Chapter 334. The Great Battle of Hubodagang 5 — The Immortals Enter the Battle
As news of Goryeo's arrival spread across the battlefield, a surge of heat rose from deep within Youngwoo's chest.
He tightened his grip on the spear and let out a long, resonant cry.
"Woooooo—!"
The vast battlefield seemed to tremble with the sound.
Dust stirred low over the ground, horses pricked up their ears, and the front ranks of the Liao army flinched for an instant.
It was more than a shout.
The joy of knowing the Goryeo army had arrived, the certainty that the tide of battle had finally begun to turn, and the excitement of a martial artist who could already see the emperor's banner before him all burst out in that one cry.
It felt as though only a little farther would be enough to end it.
If Youngwoo cut through one more group and swung his weapon only a few more times, Tianzuo's banner seemed close enough to touch.
Yet Yelü Yanxi slipped backward at the last possible moment each time.
Whenever the emperor withdrew, layers of imperial guards surged forward like waves to block the way again.
New spearmen stepped into place.
Shields rose once more.
Cavalry wheeled their horses around and filled the space before the emperor.
Youngwoo released another long cry.
"Woooooo—!"
He drove forward behind that sound.
Then another cry answered from across the battlefield.
"Wooooooong—!"
It was deep and powerful.
A vast response that did not yield at all to Youngwoo's own cry.
The sound carried the breath of long cultivation and deeply rooted internal power.
Youngwoo knew the instant he heard it.
His master.
Baek Ingyeom.
Youngwoo turned his head.
Beyond the dust, a group of immortals was charging into the Liao ranks.
They wore pieces of armor over old robes and carried hwando swords at their waists.
Their movements were the very martial arts Youngwoo had once watched in speechless awe.
Restrained, yet unhindered.
Quiet in appearance, yet wherever they touched, a path opened.
They came.
Youngwoo's chest grew hot.
When they had heard the news, what road they had taken, and how they had reached this battlefield no longer mattered.
Only one thing filled him now.
They were fighting together again.
The moment the immortals entered the battle, the Liao line shook violently.
Dozens of men advanced with their hwando flashing like wind.
Each blade seemed to move separately, yet together they flowed to a single rhythm.
Whenever the drums thundered, their feet, shoulders, and swordpoints moved at nearly the same interval.
When one man cut, the man beside him pressed forward.
When the front man stepped aside, the blade behind him followed through.
Silver sword-light pushed into the Liao center.
Each time the blades cut through the air, dust rose, shields were driven aside, and spear shafts snapped.
The light from their swords continued like low waves.
Where they passed, the Liao formation opened.
Men and horses tangled together, and a road appeared.
Baek Ingyeom was near the front.
He seemed almost to walk forward in silence, yet with every step the spacing of the Liao soldiers collapsed.
His hwando rose lightly.
His wrist turned only slightly.
The blade descended diagonally.
The movement was small, precise, and restrained.
Wrist, elbow, and waist turned in short succession with astonishing smoothness.
Yet wherever the blade touched, helmets split, hands loosened from spear shafts, and mounted officers lost their balance.
It looked less like human skill than a martial law unfolding of its own accord.
Baek Ingyeom stayed near the front.
He did not raise his sword high.
He worked it in short movements below the shoulder.
The tip of his foot advanced half a step.
His waist turned only slightly.
His wrist snapped at the final instant.
The hwando rose diagonally with that small movement and immediately dropped again.
When a shield covered the way, he used the back of the blade to push open its edge.
When a spear shaft came in, he laid his blade against it, guided it aside, then turned his wrist and struck the hand gripping the weapon.
When a mounted commander chopped downward, Baek Ingyeom stepped to the side and cut beneath the horse's neck as though merely brushing past it.
Each motion flowed directly into the next.
A brief flash of steel.
One turn of the wrist.
Half a step of the foot.
After those tiny movements, a helmet split, a spear shaft flew aside, or a rider lost his balance.
The Liao soldiers tried to stop him with strength.
Baek Ingyeom entered through openings.
His martial art created a path through precision rather than size.
The immortals poured in behind him.
There were dozens of them.
Each had a different face and a different gait, yet the moment their swords moved they seemed to become one body.
A rear fighter stepped into the space opened by the blade ahead.
When the man on the left pressed a shield aside, the man on the right placed his sword into the opening.
Their advance resembled less a military charge than a sword dance polished over many years.
Boom!
The drum sounded.
The immortals stepped down together.
At the next beat, their waists turned and the light of their hwando rose diagonally.
The Liao front rank raised its shields.
The immortals did not strike the centers of those shields head-on.
They pushed open the edges with the backs of their blades, slipped half a step to the side, and cut at wrists and armpits.
When spear shafts came down, the man in front guided them away with a flattened blade, and the man behind immediately entered the opening.
When one man opened a blocked space, the next occupied it.
Dozens moved to the same rhythm, and one corner of the Liao defensive line opened section by section.
When one man cut high, the one beside him went low.
When the man in front pressed a spear shaft downward, the man behind stepped in and struck the hand gripping it.
When a mounted officer brought his weapon down, three men split apart at once.
The center man slipped beneath the horse's head.
The two on either side cut past the horse's flank and the rider's thigh.
The great horse staggered sideways, crushing the shape of the Liao line behind it.
The sword-light of the immortals flashed in short, thin lines.
A white line appeared with the turn of a wrist.
Another followed when a foot shifted half a step.
The Liao soldiers raised shields and thrust spears, but the blades traced precisely through the narrow gaps beneath helmets, around wrists, under arms, and along the neck.
Silver lines appeared and vanished through the air, cutting apart the front rank.
The immortals behind stepped into those openings at the same rhythm.
One pushed open the edge of a shield.
The next cut through the gap.
The man in front pressed down a spear shaft.
The man behind entered along the flank.
As dozens moved with the same breath, one corner of the Liao defense collapsed piece by piece.
Short, thin lines flashed one after another.
Those lines seemed to connect in the air until they formed a silver net.
The Liao soldiers raised shields and extended spears inside that net, but the immortals' feet had already shifted to the next position.
Their swordpoints found openings before the eye could follow.
Their feet found paths before the horses could close them.
The immortals flowed forward.
Their steps were low and quiet.
Their blades short and exact.
When the front man opened the edge of a shield, the man behind cut through.
When the man on the left pressed down a spear shaft, the man on the right entered along the flank.
Dozens of feet and wrists moved to the same rhythm, and the corner of the Liao defense gave way section by section.
Baek Ingyeom stepped forward.
The immortals behind him caught his rhythm.
Three steps to one breath.
On the first, the blade lowered.
On the second, a shield opened.
On the third, the body turned and the sword cut diagonally.
Dozens moved in that same rhythm.
To the Liao soldiers, they no longer looked like separate men.
They looked like one enormous sword moving through many bodies.
The front-left corner of the Liao line collapsed first.
Shield bearers were driven backward together.
Before the spearmen behind them could take position, the immortals' blades reached them.
Steel found gaps between armor plates.
The backs of blades pushed shield edges aside.
Short cuts turned beneath helmets.
One line broke.
The line behind it was pushed sideways.
A whole corner of the Liao formation folded inward like paper.
The sight was brutal, yet magnificent.
Men fell.
Horses staggered.
Shields shattered.
Through it all, the immortals' movements continued without wavering.
Their swords flowed as though writing characters through the air.
Their feet carved rhythm into the drumbeats.
Where they passed, a road appeared.
Blood, dust, and broken spear shafts remained behind them.
Beyond it all, Youngwoo's banner snapped in the wind once more.
The Liao army sent more men forward to stop them.
But as soldiers crowded into the narrow space, their own arms and spears began obstructing one another.
The immortals entered the tangle.
They lowered their bodies.
Twisted their shoulders.
Folded their swords into short upward cuts.
A short blade turning in close space went deeper than a broad swing.
Baek Ingyeom's swordpoint moved once.
It was a signal.
The immortals stepped back half a pace together.
The Liao front rank surged into the empty space.
At that instant, the immortals entered again.
Dozens of hwando descended diagonally as one.
The front line of shields collapsed.
And an entire corner of the Liao formation shattered.