Chapter 422 : Guerrilla (1)

Il-mok ‍​‌‌​​‌​‌​‌‌‌‌​​‌​‌​​‌​‌​​‌‌‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌​​‌​‌​​‌​​‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​‌​​‌​​‌​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌​‌​​‌​​‌​​‌​​​​‌​‌​‌​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌​‌​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌​‌​‌‌​​‌​‌​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌​​​​‌​‌‌​​‌​‌‌‌‌​‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​​​‌‌​‌‌‌​‌​​​‌​‌​‌​​​‌​‌​‌​​​‌‌​‌​‌‌​‌​​​‌‌​​‌‌‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​​​‌‌​‌​​‌​‌‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‌​‌​‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​​​​​‌​​​‌​‌​​‌‌‌​​‌​‌​‌​​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​‌​‌‌‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​‌​‌‌​‌‌‌​​‌​‌‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​​​‌‌​​​‌​​‌​​‌​​​​‌​‌​‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌​​‌​​‌​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌‌‌‌​‌‌​‌​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​‌​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌‌​​‌​​‌‌​​​​​‌‌‌​‌​​​​‌‌​‌​​​‌‌​​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​​‌‌‌​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​‌​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​​‌‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​​​‌‌‌​‌​​‌​​‌​‌‌‌‌​‌​​‌​‌​‌‌​​‌​​​‌​​​‌​​​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌​​​‌‌​​‌​‌​‌‌​‌‌‌​​‌​​‌‌‌​​‌​‌‌​‌​​‌​​‌​‌‌​​‌‌​​​‌​‌​​​‌‌​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​‌​​​‌​​​‌‌​​‌​​​​‌​​‌​‌​​​​​‌​‌​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​‌​‌‌​​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​​‌‌‌​​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​​‌‌​​​​​‌‌‌​‌‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌‌​‌‌​‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌​​‌​‌​​‌​​‌​‌​‌‌‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌‌‌‌​‌​​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​‌​‌​​​‌​​​​‌​​‌​‌​‌‌​​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​​‌​​​​‌‌​​‌‌‌​‌‌‌​​‌​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌​‌​‌‌‌​‌​​‌​‌​​‌​​‌​​​​‌​​‌‌‌‌​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​‌​​‌‌​​​​​‌​‌​‌‌‌​‌‌​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌​‌​​‌​​‌‌‌‌​‌‌​​​‌​​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​​​‌‌​​‌​‌​‌​​​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‌​‌​​​‌‌‌​‌​‌​‌​​‌‌‌​​‌​‌​‌‌‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​​‌‌​​​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌‌​‌‌​‌‌‌‌​​‌‌​​​​​‌​‌‌​​‌​‌​‌​‌‌‌​‌​​‌‌‌​​‌​​‌‌‌‌​‌​‌​‌​​​​‌‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​‌​​‌‌‌​‌‌‌​‌​‌​‌‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌​​‌‌‌​​‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌​​​​‌​‌‌​‌​​‌‌​‌‌‌​​‌‌​​‌​​​​‌‌​​​‌​‌​​​​‌​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌​​​‌‌​​​‌​‌‌​‌​‌‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‌​‌​‌​‌​​​‌​‌​‌‌‌​​‌‌‌​​‌​​‌‌​‌​​​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌​‌​​​‌​‌‌‌​​‌​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌​​​‌‌‌​‌​‌​‌‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​‌‌​​​‌​​‌‌​‌‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌‌‌​‌‌‌‌​‌​​‌​​‌‌‌​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌‌‌​​​​​‌​​​‌‌​​‌​​‌‌‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​‌‌‌​​​​​‌​​​‌​​​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌‌‌‌​‌​​‌​‌‌​‌​​​‌‌​​‌​​‌​‌​‌‌‌​‌‌​‌​‌‌​‌​‌‌​‌​​‌‌​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌​‌‌​​‌‌​​​‌​‌​​​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌​‌​‌​​‌‌‌‌​‌​‌​‌‌‌​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌‌‌​​​​‌​‌‌​​‌​‌‌‌‌​‌​​‌​‌​‌‌​​‌​‌​​‌​​‌‌​​‌​‌​‌​​​‌‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​​‌‌​​​​​‌​​‌​‌‌​​‌‌​​​‌​‌​​‌‌‌​​‌​‌​‌‌‌​‌​‌​​​‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​‌​​​‌‌​​‌​‌​​​‌​‌​‌​​​‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​‌​​​​‌​​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​‌‌​‌​‌​‌‌​​‌​‌‌‌‌​​​​‌​‌​‌‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌​‌​​‌​​‌​‌​​‌​​‌​​​‌‌​​‌​​​​‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌​​‌‌‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌‌​​‌​​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌​‌​​‌​​‌​​‌‌‌​​‌‌​​‌​​​​‌‌​​‌​​‌‌​‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌​​‌​‌​​​​​‌​‌​‌​​​​‌‌​​​​​‌‌​‌​​‌​‌​​‌‌​​​‌​​​​‌‌​‌​​‌​‌​​‌‌‌​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​‌​‌​‌​‌‌‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌‌​‌​​‌​‌​​‌‌‌‌​‌‌​‌​​‌​‌​​‌​​‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‌​‌​​‌‌‌​​‌‌‌‌​‌​​‌​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​​​‌‌‌​‌​‌​‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​‌‌‌​‌​‌‌​‌​​‌‌​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌‌​​‌​‌​‌​​​‌‌​​‌‌‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​​​‌​​​​​‌​​‌‌​​‌​​‌​‌‌​​‌​‌​‌​‌‌‌​‌​​​‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌​​‌‌‌​​‌‌​​​‌​‌​​‌‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌‌​‌​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​‌​‌‌​‌​​‌​‌​‌​​​‌‌​​‌‌‌​​‌‌​‌​​​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌​‌​‌‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​‌​​‌‌‌​​‌​‌​‌‌‌​‌​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌‌‌‌​‌​​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌‌‌‌​‌​​‌​​‌‌‌​​​‌‌​​‌​​‌​‌​​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​‌​​‌‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌​‌​‌​​​‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​​​‌​​​‌‌​‌​‌‌​‌‌‌‌​​‌​‌​​‌‌‌‌​‌​​​‌​​​‌​​‌​​‌​‌‌‌‌​​‌​‌​‌‌​​‌​​‌‌​​‌​​‌​‌​‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌​​‌‌‌​​‌‌‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​‌​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​‌‌‌​‌​‌‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌‌​‌​​‌‌‌‌​‌​‌​‌‌‌​‌​‌​​‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌​​‌​​‌​‌‌​‌​​‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‌​‌‌​‌​​‌​‌‌​​‌​​​‌​​​‌‌‌​‌​​​‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌‌​​‌​​‌​​‌​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌‌‌‌​‌‌​‌​​‌​‌​​‌​​‌​‌‌​‌‌‌​​​‌‌​​​​​​‌‌‌‌​‌‍spared a quick look at the eunuch who’d just been put down by Jin Hayeon and Hwangbo Ak's tag-team attack, then immediately scanned the field.

Ahead, another old eunuch was desperately making his escape by hopping over his own soldiers' heads and shoulders like stepping stones. 

Il-mok weighed his options for a moment, then redirected the fingers he'd been guiding his Sword Kinesis with.

Swoooosh.

The Ascension Sword that had been streaking after the fleeing eunuch reversed course and came flying back into his hand. He'd have liked to finish off both eunuchs while he had the chance, but the situation just wouldn't allow it.

‘Going deep into enemy territory right now would be suicide.’

He wasn't in great shape himself, and Jin Hayeon and Hwangbo Ak were far from their peak conditions. The two of them had only slipped back into Ankang under the cover of darkness in the early hours before dawn the previous day after evading enemy scouts the whole way.

Although they had had a single day to rest, they were likely already reached their absolute limit.

To put it in perspective, they’d sprinted hundreds of miles flat out to get to Mount Wudang in two days, fought a brutal battle the second they arrived, and then had to turn around and pull the same grueling marathon to run back to Ankang.

"Take it easy and focus on the stragglers!" Il-mok called out to Jin Hayeon and Hwangbo Ak, then waded into the mass of enemy soldiers himself with the Ascension Sword flying in wide arcs.

Slice!

Once Il-mok, Jin Hayeon, and Hwangbo Ak cut loose in earnest, the soldiers couldn't even think about standing in their way. To make matters worse for the enemy, heavy hitters like Hyeokryeon Seon-ah and Hwangbo Yeon leaped down from the battlements to join the fray.

The enemy couldn't push through the line they held, and the walls behind them were soaked in the screams and groans of soldiers who'd tried to climb and died for it.

Maybe it was the complete lack of progress despite throwing wave after wave of men at the walls. Or maybe it was the realization that their plan to target Il-mok had fallen apart entirely. Whatever it is, the morale in the enemy main force suddenly dropped.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

"Fa... fall back!!"

The order to retreat came rolling out of the enemy command at last. But retreating was easier said than done.

With tens of thousands of troops already committed, the men at the front and those stuck in the middle were tangled together so tightly that pulling back was nearly impossible. They had to wait for the rear ranks to peel away first, but panic had already set in, ruining any chance of an orderly withdrawal.

"Get out of the way!! Move, damn it!!"

The retreat order shattered whatever remained of the enemy's formation, and what unfolded was nothing short of chaos.

But that was just the opening act.

A horn blew from the battlements of Ankang, followed instantly by a succession of earth-shaking booms.

It was the roar of firing cannons.

To make matters worse for the enemy, another torrential rain of arrows poured down from the soldiers atop the walls, with the Divine Cult's shamans slinging combat spells into the mix for good measure.

As the chaos transformed into a literal hellscape, the beat of war drums resonated once more.

For the first time since the siege began, Ankang's gates swung open.

"CHARGE!!!"

These were the soldiers who'd had no room on the walls, the roughly twenty thousand men who had been waiting in formation just inside. They came pouring out at a full sprint, driving straight into the enemies who were too tangled up in the earlier mess.

The enemy still had them outnumbered by at least two to one, but not a single face among those charging soldiers showed even a flicker of fear.

"Heavenly Demon Descends!!"

"Ten Thousand Demons Obeys!!!"

With the Divine Cult’s chants in their heart, they crashed into the enemy ranks with Il-mok and his vanguard clearing a path of carnage ahead of them.

"Throw down your weapons and surrender!!"

"Stand with us against the eunuchs, and you will live!"

The calls for surrender rang out across the field.

***

Once the stranded enemy forces were either wiped out or rounded up as prisoners, Il-mok led his men back inside the fortress walls. 

He deliberately chose not to push the momentum further by charging the enemy's main camp as he deemed it would have been too reckless. They had scored a massive win by exploiting their high ground and momentum, but dragging this out into a full-scale clash in the open field was a gamble that could easily cost them too many lives.

And honestly, what they'd already accomplished was more than enough.

"A great victory! Not just any victory, either. This is on a completely different level from anything before!"

That much was obvious just from watching the Vice Commander looking like he was about to pass out from pure excitement as he read the battle report at the top of his lungs.

"If we combine their previous losses with today's body count, they've lost easily sixty thousand men. Add another twenty thousand severely wounded and twenty thousand who threw down their weapons to surrender... We've cut their two-hundred-thousand-strong army in half!"

The enemy had thrown their men at the walls so stupidly that Ankang had managed to rack up staggering numbers without even needing to push all the way to the enemy’s main camp.

"And since we put down one of the Brush-Holding Eunuch, they won't be looking at Ankang as an easy target ever again!"

Il-mok didn't want to throw cold water on the Vice Commander's celebration, but he asked in a cautious tone regardless.

"And what are our own losses?"

The Vice Commander reined in his excitement and answered.

"Between the dead and seriously wounded, our casualties are just under a thousand.”

Most of them had been hit by stray arrows, cannon fire, or the enemy's Wooden Boxed Thunder Bomb, and a handful had taken surprise hits from soldiers who refused to surrender even during the final charge.

Il-mok's expression grew a little grim at that, and the Vice Commander quickly jumped in to soothe him.

"Left Guardian, though any loss of life is regrettable, compared to the devastation inflicted on the enemy, our losses are a mere drop in the ocean.”

“That may be so, but I cannot help but feel regret.”

With that said, Il-mok shook off the weight of it and turned to look at Hwangbo Ak and Jin Hayeon.

"You two worked yourselves to the bone. If you hadn't moved the way you did, we wouldn't have kept our casualties this low."

He wasn't only talking about Ankang, either. Il-mok had already heard the reports that their participation had been the deciding factor in the victory at Mount Wudang.

Hwangbo Ak scratched the back of his neck at the praise while Jin Hayeon gave a faint smile and shook her head. "We only did what you told us to do, Left Guardian. How could any credit for that go to us?"

“You accomplished a near-impossible task despite the unreasonable demands placed upon you, so if this is not an achievement, what else could it be?”

The warm air between the two of them made Hwangbo Ak feel strangely out of place for some reason.

"Cough. So, what's the plan from here?"

He cleared his throat and asked, and Il-mok answered.

"For now, we'll keep an eye on their main force while we get our own men back in order. The wounded will go to the rear for medical treatment, and we'll set up a system to handle the prisoners."

“Furthermore, it would be wise to clear the area in front of the fortress walls,” the Vice Commander added to Il-mok’s plan. “We must burn the corpses to prevent corpse miasma from spreading, and salvage any usable military supplies from the scattered wreckage while we are at it.”

Il-mok nodded, then looked back at Hwangbo Ak and Jin Hayeon.

"With losses this severe, the enemy won't be able to target Ankang for a while. And we still have the troops we sent to Hanzhong, so we should be able to send proper reinforcements to the Wudang side."

With a rough plan in place, the Vice Commander stepped out of the hall and got to work carrying out the orders.

Two days passed as they continued to reorganize under Il-mok's direction.

Then a letter arrived from Sichuan.

It was sent by the Gansu Provincial Military Commander.

By the time he finished the letter, the tendons on the back of his hand were standing out as the letter crumpled in his grip.

"These animals. They actually went and did it."

***

Let's go back to the beginning of the war.

Right around the time Il-mok had locked down Gansu and Wi Jin-hak had wiped the Mount Hua Sect and the Zhongnan Sect off the map.

Down in Sichuan, the Qingcheng Sect was gearing up for a massive uprising. But Sichuan had always been split among three major power players, meaning Qingcheng couldn't just sweep the whole province on its own.

In the end, they pooled their own resources with the remnants of the old Maitreya Luminous Cult in the north, barely managing to carve out control over the northern territories of Sichuan above Chengdu.

It was right around then that the Imperial Family’s decree reached the various military commands, and the Southern Military Command slapped its orders straight onto Chengdu's administrators.

The Chengdu Provincial Military Commander called in every imperial soldier in the province, sparking a brutal war against the Qingcheng rebels centered around Mount Qingcheng.

This stalemate dragged on for several days before a major shift in the war came.

“Glo~ry! Glory! O ’ Divine Cult!!”

A massive force of fifty thousand reinforcements had just marched onto the field, led by the Gansu Provincial Military commander, Yang Gwang and Baek Un-hak.

With that reinforcement, the Qingcheng Sect finally managed to drive out the government troops under the Sichuan Commander and seize Chengdu.

Yang Gwang had written a letter that day and entrusted it to a messenger.

Shortly after crushing the Qinghai forces, Il-mok had received two letters. The one from Sichuan was this one.

Just as they were starting to secure the areas surrounding Chengdu, bad news reached them.

News came that the Southern Military Command was marching north with a staggering two hundred thousand troops, and the Diancang Sect, counted among the Nine Great Sects and One Gang, was marching alongside them.

The Qingcheng Sect and the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult had taken roughly seventy percent of Sichuan, but hadn't yet managed to bring all of it under control. They had just moved their forces toward a place called Ya'an.

Ya'an sat two to three days' travel from Chengdu, and it was the main passage through which enemy forces marching up from Yunnan would enter Chengdu. It was the natural chokepoint that would decide the flow of the war.

There, the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult and the Qingcheng Sect dug in and fought a desperate battle against the enormous army of the Southern Military Command and barely holding on by sheer stubborn will.

A big part of how they held out was thanks to Yang Guang's brilliant strategies and the near-religious zeal of their soldiers. On top of that, the martial artists of the Qingcheng Sect and the Divine Cult's elite cultists kept the front lines from buckling. 

But while all of these factors mattered, the real secret to how they survived against such impossible odds was something else. 

It was the stockpile of Wooden Boxed Thunder Bombs they had looted after crushing the Western Military Command.

Beyond the Thunder Bombs taken from the Western Military Headquarters, Il-mok had also handed over the small reserve of Thunder Bombs that the Gansu Provincial Military Commandant's office had been storing, along with every other piece of gunpowder weaponry they could lay their hands on.

Now, while these Thunder Bombs were deadly in any assault, they were a literal cheat code when you used them for defense. And when those Thunder Bombs were in the hands of Baek Un-hak, a master of hidden projectile arts, the results were nothing short of catastrophic.

BOOM!!

The Thunder Bombs sailed out with pinpoint accuracy and a range no one else could match, then detonated with devastating force.

"Ahahaha! Look at that! Behold my heavenly skills! This is the extent of my genius!!"

As expected of the Head of the Baek Family, the madman would chuck the granades at the unsuspecting soldiers while preening like a peacock before bolting out of the scene the moment the Thunder Bombs were about to explode.

His antics whipped the defending cult soldiers into an almost fanatical frenzy of high spirits.

Meanwhile, over in the Southern Military Command’s war tent, things were looking incredibly grim after failing to make a dent in Ya'an for days.

“Just how long do you plan on sitting idly like this?”

Eunuch Cha had joined the Southern Military Command under the Supreme Eunuch's orders and had been grilling the Southern Military Commander over the past few days' failures.

He hasn’t fully recovered from his Post-Traumatic Dokgo Disorder, but as long as he didn’t cross paths with the madman, he could fully function as a human being.

"We're stuck because of those goddamn Thunder Bombs from the Western Military Command!”

"Those damn bombs aren't infinite. Why not just keep pouring troops in until they run out?" Eunuch Cha retorted, speaking as if tossing away the lives of tens of thousands of men were nothing.

The Southern Military Commander's face scowled in a poorly contained contempt at the eunuch. "Do you think taking a fortress is a joke? Our only option right now is to wait until they run out of bombs, and only then can we wipe them out.”

"Tsk."

Eunuch Cha clicked his tongue in disappointment and dropped back into his seat with a sour look on his face.

‘Why bother with something so unnecessarily complicated and drawn-out? What a brainless ape.'

He had no desire to keep talking to the frustrating general, so Eunuch Cha retreated into his own thoughts.

Then something suddenly sparked in his mind and he shot to his feet.

"You fools!"

The Southern Military Commander glared at him but Eunuch Cha ignored it and continued talking.

"Why the hell are we wasting our time trying to crack open a fortress when those rats are perfectly happy sitting inside?"

The Commander's expression soured even further at that.

"Because His Majesty the Emperor commanded that every last rebel be put to death! And those rebels are holed up in that city, so obviously we kill them there!"

"That's exactly what I'm saying! We just need to make them come out on their own!"

"???"

The Commander stared at him like he'd lost his mind, but Eunuch Cha just flashed a slimy smile at him.

"The Heavenly Demon Divine Cult and the Qingcheng Sect are both self-righteous hypocrites. They go around acting like their highest priority is protecting civilians and flying whatever righteous banners they can find. That's all they are."

Eunuch Cha forced himself to bury the memories of the north. The memory of the moment he'd been on the verge of death fighting Dokgo Pae. The memory of using a small child as a human shield to stay alive.

"If we just march right past Ya'an and start butchering every civilian we can find in Sichuan, those bastards will come running out to stop us."