Chapter 956

Eight Spring Gorge was a little over a hundred jang¹ long.

A natural gateway enclosed by cliffs some thirty jang high.

It was barely wide enough for thirty grown men to stand shoulder to shoulder—the worst possible place to attack. Yet there was a reason two great battles for the fate of Shanxi Province had been fought in this jar-shaped gorge.

“Break through! Trample them and keep going!”

“Brothers of the Great Steppe! Once we cross this godforsaken gorge, Shanxi Province will be ours!”

Eight Spring Gorge was the most important strategic passage in Shanxi.

It offered the quickest route through the rugged northern mountains and was the last gateway to the plains of central Shanxi.

If they took this place, positioned on the border between north and central Shanxi, nothing would remain to stop tens of thousands of cavalry charging side by side, shaking the earth beneath their hooves.

And even if something did stand in their way, they could simply trample it.

Sand and gravel could not hold back a wave.

That was precisely why the defenders had to stop the invaders before them, whatever it took.

“Hold the line! Don’t give up a single step!”

“Proud people of Shanxi! Defend your homeland from these merciless barbarians!”

“Raaaaaah!”

Screams of defiance pierced the darkness and echoed through the gorge.

Amid the dense rain of arrows the two armies loosed at each other, a single streak of light moved with graceful ease, seemingly untouched by the chaos around it.

Whoosh!

Space split apart.

The dozen or so mounted warriors charging forward with the steppe nomads’ distinctive cries suddenly felt a wind.

Not one that merely brushed past them, but a cold wind that swept through the depths of their bodies.

“…Huh?”

Their eyes widened. Their vision wavered.

And then—

Shhk.

Eternal darkness. Light would never reach them again.

Fwoosh!

Fountains of blood surged into the air. The things that had once been people and horses were severed into pieces and flung in every direction.

They hurtled onward with all the speed of their charge—

toward the enemies they had chosen as their first targets, whom they would never reach alive.

Crunch!

Even the lightest man and horse had weighed hundreds of geun² in life, and some nearly a thousand.

Jin Mukyung calmly looked down at the enormous chunks of flesh, caked in dirt and blood, that had carved deep furrows as they slid to his feet.

More precisely, he looked at their impossibly clean cut surfaces—and the sword in his grasp.

It really is sharp. Unbelievably so.

Admiration flickered in Jin Mukyung’s eyes as he gazed at the blade, which radiated a cold, keen aura even in the dark.

Only two days earlier, he had seen what the new sword could do in battle against a thousand enemies. Yet it still astonished him.

He was a swordsman with an appetite for fine blades, after all.

I wondered what was going on when he suddenly handed me a sword I’d never seen before. If I’d refused it, I’d have regretted it for the rest of my life.

To a martial artist, a cherished weapon was his closest friend and family.

But just before Jin Mukyung’s first campaign, as he was polishing his beloved sword, a sturdy old man came to see him. He dropped a long bundle of cloth in front of him and said:

“Get rid of that one. Use this from today on. I forged it for you well in advance, Second Young Master.”

At first, Mukyung had thought the old man was out of his mind.

He wanted him to discard the sword he had used for over ten years? The fine blade his older brother Jin Wikyung had practically torn a pillar out of the Jin Family of Taiyuan to pay for?

But then a sword appeared between the folds of cloth. When its pure-white blade finally emerged naked from its scabbard, Jin Mukyung understood.

The mad old man before him was an extraordinary artisan, unlike any he had ever seen.

One with more than enough skill to forge a divine weapon.

“You’ve got a good eye, judging by your face. That’s a relief. You look worthy of being its owner, at least.”

“What on earth is this…?”

“Can’t you tell? One of the finest things this old man has ever made. I worked myself to the bone on it in my old age. I forged it from something that can rival Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron, so take good care of it.”

The old man had left without hesitation after saying that. Jin Mukyung remained absorbed in his new sword for a long while, until one of the family retainers finally told him who the old man was.

“Come to think of it, Second Young Master might not know. The Ironcraft Hall was newly established in our family while you were in secluded training.”

“The Ironcraft Hall? Then that old man was…”

“Yes. Hall Master Jang Taebo, head of the Ironcraft Hall. Before that, he served as Guild Leader of the Ironcraft Guild for over thirty years.”

“…!”

Even Jin Mukyung, who had devoted himself to martial arts both at the Jin Family of Taiyuan and at Heaven’s Gate Temple, knew of the Ironcraft Guild.

It was home to some of the finest artisans in the world.

They had the skill and pride to refuse to sell a weapon to anyone they deemed unworthy, even for a fortune in gold.

The retainer didn’t know why Jang Taebo, who had reigned as the guild’s greatest artisan for decades, was now at the Jin Family of Taiyuan. But there was one thing he knew for certain.

“I believe he formed a connection with the Third Young Master. So, around the time you entered secluded training, he reversed his retirement and joined our family.”

“Taekyung? That guy?”

“Yes. And somehow, Hall Master Jang brought a great many artisans who’d belonged to the Ironcraft Guild along with him. It was probably because of his old ties to them.”

But there was something neither the retainer who’d given him that information nor Jin Mukyung, fresh out of secluded training, knew.

The artisans who had dropped everything and rushed to the Jin Family of Taiyuan had not done it out of loyalty.

What had drawn even the old Master Artisans who had left their forges before Jang Taebo back to work was the final gift of a great spiritual creature that had once swum in a deep river more than ten thousand li³ away.

The Water God Dragon.

The imugi had never obtained a dragon pearl and so had failed to become a dragon. In the end, Dark Heaven had corrupted it. But with a young man’s help, it had found eternal rest, leaving its sacred body behind.

An ingredient for working metal so rare that even a meteorite fallen from the heavens or Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron might pale in comparison—something no famous artisan could resist.

And, naturally, a considerable portion had secretly made its way to the Jin Family of Taiyuan.

Its flesh and blood, steeped in spiritual power over hundreds of years, had become elixirs in their own right. Its immensely strong bones had become weapons, while its thick, sturdy tendons and muscles had become parts of armor.

Before long, parts of the Water God Dragon had found their way throughout the Jin Family of Taiyuan.

Just as they were at this very moment.

Whoosh!

No matter how fine the net, it could not catch every minnow.

With their path blocked by Jin Mukyung alone, the steppe nomads had faltered at the sight of their comrades’ gruesome deaths. The arrows they loosed to keep the Jin forces at bay slipped between the government troops’ shields and struck a martial artist of the Jin Family of Taiyuan in the chest.

Or so it seemed for a moment.

Thunk!

Despite its powerful whistle through the air, the arrow bounced away feebly.

The martial artist, certain he had been dealt a mortal wound and about to scream, stared wide-eyed.

“Guh—huh?”

He blinked in confusion. Then he remembered the thin layer the Lesser Family Head had strictly ordered him to place over his chest beneath his martial uniform.

It was so light, with such a strange sheen, that he could not tell whether it was iron or leather.

The moment he remembered, he burst out laughing as though nothing had happened.

“You stupid barbarian bastards! Shooting like that, you couldn’t hit our family dog!”

“…!”

“…!”

The nomads, who had been ready to trample the weak Han Chinese, could only look at one another in dismay.

Their bows could pierce most leather armor with ease. Now they were useless.

It was only natural for unease to spread at the thought that one of the grasslands’ greatest weapons had been taken away from them.

But they soon learned that even a moment spent worrying was a luxury they could not afford.

“Now! Now’s the time!”

“Loose!”

The nomads, who by then filled the gorge, heard a forceful shout from high above—from the steep cliffs rising on either side.

Another layer of darkness fell over their heads.

Shhhhhhh.

A chill sound like the rush of waves filled the air. Countless arrows blotted out even the faint moonlight as they plunged down across the entire gorge.

“E-everyone, shields—!”

The cry, almost a scream, was swallowed before it could finish.

Clang-clang-clang!

Sparks sprang from arrowheads striking the rock walls.

In the slowed world, through that brief, hazy light born of friction, they could see countless men and horses collapsing, spattering blood.

Whoosh—thud-thud-thud!

By the time they heard the arrows tearing through the air, it was too late.

The steel rain drove straight down from thirty jang above with more force than the nomads’ composite bows could muster. It drenched the gorge in dark red blood and cries of pain.

“Raaaaagh!”

“Neigh!”

A vast tangle of screams filled the gorge, impossible to tell apart.

A nomad who had instinctively looked up rolled on the ground, clutching the arrow lodged in his eye. A steppe horse thrashed with all its might, heedless of its rider. And a lucky hundred-man commander who had saved himself with a tough leather shield breathed a sigh of relief.

Before he could finish that breath, he heard an ominous sound overhead.

Rumble. Rrrrattle.

Thunder?

No. He was wrong.

He soon saw the answer for himself.

“Ah.”

A hollow sigh escaped him.

Thump.

The shield, now bristling like a porcupine, slipped from the middle-aged commander’s weakened grasp. He paid it no mind.

He already knew that the shield that had saved his life could not stop the enormous things bearing down on him through the darkness.

Rrrrrumble!

Black spheres poured down the rock face out of the darkness, shaking the earth as they came.

The steel rain had scarcely stopped when the avalanche of rocks arrived. The hundred-man commander looked up at a sky where even moonlight could not reach him.

“…Tengri.”⁴

Ka-boom!

No answer came.

His sky closed over him.

“Isn’t this dangerous?”

Chinggen scratched his chin as he asked. Jamukha answered without changing expression.

“How many did you send in?”

“Five or six hundred-man companies?”

Chinggen smacked his lips and added:

“Though they’re gone now.”

A mere half an hour.

That was all it had taken for more than five hundred troops to vanish.

And they hadn’t even had a proper chance to begin fighting.

Their enemies were proving more capable than expected.

“That man’s quite something.”

Jamukha knew whom Chinggen meant. He nodded quietly.

“He has the makings of a Sword Demon. Like you.”

“He must be the one who wiped out the vanguard, too.”

“So, you want him?”

“If I asked, would you give him to me?”

Chinggen’s eyes gleamed red.

How many years had he spent in a ger⁵ reeking of horse manure? Now, catching the scent of prey for the first time in ages, he could feel his blood boil. Jamukha clicked his tongue softly.

“Still young, I see. At your age, and you still haven’t broken that habit.”

“You haven’t answered me.”

“I’ll give it to you now. No.”

“What a shame.”

Chinggen frowned, but Jamukha continued.

“No need to be disappointed. There’s prey elsewhere.”

“You mean…”

“Take the cliffs. They’re being a nuisance, so we should deal with them before any more time passes.”

“An excellent choice.”

Chinggen beamed.

Then he set off toward the prey waiting for him atop the high cliffs.