- The Gorge — After the Slaughter
Before the killing air of the gorge had fully settled, Park Seongjin wiped the blood from his sword, sheathed it, and tightened his grip on the reins.
“Captain— we need to secure the field—!”
Yao Zhang’s shout was already being stripped away by the wind.
Park turned his horse and moved in silence toward the northeastern exit of the gorge, the path Deng Yu would have taken.
This was where fewer arrows had fallen.
Shrubs still stood.
Amid the stench of death, the smells of wet earth and water rose together.
Countless footprints had crushed grass and mud, making direction easy enough to read.
Deng Yu had fled this way.
The problem was the thousands of routed soldiers.
Panicked men scattered along the same path, and among innumerable faces, one had to be found.
Park drew the reins tight.
“…On horseback, I’ll be too slow.”
He leapt down.
His feet skimmed the soil.
His body thrust forward as if piercing the wind itself.
The forest’s shadows brushed past his ankles and shoulders.
Without disturbing a single leaf, a human shape flowed like drifting cloud.
The road toward Gyeongdeokjin was not a single artery.
The routed soldiers had splintered in fear, fleeing in every direction.
Some climbed ridgelines.
Some ran for the river.
Some cut through rice fields.
Some threw off their armor as they ran.
Some trampled fallen comrades.
Some screamed while shaking arrows lodged in their bodies.
There were too many footprints.
The signs were too scattered to track a single commander.
“…He’s human too.”
Park smiled briefly, then let his face settle.
“If he blends in like this, he won’t be easy to find.”
Beneath his feet, Deng Yu’s traces— or someone else’s— tangled into dozens of paths.
Tracks remained, but Deng Yu’s presence concealed its grain.
“Not bad.”
Park murmured.
“He either knows how to erase his presence, or he’s mixed himself naturally into the routed mass.”
He crossed low forests and gorges in succession.
To the left, overlapping hoofprints layered the field, directions hopelessly mixed.
To the right, fragments of armor lay discarded along the riverbank, stained with blood.
Whether these were from soldiers plunging into the water or Deng Yu shedding his gear could not be told.
On the mountain path, marks showed where a horse had stumbled and fallen, already trampled over by many others.
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Everything was chaos.
At the moment of collapse, traces always bury one another.
“This is as far as it goes.”
Park drew a long breath.
In it lingered the metallic smell of battle, scorched earth, and the human scent fear leaves behind.
Within that, Deng Yu’s presence did not rise clearly.
Park lifted his head.
Far off, a yellow dirt road stretched like a thin thread toward Gyeongdeokjin.
“If he took that road, he’s probably catching his breath inside the walls by now.”
He brushed the dirt from his clothes and turned back.
“I’ll do what I do best.”
“Finding a man can wait.”
Sunlight broke through the forest.
Reflected off red blood, it grazed Park’s shoulder.
“There will be another fight.”
He left the woods and headed back toward the main force.
Yao Zhang’s camp came into view.
The cavalry was prioritizing arrow recovery as they cleared the gorge.
In one place, soldiers cooked rice away from the filth of the battlefield.
In another, men quietly stripped usable items from enemy corpses, eyes carefully lowered.
When Park approached, Yao Zhang raised a hand from afar.
“Captain— did you find him?”
Park shook his head.
“Too many people. Too many traces. The flow spread too wide.”
Yao Zhang exhaled.
“…So he escaped.”
“Yes.”
“If I’d been a little faster, I might have caught the line, but the currents mixed.”
Yao Zhang gave a small, tired laugh.
“Then we prepare for what’s next. The next point is Hukou.”
The choke at the mouth of Poyang Lake.
“You’ll have to move.”
“That’s why I attached the cavalry.”
*Five thousand is a small number when seen on open ground or weighed against the scale of an entire war.
In a battlefield where hundreds of thousands collide, it is no more than a handful of sand.
But within Chen Youliang’s army, this five thousand carried a different meaning.
Because Hwagyeong-level master Park Seongjin was with them.
That single condition transformed an ordinary five thousand into something else entirely— the fighting power of five thousand, multiplied by Park Seongjin’s transcendent perception.
At first, Yao Zhang did not grasp it.
But as he exchanged words with Park over several movements, realization struck him.
“We’re not the main force.”
“Captain Park is the center.”
“We’re his shadow.”
Detached from the main army, this five thousand had not yet entered full battle.
Yet the battle had already begun.
From morning, Park rode along the base of valleys, the edges of forests, the banks of water.
No one issued orders.
He read the voices and currents of nature, sensing where the main force would pass.
Each time his horse halted, he lifted his gaze to the distant sky.
The speed of drifting clouds.
The angle at which wind split.
The direction of currents stretching like invisible tendrils— all touched his senses.
Holding the reins, Yao Zhang asked,
“General, wouldn’t it be enough to send scouts for now—”
“No.”
Park replied.
“That side will open.”
He pointed to the southeastern valley entrance.
Yao Zhang asked, baffled,
“What exactly is opening?”
“The flow of force.”
“The enemy’s momentum hasn’t gathered yet.”
“But it will.”
“When?”
“Wait.”
After a moment, Park said,
“Now.”
From beneath the rocks, hoofbeats erupted all at once.
Dududududum.
An enemy cavalry scouting unit plunged into the valley as if being swallowed.
A chill ran down Yao Zhang’s spine.
Before even a sound reached him, Park had already known.
Park raised his hand and signaled the entire force.
“Left wing, take the forest.”
“Right wing, hold the low ridge— show force only.”
“Leave just two riders in the open front.”
Yao Zhang exclaimed,
“Only two?”
“Yes.”
“They’re already broken.”
“Before they can recover, that’s what will look like a road.”
Before Yao Zhang could understand, the two riders surged along the ridge, casting faint silhouettes.
From a distance, they looked like the vanguard of an advancing army.
Park shouted,
“Now.”
The five thousand cavalry flowed out of the forests like wind itself.
The air shifted.
It looked as if nature itself had begun to move.
The left wing like darkness.
The right like light.
The enemy formation wavered.
“Enemies from all sides—!”
“No— how many are there!”
“The road’s blocked— fall back!”
But they were already inside.
The path they believed empty was nothing more than a narrow gap Park had left behind.
The cavalry walked into it on their own.
Park twisted the battlefield’s grain like the Eight Trigrams.
What appeared weakest became the deepest trap.
What appeared strongest was hollow ground.
Yao Zhang swallowed hard.
“How do you know?”
“Where they’ll move. When they’ll come.”
Park paused, feeling the wind around him, then answered,
“Force flows.”
“Like breath.”
“You can feel that?”
“Yes.”
“Here, the valley chokes the current.”
“There, the ridge lets it rise.”
“The enemy’s mind follows the same flow.”
“All things are currents.”
“Countermeasures are orientation.”
It did not sound like an explanation.
But Yao Zhang understood.
This man was not watching the battlefield.
He was reading its living momentum.
A living geomantic formation.
Then again— hoofbeats thundered.
Park raised his hand.
“Front.”
“No need to block.”
“They’ll collide with themselves.”
Indeed, two enemy units shoved into one another at the narrow gorge mouth, tangling in confusion.
“How could this…”
Yao Zhang murmured.
“That was the flow.”
The battle ended in fifteen minor contacts.
Only three could truly be called fights.
The rest were shifts of current, terrain, and ground-force, fear driving the enemy into their own destruction.
Only then did Yao Zhang fully understand.
It was not the five thousand that moved.
The five thousand moved around one man’s perception.
He approached Park carefully.
“General… did you not end this battle alone?”
Park smiled.
“No.”
He pointed ahead.
“Look.”
“The wind is on our side.”
A single cold current slipped quietly through the gorge.