BW C139

Chapter 139

They surged toward Taemuk as though intent on burying him alive, their bodies heaving forward with ravenous momentum. They offered neither claws nor fists first—only teeth, gnashing, snapping, sinking into him. They fastened to his shoulder, his arm, his thigh; their jaws clamped again and again, tearing at him. At moments something was bitten clean away, but Hoeun could not bear to see that and squeezed his eyes shut.

Blood spilled beneath Taemuk in sickening pulses—sometimes sluggish, sometimes streaming, sometimes gushing in torrents. And still, he did not fall. As though he had been driven like a stake into the lake, he simply stood, shattering the skulls of Shikgoe.

“Why… why…”

Hoeun’s face twisted in anguish as he spoke through a trembling voice.

Why was Taemuk alone out there? Why did no one else move? Why did no soldier go to him?

Tears welled in Hoeun’s eyes as he scanned the surrounding men. Weapons lifted, they only watched the lake, the Shikgoe, and Taemuk. To Hoeun it looked as though they merely spectated the general’s death.

This—this could not be right. They could not simply stand here.

Hoeun reached down, shaking Gilsang’s shoulder.

“Sergeant. He—General Taemuk is there. We must go to him. We need to save him.”

“…”

But Gilsang did not answer. Hoeun’s eyes sharpened as he called louder:

“Sergeant!”

Gilsang finally turned to him.

“We have our task here.”

“And what is that!?”

What task outweighed Taemuk’s life? Whose existence rivaled his?

“You must wait.”

Gilsang faced forward again, lifting his blade.

“….”

Hoeun drew a ragged breath and looked back toward the lake—but Taemuk had vanished under the mass of Shikgoe. Whether he was merely obscured or devoured alive, he could not tell.

His heart plummeted. Without thought or hesitation, Hoeun yanked his reins, turning the horse.

If no one else would go, he would. Even if it meant dying. What of it?

A life useless to all but Taemuk was worth nothing without him.

Hoeun tightened his jaw, ready to kick his horse forward—but as he moved, Gilsang jerked the reins taut, wrenching the horse’s head aside. The beast stumbled under the force.

“You must not go.”

“Let go of me!”

“No.”

Gilsang’s voice was steel, his face unyielding. Hoeun stared at him with bloodshot eyes, disoriented—this did not feel like the man he knew. Had he been bewitched? Why else would he stand idle as Taemuk bled?

At that moment, several soldiers rushed past them toward the ice—not to save Taemuk, but to retrieve the fallen riders and spilled supplies. No one—not one—moved toward the general.

Soon the sole human figure left on the lake was Taemuk.

“Sergeant!”

Hoeun’s voice cracked with desperation—

Bwooooooooo—

A war-horn sounded. Low, resonant, vast—it rippled across the ice, across the snow, through bone-deep cold. It sounded only once, not as warning but as proclamation. Silence fell immediately. Not a breath stirred.

Something beyond Hoeun’s imagining was about to occur. And whatever it was… it would strike Taemuk.

Hoeun scanned frantically, but Taemuk was lost amid the horde. Only the rushing advance of countless Shikgoe remained—soon to crash into Jeokudae’s line. No one moved to meet them. They simply waited.

How long did that eerie stillness stretch?

BOOM.

A detonation from the lake’s heart. It dwarfed the horn—trees shook, snow burst into the air, horses screamed.

Then—

Boom.

Boom.

BOOM.

Heavy, sharp reverberations split the world. Ice shrieked—

Crk-krkk—

A fracture tore across the lake, snow leaping like startled birds, drifting as cold mist.

Water welled up through the widening rift.

And then—

RUUUUMBLE.

The lake convulsed. Ice shattered, collided, roared like thunder. Frozen sheets tilted, rolled, split—the Shikgoe spilled helplessly, scrambling as the surface betrayed them. They slid, clawed, screeched—

SPLASH.

SPLASH.

Open water devoured them, dark and merciless. A sea of black bodies vanished into a rising ocean-blue void. Their shrieks warped into gurgles as ice and water consumed them.

In moments, where white ice and black Shikgoe once churned, there was only deep, glacial blue.

Hoeun could only whisper. “Ah…”

His eyes emptied—hollow, stunned.

Silence. The lake stilled. No cries, no splashes—only that frigid span of blue, indifferent and serene, as though it had swallowed a thousand lives without consequence.

The soldiers of Jeokudae did not move. They waited, breath held—expecting, knowing.

At last—

SPLASH!

A Shikgoe’s head broke the surface.

Hoeun flinched. They survived? Of course. They did not die simply from water. He had believed the silence—and been fooled.

More heads emerged, claws scraping, teeth gleaming black and wet as they pulled their bodies upward.

“Fire!”

Byeonguk came thundering along the line, barking the order.

From behind the front ranks, hundreds of archers stepped forth. Bows—thick, weighty, the kind only Military Gods could draw—bent as one. Strings loosed in a rainstorm roar.

Arrows fell like spears.

Thud.

Crack.

Shatter.

Skulls pierced, plates burst, bodies convulsed and sank.

“Again! Loose! Loose!”

Arrows poured until the water thrashed red and bodies sank like stone. Yet some Shikgoe still clawed upward—those shielded behind corpses, those swift or merely stubborn.

Then steel met flesh—the soldiers along the shore hacked down anything that rose. Dongja’s spear punched through skulls; Mansu’s blade ripped jaws; Seong-im severed clawed wrists clutching ice.

It became swift butchery. With the enemy trapped below and the army above, victory was inevitable.

The blue lake reddened. Screams faded. Silence returned.

No soldier lay fallen. They had won cleanly.

Or so one might say.

“….”

Hoeun stared into the red water, eyes blurred from exhaustion and strain. His whole body trembled—not from cold, but from the ache of searching, searching, never finding. He longed to throw himself into the lake, but Gilsang refused to release him, refused to let him dismount.

And still—no sign of Taemuk.