90
Black-Clad
Around that moment, they appeared through the blizzard—black garments scattering like torn shadows.
There were no shouts.No banners.
They moved as if shadows themselves had learned to walk.
Their steps held no hesitation.The rhythm was clean, almost agreed upon in advance.They advanced without sound, strides long, movements light.Above all, there was a pressure to them—a force that bent the air around them.
At first, no one recognized what they were.Their arms looked meager.No armor. Only a single curved blade at the waist.
It was impossible to guess what such men could accomplish.There was no room even for expectation.
And then they ran straight into the enemy line.
"Who… what are they?"
By the time Huang Hyun-pil murmured the words,most of them had already reached the enemy mass before the gate.There were not many—only a few dozen.
But they cut forward in a straight line, like a blade through wind.They split the enemy's rear, the very force encircling the crossbow unit.
From that instant, the battlefield changed.
Enemies fell wherever they met them.It was brutally simple.And impossibly fast.
Even amid flying blood and chaos, the sword paths never wavered.Dozens moved, yet it felt as if only one body was acting.
There was no pause.No doubt.
Cut. Sever. Thrust. Push aside.Not individual motions, but a single breath.A single resolve flowing straight across the field.
"What… is that?"
Park Seong-jin froze with his bow half drawn.With each arc of steel, enemy blood scattered,and bodies collapsed like bundled straw.Some fell even before the blade touched them.
As if they had been standing there only to fall.
Before half a quarter-hour passed,the enemy force that had surrounded the crossbows could no longer hold.Most were already down.
Those still alive threw away their weapons and surrendered.Those with any sense left fled in all directions.
Fear spread instantly.Hundreds who had charged out, unable to endure the crossbow fire,collapsed into disorder.A handful of black-clad figures shattered them all.
They came like wind.They split the battlefield like wind.
And then an old name surfaced in Park Seong-jin's mind.
Joui Seonin (皁衣仙人).
Men with shaven heads and black-dyed robes.Warriors without rank or recorded name.They move by royal command—or are called monks—appear by the bond of the sword,and vanish without leaving a trace.
After rescuing the crossbow unit, they did not hesitate.They turned at once and ran toward the open south gate,drawn into the city behind the troops who had first broken out.
Some leapt directly beneath the gate tower.No ladders. No ropes.A height no ordinary man could reach.
Several black shapes sprang upward, unreal.For a moment, they seemed to hang in midair.
It was a movement that slipped past the laws of nature.
Through the blizzard, black shadows carved the sky.
Then fire burst atop the gate tower.Within the flames, the structure was collapsing.
It was less a battleand more a ritual of destruction.
Only then did Park Seong-jin realize—he could no longer tell whether he was witnessing waror legend.
When the shadows cleared, the battlefield returned to its original colors.But those colors were heavier, darker—a mixture of blood, ash, and charred timber.
Huang Hyun-pil steadied himself and shouted.
"Gather the wounded. Re-form the line."
The order was absolute.The soldiers moved like mechanisms.
Too much had already been lost.Thirty, forty men lay in the snow.Many would never rise again.
Park Seong-jin stood among them.The napes of fallen comrades overlapped in his visionwith the pale lips of those still breathing.
As he forced down what surged inside him,something hot welled up from deep in his chest.
"Again… again they used us like dogs…"
The words broke apart before they could finish.
Huang Hyun-pil stepped closer.
"No time to cry. Save who can be saved.Spill your tears later."
His voice was cold.But his trembling hand betrayed the rage he was suppressing.
After the field was secured, Huang Hyun-pil counted the men.One. Two. Three.
The count was silent.His face was rigid.
"The losses are severe," he said quietly."I will demand to know who drove us into this."
No one would answer.He would protest, and hear nothing in return.
We would be told we were merely toolsfor someone's grand purpose.This too would be filed as a necessary operation.
We were the tool meant to open the gate.
Harass the gate with a small force.Make them sally out.Then shield the crossbows with heavy infantryand annihilate the enemy with elite blades.
A plan so crude even a fool could devise it—and yet called a strategy.He wanted to seize those who wrote it and beat them to death.
Should he curse the men who made the plan,or the fate that forced them to follow it?
Park Seong-jin picked up a spear lying in the snow.He looked down at a fallen comrade's face—a face whose name he was not even certain he knew.
He wiped his tears with the back of his hand and rose slowly.The anger did not subside.
What was needed now was not emotion, but action.
The afterimage of the black-clad warriors still burned in his vision.A line drawn—and an enemy body split.A moment severed without blood or scream.
Their blades were not swords meant for survival.They were blades of those who had already crossed death.
Park Seong-jin understood thenhow shallow all his training had been.
It became clear.He wanted to reach that realm.He wanted to become like them.
Otherwise, he would never escape this pit called the battlefield.He would wander as bait,and vanish one day on some harsh plain, recorded only as missing.
The thought was not admiration.It was closer to a prayerdriven straight into the heart.
He lowered his bow and grasped his sword.A snowflake touched the blade's tipand melted into clear water.
From that day on,Park Seong-jin took up the sword alone every dawn—whether anyone watched or not,whether anyone was meant to see him or not.
He did it for only one reason:
to follow the single stroke he had seenonce,in the blizzard.