Hell Upon the Sea
The sea had become hell.
That night, I witnessed something no human hand should ever have made.
The sun had already sunk beneath the water, and the boundary between sky and sea had dissolved into ink-black darkness.
The old boatman lowered the sail.
The small wooden boat settled into the shadow of the wind and came to a halt.
It rocked gently atop the ripples, quiet as a breathing beast.
From there, I watched the lantern on the small skiff that Park Seong-jin had taken.
The light staggered as it moved.
Then its speed changed.
It was not a speed a human oar could produce.
The light shrank into a dot.
The dot receded.
And behind it, the sea began to overturn.
The first sound was not wind.
It was a scream.
"GAAAAAH—!"
In the darkness, tearing, breaking, and collapsing sounds erupted all at once.
The sound alone hollowed out my chest.
My center collapsed, and it felt as though the ground beneath my feet opened into an abyss.
Even from afar, it was visible.
Lanterns shook.
Men were flung up from decks and fell into the sea.
Impacts surged outward as if pressure were exploding from inside the hulls.
No one I know could move like that.
No one—except Park Seong-jin.
When the second ship rocked, I could not trust my own eyes.
Park Seong-jin crossed empty air.
He did not run.
He did not leap.
He placed his foot upon the void.
One step.
Then another.
Thus he crossed from ship to ship.
Each time he landed, a vessel buckled.
The hull twisted as if a pillar had snapped, tilting violently to one side.
The people aboard collapsed together, howling like beasts.
The screams, carried from afar, struck colder than those nearby.
Though it was the night sea, the decks grew bright.
Not from lanterns—but from blood.
Sticky crimson spread beneath the lamps, reflecting off soaked planks.
The speed at which the floor turned red was terrifying.
That was when I realized:
Even blood has velocity.
Flowing blood moves differently from blood that pools.
On the third ship, his figure blurred.
Not because he slowed—but because the lights went out all at once.
It was not that the lanterns were destroyed.
The men holding them fell simultaneously, and the lights plunged into the sea.
Within the pitch black, a single line of blade-light flashed like a heartbeat.
Ten fell within one breath.
"PUK—!"
"KGH—!"
"TSH—!"
Even from a distance, it was unmistakable.
The sound of something alive going out is always unmistakable.
The fourth ship was the core.
It bore the most lanterns, the densest troops.
Its commander stood firm.
He wore armor fully sheathed in metal.
The soldiers formed layers around him.
The formation had meaning.
Protect the heart, and the ship holds.
I knew it instantly.
If that commander fell, the entire flotilla would break.
Park Seong-jin read the same flow.
He went straight in.
His movement itself was a blade.
PAK!
The sound was not metal tearing—
it was a jaw joint snapping.
As the commander's head jerked backward and fell,
the ship collapsed like a living thing whose heart had stopped.
At that moment, the will to fight vanished with him.
Even in the darkness, I could see it.
Hands dropping swords.
Knees folding.
Shoulders trembling.
They were no longer a battle line.
They were remnants without meaning.
When the fourth ship fell silent, only the sound of waves remained.
That silence was worse.
Then I understood.
Park Seong-jin did not fight with technique.
He fought with resolve.
The will to set the world right moved his blade.
That will placed his feet upon the void.
That will severed the ships' breath.
In the middle of the night sea, the stench of blood rode the wind.
Watching his back, I thought:
That man holds a sword.
And he holds something far more terrifying than a sword.
Resolve.
The Japanese ships scattered into the darkness.
The fleeing vessels vanished like shadows.
On the sea, pursuit ends quickly.
What remained were ghost ships—
hulls drifting, packed with corpses.
Each time the waves rocked them, bodies rolled and struck with dull thuds.
The sound repeated like the breathing of the ships themselves.
Park Seong-jin quietly wiped the blood from his blade—
slowly, on the hem of the dead.
Only then did he lower the tip into the sea to wash it.
The blood unfurled thinly in the water.
"Hoo…"
He exhaled at length.
It was not the breath of victory,
but the sound of something heavy being forced out of his body.
Song I-jeong asked carefully,
"Are you… all right?"
Park Seong-jin did not look up.
His reply was short.
"I'm not."
He gazed down at the hull below—
the sound of rolling corpses,
the creaking of wet planks,
the suppressed breathing of the sea.
All of it weighed together.
"Too many died," he said quietly.
"There isn't a single breath left alive here."
The ship rocked once.
A corpse struck the deck again with a dull thud.
His shoulder trembled slightly.
"…It's horrific," Song I-jeong murmured.
Park Seong-jin stared into the darkness where white spray flickered—
the wake left by fleeing ships.
"…If only they had surrendered," he said softly.
"All it would have taken was one word—'spare us.'"
Song I-jeong swallowed.
Park Seong-jin continued,
"As long as the commander stands, they stand to the end.
They believe dying with their lord is the path."
The wind passed.
Water dripped through cracked planks with a dull tok—
like the sound of dead tongues touching wood.
Song I-jeong tried to speak again, then stopped.
Instead, he said quietly,
"…Let us return, General. It is enough now."
After a long while, Park Seong-jin nodded.
"…Yes."
Song I-jeong called out,
"Bring the boat!"
From afar, the fast ship from Jeongju approached.
A single lantern swayed.
The darkness parted thinly across the waves.
Park Seong-jin shook his blade once.
The blood fell into the sea—
not splashing, but sinking straight into the ink-black water.
Tonight, far too much had been cut.