The thick mist of blood spreading in every direction wasn’t confined to the plateau west of the desert.
A thousand li1 to the east, the scene unfolding in a basin was just as brutal.
No—it was all too similar.
Crunch!
The battle was fierce.
And desperate.
Through the torrential rain, heavy enough to obscure the field, blood and chunks of flesh flew—no one could tell whose. Long, razor-sharp claws like scythes and finely honed spears and blades rushed at one another.
Clang!
Sparks flew. Monsters twice the size of grown men charged with furious roars.
Graaah!
Arms and legs thick as logs. Three or four heads hanging from each rotting body.
The sight alone was enough to send a primal chill down anyone’s spine. But a low, deep sound rang out the next moment and snapped the soldiers back to their senses.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
A war drum.
Dozens of strongmen struck it with all their might, its thunderous beat shaking the vast basin.
It thawed frozen hands and feet and breathed life into courage that had begun to fade.
“Defend!”
A flag snapped at the shouted command.
Tens of thousands of troops moved as one.
The monsters’ claws tore into iron-plated shields instead of human flesh and bone. Spearmen packed together like the spines of a hedgehog thrust their long spears, each a zhang2 in length.
Crack! Splurt!
Fountains of blood erupted across the field.
But it wasn’t only the enemy’s blood.
Many of the monsters didn’t suffer so much as a scratch from the sharpened spearheads. They smashed through the shield wall and leaped into the broken ranks.
Whoosh! Boom!
Clods of earth burst into the air.
Bodies that had been full of strength a moment ago were flung away as mere chunks of flesh. Those who witnessed the unreal sight remembered the fear they’d briefly forgotten.
And right then—
Shing!
Dozens of streaks of light plunged down from above, blocking the monsters’ relentless charge.
No.
They cut them down.
Slice! Splatter!
The soldiers at the front, who’d only just escaped death, stared wide-eyed at green blood spreading like mist.
More precisely, they stared at the shadows descending over the monsters’ severed corpses.
At the golden armor shining almost unnaturally bright—and the man standing tall amid those Embroidered Uniform Guards.
“Your Majesty!”
They cried out with unmistakable loyalty and reverence.
They called to the sole ruler of the Nine Provinces and Eight Wastes, the Four Seas and Five Lakes. To the father who governed all under heaven in accordance with the will of Heaven.
And the Son of Heaven of the Great Ming Empire, Zhu Di, answered their call.
In the most effective way he could at that moment.
Thud!
A monster plunging from the sky like a bolt of lightning, its unmistakably hawklike wings folded tight, shuddered.
“Who do you think you’re attacking?”
The Son of Heaven spoke with astonishing calm as he twisted the sword buried deep between the monster’s brows.
“But you, too, were once one of my people.”
Crack.
“Rest in peace.”
With one final, wet crunch, the monster stopped moving. The tens of thousands of Imperial Guards watching felt something hot rise from deep in their bellies.
Who was the Son of Heaven?
Their lord. The master of the continent.
And yet this supreme being, whom they scarcely dared look upon, was fighting alongside them.
Shoulder to shoulder, drenched in the enemy’s blood.
Someone else might scoff and ask if that was all it took. But to them, it was everything.
Everything they needed to willingly give their lives.
“Long live Your Majesty!”
“Long live the Great Ming Empire!”
Hundreds of voices became thousands, then tens of thousands. At last, one unified roar rose as the Imperial Army charged.
The Son of Heaven watched them go in silence.
Until a young officer guarding him nearby spoke.
“Your Majesty, may this humble officer dare to say something?”
The Son of Heaven shook his head.
“Denied.”
He answered without a moment’s hesitation.
But the young officer didn’t back down.
“Please return. It’s dangerous here.”
“Did you not hear what I said?”
“I heard you clearly.”
“Then how do you intend to answer for this crime?”
“I will accept any punishment. But I beg Your Majesty to preserve your sacred person first and carry out the sentence afterward.”
The young officer was respectful yet unflinching. The Son of Heaven let out a quiet laugh.
“A mere Thousand Captain of the Embroidered Uniform Guard dares to defy my word. The laws of the imperial house must have fallen into disarray. Wouldn’t you agree?”
A middle-aged man who had appeared out of nowhere spoke up.
“Wouldn’t it be a hundred times better for its laws to fall into disarray than for the imperial house itself to fall?”
It was a disrespectful answer that could have seen him branded a traitor on the spot. Yet the Son of Heaven didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow.
The middle-aged man holding a silver crescent-bladed halberd had done more than anyone under heaven to protect the imperial house.
“You came, Baek Yeon.”
Baek Yeon, Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, gave a brief military salute and corrected him.
“I had to.”
“How strange. No one called for you—not even me.”
“Then why is Your Majesty, who ought to be safely in the rear, here?”
“For the same reason you came here of your own accord.”
Baek Yeon paused, then gave a dry laugh.
“You’ve answered a foolish question with a wise reply. I have nothing more to say.”
Yes. It had been a foolish question.
Just as Baek Yeon had come to protect the Son of Heaven, the Son of Heaven had come to protect the people who followed him.
Not for some grand cause, but out of compassion for his people.
Compassion. Compassion…
It was a word he hadn’t thought of in a long time.
The Empire’s fourth prince, who had once raced across battlefields with hot blood and a natural gift for war, had disappeared after Dark Heaven’s shadow fell over the imperial house.
The Son of Heaven had to be cold. He had to be heartless. He’d believed it was the right course—the only way to solve every problem.
At least until a few months ago, when he met one man.
Jin Taekyung.
He was utterly free-spirited.
No matter what stood in his way, he pushed forward with all his strength.
Simply because he was brave?
No.
He felt fear and pain just like everyone else—perhaps even more than they did. But he pressed on because he believed it was the compassionate thing to do.
The path Jin Taekyung walked was narrow, but straight.
And in the end, it reached everyone. It had brought countless people all the way here.
“He’s better than I am. Enough to make me ashamed to be the Son of Heaven.”
That mutter would have thrown the court into an uproar had the civil and military officials heard it. The Son of Heaven raised the sword he’d let hang at his side.
Then he turned to the young Embroidered Uniform Guard officer who had tried to stop him.
“Has your resolve still not changed?”
The officer replied in a steady voice.
“With all due respect, no.”
“Very well. I will withdraw in accordance with your wishes, at once. In return, you are not to leave my side for even a moment.”
The officer faltered at the unexpected words. The Son of Heaven added, his voice strong,
“But we will withdraw forward, not back.”
“Your Majesty.”
“I am the Son of Heaven. The father of all the people. A father never turns away from his children when they’re bleeding. That is the will of Heaven.”
“……!”
“I ask you again. Has your resolve still not changed?”
After a moment’s silence, the young officer knelt.
“I, Jeong Hogun, Thousand Captain of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, receive the command of Your Majesty, the august Emperor.”
“Follow me. We’ll open a path.”
“As you command!”
Jeong Hogun wasn’t the only one to answer.
The thousand Embroidered Uniform Guards who had closed ranks around the Son of Heaven roared as one, shaking the battlefield.
Their cry swept over the heads of the Imperial Guards, whose lines were rapidly collapsing under the overwhelming odds, and reached even the true enemy lying in wait beyond them.
Pitch-black armor reflected no light. Each movement brought a dull, heavy sound.
Red eyes glowed beneath helmets pulled low, and the mouths visible below them reeked of corpse stench.
“Black Ghosts…!”
True monsters, each one the equal of a Supreme Peak master.
Countless eyes trembled at the sight of no fewer than twenty of them. Then a thunderous cry burst from the Son of Heaven’s lips.
“I command the Twelve Palaces!”
At that very moment—
Crunch!
More than ten streaks of light shot up across the battlefield.
Twelve men and women crushed the monsters in their path and reached the Son of Heaven in an instant. They bowed deeply before him.
The pillars and stars that upheld and illuminated the imperial house: the Twelve Palaces of the Zodiac.
After the bloodshed in the imperial palace, these Supreme Peak masters had been newly organized under the Son of Heaven’s command as a force directly serving the imperial house. Their eyes shone as they looked to their lord.
“Give your command.”
The Son of Heaven took a deep breath.
When this battle was over, how many of them would still be alive?
No—could anyone even dare to predict victory against enemies so terrifyingly powerful?
What would the old me have done?
He already knew the answer to the question that had suddenly come to mind.
He would have retreated without hesitation.
Even if it meant sending tens of thousands of Imperial Guards to their deaths.
But the actions of one man had changed more than just this world.
The Son of Heaven had been reborn, too.
Though accepting the Maoshan Sect’s martial arts had left his body little different from a dead man’s, his heart and blood burned hotter than ever.
Like everyone else here.
Just like the man who’d awakened him once again: Jin Taekyung.
And if Jin Taekyung were here, he would surely say this:
“Wipe them all out.”
The words held not a trace of decorum, and that made the freedom in them all the clearer. The Son of Heaven raced across the blood-soaked earth.
Whoooosh!
A brilliant golden wave stretched out behind him like the tail of a meteor.
Jin Taekyung suddenly raised his head.
Two streaks of light were crossing the sky, which had turned black before he’d noticed.
A meteor?
It wasn’t exactly common, but it wasn’t all that rare, either.
So why?
Jin Taekyung pressed down on his throbbing chest.
For a long time, he couldn’t manage a proper night’s sleep.
Not after night gave way to dawn and the first light appeared. Not after he and his companions finally left that damned desert behind.
Not even after they passed through mountains and fields blanketed in perennial snow and reached the place where all the allied forces were supposed to rendezvous.
No one came.
A day passed, then another.
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