Chương 37: Tolling of the Bell

The downpour made for a terrible travel companion, but to a Meng-shan scout, it also provided very welcome cover. Dong-su crouched beneath the thick canopy of ancient pines, his patterned cloak blending seamlessly with the wet bark and shadows. His mission was simple: bypass the main engagement on the road, navigate the treacherous, forested slopes, and take stock of the Tai-shan base camp. The spy continued to creep through the underbrush, steadily approaching the tree line.

The scout was only a dozen or so steps away from his goal when a sudden roar tore at his ear drums.

"I AM KANG MU-CHEON, HEIR TO THE TAI-SHAN! LIEUTENANT SHIN IS DOWN. WE ARE ORDERING A RETREAT!" The sheer, concussive force of the Ki-infused roar tore through the rain, rattling Dong-su's teeth and sending a flock of terrified crows bursting from the branches above. The scout froze, his heart hammering in his chest. The Tai-shan were retreating? Already?

Abandoning his slow, meticulous crawl, the man scrambled forwards on his hands and knees, sliding through the slickened leaves and moss until he reached a dense cluster of holly bushes situated on the edge of the forest. He carefully parted the spiky leaves and peered out. Into absolute bedlam. Unexpectedly, the normally disciplined Tai-shan troops were in full retreat.

Hundreds of mud-soaked, bleeding men were scrambling down the back of the hill, slipping and sliding as they pushed each other aside to try and make room. Down at the bottom of the incline, a weary column was slowly forming from the soldiers who had made it that far, restoring a semblance of order while preparing to march away in the opposite direction. Dong-su's eyes took in the chaos, trying to make sense of it all and to pick out any details that seemed useful.

Officers, screaming orders while trying to restore discipline. Positions of supply wagons. The types and numbers of tents. It was hard to count with all the visual noise, but he was a professional, and his training kicked in and made him do it anyways. But just as he was starting to come to grips with the situation, a surge in the crowd shoved a small figure out of the throng and straight towards him. The person stumbled hard, pitching forwards and landing on her hands and knees in the muddy gravel.

She fell fewer than five paces away from the scout's hiding spot. Dong-su went perfectly still, afraid to even breathe. It was a young girl. She was completely soaked, her oversized jade scholar's robes clinging to her thin form. As she lifted her head, what little light there was glinted for a moment off of the meticulously crafted silver phoenix cuff in her hair. The scout's mind raced. She was obviously a civilian.

Part of the administrative train, or perhaps the plaything of some high-ranking officer, accidentally swept up in the stampede. In almost all situations, she would have been completely safe to ignore. If only she hadn't just looked directly at his bush. Dong-su's blood ran cold. Through the tangled branches and the sheets of freezing rain, he saw her eyes land on his position. And he could easily imagine what would happen the moment she screamed. Pure, paralyzing panic gripped the scout.

He was a spy, not a warrior. If that pampered little girl opened her mouth, the remaining Tai-shan soldiers in the area would immediately swarm his position. Dong-su's hand drifted to the hilt of the iron dagger at his belt. His thumb popped the leather retaining strap. The girl was five paces away. He would have to burst from the bushes, cross the distance between the tree line and the road, and bury his blade in her throat before she could draw enough breath to scream.

It was a gamble born of desperation; if he slipped in the mud, he was dead. If he was spotted before making it back to the tree line, he was dead. Dong-su's mind willed his body to move. The muscles in his legs began to tense. He was gearing up to do it; he was sure he had no other choice. Until he saw the girl blink. Her disoriented gaze seemed to slide right past him, staring unfocusedly into the woods. He had expected to see panic in her eyes… but there was none. Only bewilderment.

She slowly stood up, looking down at her mud-stained hands with a grimace of disgust while shaking her head.

"The Lieutenant will be furious," she exclaimed, before turning and walking calmly back towards the command tent, all while trying to brush off as much mud as possible. Dong-su deflated, his entire body going slack as he sank back into the leaves. He released the hilt of his dagger, his held breath whistling through his teeth. She hadn't seen him. She was just a terrified, useless noble girl, staring blankly at shadows in the woods.

Praising the heavens for his luck, the scout let the holly bushes close back together. Without making another sound, he melted back into the forest, eager to get away and deliver his report. A short time later, Chae-ha finally risked a glance over her shoulder. The cluster of bushes was still, and the dark shadows beneath the ancient pines were empty again. The scout was gone. A shiver of relief washed over her.

The young girl's legs threatened to buckle as the surge of adrenaline faded, but she caught herself and stayed upright. Resolutely, she turned around and continued marching forwards. The Tai-shan were in the middle of a full-fledged retreat. Distracting everyone by indulging in a confrontation with a scout would have been foolish. What was the man going to report to his superiors, anyway? That their enemy was in disarray? Chae-ha snorted quietly to herself, before turning her attention back to the muddy road.

Behind the safety of the elite detachment, the scrambled remnants of the Tai-shan battalion were finally starting to form up into a ragged marching column. Men were slipping, shouting, and dragging their wounded comrades through the freezing downpour. It was working, but it was agonizingly slow. They needed more time. Gathering her composure, Chae-ha walked briskly back towards the defensive line. General Eom Tae-seok stood just behind his men, his eyes tracking the brutal melee mere paces away.

"Elder Eom," Chae-ha called out, her voice cutting through the heavy rain.

"How much longer can your men hold the line?" The veteran general didn't take his eyes off the fighting.

"Not long, Inspector. The Meng-shan are pressing hard. My men are being forced back a half-step with every exchange. If we don't disengage soon, the casualties are going to start mounting."

"Speaking of which, how exactly do you plan to do that? Safely disengage, I mean," Chae-ha asked, wiping the cold rain from her eyes. Tae-seok gestured towards one of his men. A lean, sharp-eyed adjutant immediately peeled away from the group and jogged over to join them. Rather than a greatsword, he was armed with a standard-issue Jik-do. He carried a small bone whistle around his neck. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Together with his adjutant, the retired general explained their strategy. Chae-ha nodded along, and after the two had finished, stood quietly for a moment, her lips pursed in thought.

"I see. That makes sense," she eventually replied, her voice steady.

"But may I suggest one small change?"

"Why? What are you thinking, Inspector?" Chae-ha raised her hand and pointed a slender finger at Mu-cheon, who was anxiously watching the battle unfold. Even from behind, it was clear from his posture that he was more than ready to break something.

"I'm thinking it's time we show everyone – both the Tai-shan and the Meng-shan – exactly why the Young Master came to be known as the Great Bell of Mt. Tai." The battle on the incline had reached a breaking point, but beneath the torrential rain, General Eom Tae-seok's elite detachment was showing exactly what made them veterans. The second and third ranks of the detachment stepped backwards, deliberately creating a narrow pocket behind the front line.

Into that void stepped five men: General Tae-seok, Mu-cheon, and three veteran Squad Captains. All Senior Disciples or better, and some of the only fighters present who were able to use Cham-jeom-sul. The five officers spaced themselves evenly across the width of the muddy road, lining up closely behind the front rank. As one, they drew deep breaths and invoked the first mnemonic of the Chuk-ap-gyeol. The oxblood silk of their uniforms pulled taut as their limbs filled out.

Each of the five men took a stance, as if preparing to strike, and began to breathe Ki into their swords. Without taking his eyes off the enemy, the adjutant standing to the side brought the small bone whistle to his lips. He blew a simple signal – one short trill, followed by a long one. The front rank responded immediately. They tightened their formation, drawing closer together, their postures defensive. Taking the bait, the Meng-shan spearmen aimed at the spot where they were clustered.

The Adjutant blew a second pattern – two short trills this time. The Tai-shan line executed an infantry technique known as a tactical drop. The entire front rank fell to one knee, tucking their chins and passing their enormous blades over their heads in a defensive guard. Meanwhile, the five senior martial artists stepped forwards and swung their blades over the heads of the kneeling infantrymen." Gye-san-byeok," they called with one voice.

"Mountain-Rending Cleave!" They weren't trying to kill enemy soldiers, all of whom were still safely out of reach. They were each aiming at a handful of extended Meng-shan spears. As one, the warriors expelled stored pressure from their arms and shoulders to accelerate the tips of their weapons to inhuman speeds. Blades hit spear shafts with the force of a tidal wave, splintering wood and sending iron spearheads flying.

Not all of them were hit, but a significant portion of their attackers were now defanged, and struggling to hold onto weapons that had been nearly torn from their hands. Members of the Meng-shan front line looked down at the wobbling, broken shafts in their hands as they tried to get them back under control. Spears that were suddenly half as long as they used to be swung wildly in the air, knocking each other aside in a confused mess. With their momentum abruptly stopped, the Meng-shan vanguard stumbled.

The pressure of the advancing column forced their second rank to collide with the backs of the first one, further throwing them off balance. What had been a coordinated assault stalled. Four of the five senior Tai-shan disciples immediately stepped back, allowing the standard reserves to replace them again. But one of the five stepped forwards, into the space where the lethal spears had just been. Closing the distance, Mu-cheon stepped up to the bewildered enemy line, all while drawing in a lungful of cold air.

The young man stored up pressure until he felt like his sizable chest would burst. Then, from point blank, he forced open his Tian Tu point – and let the Great Bell ring.

"FOR MT. TAI!" The sheer concussive force of the roar washed over Meng-shan front line like an explosion. The noise was so loud that it created a subtle warp in the falling rain, a bubble of force that would have been invisible under any other circumstances. The wavefront faded rapidly with distance, but a handful of soldiers in the center of the Meng-shan column caught the brunt of it. The affected spearmen in the first couple of rows flinched as the shockwave hit them.

Men dropped what was left of their spears in order to clamp their hands over painfully ringing ears. The acoustic assault rattled their teeth and turned their knees to water. Mu-cheon charged into the disoriented center, but not alone. Before the Meng-shan could recover their equilibrium, the elite detachment's own front line also surged back into the fray. Not all the Meng-shan fighters were disabled, but their coordination was gone, and there were now gaping holes in their line to exploit.

The Tai-shan disciples were finally able to get into their own preferred range, and the butchering began immediately. At the center of it all stood Mu-cheon. Moving his enormous Dae-jik-do like it weighed nothing at all, the Young Master carved his way through the enemy vanguard, more than occasionally shearing a spearman in two. He continued to roar encouragement over the sounds of clashing metal, anchoring the line with the sheer force of his presence.

"CONTINUE THE RETREAT! WE'LL HOLD THE LINE!" Further up the incline, the battered, retreating remnants of Commander Mok's battalion looked back through the rain. What they saw was a scene taken straight from martial legends: their courageous Young Master, standing tall in the mud, almost single-handedly beating back an army so his men could escape. By the time the front two ranks of the Meng-shan – roughly two dozen men – lay dead on the gravel, the enemy force had lost all of its forwards momentum.

The column of spearmen had been effectively forced to halt, as soldiers frantically worked to disentangle themselves from the carnage. It was a temporary reprieve, but it was what the Tai-shan needed. Eom Tae-seok signaled the final disengagement, his adjutant blew the whistle, and the elite detachment turned and jogged back up the ridge, putting distance between themselves and the halted Meng-shan column.

While their opponents gradually pulled themselves back together, the remaining Tai-shan soldiers finished reforming and marched away. The Meng-shan pursuit wasn't quick, but it was inevitable. Even after an hour of flight, Chae-ha could still see violet banners in the distance, marching solemnly after them. As the group continued past Iron Creek junction, the young girl closed her eyes. They would have to do something about this.

"Mu-cheon," she called out, pointing towards a small cluster of ancient pines growing precariously close to the edge of the compacted gravel road.

"Have you ever considered a career as a lumberjack?" The young man stared at her for a moment, his eyes following the line of her finger and then out to the trees. His shoulders slumped in defeat as he began to walk towards them.

"Think of something heroic to yell!" Chae-ha called after him. The Inner Disciple just shook his head. He squared his shoulders, ready to unleash his most powerful technique against a set of inanimate objects. Again.

"THIS IS THE TERRITORY OF THE TAI-SHAN, AND I AM ITS YOUNG MASTER! THIS INCURSION ENDS HERE!" The scream was entirely performative – even as loud as he was, there was no way the Meng-shan column in the distance could hear him through the rain. But it made whispers break out amongst the retreating soldiers, many of whom turned around to watch." Gye-san-byeok," Mu-cheon called out, for the second time that day.

"Mountain-Rending Cleave!" Splintered chips of wood and pulp flew out from the line of impact as his repeated strikes hammered into the trees, sundering Ki lining the flats of the blade to prevent it from binding. He angled the wedges he cut so that the subsequent felling strikes would cause the ancient trees to fall across the road, a total of six in all.

The enormous, gnarled trunks did a lot more than just block the path when they fell; their immense weight hit the compacted gravel with an earth-shattering thump, throwing up a spray of gravel and mud and carving deep trenches into the already unstable surface. The road was more than just blocked; it was utterly ruined. Chae-ha let out a slow breath. The Meng-shan pursuit was effectively neutralized, at least for now.

It would take them hours to hack through the timber and clear the debris, and even then, marching an army over what was now a muddy crater would be a nightmare. Besides, their opponents had just secured a highly lucrative iron mine. Once they found their route was blocked, they would be more than happy to fall back and consolidate their gains. The atmosphere among the retreating Tai-shan was a strange mixture of grief and excitement. As Mu-cheon walked past the wounded, men reached out to clap his shoulder.

Whispers about the exploits of the Great Bell spread through the ranks. In their eyes, he was no longer some pampered heir; he was the hero who had personally held the gates of hell shut so they could all live. Chae-ha walked beside him, her jade robes heavy with mud, and shared a grim look with Tae-seok. They had saved the lives of more than three hundred Tai-shan soldiers. They had executed a tactical retreat and protected the eastern front from total collapse.

But they had also rebelled against a commanding officer and forcefully taken control from him. A man who was still, even now, tied up in a supply cart, which was being carefully monitored by a few of Tae-seok's elites. Chae-ha sighed. What they had done was necessary. But while the men doing the fighting might be calling their deeds heroic, the young girl was absolutely certain Commander Mok was about to call it treason.