313.
In the lamplight, an armored commander rose slowly.
He did not look like a man woken from sleep.
He looked like a man who had been calculating war until a moment ago.
He did not search for his sword with his hands.
It came free from his waist first.
"Are you a general of Goryeo."
Park Seong-jin answered.
"Then you must be Chang Yuchun."
Chang Yuchun asked no more.
His eyes knew that people die while questions are being spoken.
He drew his momentum up.
Before Park Seong-jin—already past the wall—this momentum was part of calculation.
The blades met.
On the first exchange, the lantern glass burst.
Metal rang against the tent pole, and sparks leapt.
Chang Yuchun's strike was not a cleaving blow.
It was a pressing, breaking force.
A line that would snap an arm if taken head-on.
Park Seong-jin did not take it.
He let the blade slide aside and flow past, watching where Chang Yuchun's weight gathered.
Second exchange.
As Chang Yuchun shifted left and thrust in, Park Seong-jin stepped half a pace aside and emptied the line of the thrust.
While the tip cut through air, Park Seong-jin's edge brushed the gap in Chang Yuchun's shoulder armor.
Flesh parted, and a thin rise of blood appeared.
Chang Yuchun did not retreat.
His brow did not move, as if he had erased pain from his ledger.
Outside the tent, the camp stirred.
Footsteps overlapped with cries of "General!" and the shadows on the canvas shook.
One of the accompanying warriors stepped out and blocked the entrance.
The throat of the first soldier to rush in was cut.
Blood did not spray like a fountain.
It fell dull and heavy, like poured-out water.
The second soldier was dragged back with his mouth covered.
As his neck tightened, his toes searched at emptiness and kicked.
His fingers clawed at a forearm until skin peeled away.
No sound escaped.
Only after the breath snapped did the body go slack, and the corpse was pushed out of the tent.
Inside, steel continued to lock on steel.
Chang Yuchun's blade was heavy and straight.
Each swing tightened the room itself.
Park Seong-jin did not tighten space.
Each time it constricted, he stepped aside and watched—not the end of the blade, but its beginning.
Wrist, shoulder, foot, breath.
When the flow reveals itself, the edge is already late.
On the third exchange, Chang Yuchun hooked upward from below.
His blade scraped armor and the tent pole at once.
The pole snapped, and the tent sagged to one side.
A spark kissed the canvas.
Oil-soaked cloth began to burn, slowly.
Fire does not hurry.
But it does not stop spreading.
The upper part of Park Seong-jin's left arm was cut.
Flesh opened through the gap in his armor, and blood ran toward his elbow.
Park Seong-jin did not shake his arm.
If you shake, blood scatters.
If blood scatters, the sight blurs.
He drew one breath and waited for Chang Yuchun's next step.
Chang Yuchun roared.
"You bastard!"
The sound was a signal that woke the soldiers.
Outside, the footsteps grew heavier.
Someone thrust a spear in.
Canvas tore, and the spear point entered.
Song I-sul seized the shaft, yanked it inward, and severed the wrist.
The hand fell still gripping the spear.
From the cut wrist, blood burst.
The soldier inhaled and tried to scream—
then an arrow struck, shattering the inside of his mouth.
The sound died.
A scream needs structure to stand.
The air inside the tent changed.
The stink of blood and the stink of smoke mixed, and breathing shortened.
As the fire grew, oxygen vanished first.
Hot air rose, clouding the space below.
The throat dried.
Breath caught.
A man collapses first at the moment he tries to inhale deeply.
Chang Yuchun felt it too.
He drove in one step deeper, trying to end it.
At that moment, Park Seong-jin did not retreat.
If he retreated, poles and flame would seal his back.
He stepped forward by a single inch instead.
He erased the distance—
and with it, the space where a full swing could exist.
Clang—!
Steel struck steel, and the shock climbed into the wrist.
Chang Yuchun's blade lifted—only a hair.
The moment was short.
Short, and sufficient.
Park Seong-jin's tip drove in as a straight line.
No detour, no ornament.
The blade entered through flesh, caught on bone and tendon, then came free.
Chang Yuchun's breath hit once and stopped.
He tried to speak, but before his lips could move, blood rose into his throat.
He pitched forward and dropped to one knee.
His hand went to his neck.
Fingers tried to seal the wound, but blood slipped through the gaps.
"You… the river…"
The words never reached their end.
Blood poured into the airway.
Coughing requires air.
The air was already blocked.
He leaned back to draw breath, and that posture opened the wound further.
More blood spilled.
His eyes widened once—
then lost focus.
Park Seong-jin rolled his saber and flicked the blood from the edge.
Once.
Twice.
Blood fell to the ground.
He sheathed the blade.
The brief sound of metal meeting metal stood in for an ending.
Outside, confusion was already spreading.
"The general—!"
"Fire!"
"Block the gates!"
Orders from different directions erupted at once.
The moment command splits, an army loses its shape.
From Chang Yuchun's tent came only smoke and screams.
Park Seong-jin said, short.
"Withdraw."
The warriors moved.
With the burning tent at their backs, they retraced the path they had entered.
The return is always faster than the approach.
Shorter, too.
It costs less time.
A soldier near the flames inhaled smoke and collapsed.
His hand still gripped his sword, fingers stiffened, refusing to release.
Dohyeon stepped on the wrist and tore the sword free.
He did not check whether the man still lived.
In the time it takes to check, another blade arrives.
The tent collapsed as if it exploded.
Flame swallowed poles and cloth and surged upward.
Firelight revealed the roads inside the fortress.
Drawn by that light, more soldiers poured in.
But in the eyes of those running, command was already gone.
What they saw was rumor.
"The general is dead."
Rumor cuts an army's leash.
Park Seong-jin's group slipped toward the gate with the fire behind them.
Arrows flew from the rear, but they were not aimed shots.
Fear had fired them.
Arrows shot by fear lose direction.
They miss—
and the missed arrows strike their own side instead.
Screams followed.
Screams drove more running.
A running army cannot stop.
Park Seong-jin did not look back.
While his gaze did not turn, command collapsed.
And collapsed command drove soldiers straight into death.