Remaining Life and the Dawn
Near Shenyang’s northern gate, in a nameless alley.
The Mount Hua Sect’s vanguard.
What remained of them ran for their lives.
Splorch. Splorch.
Even the profound inner energy rooted in the Jahasingong—the Purple Sunset Divine Art—had been scraped nearly to the bottom.
Their movement art, Dark Fragrance Drift, once swift beyond compare and elegant beyond measure, now barely answered their call.
Splorch. Splorch.
Rain had turned the alley into a mire that clung to their feet like a living swamp.
“There…!”
They lacked even the strength for proper sound transmission, yet the faces of the second-generation disciples leading the way lit up all the same.
“The northern gate is in sight!”
The first-generation disciple carrying Mount Hua Sword Dragon Gam Woo-hyeon on his back shouted the words.
“The enemy?! Any enemy forces visible?!”
The disciple who had craned his neck to observe the gate answered at once.
“None! It’s empty!”
The northern gate lay opposite the southern gate through which the Mount Hua vanguard had first entered Shenyang the day before. They had gambled that the fighting would leave it unguarded. The gamble had proven excellent.
“Good!”
The Eldest Young Master’s side, short on manpower, could never have properly secured a gate so far from the main battle.
“Everyone, hurry!”
They plunged back into the alleys. The thought of taking the main roads never even crossed their minds. Snipers loyal to the Eldest Young Master could be anywhere, and a single wound that slowed them now would be the end.
“This is the last alley!”
The gate itself was only a stone’s throw away.
The first-generation disciple pushed past the second-generation disciples who stood leaning in a ragged line against the alley mouth and edged up to the corner.
“Any pursuers?”
The disciple lying flat at the corner, head craned toward the thoroughfare, shook his head.
“None observed.”
“…Good.”
The second-generation disciples’ faces brightened further at the report. The first-generation disciple’s did not.
It was not the memory of using the Wudang vanguard as bait that weighed on him—the Wudang men had never intended a pure rescue of honor. They had meant to place Mount Hua under heavy debt and outshine them in the war. At a moment when each man’s survival came first, there was no need to feel guilt toward Wudang.
“…We go out in order, one group at a time.”
He hesitated, then finally spoke.
“The order is—”
He could not bring himself to look the disciples in the face as he gave the command.
“I take the lead.”
Silence held for a breath. Then the second-generation disciples nodded.
“…Leave it to us.”
“We will get the two of you out, no matter what.”
They were little better than walking wrecks. Looking into those faces, he found he could not even shape the word thank you.
“…Thank you.”
He loosened the cords that bound Gam Woo-hyeon, then retied the Sword Dragon firmly across his own chest and stepped to the mouth of the alley.
“On my signal, we run.”
“Three.”
Unlike the others, he was a first-generation disciple; he still had a thin thread of inner energy left to draw upon.
“Two.”
Gulp.
Someone’s dry swallow sounded loud in the hush.
“One.”
Thump!
Inner energy flooded his soles. His body shot from the earth toward the northern gate.
The instant he burst onto the thoroughfare, the small postern gate beside the main portal came into view—meant for a handful of people at most.
“Go!”
“Run! Run!”
He knew the second-generation disciples were pouring every last scrap of strength into following him, yet he never looked back. He simply ran for the postern.
Because—
Bang!
“Sniper!”
—even if he himself had been the Eldest Young Master, he would have stationed at least one marksman covering the northern approach.
Thud!
Behind him came the sound of a second-generation disciple, momentum unbroken, slamming into the mud and rolling several times—already dead.
“Keep running! Don’t stop!”
“Don’t look back!”
Bang!
Another went down.
Was it more than one rifle? More than one shooter? The interval between shots was mercilessly short.
Bang!
Those still squeezing out the last dregs of inner energy to keep their movement arts alive could not even attempt to bat the bullets aside. All they could do was pray the muzzle was not trained on them and keep running.
Bang!
“Guh…!”
The man running immediately behind the first-generation disciple, shielding both him and Gam Woo-hyeon, collapsed. The others clenched their teeth and vaulted over the body as it flopped roughly across the ground.
“Block it!”
“Make a wall!”
They filled the gap without a second’s hesitation.
Bang!
The sniper hunted the first-generation disciple and the man he carried with obsessive precision. The second-generation disciples hurled their own bodies into the path of every round.
Bang!
Shenyang, toward the collapsed wall.
Steel Dragon Fang Baek Cheong ran.
“Kraaah…!”
The screams of Wudang disciples reached him, yet he kept running.
“Hahahaha!”
The nightmare laughter of Heavenly Seamless Robe Yeon Seo-rin as she butchered disciples rolled after him, yet he never looked back.
Flee.
The sound transmission of Hyeonhyeon-ja Baek Cho Jin-in still echoed in his ears.
You must live.
So he had to live. Survive, escape, no matter what.
“Kh…!”
How long had he run? Hot tears streaked his face when he spotted a force moving in hurried retreat.
“(—! )”
“(—! )”
They shouted in an unintelligible northern tongue—neutral tribal confederation troops falling back. They showed no will to fight; they were simply leaving Shenyang.
“You lot…!”
His eyes rolled white with fury. In a single bound Steel Dragon Fang Baek Cheong crashed into their midst and seized the man who looked like the field commander by the throat.
“(Wh-what?! )”
“You bastards!”
The startled officer kicked and thrashed, but dangling in midair he had no hope of breaking free of Baek Cheong’s grip.
“Why the hell are you retreating without even putting up a proper fight?!”
Steel Dragon Fang’s roar shook the air.
“If you had only fought as you should have…!”
Had they fought properly, the government troops under the Eldest Young Master would have been driven back. Mount Hua would never have abandoned Wudang to scramble for individual survival. And perhaps—just perhaps—the Eldest Young Master, short-handed as he was, would never have come after the Wudang vanguard at all.
“You…! You…!”
He knew he had no time for this, yet he could not stop.
“(There! Look there! )”
The field commander pointed frantically in the northern tongue. Baek Cheong turned his head.
Toward the collapsed wall. Toward the rearguard of the neutral tribal confederation, the men who still held the siege engines—
“That is…?!”
Baek Cheong’s eyes flew wide; his grip went slack without his noticing.
Beyond the breached wall a knot of cavalry was running wild. They were completely overrunning the confederation’s rearguard where the siege weapons had been arrayed.
A banner snapped in the wind among them and caught Baek Cheong’s eye.
“That is the banner of the Northern Great General…?!”
Acting Northern Great General, acting head of the Moyong Family—the Iron Woman the northern tribes called the Military God.
The force smashing the rearguard was the cavalry led by Moyong Un-jeong: a blended host of the Great General’s personal guard and the Moyong Family’s mounted warriors.
And that was why the confederation, even after seizing the upper hand against Shenyang’s government troops, had been forced into this limp, helpless retreat.
“Damn it all…!”
Of course. From the beginning the Eldest Young Master had intended to draw the main forces—Wudang included—as deep into Shenyang as possible, then smash their rearguard first with a small, elite cavalry strike.
At that moment a distant voice rolled across the field and brushed Baek Cheong’s ear.
“Baek Cheong—! Where are you—?!”
It was Heavenly Seamless Robe Yeon Seo-rin hunting him.
“All that swagger, and in the end you tuck your tail and run like a beaten dog?!”
Steel Dragon Fang Baek Cheong ran again with everything he had left. The direction, of course, was the opposite of the voice—the shortest path out of Shenyang and away.
“Damn it…! Damn it…! Damn it…!”
Every time he closed his eyes the Eldest Young Master’s smiling face clung to the inside of his lids and followed him.
In martial prowess. In strategy. In every single respect, a complete and utter defeat.
“Damn it…!”
Outside Shenyang’s northern gate.
The Mount Hua vanguard once more.
No one spoke.
How they had gotten through the gate they could barely remember. How many they had lost, how many corpses they had left behind—
They did not want to count. They had no strength left to count.
They did not even have a single horse among them.
Across the vast grassland the sun was slowly rising, yet the sight brought only emptiness.
Then—
“…Where…?”
A faint voice pulled the first-generation disciple back to himself. He looked down at Gam Woo-hyeon.
“Vanguard Commander?!”
Through a face ruined beyond recognition, Gam Woo-hyeon managed to force the words out without even fully opening his eyes.
“…Are we outside Shenyang?”
“…Yes.”
His consciousness seemed to drift in and out. After a long pause he asked, haltingly:
“…Did we… Did I lose… to Heavenly Seamless Robe…?”
The first-generation disciple’s mouth would not open properly; answering took time.
“…No. We—”
Tears fell thick and heavy from the eyes of the man who held him.
“—we survived.”
The handful of remaining disciples bit down hard and wept in silence at those words. Their tears mixed with the dust and blood caked on their faces.
“…That?”
Gam Woo-hyeon lifted a trembling hand and pointed back toward Shenyang.
“…What is that?”
The first-generation disciple did not turn. He did not need to. He knew exactly what the Sword Dragon was asking about.
Even now the sky still bore a vast, livid scar that split it open with overwhelming presence.
“…The Eldest Young Master of the Sword House split the heavens.”
“The heavens…?”
Gam Woo-hyeon’s drifting mind could not quite grasp what he had heard.
“Split them…?”
The signature ultimate art of the former Luoyang Sword House Grand Elder, the man once called the Greatest Sword Under Heaven—
Severing Life.
“…Yes. That is so.”
Even as he answered, the first-generation disciple could not bring himself to look at Gam Woo-hyeon’s face again.
Heavenly Seamless Robe had said it clearly: the strongest force on their side was not herself, but that Eldest Young Master, Yeon So-hyeon. Wudang’s Steel Dragon Fang Baek Cheong had at least exchanged sword strikes with him.
But the Mount Hua Sword Dragon had never even crossed hands with the man. He had been carried away on their backs instead.
“…No.”
What was he denying?
“…No. That can’t be.”
His own defeat? The Eldest Young Master’s martial might? Or the wretched sight of survivors who could no longer even be called a vanguard?
“No. It isn’t…”
They listened to Gam Woo-hyeon’s vacant muttering and walked on across the endless wilderness, step after endless step.