Chapter 402 : Holy War (2)

Nearly a full year had passed since Dokgo Ryong set out to bring the vast steppes north of the Tianshan Mountain Range under their control under the order of Wi Jin-hak.

In that time, Dokgo Ryong had managed to absorb the nomadic peoples spread across a sprawling stretch of territory, taking not only the lands once held by the Oirat tribes but also the trade routes that Il-mok had carved open under the Maitreya Luminous Cult's banner.

Part of that success came down to the raw might of Dokgo Ryong and the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, but the real reason things had gone so smoothly was the approach they'd taken.

It was a classic carrot-and-stick approach. 

Beat the enemy into submission first, then open your hands. Share food with those who have surrendered. Send healers to tend to the sick. Teach them to read. Introduce them to the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's teachings.

Rather than just swinging the whip endlessly, Dokgo Ryong handed out carrots and he handed them out generously.

There were plenty of tribes that put up a fight early on, but once word of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's generosity started spreading across the steppes, the number of those choosing to submit over resisting grew at an almost alarming rate.

Of course, none of that was actually Dokgo Ryong's idea, but Il-mok’s and Wi Jin-hak's direction.

If this task had been left entirely up to Dokgo Ryong, the outcome would have been completely different.

It was highly likely he would have simply gone around beating down nomadic tribes at random and forcibly annexing them until he became the public enemy of all nomads.

Furthermore, Il-mok's contributions played a massive role in Dokgo Ryong's rapid annexations.

The nomadic slaves he'd purchased through trade with the Muslims had been put through the Missionary Hall, and once they'd been... re-educated, they joined Dokgo Ryong's ranks and threw themselves into the work.

Even if they weren't from the same tribe, getting persuaded into surrendering by a fellow nomad hit way differently than being ordered around by some guy from Xinjiang or the Central Plains.

When the steppe tribes saw people from their own background living well under the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's banner, their resistance to surrendering melted away on its own.

Naturally, Dokgo Ryong felt no particular gratitude toward Il-mok for any of this. It simply never occurred to him that Il-mok had anything to do with it.

And beyond that...

"They just drop to their knees the second we show up! It's so damn boring!"

Because the Divine Cult's PR was so good, the nomadic tribes were practically throwing themselves at his feet, leaving the battle-crazed old man incredibly pissed off.

"Tell me about it, Grandfather! Lately, some of them don't even wait for us to show up. They just come crawling over to surrender on their own!"

Dokgo Pae chimed in at Dokgo Ryong's grumbling, his voice carrying the same frustration.

The Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's warriors standing nearby just slowly shook their heads at the unhinged pair of grandson and grandfather.

It was right around the time those Dokgo lunatics were starting to really lose their grip on their self-control that a letter arrived from Xinjiang.

"HAHAHAHA!! Finally!! The day has finally come!!"

It was a letter from Wi Jin-hak announcing that the Martial Alliance had declared the Maitreya Luminous Cult a public enemy and launched a full attack on the cult, and that the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult would mount a massive counteroffensive.

Thrilled beyond all reason, Dokgo Ryong rode like a madman for days on end back to the main headquarters, only to find the main force had already departed.

He scrambled to head back out and link up with them in Qinghai, but another letter from Wi Jin-hak arrived just as he was getting ready to leave.

"HAHAHAHAHA!!!! My Lord's ambitions are on a completely different level than mine!!"

That letter laid out plans not just to sweep through the Central Plains martial world, but to prepare for war against the Imperial Family itself.

Along with those grand plans came a direct order: head back north, rally the nomadic warriors, and build a cavalry force.

He was going to crush the hypocrites of the Orthodox Faction and the Imperial Army in one fell swoop.

That alone was enough to send Dokgo Ryong bolting northward again at full sprint.

And instead of just sitting back and delegating, the crazy old man literally sprinted from camp to camp, personally dragging nomadic warriors into his new army.

Just as he was having the time of his life building his force, a letter from Il-mok arrived.

It had been smuggled past the heavy northern border patrols by a Cult martial artist who specialized in stealth. 

The message was short and simple.

The Western Military Command would soon be concentrating its border troops at a single point to march on Lanzhou, and once the watch along the border thinned out, Dokgo Ryong should slip into Gansu and hit the Western Military Command from behind while they were locked in battle against the main force in Lanzhou.

"It's finally time for war!!"

Practically foaming at the mouth with excitement, Dokgo Ryong rallied the three thousand nomadic cavalrymen he had scraped together and immediately charged south.

And just as Il-mok's letter had said, most of the soldiers who normally patrolled the border had vanished.

They pushed through a crossing that might as well have been unmanned, rode like demons the entire way, and arrived on the battlefield just in time.

***

Three thousand cavalry.

Compared to forces numbering fifty and eighty thousand, it was a drop in the bucket. But the sheer destructive impact of a cavalry unit operated on a completely different plane of reality than regular foot soldiers. And since these were nomads—people who practically lived and breathed on horseback—the combat power of this specific cavalry was off the charts.

To be fair, the Western Military Command's soldiers weren't strangers to fighting nomadic cavalry. If they had time to set up a proper spear wall and brace for impact, they could have easily stopped three thousand horses.

But they were already in the middle of a pitched battle against Lanzhou's fifty thousand, so they had no formation whatsoever ready to handle a cavalry charge hitting them from the flank.

"Look at those idiots begging to die!!"

Dokgo Ryong was positively grinning as he galloped forward.

He hauled out his greatsword and pointed it straight at the left flank of the Western Military Command.

The left flank had pushed forward to try to encircle the Lanzhou main force, and from where he was sitting, it looked absolutely delicious.

Three thousand cavalry fell in behind him and swept toward the Western Military Command's left flank.

"FIRE!!"

In that instant, the legendary mounted archery of the nomads was put on full display. 

Riding at full gallop from dozens of meters away, they let their arrows rain down on the heads of the soldiers below.

"ARGH!!"

"Arrows! I took one in the knee!!"

The soldiers had been pushing forward to flank the enemy's main force when the enemy launched a side attack, leaving them nowhere to run.

"Shield bearers!! Where the hell are the shield bearers?!"

"Get those shields up!! Protect the men!!"

Mid-level officers scattered across the battlefield screamed themselves hoarse, but their orders were completely useless.

To their credit, the veteran soldiers still managed to throw up their shields through sheer muscle memory, but they weren't dealing with regular foot archers who just stood still and fired at a single spot.

"Left!! LEFT, I said!!"

Riding like the wind, the nomadic cavalry constantly repositioned themselves as they let their arrows rain down on the soldiers.

Watching his force of twenty thousand men getting played by a measly three thousand riders, the Vice Commander of the left flank finally lost his patience and bellowed.

"What the hell is our cavalry doing?! Run those bastards down right now!"

He knew full well that the Central Plains cavalry was no match for nomadic riders in a straight fight. To make matters worse, his left wing only had about a thousand riders to work with.

He knew they couldn't win. And yet, he made the call.

‘Dammit. Even if I have to sacrifice every last rider, I need to buy us enough time to fix our defensive lines.’

Since leaving things as they were would end in his twenty-thousand-strong army getting wiped out by three thousand horsemen, he decided to swallow the bitter pill and choose the lesser evil.

The order went down the chain, and his cavalry charged toward the nomads with the blare of a war horn.

But it was only after watching what happened next that the Vice Commander realized something a second too late.

He hadn't chosen the lesser evil; he had just made the worst choice possible.

He watched in horror as the captain leading the charge at the very front of the left flank's cavalry was cleanly cleaved in two along with his horse.

Slash!!

Despite the deafening chaos of the roaring battlefield, the Vice Commander swore he could hear that sound right in his own ears.

"HAHAHAHAHA!!"

Following that, a boisterous laugh that completely crushed the cacophony of the battlefield erupted.

It came from an old man on a massive black horse, the same old man who'd just cut the cavalry captain apart in a single stroke.

As if one kill wasn't nearly enough to satisfy him, the old man swung his massive greatsword like a madman, mercilessly slicing his way through the imperial cavalry. And right behind him, over a hundred heavily armed elites launched a brutal counter-charge of their own.

It was the martial artists of the Dokgo Family and the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult following Dokgo Ryong's lead.

Under their assault, the left flank's thousand-odd cavalry got swept away like they'd run headfirst into a storm.

At the very front of it all, Dokgo Ryong was completely in his element, swinging his greatsword like a madman.

Not a single soul managed to take one of his strikes and live.

Slash!

While Dokgo Ryong and the Dokgo Family warriors tore through the left flank's cavalry, the rest of the nomadic riders kept doing what they did best.

"FIRE!"

They just kept riding and turning the soldiers into pincushions.

"Hold the line!! I said             HOLD THE DAMN LINE!!"

Watching his cavalry fall without gaining a single thing in return, the Vice Commander could do nothing but shout pointless orders.

And as if things weren't bad enough, the enemy's main army seemed to notice the nomads arriving.

Suddenly, their formation changed.

Some of the soldiers who'd been charging headlong at the Western Military Command's main force broke off and wheeled around, turning their attack on the Western Military Command's left flank instead.

Arrows hammering in from behind, the enemy's main force hitting from the front. The left flank had gone from trying to encircle the enemy to being the one encircled.

"Damn it."

The Vice Commander was muttering curses under his breath when his adjutant suddenly cried out.

"Sir!! Over there, look!!"

He turned at the shout, and his face went slack.

In just a matter of minutes, his thousand-strong cavalry was already wiped out by half.

"HAHAHAHA!!"

And that terrifying old man on the massive black horse had already wheeled around and was charging straight at the left flank's main body.

"Isn't there anyone stronger out there?!"

And the craziest part was that he charged here all alone.

***

A moment earlier.

"HAHAHAHAHA!!!"

That thunderous laugh echoing in the distance put a faint smile on the face of Yang Gwang, the Provincial Military Commander who had linked up with the main force.

"So he finally made it."

The reinforcements he had only heard about were finally in play.

Il-mok had already told him that cavalry from the north would be joining them. But deep in the back of his mind, a stubborn unease had never quite gone away.

Why?

Because there was no reliable way to communicate across that distance.

Every message had to travel by hand, and there had been no time to exchange letters with the cavalry supposedly riding down from the north. Using signal fires or flares was out of the question too, since that would've given away their entire surprise strategy.

So, all he could do was cross his fingers and hope the cavalry showed up right on schedule. 

And thankfully, the reinforcements Il-mok promised had just crashed into the battlefield with perfect timing.

Still, he didn't have the luxury to just stand around celebrating.

"Pivot the spearmen to the right!! Archers, aim for the enemy's left flank on our right side and fire!"

Yang Gwang shouted his orders with his internal energy pouring into his voice, taking command of the Lanzhou main force.

"We're going to break the enemy's left flank alongside the cavalry!!"

The moment his orders left his mouth, officers spread across the battlefield relayed them down to the men below.

"Shield bearers, hold the line against the enemy's right flank coming from the left!!! Just stall them! Their center and left wing are about to break!!"

Yang Gwang kept calling out orders without pause.

As the officers around the battlefield echoed his commands back, the soldiers, ragged as they were, moved with a strange kind of cohesion and followed through.

“GLO~RY! GLORY! O ’ DIVINE CULT!!”

Watching the soldiers howl their hymn as they marched, the Yang Gwang had to force down the heavy knot of dread in his stomach. 

Whatever fire that fervor was keeping lit in them, their courage was real enough.

"AAAARGH!!"

But that didn’t change the fact that screams and groans of his own men dying kept pouring in from every direction around him.

He knew that even if the cavalry's flank attack gave them the perfect opening to wipe out the enemy's left wing, and even if they basically had the upper hand in this battle, winning like this would just be a pyrrhic victory.

At the end of the day, they were rebels, and the Western Military Command they were fighting right now was only a fraction of the forces arrayed against them.

So Yang Gwang turned away from the unease gnawing at him and looked straight ahead.

Toward where the enemy's main force was.

Toward where Il-mok had gone.

‘Please, Young Master Il-mok, don't fail.’

For this battle's losses to stay manageable, Il-mok needed to finish his mission as fast as possible. 

Maybe his nerves were just getting to him, but before he even knew what he was doing, Yang Gwang found himself acting like the brainwashed peasant militia.

“Glo~ry! Glory! O ’ Divine Cult!!”

He quietly hummed the hymn under his breath, and weirdly enough, the knot in his chest loosened just a little.