430.
The emperor isolated aboard a fleeing ship—
that image itself had become the heart of the Battle of Lake Poyang.
The light craft Zhu Yuanzhang had boarded for the last time was being driven by rough waves, slipping away from the lake’s center.
Half the sail was torn and flapping.
The deck was blackened by the embers of fire attacks.
Fragments of cannon shot were lodged in the hull like nails that could not be pulled free.
Arrows stuck in the railings rattled with every roll of the ship.
Two oarsmen, bleeding, took turns at the oars.
Only three bodyguards remained, forming a tight ring around Zhu Yuanzhang.
Their armor was heavy with water.
Their breathing was short, breastplates heaving.
Zhu Yuanzhang looked back.
Not from afar—too close.
Park Seong-jin’s sword tip was cutting through the white smoke, advancing.
He appeared and vanished between the veils, then appeared again.
It was not the smoke that hid him.
It was as if he were tearing the smoke apart.
“Why does he come again? Why does he not give up?”
The voice carried none of an emperor’s authority.
It trembled like a candle guttering in the wind.
Zhu Yuanzhang had lost the bearing of one who gives orders; he shook with the posture of a man lamenting.
The tone of command peeled away, leaving only the sound of hunted prey on the deck.
His eyes rolled back.
Grabbing the railing, he shook the bow wildly and shouted,
“Turn back—turn it around! I told you to turn! Why will you not listen?!”
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One oarsman collapsed, vomiting blood.
What spilled out with it was panic—ragged breath, water-soaked coughing, a throat scraped raw.
Zhu Yuanzhang kicked the man’s head madly and screamed,
“Get up! Get up and drive that madman away! My life is at stake!”
The two remaining guards saw it and dared not look away.
The emperor’s madness became an order the instant it appeared, and an order became a blade just as quickly.
They felt anger within.
They felt fear within.
Their bodies, however, were bound in place.
With a voice choked tight, Zhu Yuanzhang clung to the remaining guards and shouted,
“Stop him—stop him! If you fail, I will slaughter your entire clans, do you hear me?!”
Fear, madness, despair, and hatred boiled together in his words.
In that moment, Zhu Yuanzhang shed the form of an emperor and hardened into that of a fleeing beast.
As the ship rocked, so did his authority.
That sway spread—into collapse.
The final three guards raised their swords toward the railing where Park Seong-jin was about to land.
Their hands trembled, but they lowered their stances with the resolve to die protecting him.
Their gaze did not rest on Park Seong-jin alone; it took in the battlefield behind him—the wind, the current, the smoke.
All of it seemed to be leaning to his side.
They chose not to win the fight.
They chose to buy time.
They hoped for a single breath.
Park Seong-jin read their fear and their resolve together.
The instant he read them, the ending was already decided at his fingertips.
The guards hurled themselves forward together, boots pounding the deck.
The resolve to become the last wall before the emperor surged ahead of their steps.
When the front rank was cut down, the next filled the space at once.
Before blood could dry, another body leapt in.
Steel struck steel with a sharp clang.
That sound quickly became the sound of flesh splitting.
Each time Park Seong-jin’s sword moved, the grain of the air was torn.
The first cut opened a chest.
The second broke a neck.
The third folded a knee.
Bodies fell.
Over the fallen, other bodies vaulted forward.
Blood soaked the deck.
Footprints layered atop blood.
The guards charged without screams, swallowing their breath instead.
Their eyes did not waver.
Their hands did not release their swords.
Park Seong-jin’s sword forms were short, precise, unbroken.
With each stroke, a life was extinguished.
The vacancy was filled at once by another life.
Severed bodies scattered like petals, losing direction in the air.
Swept by an autumn gust, they slid to the deck’s edge and fell into the water.
Even as they fell, their gaze remained fixed on the emperor.
The space before the emperor grew narrower.
That narrowing space was packed with loyalty.
Reading the density of that loyalty, Park Seong-jin advanced step by step.
He cut through flesh, through bone, through will itself.
On the deck, the boundary between the living and the fallen blurred.
Only bodies thrown forward remained—
and the flow of the sword that cut them down.
Bodies piled in layers on the deck.
Feet stepped into pooled blood and slipped.
Slipping bodies crawled forward again.
Even when a sword hand was severed, the remaining arm clutched the railing.
When that grip failed, another hand replaced it.
Flesh collided with flesh, blocking the passage.
To open it, another body was thrown in.
Each time Park Seong-jin’s sword moved, the deck seemed to lower a fraction.
Where people vanished, blood filled the space.
Before it could dry, another foot stepped in.
The distance between the emperor and Park Seong-jin did not shrink easily.
Instead, the weight of what lay between them kept growing.
When the last guard fell, the deck fell briefly silent.
Only wind and water remained.
Through that sound, Park Seong-jin’s footsteps rang out once more.
