed to the ground.
"I'll take command here! Get this officer to the rear—now!"
"Th-the rear where?!"
Even to that dazed question the martial artist answered patiently.
"Upstream, obviously! Get your head on straight!"
"Y-yes! Understood!"
The junior nodded and began hauling madly on Bak Po-kwae's armor.
"W-wait—! I can walk—!"
"Senior! Your head is split open and you're pouring blood! Just stay still!"
Dragging him between the alleys with every scrap of internal strength he had, the junior's shout finally made Bak Po-kwae stop fighting.
My head's split open?
Come to think of it, one side of his vision was a red smear, and a warm, sticky liquid was running down his face and onto his body.
Is my skull cracked?
"Casualty over here!"
"Pull him! Watch his head!"
Several men nearby rushed in to help haul him.
"Listen up, all of you!"
The War Advisory Corps martial artist's voice reached Bak Po-kwae's ear.
"When this barrage ends, we fall back as one and re-form in the rear! Rally point is—!"
They said the War Advisory Corps had seen every kind of battle across the Central Plains, large and small. His handling of artillery fire, and the orders he gave, were every bit as practiced as the reputation claimed.
KRA-KRA-KOOM!
Neck cradled, shoulders held, Bak Po-kwae was dragged along—and the valley filled his field of view.
KRA-KOOM!
KRAAANG!
The shells coming out of the dark could barely be seen at all. But every time one burst, the earth itself shook. Buildings crumpled here and there. Smoke rose as if fires had caught.
Artillery fire—in the middle of Luoyang.
"M-mad bastards…"
Bak Po-kwae lost consciousness.
Somewhere near a pier on the Yellow River.
The surprise bombardment was proceeding smoothly enough—yet the faces of the Second Young Master's people watching it were far from bright.
"Are we actually hitting anything?" one of the elders demanded of an officer of the Bloodsail Fleet, the pirate mercenaries. "It doesn't look like much is coming of it."
At the oddly sharp question, the Bloodsail officer only shrugged.
"The whole district sits on stone foundations. What do you want us to do about that?" He chewed a strip of dried meat and stared out the window toward the Valley of Sin. "Stone buildings, and they issued a dispersal order almost at once—everyone's already scattered. Watching them fall back on the intervals between barrages… looks like they're regrouping upstream." He made an interested little hum through his nose. "Seems they've got proper war specialists over there too."
His casual tone was more than the elder could bear.
"How can you be so damn calm?! Then what was the point of the insane risk of firing artillery inside Luoyang itself?!"
Anyone tied to the Luoyang Yeon Family—or to Luoyang at all—might have trembled under the elder's murderous aura. The pirate mercenary of Sapaecheon showed not a flicker of fear.
"We've already smashed most of the military and industrial strongpoints we marked in advance—including their operations headquarters, haven't we? The main landing force should be nearing the valley mouth about now. If you're that unhappy about it, why not go lend them those old hands of yours?"
"What did you just—?!"
The elder started to seize the pirate officer by the collar. Elder Hahu's quiet voice stopped him cold.
"No need for us. There are plenty of hands to spare."
Every gaze turned to the window.
"What is that…?"
The elder who had been reaching for the pirate's throat went wide-eyed.
"…An enormous host."
The elders who came to the window wore stricken faces.
"What are you standing around for?! Scared of a little gunfire, you bastards?!"
Clothes of every cut and color, nothing like a uniform. Weapons just as mismatched. Dozens spilled from an alley—and on the main thoroughfare beyond, hundreds were already on the move.
"Move—now!"
"You planning to let someone else steal every scrap of glory?!"
The bellows were almost drowned under the sheer volume of bodies pouring through the streets of Luoyang.
"Fuck—who the hell set the fires?!"
"You lunatics! I said just hit them and grab what you can—!"
Looting, arson, murder. Every shop along their path was stripped bare, and in place after place fighting broke out with the guards who tried to hold the doors.
Inside one large storefront—
"Where are the government troops?! Why aren't there any government troops?!"
Men had jammed a massive display cabinet across the entrance as a barricade.
"Shit!" A martial artist of the shop guard, throwing everything into holding the door, shouted to his partner. "They're underworld—but which outfit?!"
The man who had looked outside and come back to throw his weight against the barricade yelled the answer.
"Severed Finger Society, Armor-Destroying Gate, Five Dragon Branch, Luoyang Mountain-Sea League, Ma Family Six Forests—!"
The first guard screamed as his partner rattled off the names of Luoyang's underworld factions.
"Which of them, damn it?!"
His partner screamed back just as hard.
"All of them! All of them!"
The color drained from the first man's face.
"All of them…?"
His partner shoved with every ounce of internal strength and the full weight of his body, still shouting.
"That's only the ones I can even recognize! Practically the entire underworld of Luoyang is pouring—!"
Crash!
However many underworld fighters had been driving the barricade from the far side, both martial artists went down under it and did not get up.
"Go on—strip the place!"
Like rats fleeing an earthquake, the underworld ranks poured into the shop. Yet even that kind of freelancing barely slowed the greater mass. Their numbers were simply that vast.
The apex of the organizations that ruled Luoyang's underworld.
The Council of Six.
At their general mobilization order, the whole of Luoyang's dark side was on the move.
Their target was one, and only one.
The Valley of Sin.