North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 55

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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55. Ash-Colored Dawn, A Banner Tilted North

Ash-Colored Dawn.
The campfire had collapsed into embers. A thin thread of smoke rose from the ashen remnants.
Aelak stood at the edge of a boulder.
He did not lose sight of the single point moving through the darkness.
Dureok’s position, his exact coordinates—where he gripped his blade.
Taikan relaxed the bowstring of his Gak Ak Gung atop the rock.
“He comes alone.”
He reported in a low voice.
“One arm is hanging limp. The wound looks quite severe.”
Dureok walked northward through the dawn mist, each step cutting through it.
His right sleeve was dark with blood. His arm hung like a dead branch at his side. His left hand gripped one of his Twin Blades, and the blade’s tip dragged across the ground, drawing a line in the dirt.
Aelak held no weapon.
His shoulders remained fixed in a half-lowered position. Only his gray eyes shifted slightly with each step Dureok took.
From the southern headquarters, roughly a thousand mounted cavalry stood in formation, ready to advance at any moment. The Black Eagle Banner rippled above them.
Dureok advanced one footfall at a time.
Drops of blood fell to the ground, marking it with dots. The spacing between each dot was even—not the walk of a wounded man, but the walk of one resolved.
Taikan nocked an arrow to the bowstring.
“Don’t shoot.”
Aelak spoke. Curtly.
Taikan released the bowstring.

Garkan descended from beneath the boulder.
He wrapped the Bing Chulsae links around his fingers in reverse order—from pinky to thumb—and gripped it. The chain’s end gave a short, metallic tap from within the pouch at his waist.
Harku flicked the shaft of his Twin Daggers with his index finger.
“He wants to see it through. Even knowing our intent. How pathetic a death he’ll die. Hehehehe!”
The corner of his mouth rose. But his eyes did not smile.
Arko retied the Poison Powder pouch at his waist, checking the wind’s direction with the back of his hand.
The four subordinates occupied each side of a semicircle.
Serian stood on the opposite side of the campfire. She ran her thumb along the pommel of her Eun Seol dagger.
She swept her eyes across the movements of the four men.
Garkan on the left, Taikan upon the rock, Harku on the right, Arko at the rear. The remaining empty space lay to the left behind the semicircle.
She did not wait for Aelak’s command.
She moved to that position and stood. She drew the Eun Seol from her belt and gripped it inverted—the spine of the blade pressed against the inside of her wrist—and as she walked, the metal ornaments of her belt chimed with each step.
No words were spoken.
Aelak looked down at her from the edge of the boulder.
Their eyes met for a moment. He said nothing.
Serian’s place was, in that way, accepted.

* * *

Dureok stopped twenty paces away.
His breathing came ragged. With each breath, his right sleeve trembled. The blood that clung to it had dried black, hardened like armor.
He tried to raise the Twin Blades in his left hand.
The blade’s tip would not leave the ground. His left arm alone did not have the strength to lift the weight of the Twin Blades, pressed down as they were by fatigue.
Dureok wedged the pommel of the Twin Blades under his left armpit. Then, using his elbow as a lever, he pushed it upward.
The muscles of his entire arm contracted at once. The fabric of his sleeve scraped against his armpit, scabs shattering. But the blade’s tip rose to chest height.
He braced the underside of the hilt with his left hand.
Dureok opened his mouth.
His voice was hoarse.
“Aelak, Clan Leader of the North Sea.”
His breathing was ragged.
“My father was a Stray Dog too. A companion stabbed him in the back and left him to die in the wilderness. He died like a Stray Dog should.”
He paused to catch his breath.
“I lived as a Stray Dog, so I should die as one. But yesterday, when I saw your blade, my mind changed. Of everything I’ve ever seen in my life, that blade was the cleanest.”
“I lost two hundred men. Lost my right arm. If I go back to the Clan Master, I die a traitor.”
He drew a breath, steadying himself.
“So I came here to die. But not like this—not without a fight.”
He raised his blade toward Aelak, the tip wavering in his left hand. The tremor came from weakness, yes, but fear lived there too.
Dureok spoke through that fear, conquering it.
“Kill me. With your blade. Properly.”
He turned his head southward.
“My men are watching from the main camp. They’ll see how I die.”
Beyond the mist, the southern encampment stood in silent formation. Beneath the stillness that radiated from nearly a thousand mounted warriors, Dureok’s words hung heavy in the air.
Aelak fell silent.
All eyes turned toward him.
Aelak raised his right hand. He drew his thumb along the scar on his left cheekbone, top to bottom, following the grain of the wound.
When he spoke, it was for the first time.
“Like a North Sea warrior.”
Brief.
“Then I’ll grant it.”
In that instant, Taikan’s bowstring hand went rigid. Harku released the Twin Blades’ hilt, and Garkan stopped winding the Bing Chulsae.
The men froze in place.
If it went this way… all of it would be wasted.
This morning, when Dureok arrived with two hundred men, anything less than annihilation would pale next to total slaughter. If they had destroyed them then, it would have planted terror.
These men still trembled with that fear now.
If Dureok died slowly, shamefully, the fear would deepen—crush him like a broken insect.
But Aelak intended to kill Dureok as a North Sea warrior. As a hero.
The Majeon men would burn with rage. Thirst for vengeance.
All the terror they’d been carefully sowing…

* * *

Aelak descended from the rock’s edge.
He walked ten paces forward. His men did not follow. He never turned to look at them. There was no need.
His hand rose to the Beommyeongdo across his back.
He gripped the hilt but did not pull. The draw flowed straight into the strike—the moment his hand closed, the black blade would flash free.
The Beommyeongdo left its sheath.
Han Ki condensed across the blade’s surface. Frost stretched from spine to point. The moisture in the dawn air transformed to ice in a heartbeat.
Wheee!
A thin sound escaped—like air being torn away.
Ice spread across the ground beneath Dureok’s feet, a thin film spreading in concentric rings, freezing the earth six paces in every direction.
Ash rose from the ground and froze there upon the ice.
Dureok stared down at the frozen earth, eyes glazed.
A laugh caught on his blood-soaked face. A genuine laugh. He raised his left arm.
“In Kutor’s name!”
He cried out.
Crash!
The Twin Blades descended toward Aelak’s left shoulder.
Halfway through the stroke, the Beommyeongdo cut horizontally.
The motion was brief—a twist of the wrist that held the hilt. The blade carved through empty air.
Bing Seom Il Seom.
A line of light passed across Dureok’s throat.
Hisss!
The sound of Han Ki crystallizing—the sound of flesh freezing.
While Dureok’s left hand still hung in the sky, his head had already begun to tilt from his shoulders. The exposed muscle and sinew froze mid-severance, Han Ki sealing the blood even as it fled.
Dureok sank to his knees.
His lips moved. A hoarse whisper.
“Aelak… thank…”
The words broke. His body fell forward.
A mask of ice bloomed across his face. His brow froze. His blood froze. But he did not become pure ice—the Han Ki held the blood as if it were a frozen petal, a perfect seal.
A red flower bloomed and hardened upon the ice.
Aelak did not look down at the corpse.
His gaze had already turned south, toward those who would inherit Dureok’s hatred.

* * *

In the shadow of the southern rocks, two figures crouched low. Those left behind to carry word of the Clan Leader’s final moments back to camp.
Their breath had stopped.
When breath returned, they were trembling.
Not the trembling of fear. The trembling of resolve. The will to return with what they had witnessed pressed down the terror.
The two shadows began their retreat in silence.
They tried not to leave footprints in the grass, but their knees shook too badly to erase the marks entirely. They crawled southward.
The campfire smoke did not drift toward them. It still clung only to the northern fortress above.

* * *

Behind Dureok’s corpse—roughly twenty paces distant, in the shadows—a presence stirred.
A young Majeon soldier.
His right leg was broken from a fall, twisted at an angle. A bloodstained bandage clung to his thigh. He raised his hand.
A blade clattered to the frozen ground.
Clang!
The ring of steel sang out clearly.
He crawled forward on his knees. His shattered leg scraped through the grass, but as if oblivious to the pain, he lowered his head deeply and spoke.
“I surrender. Please don’t kill me.”
His words faltered, then resumed.
“My wife… she’s in the North Sea.”
Taikan’s bowstring grew taut again. The arrowhead leveled at the soldier’s brow.
Garkan raised his hand, stopping him.
Taikan eased the tension. The arrowhead tilted toward the ground.
Aelak stepped before Dureok’s body.
A crimson flower fixed upon the ice—blood. The Beommyeongdo had been sheathed only after it had drunk deeply of this man’s life.
One man had died as a true North Sea warrior should. And now, as if on cue, another crawled forward utterly unworthy of the North Sea, begging to live.
Aelak walked toward the soldier. Five paces.
He drew his thumb down the scar on the left side of the soldier’s face—downward, following the grain.
“Go. North. Find your wife and go.”
He spoke.
“Don’t entangle yourself in this fight.”
The brigand’s head touched the ground. Ice dust clung to his brow, forgotten—his forehead struck again and again, again.
Dirt stuck to his skin.
Aelak did not watch. He turned away.
“Don’t look back. We won’t pursue you. From this moment on, your enemy is not us.”
The brigand nodded.
He rose. Dragging his shattered leg, walking nearly on his knees, he turned his steps southward.
As he passed beside Dureok’s body.
The soldier paused. His eyes fell upon the crimson flower on the ice. A man who had once been a Clan Leader… he simply looked.
Then he moved on, disappearing into the southern mist.

The soldier’s back vanished into the fog.
Harku tapped the hilt of the Twin Blades with his forefinger.
He half-turned his head toward Aelak. The corner of his mouth was lifted as always. But his eyes still did not smile.
“The Clan Leader has sent two gifts across today.”
He said.
“One in a coffin, one walking. Those people over there will be aching in their chests.”
Garkan gave a half-nod.
Agreement, but not a light agreement—a weighted assent.
Arko stopped shaking the Poison Powder pouch. His hand slowly turned against the wind—a motion to test the direction, to smell against the current. He drew in a long breath as he stood.
“The next wind will come from the south.”
His eyes were fixed on the south.
What Aelak had done had only lifted the fighting spirit of the Majeon brigand gang. What lay ahead was a great calamity.
Still, it was acceptable. The Clan Leader had decided it.
Serian withdrew her hand from the hilt of Eun Seol.
She placed her hand on the knot of her waist sash. She drew it tighter.
Her gaze swept south, then returned to Aelak’s back.
It was a movement unseen by others.

* * *

The southern Majeon headquarters.
Sound had died in the open ground before the Clan Master’s tent.
Soldiers stood motionless—not a footfall, not a whisper. The horses made no sound. Only the wind rose and fell against the canvas, leaving it to settle again.
In the center of the clearing, the lieutenant knelt.
Two witnesses stood behind him, heads bowed. Dried earth from the north clung to their brows.
The Clan Master did not emerge from the tent.
His shadow was visible beyond the canvas—unmovIng, still as stone.
Only after a long while did the shadow stir.
The tent flap opened, and the Clan Master stepped out.
The man they called the Desert Fiend. A face that matched his rasping voice. He approached the lieutenant and stopped. He said nothing.
The lieutenant made his report.
“The Clan Leader fell in a single stroke.”
His voice was low.
“Aelak of the North Sea. One exchange.”
The Clan Master remained silent.
The Black Eagle Banner hung from a post beside the tent, its feathered edges trembling faintly. The wind still blew from the south.
His right hand reached for the Twin Blades at his waist. His fingers touched the hilts but did not grip them—suspended between drawing and sheathing.
His eyes turned toward the witnesses.
“What were the Clan Leader’s last words?”
He asked in that rasping voice.
A witness faltered.
“He said… thank you. Before he could say more, it was cut short.”
The Clan Master’s eyes closed, then opened again.
He turned to face the lieutenant.
“Dureok was not a traitor. He was a warrior.”
He spoke.
“Dureok did not fear the North Sea Clan Leader. In truth, why should anyone fear that blade? Make this known to all. Kindle their rage!”
His voice escaped the confines of the tent.
The Clan Master smiled. At last the feet he had been waiting for began to move. Not as many as he desired, but… he knew that with such words of courage, the eager dead would come. And others would follow to join them.
The thousand Stray Dogs who had witnessed Dureok’s death were burning with fury now. Savage, primal fury. With rage like this, it was worth attempting. Even if those men did not tire, it was worth throwing bodies at the wall.
To shatter the legend of the North Sea Warrior Legend.
‘One hour. One hour, and another fifteen hundred will converge. Even if every man here dies… they will have no choice but to fall.’
Aelak, who had toppled Han Bing Sam Su and broken through Okmun Gwan. The North Sea Warrior Legend… that myth would shatter here, on this ground, this day.
He walked out into the center of the clearing.
A thousand soldiers stood arrayed in silent formation.
Every gaze fixed upon the Clan Master.
He drew his blade. For an instant, the steel caught the Ash-Colored Dawn light and flashed.
“Dureok’s blood stains the ice to the north.”
He cried out.
“That blood is our blood. Dureok did not fear the North Sea Warrior Legend. All of you—die! Your deaths will pave the way to his death. He will… fall here. The myth of the North Sea Warrior Legend will be shattered!”
“Wahhh!”
The soldiers roared.
First from the front ranks, then from those behind. A unified cry erupted.
“Pah!”
A rider in the front rank spat once upon the ground and mounted his horse.
His heel struck the spur with a sharp metallic ring. At the same instant, the horse’s breath rose white in the Ash-Colored air.
Another rider struck the side of his saddle with his fist. The leather rang dull and hollow.
A sound they had not made before.
The Black Eagle Banner at the post fluttered once, violent and full.

* * *

The northern stone fortress.
Aelak stood upon a boulder.
His grey eyes looked south. Beyond the southern mist, the eastern edge of the sky was tilting. Ash-color was bleeding into violet.
In that moment.
The banner above the center of the southern headquarters moved beyond the haze.
The edge of the Black Eagle Banner shifted direction. For the first time, it tilted northward.
The shadow of the horseman gripping the flagstaff flickered briefly.
At the same moment, the ground began to tremble faintly.
A thousand hoofbeats. The sound of profound silence transforming into motion for the first time. The tremor was still faint. But it did not stop.
Taikan crouched low upon the rock.
“Clan Leader.”
He spoke in a hushed voice. The words remained incomplete.
Aelak did not answer.
His gray eyes beheld the banner. He watched the trembling earth. His lips moved. It was a movement his followers could not hear.
He murmured something barely audible.
“Ölgara. Yur Kurgan. Shen Tene, Karak Bolgama.”
(Ölgara. Yur Kurgan. Shen Tene, Karak Bolgama.)
Forgive us. Spirits of the earth. We shall stain your flesh with blood.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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