North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 57

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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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57. A Day Stained in Blood

Dawn lay thin across the Plain. The air had settled into the smell of dry metal.
At the crest of the Western Hill stood the Lord and twenty of his personal guard. His Dual Swords hung at either side of his waist… his right hand resting on the hilt.
A stance neither gripping nor releasing. He held it exactly so.
Aelak gripped the Beomyeong Blade firmly in the center of the Rock Crevice.
The stench of corpses rode the wind toward them.
Then, beyond the horizon, a wall of dust rose.
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump!
The sound of the earth shaking.
Taikan slowly turned his head from his position on the rocky height.
His clear eyes swept across the column beyond the dust.
“More coming. Main force—one thousand one hundred seventy.”
Arko’s dry lips parted.
“I thought it was finished. But these dogs—kill them and kill them, there’s no end to them. Is this what the Mahjeon are known for? What manner of creatures are these?”
Serian tightened the knot of her waist cord.
The tip of her silver hair caught the dawn light and flickered blue for a moment.
Aelak withdrew his hand from the Beomyeong Blade’s sheath. He turned his head toward Serian and spoke shortly, dryly.
“Shall we take a walk?”
Serian’s gray-blue eyes looked at Aelak. Rather, they flickered across the twenty guards on the Western Hill’s slope.
“Should I take them on?”
Aelak adjusted the Beomyeong Blade’s sheath, pulling it half a span closer to his belt. His palm pressed the hilt-end briefly, then released.
His answer was a single syllable.
“I’ll do it.”
Serian smiled. It was gentle. Yet she did not yield.
“Let me. You take the Lord.”
Aelak drew breath and looked at her, then nodded silently.

The main force of one thousand one hundred seventy broke through the dust wall and joined the fray.
Combined with the reserve force of five hundred from the Western Hill, the total came to one thousand nine hundred seventy.
Two waves covered the southern Plain around the rocky fortress.
Hoofbeats thundered across the ground. The columns began to settle into a semicircle formation.
The twenty guards on the Western Hill did not move. The Lord’s Dual Swords remained resting on his right hand.
Taikan gave a brief report of numbers and distances from each direction.
“South: one thousand one hundred seventy. West: five hundred. Western Hill: twenty. Total main force: one thousand nine hundred seventy.”
Arko sealed the mouth of his poison pouch and raised his nose. This man wasted no time reading the wind’s direction.
“Wind from south to north. Poison mist won’t work today.”
Garkan began to unwind the Ice Chain Whip from his waist, wrapping it up from his pinky finger.
Pinky. Ring finger. Middle finger. Index. Thumb.
Only two strands remained. The two damaged strands were already coiled in his belt pouch. Dried blood clung darkly to the bear hide across his shoulders.
Harku crossed his Twin Curved Swords in both hands. The blades rang against each other in a brief metallic note. His mouth twisted upward in a sneer.
“Two thousand—that’s a first. It’ll take a while. Till noon? No. I’d say we’ll be at this till morning tomorrow. Damn! We’ll be burning the whole night through.”
Garkan’s hand reflexively moved to cover Harku’s mouth, then stopped. Today was a day of permission. Yes—say whatever you wish.
Garkan returned his hand to the Ice Chain Whip.
Taikan checked the tension of the Angle Bow. The string was taut. He had only four arrows.
Arko drew his two Poison Daggers from his waist and divided them between his hands.
Black oil coated the blades.
His hunched back swelled up and subsided.
Serian moved to the entrance of the Western Narrow Path, west of the Rock Crevice. The narrow passage that divided the Western Hill from the main base in the Rock Crevice.
For the twenty guards on the hill to descend and follow the Lord, they would have to pass through this route.
She gripped the Silver Snow in her left hand, reverse grip. The end of her waist cord she wrapped and secured around the back of her right hand. Then she spoke low.
“No one will pass through here. Not unless Aelak allows it.”
Aelak heard those words through his back.
His hand, resting on the sword sheath, moved minutely, then stilled again.

The morning sun rose beyond the veil of dust. Red light smothered the stench of corpses on the Plain.
The Lord raised his right hand, then lowered it. A signal.
Hyaaaah!
Hyaaaah!
All nineteen hundred and seventy cavalry roared at once. Then the charge began. The first three hundred surged toward the entrance of the Rock Crevice, followed by four hundred, then five hundred more pouring in behind them.
Taikan’s Angle Bow string was the first to release.
Snap-snap-snap-snap!
Four arrows cleaved through the air.
The targets: four squad leaders driving the cavalry from the front ranks. The arrows flew at different angles. And arrived at the same instant.
Throat, temple, left eye, Adam’s apple.
Four men tumbled from their saddles. Their horses, robbed of riders, were driven deeper into the column. The chain of command was severed.
Taikan immediately slung the Angle Bow across his back.
“Should I use these?”
He drew two Short Swords from their sheaths.
There were no more arrows. This time he’d fired every last one.
“I’m going in first!”
Arko charged with a shout, cutting into the flank of the leading cavalry—tracing a curved path through their ranks.
In that moment, the sound of his feet touching ground vanished. Afterimage Movement. As his hand grazed the side of a cavalryman, both Poison Daggers had already found five vital points.
Throat. Below the collarbone. Inside the chest. The inner thigh. The armpit.
Five vital points punctured simultaneously.
The cavalryman’s body stiffened in the saddle for a breath, then his hands released the reins and he pitched sideways.
Arko was already charging the next one.
There was no mercy. Five strikes. That was the standard motion, repeated endlessly throughout the day.
The leading man from Mahjeon opened his eyes wide.
His lips trembled, but no scream came.
Behind him, five cavalrymen collapsed in succession. The black, oily sheen of the Poison Daggers—deadly even at a touch—began to spread across their blood.

Garkan unspooled both strands of his Ice Chain Whip without restraint. What was there to hold back now? He’d been saving these for exactly this moment.
The whip ends lashed through the air like flails.
Crack-snap-whip!
The front legs of five horses tangled together. Five cavalrymen were hurled skyward from their saddles before crashing to earth.
In that instant, one of Garkan’s Ice Chain Whips shrieked with the sound of metal.
Snap!
A link shattered. One strand fell to the ground. Only one remained. Garkan wound it back around his waist. Just in case he might need the Ice Chain Whip again later.
But the assault didn’t stop.
Bare-handed combat, North Sea Ice Palm Technique. An open palm struck upward beneath the jaw of a fallen cavalryman. His jaw shattered entirely.
Next, he drove his shoulder into a horse.
The beast twisted sideways and fell over its master.
The bear-fur at Garkan’s shoulder tore open again. Blood seeped through, but he didn’t stop. There was no time to stop.

Harku spun his Twin Curved Swords as he plunged into the mass of fallen cavalry. Then he danced through them, cutting and cleaving.
He shattered a man’s nose with his forehead, drove an elbow down into another cavalryman’s neck. He kicked a horse’s ribs to rupture its organs, then twisted another man’s arm until the joint snapped.
A beast loosed among the flock.
One cavalryman thrust a lance at Harku’s ribs.
Harku flicked the lance away with the back of his hand. The weapon spun and drove itself into the cavalryman’s own left eye.
“Ah, that’s nice.”
Snicker-snicker.
“Brother, this is exciting from first light!”
Garkan heard what Harku was saying. But he didn’t answer. There was no time for words now. The Ice Palm Technique struck up beneath another jaw.
Noon arrived. The sun stood directly overhead.
A thousand cavalry lay on the Plain. Nine hundred and seventy remained.
Their assault swept across the battlefield like a raging typhoon. And such a typhoon scraped flesh and bone as it passed.
Where a curved saber had grazed Harku’s left thigh. Garkan’s shoulder hide had torn in two more places, dried blood crusted on the exposed flesh beneath.
Arko bore a single cut across the back of his right hand.
Taikan’s bowstring had worn one more line into his fingers.
No mortal wounds. But nowhere was unscathed.
Serian blocked three cavalry attempting to break through at the entrance of the Western Narrow Path. The end of her sash caught the leading horse’s foreleg.
The horse went down hard.
The two horses behind crashed into it and tumbled down the slope.
In that moment, Serian’s eyes caught the saddle of the leading horse. Her pupils narrowed. A small metal ornament set into the leather.
A design embroidered in red thread on a black field.
A tree with three leaves. A Three-Leaf Tree.
Serian spoke in a low voice.
“Aelak. The saddle mark is a Central Plains sect emblem. Two out of three.”
Aelak’s gaze swept briefly across the Western Hill.
He said nothing. His hand, which had rested on the Beomyeong Blade, descended slowly. It fell away beside his thigh.
Aelak’s eyes traced across the mounted warriors, then fixed on the eastern edge of the Plain.
Arko caught that glance.
He moved toward the opposite flank.

Two men dressed like escort guards.
Arko examined their waistbands. Both wore the same metal ornament at the belt’s end. The same Three-Leaf Tree mark.
Arko severed one belt with the Poison Dagger.
The ornament fell to the ground. He picked it up and tucked it into his pouch. Evidence secured.
He moved his dry lips as if to mutter something, then pressed them shut without speaking.
Harku chuckled and passed by him.
“Another gift acquired. The clan chief will have many gifts to receive.”
Aelak did not answer.
His gray eyes looked toward the Lord standing on the Western Hill.
The Lord remained motionless at the hilltop.

The sun declined.
The Plain reddened with evening light.
Of nineteen hundred seventy, one thousand two hundred had fallen. Seven hundred seventy remained.
Garkan’s bear-fur coat darkened to a blood-red in the evening glow. His shoulders heaved roughly, and sweat poured from his brow like rain.
The breathing of his five subordinates grew harsh.
Blade and cloth and flesh—from crown to sole, everything was soaked dark red.
Aelak gestured with his chin toward the Western Narrow Path.
Serian shifted her position at that gesture.
Aelak had still not drawn the Beomyeong Blade. He commanded only through glances and nods.

Night fell. The moon hung at half. Torches rose from the Mahjeon column. Hundreds of flames scattered across the Plain.
Aelak’s party did not light torches.
They moved by moonlight and starlight alone.

Deep night. Fifteen hundred had fallen and four hundred seventy remained. The surviving Mahjeon riders charged with the desperation of those seeking Jade Suicide, trampling corpses. The horses collided in utter chaos.
Harku wielded his blade continuously in the darkness. But his blade had grown dull. Its speed no longer matched its earlier pace.
He glanced at Garkan’s face and snickered. His laughter cracked at the edges.
“Something’s on your face, elder.”
Garkan wiped his face with his palm.
His palm was entirely red. He could not tell if it was his own blood or another’s. The distinction between friend and foe was beginning to blur.
Serian’s silver hair, too, had soaked dark red.
Blood pooled and crusted atop Arko’s hunched back. Taikan’s long arms glistened with blood beneath the moonlight.
The blood of others began to cover the five bodies, erasing their own outlines.
They had all become Blood Persons.

The Lord remained motionless on the Western Hill. Nor did his twenty escort riders move.
The Lord’s Dual Swords moved again. His right hand rose into the air, then descended. A new signal.
The remaining four hundred seventy riders simultaneously launched a fresh assault.
This was true Jade Suicide. A charge to perish together. Any semblance of formation had long been abandoned. From all directions—east, west, south, north—they struck the rocks and poured in.
The force of the charge and the thunder of hooves merged into a single mass of pressure that came crashing down.
Aelak took his first step.
His gray eyes slowly swept across the entire Plain. South. East. North. West. His gaze passed last over the hill where the Lord stood, then returned.
Aelak drew breath. Long. Deep.
A brief white light flashed at the scar on his chest. Light seeped from beneath his leather coat, then vanished instantly.
The North Sea Ice Transcendence Art rose to a new level.
True Spatial Freezing. The kind that had frozen the Snow Woman to death.
A radius of twenty paces centered on Aelak froze in an instant. The very air transformed into a thin membrane of ice.
The membrane formed a transparent hemisphere above the Plain. Moonlight was trapped within it.
About a hundred of the Mahjeon riders at the front of the charge were within that radius.
Their breath froze in their throats.
The horse’s cry cut off mid-neigh. The legs of the running horses froze mid-stride, suspended in air. The riders’ bodies, mid-lean backward in their saddles, went rigid. Sweat beads trickling from a rider’s forehead hung motionless in the void.
The ice barrier contracted.
Everything inside crystallized. A hundred men and their mounts locked in ice where they stood. Ice crystals formed along every blade.
The riders’ mouths hung open, frozen mid-scream. They hadn’t even had time to cry out. Flesh froze before it could even bleed. Torn skin hung in permanent suspension.
The remaining three hundred and seventy cavalry witnessed it all.
Their horses suddenly reared backward. The reins twisted sideways, indifferent to the riders’ will. Saddles lurched as the men lost their seats.
Silence fell across the Plain.
The inside and outside of the ice barrier had become two worlds.
Inside was a still life. Outside was terror.
A few Mahjeon cavalry instinctively turned their reins toward the rear. No one had given the order—they were bandits who knew only death.

The ice barrier began to melt slowly.
It shifted from transparency to white light, then scattered into the air. But the hundred-odd bodies within remained fixed in their icy tombs.
They did not thaw.
Aelak exhaled slowly.
White breath rose from his lips. A layer of ice crystals descended across his face—a Blood Person’s face—and remained.
White light flickered at the scar on his chest.
To use this technique again, he would need a day or two to gather his True Qi.
Spatial Freezing was not a technique that borrowed Cold Qi. It was one that poured his own Cold Qi into living beings. Whatever he poured out had to be refilled.
‘That’s enough for today. Did I use it too soon? No—it’s done.’
He resolved it inwardly.
His gray eyes fixed on the Western Hill straight ahead.
The Lord stood motionless at its peak. Still unmoved.
And now… he stirred.

The Lord drew his Dual Swords with both hands.
No fear flickered in the Lord’s eyes. Even witnessing such devastating technique—his pupils remained fixed, following Aelak without wavering.
His tongue flicked briefly against the inner edge of his teeth.
His mouth closed tight, and the muscles of his jaw clenched briefly before falling silent.
The Lord signaled his escort anew.
The tip of his left Dual Sword pointed down the slope below.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
Twenty escort cavalry began descending the hillside for the first time. Their horses moved at a measured pace. The formation spread wide along the slope’s incline.

The twenty cavalry descended to the Plain’s edge. Yet they did not engage. They reformed their line at the Plain’s margin and halted.
Serian blocked the path they needed to pass.
Serian gripped the Silver Snow in reverse grip. She did not yield her ground.
The Lord remained motionless atop the hill, Dual Swords clasped in both hands. He did not retreat. He did not turn his horse’s head. His gaze fixed on Aelak.
The three hundred and seventy cavalry in retreat attempted to reform.
Riders at the edges turned their horses’ heads rearward, then swung them forward again. Because the Lord did not retreat, neither could his warriors.
The retreat’s momentum compressed back into a charge.

Dawn was breaking.
A full night had passed. The rim of the sky shifted from blue to white light.
Corpses carpeted the Plain like a dark-red rug. A hundred frozen bodies were scattered among them like islands, glinting silver-gray in the dawn rather than the moonlight.
The Lord summoned one of his escort close.
A brief whisper.
The Lord’s lips moved quietly. The escort nodded.
That escort descended the slope, spear in hand.
He reached the heap of corpses at the Plain’s edge. He began searching through the dead. He separated out the wounded who still clung to breath.
Wherever a groan sounded, he stopped.
He thrust his spear.
A spear through each wounded body.
As though lightening a burden. One. Another. He severed his comrades’ final breaths one by one.
None cried out. They no longer had the strength. Each time his spear descended, a thin line of breath rose from a throat and scattered into the air.

Serian watched from the entrance to the Western Narrow Path.
Her lips pressed tight. The hand gripping the Silver Snow trembled.
She said nothing. Breath caught in her throat. She did not look away. She watched to the end as even the wounded were killed.
The reek of death drifted toward Aelak.
From the frozen expanse of a hundred or so corpses, cold air swept downward in a suffocating wave. Between the Lord and Aelak hung a stillness dense as ice.
Aelak’s hand found the hilt of the Beomyeong Blade for the first time. From the Lord’s waist, the last length of Ice Chain Whip swayed, matted with dried blood.
Aelak said nothing.
That silence spread toward the Lord.

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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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