North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 56

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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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56. The sheath had answered.

Before the prayer had even finished, a storm poured down from the Southern Land all at once.
The tremor came first.
The frozen earth beneath the Rock Fortress trembled finely under their feet. No—soon the dust began to rise. A billowing haze tinged purple by the dawn sky swelled upward like a brown curtain.
Finally, the sound arrived.
Thud-thud-thud-thud! Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
The sound of a thousand hoofbeats striking the ground was less a sound than sheer pressure made manifest.

The southern approach to the Rocky Terrain.
A figure came racing forward with Twin Swords drawn and raised above his head.
The Ma Jeon Bandits’ Commander. A wild dog with a crimson band tied around his neck.
As he thrust both blades skyward, the steel flashed red.
“I settle Durek’s debt.”
His voice was brief. But those few words were enough.
“Do not slow.”
Two hundred of the Vanguard moved behind the Twin Swords. The Main Force of eight hundred followed in their wake, pressing hard on the Vanguard’s heels.
The frozen earth split beneath the heavy hoofbeats.
Dust swirled upward, laying another veil across the purple sky.
The Commander did not look back. Feeling the weight of eight hundred at his spine, he tallied silently in his mind. Durek had gone with two hundred and died. Before that, Kutor had gone with three hundred and retreated.
He would not repeat the same failure. This time, all force at once.
As he pointed the tip of his Twin Swords at the southern entrance of the rocky cleft, the Vanguard poured through without slowing.

Atop the northernmost Rock Fortress.
Aelak’s gray eyes read the ground’s vibration. He drew breath. Then he opened his mouth.
“A thousand.”
Taikan checked the bowstring tension of the Gak Ak Gung while remaining prone on the high ground.
Twelve arrows lay arranged neatly before him.
His eyes narrowed.
“Two hundred Vanguard. Eight hundred Main Force. One thousand total, Chieftain.”
“Positions.”
A single syllable.
Taikan was already positioned fifteen paces up the left flank of the high ground.
Arko climbed onto the Western Rock and loosened his poison pouch. He held out the back of his hand, reading the wind’s path. Wind flowing from west to east… toward the gorge’s interior.
Serian took her place at the lateral side-path blockade.
She wound her Waist Belt tight and knotted it firmly. Her fingertips brushed the grip of the Silver Snow.
War, for the first time in her life. And she was not trembling.
Aelak stationed himself fifteen paces within the rocky cleft, the Buk Myeong Do secured beneath his arm, his back to the interior as he faced south.
The entire force took position in less than a double handful of breaths.

Thud-thud-thud-thud!
Two hundred of the Vanguard poured straight through the southern entrance of the gorge.
The Commander himself rode twenty paces back from the front.
The Chieftain moved within the column’s ranks near the rear, surrounded by his twenty elite guards. Total command, distributed.
When the Commander glanced back, the eight hundred of the Main Force were at the Vanguard’s heels, driving forward with immense force from behind to ahead.
The corner of the Commander’s mouth rose briefly.
“Kill them.”
His shout rang out like steel.

Whissh!
The Waist Belt came free.
Serian glanced sideways at Garkan.
Those who broke past Garkan’s line would come straight at her.
“No one passes through here.”
She spoke of her lateral side-path. Her voice asked nothing of anyone, yet it held the weight of a vow spoken to the heavens.

Thump-thump-thump-thump!
The moment the Vanguard’s fifty riders pressed deep into the gorge, a sharp twang rang out from Taikan’s Gak Ak Gung.
Twang!
Four arrows split the air.
The targets: one deputy commander of the Vanguard wearing a red sash, and three Commanders. All four men buckled from their saddles simultaneously.
Throat. Left eye socket. Temple. Collarbone.
Each arrow had struck a different mark.
The Vanguard’s chain of command was gutted in one volley. Taikan nocked another arrow. Eight remained, and he aimed only at Commander-rank soldiers now—the common cavalry didn’t warrant his attention.

As the Vanguard stirred with confusion at their fallen leadership, another Commander barked out calmly.
“Death means nothing! If the chief falls, the deputy takes command. If the deputy falls, the next in line steps up. Someone take charge!”
The tide of the Ma Jeon Bandits did not break.
In that same instant, Garkan’s Bing Cheol Sae burst up from the ground at the entrance’s left flank.
Clang-clang-clang!
The iron chain wrapped around the forelimbs of three horses in the Vanguard at once. The three riders were hurled from their saddles—but the chain binding them let out a sharp metallic wail and snapped.
A single strand, splintered and broken, scattered across the ground.
The Vanguard was pushed back by the chain’s recoil, and Garkan was forced to abandon the severed weapon.
‘One strand already broken!’
He read the situation in an instant.
Three strands left… who knew when they’d snap? Better to act now.
He wrapped the Bing Cheol Sae around his waist and fastened it.
Crack!
He interlaced his hands.
Bare palms opened. The fist-force of the North Sea, deadly enough to pulverize the great snow bears of those frozen waters—the massive frame of a North Sea warrior moved steadily toward the cluster of Fallen Cavalrymen.
This was the martial art of the Aelak tribe: the North Sea Ice Fist Palm.
His open palm swept upward beneath a rider’s chin.
Crack!
The sound of a jawbone shattering cleanly—short, heavy, final.
Garkan drove his shoulder into the next horse, toppling both beast and rider. He seized the bandit’s flank and hurled him into empty air.
While the disoriented marauder hung suspended in the void, Garkan drew his blade and drove it deep through the man’s body.
By the time the corpse struck the earth, life had already fled.

Harku emerged from the darkness on the right side of the entrance.
He was not running. He did not look as though he’d come to fight. He walked at an easy pace, then the moment a horse charged at him, he leapt upward onto its saddle.
His left arm wrapped around the rider’s neck while his right hand, wielding a dagger, drew it swiftly across the man’s throat beneath his jaw.
As the rider’s body fell limp to the ground, Harku was already standing atop that same horse.
When the next rider charged, Harku drove his forehead into the man’s nose, shattering bone. He brought his elbow down on the base of the rider’s skull. He kicked the horse’s flank with his knee to change its direction.
His foot lashed out and struck another passing rider’s chin from below.
The Twin Daggers completed their final rotation, and in that arc, three riders lay on the ground in three different postures.
His mouth never stopped.
“Ah, this is good.”
“Beautiful! Oops! You there!”
“Won’t even have time to eat after this.”
He danced as he cut and struck.
One bandit’s eyes widened with terror. There was madness here, pure and simple.

Serian unfurled her Waist Belt like a whip.
Crack!
The end of the belt tore through the air with a sound like splitting cloth. In that instant, three Fallen Cavalrymen who had tried to flee along the flank found the belt’s lash around their ankles and went down hard.
Serian drew her Silver Snow dagger and slit their throats in swift succession. Clean. Efficient.
In that moment, she was no woman. She was a warrior.
Two mounted riders attempted a breakthrough from the opposite flank.
Serian slipped behind a rock with her Silver Snow blade—no, she was already emerging from the opposite direction. Her Waist Belt sang through the air, and she had already tangled their legs.
Both horses tumbled down the slope and vanished into shadow.
Once Serian watched the last rider disappear below the cliff, she sheathed her Silver Snow dagger back inside her belt.
Arko nodded sharply from atop the Western Rock.
“They say an angry Fukunese woman is terrifying.”
Serian did not hear Arko’s murmur.

The Western Rock.
Arko released Poison Powder toward the entrance.
The wind blew from west to east.
Roughly seventy or eighty cavalrymen trailing behind the Vanguard stumbled. Their horses’ eyes were already bloodshot, their breathing ragged as if they’d galloped a thousand leagues.
The Commander shouted.
“Hold your breath just a moment! The air inside the rock is clear!”
Arko flipped his pouch inside out.
Even shaking it down to the bottom, no powder remained.
“Tch!”
He cinched the empty pouch and drew two Poison Daggers from his waist belt.
Thin blades.
Black oil gleamed along their edges.
Whish!
Arko leaped down from Western Rock.
His feet made no sound striking the ground. He curved past one Vanguard cavalryman, and in that instant the Poison Daggers flicked across the man’s neck, collarbone, ribs, inner thigh, and armpit in succession.
While another man might drive a dagger into one point, he struck five. Never slashing—only piercing and puncturing.
As the cavalryman erupted in a spray of blood and fell, Arko had already moved behind the next rider, his silhouette elongated in the blur of the Poison Snake Curved Movement.
Feet soft, daggers true.

Taikan, positioned on the high ground, rose as well.
The Gak Ak Gung was already strapped to his back. Only one arrow remained.
The last one.
He didn’t leap down—he walked the slope deliberately.
His footfalls made no sound.
He melted through the Fallen Cavalrymen behind the Vanguard.
One cavalryman spotted Taikan and swung his blade. Taikan twisted, driving the arrowhead in his grip through the man’s throat.
Thuck!
He struck nowhere else. Only the throat.
The cavalryman never even cried out before releasing the reins.
Taikan extracted the arrow and gripped it again. Then the next cavalryman’s throat. And the next. A fluid Body Technique unfolded.
Minimal movement, no wasted strength.

The Vanguard’s fifty riders had made a loud entrance, but their morale shattered quickly.
The Commander raised his Twin Swords.
He was about to call out a final exhortation.
Aelak moved.
He emerged from fifteen paces inside, unhurried. The Buk Myeong Do remained sheathed—he showed no intention of drawing.
In the center of the Narrow Gorge.
Gray eyes fixed on the Commander. Aelak drew a deep breath.
In that instant, the air transformed.
The temperature in the gorge’s space dropped by half a degree. Centered on Aelak, across a radius of seven paces, a thin sheet of ice formed on the air itself.
About sixty riders, including the Commander, stood within it.
Space Freezing. Not a complete manifestation.
At the same moment, from Garkan’s Bing Cheol Sae, left half-buried in shadow near the stone, a sound rang out. One of the three remaining strands snapped with a sharp metallic shriek.
Crack!
Shards scattered across the ground.
Garkan sensed the weapon damage through his Internal Force flow.
Two strands left now. The chain’s cumulative structural failure was accelerating.
His face hardened, his jaw muscle spasmed briefly. But the North Sea Ice Fist Palm did not halt. He locked the Bing Cheol Sae into a fixed rotating form and fought on with bare hands.
Bang!
He drove back another horse with his shoulder.

The Space Freezing reached full effect.
The air contracted… Gasp! Breathing stopped. The horses’ cries cut off, the cavalrymen’s breath freezing in their throats.
The Commander remained locked in mid-swing, Twin Swords raised.
The blade trembled in the still air.
Between sword and face, his sweat droplets seemed suspended in space, glistening with a silver sheen.
‘Ugh…!’
The Commander’s breathing had stopped. His eyes turned toward Aelak, and in that gaze was not fear, but something else entirely.
‘Ah… So that’s why the Chieftain couldn’t break through even with a thousand men.’
‘This… this is a monster… an absolute monster.’
‘I was told never to touch the Aelak. Now I understand why.’
The Commander’s mouth trembled.
Fear was the dominant factor, but there was also a thread of resignation woven through it.
‘We came here to die. This gorge was his trap from the start.’
Resignation was about to crystallize into acceptance. But the Commander’s laugh never finished.
The moment Space Freezing took hold, his four subordinates moved faster than they ever had.
Hiss!
Taikan drove the arrowheads in his grip through the bandits, circling the outer edge of the frozen space and piercing those locked in ice with ease.
Arko’s Poison Dagger sank into the second-in-command’s throat.
The speed outpaced the wind.
Harku swung the Twin Daggers like a madman—a killer drunk on killing. He swept three Fallen Cavalrymen off their mounts in a single breath.
And then.
Aelak drew the Buk Myeong Do from its sheath.
It was the first time.
The scabbard rang. The blade flashed through the void and passed diagonally across the Commander’s torso. In that same instant, the Space Freezing shattered.
The Commander’s upper body separated from his lower half.

The Vanguard crumbled to half strength and less.
Trapped within the narrow passage, blocked from behind by the Main Force’s eight hundred. Space Freezing had lifted, but the horror of that breath-stealing moment had drained the fighting spirit from every man.
Blades and reins fell into disarray.
His subordinates pressed forward with savage intensity. Taikan’s continuous throat thrusts with arrowhead. Arko’s dual Poison Daggers striking in relentless succession. Garkan’s North Sea Ice Fist Palm. Harku’s Twin Daggers spinning at the front.
Serian snatched at those trying to flee.
The Vanguard collapsed completely within half a moment.
The Main Force’s eight hundred watched the Vanguard being slaughtered before they could even enter the gorge mouth. And those slaughtering blades were now turning toward them.
For the first time, the Main Force’s momentum reversed.
Riders collided with the rumps of horses in front of them.
“Push forward! They’re exhausted too!”
Three hundred of the Main Force’s eight hundred, positioned at the front, were forced in whether they willed it or not. The pressure from behind made escape impossible.
Aelak stood in their midst and raised the Buk Myeong Do.
Crash!
Without Space Freezing. A single stroke of the Buk Myeong Do crossed the three-paces-wide space of the gorge mouth.
The blade wind scraped stone—a brief, sharp screech. And within the radius of that steel, fifteen horses and riders were severed from their saddles.
For the first time, the riders behind turned to wheel their mounts. They had witnessed a martial power they could not overcome.

The Chieftain… He watched from the rear of the Main Force as the vanguard collapsed.
His hand, gripping the sword, trembled.
The blade tilted downward, then rose again.
His eyes swept across the gorge.
He did not signal retreat to the Ma Jeon Bandits. From this moment on, it was pure Human Wave Tactic. Let’s see who breaks first—them or us.
He gestured toward his personal guard of twenty.
The twenty broke from the Main Force’s ranks and reformed around the Chieftain.
Shriek!
The Command Horn wailed.
No retreat permitted!
From now on, those who fell back would be cut down by the twenty guardsmen. So to live, you must press forward. Killing Aelak and his company is your only chance at survival.
Three hundred already inside the gorge. Five hundred still waiting to enter.
They fell into complete chaos at the gorge mouth.
They collided with each other, stumbled and fell. They wanted to push forward, but those ahead wouldn’t give ground—they couldn’t enter.

Half a watch passed.
The gorge mouth was blackened with blood. Of a thousand riders, four hundred lay on the ground.
The five subordinates withdrew deeper into the passage.
Their breathing was ragged, but none had fallen.
Garkan held his ribs tight, jaw clenched. His shoulder blades had twisted from successive uses of the North Sea Ice Fist Palm. Blood seeped from his fingertips.
Blood wept from the tips of his fingers.
Harku laughed softly, wiping the blood from his Twin Daggers. A low, trembling sound.
Arko coated the blades of his two Poison Daggers with black oil.
Toxin reapplication.
His fingers moved with practiced ease.
Taikan maintained his last arrow—a treasure that pierced the enemy’s throat when steel alone could not.
Aelak did not move from where he stood.
His gaze was fixed on the Western Hill.
The Chieftain and his twenty personal guards—they stood upon the Western Hill beyond the mound of corpses.
The Chieftain stood with both arms hanging slack, staring down into the narrow passage.
Aelak shook the Buk Myeong Do, flinging blood from the blade.
His grey eyes met the Chieftain’s directly. Their gazes crossed above the pile of the dead. Wind swept the stench of corpses between them.
The Chieftain opened his mouth and spoke.
No sound reached him. Yet from the shape of the Chieftain’s lips, Aelak made out a single word.
A trap.
Aelak did not answer. All words belong to the blade. The mouth exists only for eating.
In that moment, the Chieftain turned his head and looked behind him.

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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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