- Imperial Palace Martial Arts — Part 2
Because the White Dragon unit had spent the previous days whittling enemy numbers down—chasing, ambushing, striking, and slipping away—the foe had not dared to pursue recklessly.
But today, Mongroe seemed determined to seize Gyeongpil, the man who had set the fire.
He kept chasing.
This was never the force they meant to lure.
He was pursuing with several hundred riders.
It was not a number one or two companies could face head-on.
The moment he realized things had grown dangerous, Gyeongpil fled like a madman.
He crossed plain after plain, slipped through mountain narrows, crested ridges, and crossed them again.
When he angled toward the main force, the pursuit eased.
When he drifted back toward the mountain range, they surged after him.
Then—while fleeing—he hid for a moment in the shadowed back side of the range, climbed a rise, and ran straight into Mongroe’s main body returning from the opposite direction.
It was pure chance.
Below as well, enemy cavalry were spreading out and closing in.
If he kept darting up and down the winding ravines behind him, he could not shake the enemy moving fast across the open flat.
There was nowhere left to run.
He had no choice but to fight.
“Disaster. Send up fire-arrows! Ten of them!”
By the time Gyeongpil shouted for the squad leaders, ten signal fire-arrows were already shooting high into the sky.
From beneath the far ridge of the opposite range, more fire-arrows rose in answer.
Even if reinforcements came, they could not win.
The collision had been too sudden; the enemy looked momentarily shaken as well.
Neither side had expected to meet head-on in that instant.
At the front, Mongroe shouted in a language no one here understood.
Between one ridge and the other, Soun drew his bow and sent an arrow at the enemy commander’s chest.
Two arrows flew—Mongroe casually knocked both aside with his blade.
Soun measured again and loosed two more.
One for Mongroe, one for the horse.
Mongroe deflected the “same” arrows with the same ease—
but the second shaft struck the mount.
The horse reared.
Mongroe fell.
It lasted only a heartbeat.
He seized a nearby horse, swung up, and charged again.
The White Dragon men formed on the ridge and drew long spears.
If you cannot escape, you lock in.
It was a dead end.
“We do not retreat now.
When they climb, we strike down.
Form up! Form up!”
Gyeongpil steadied himself and aligned them in a broad line.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Even if they struck and broke forward, they could not avoid engagement with the enemy gathering below.
The real problem was the commander.
Gyeongpil’s odds of beating Mongroe were slim.
Yet he knew what he had to do.
His chest trembled.
Among their leaders, Mongroe’s raw strength was the most terrifying.
Gyeongpil suddenly thought of death.
In group battle, if the head breaks, everything breaks.
Far away, the sight of three or four signal fire-arrows rising felt unreal.
Help was coming—
but if it arrived too late, it meant nothing beyond one man’s death.
For an instant he wondered if firing those signals had even been necessary.
They had intended to harry with a small force, to rake down many.
If the enemy’s great mass had burst out, that alone was already a success.
He should be satisfied with that.
And if he insisted on giving meaning to his own death, perhaps that would be the only meaning left.
“But if I die…”
That brought another problem.
Gyeongpil drew his great crescent-bladed saber.
Mongroe had dipped down the slope and was coming back up.
High ground favored the downward strike.
Gyeongpil charged first, cutting down the incline.
“Strike!”
“Can we endure until help arrives…?”
Time crawled.
His whole life flashed past like painted scenes.
He remembered childhood—riding a toy horse made from a stick, swinging branches as if they were blades.
The thoughts death dragged up were not simple fantasies.
They felt like things he had to remember before he died.
So this was what people meant by the “lantern reel.”
Sosam, Jeonghyeon, and Yu Geunman raised their swords and charged down—
but behind Mongroe climbed far too many enemy riders.
He could throw himself from the horse and scramble up the mountainside to live.
But an arrow would find his back.
Thought piled onto thought.
As if he sensed it, Sosam pressed in close to Gyeongpil’s right flank, guarding him.
Behind them, the “Scholar” was visible too—today holding a sword high, leaving the halberd behind.
That boy must live.
The thought was long.
In truth, it was only an instant.
The two forces collided.
The barbarian riders buckled under the White Dragon’s heavy armor.
They had momentum, striking down from above.
The enemy’s vanguard broke—
but there were too many climbing behind them, and the pressure rose again.
Gyeongpil aimed his saber not for Mongroe’s neck but lower, toward a less mobile target.
Mongroe slapped the blade aside with a small buckler strapped to his wrist—
then snapped his ring-pommel saber up, striking directly for Gyeongpil’s throat.
It was exactly the attack Gyeongpil expected.
He ducked—
but the blade clipped his helmet as it passed.
His helmet flew.
Pain flared so sharply he nearly wept.
He turned, extended the long handle of his saber, and swept for Mongroe’s waist again, twisting with all his strength—enough to smash a door from its hinges.
Mongroe’s blade met it once—
and the saber’s handle sheared clean through.
A divine weapon…?
Spurring his horse, Mongroe rose into the stirrups and swung his ring-pommel saber in a massive arc.
The angle was impossible to read—high? mid?
Gyeongpil felt there was no way to evade it.
He raised what remained of his blade to shield his upper body.
He managed to block—barely—
but Mongroe rolled the rebounding blade in a full circle and used that same force to hammer down again.
Gyeongpil knew he could not escape a second time.
Around them, First Company was fighting well.
If only I do my part.
Regret flooded in.
Regret always survives.
Life always leaves something behind.
Gyeongpil stopped trying to block the incoming cut.
Instead, he thrust what remained of his saber straight out—
a suicidal exchange meant to wound Mongroe even if it cost him his life.
If he doesn’t stop his swing, he won’t come out clean either.
Something salty glimmered at the corner of Mongroe’s mouth.
The leisure of a victor.
Mongroe halted his strike, slapped the thrust aside, and knocked Gyeongpil’s weapon away.
And in that moment, Gyeongpil saw Soun charging from the side.
Soun had just taken an enemy’s head with one stroke—
and by chance, his eyes met Gyeongpil’s.
Soun read the decision.
He’s going to die.
Without another thought, Soun drove his sword at Mongroe.
The blade was neither fast nor slow—
yet Mongroe had just parried Gyeongpil’s weapon and turned, barely managing to knock Soun’s cut away.
That single beat freed Gyeongpil from certain death.
Soun’s sword sprang up—
then drew a great arc and returned toward Mongroe again.
He drew in breath and pulled—
then struck down like lightning falling from the far edge of the sky—
then flattened and flowed like water crossing a still lake, vanishing into endless space.
The rising flourish was a dancer’s lift—
yet it carried the pounce of a tiger, and then it fell, decisive, as if to split rock in one cut.
It drove forward like surf, and swept away like stormwater.
It was a dance.
A swaying dance on horseback.
As Soun cut in at Mongroe’s flank, he repeated the motions he had drilled at night—without pause.
His breath did not break.
It flowed like the open sea, and then struck like a cliff.
His sword rippled like a bird climbing into the sky.
It was Imperial Palace martial arts.
Soun was dancing the same dance he had practiced all night.
Mongroe, having lost the initiative while trying to kill Gyeongpil, could do little but defend.
Soun’s angles were strange—supple and smooth—yet backed by an unplaceable force that could not be dismissed.
Meanwhile, Gyeongpil had survived.
The White Dragon unit was driving back an enemy force far larger than themselves—
because their armor and weapons were superior.
A Han rider could take a blow and stay mounted.
A barbarian could tumble from the saddle from even a graze.
And striking downhill added yet another advantage.
Gyeongpil’s mind split.
Should he step back and command, leaving Mongroe to Soun?
Or should he stay in and fight beside him?
Right now Soun was holding—
but soon he would be pressed back.
The thought stabbed deep, cold and sharp, into Gyeongpil’s chest.