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  The End at Dawn

  Two great waves collided on the battlefield.

  The Goryeo charge gained ground at first, widening the foothold.But Zhang Shicheng's organized counteroffensive pinned that breakthrough at its limit.A total struggle—group devouring group—hardened into a war of attrition.

  Blood, ash, and the smell of burning timber pressed down on the dawn air.

  Park Seong-jin stood beside Yi In-jung, looking over soldiers swaying as they held their ground.Before the gate, the mud was churned with countless footprints and droplets of blood.What price had been paid here needed no explanation.

  Park Seong-jin exhaled and spoke.

  "This is no longer a fight between defenders and attackers.It's a fight between those who endure—and those who push them back."

  Yi In-jung answered only by tightening his grip on the hilt.The pale dawn brushed his exhausted face.

  They met each other's eyes and nodded once.

  The Goryeo assault had shaken the balance, but victory was not yet within reach.Zhang Shicheng's main force remained intact, and the political shadow of the Yuan army blurred the battle's end.

  For a moment, the battlefield seemed to draw breath.

  No one believed the stillness would last.The next wave would come.

  Then Yun Gyeong-bok, Vice Commander of the Tonggun Bureau, ran in.

  "General, we must strike the enemy's core.As long as Zhang Shicheng lives, they will fight to the end."

  "Zhang Shicheng?""Yes.""Where?"

  Yun Gyeong-bok knocked aside an incoming arrow with his wrist shield and pointed ahead.

  "Behind where the guard is deploying.He'll be there."

  Yi In-jung turned briefly to look at the Yuan forces.

  They were pressing in, but they were no longer the Yuan army of old.Armies collapse first in places unseen.A sense—this realm was tilting—passed through him.

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  Army and people, fields and air alike were speaking of rise and decline.

  At least, for now, they were not retreating.

  Yi In-jung entrusted the narrow street fighting to Yun Gyeong-bok.

  "I'm counting on you.""By my life!"

  He then called Nangjang Jong Hui.

  "If we simply hold, we win."

  "Where are you going?"

  "To take Zhang Shicheng."

  "It's dangerous."

  Yi In-jung laughed, unabashed.

  "Where here isn't?"

  He stepped back once—then suddenly tore a roar through the city.

  "Uuuuuuu—YAAAAAA!"

  Even amid the countless cries filling the battlefield, his voice stood out.From all across the city came the answer.

  "Uuuuuuu—AAAAAA!""Uuuuuuu—AAAAAA!""Uuuuuuu—AAAAAA!"

  Yi In-jung turned to Park Seong-jin and grinned—a young, healthy, living smile.

  Then he leapt.

  He mounted a wall, kicking aside anything in his way.He ran across rooftops, vaulting from one to the next.

  Park Seong-jin followed.

  He stepped on an enemy soldier's body, vaulted up, and kicked the man's head aside.He used another's shoulder to launch himself again.

  Spears and swords thrust up toward the sky.Park Seong-jin knocked them away with his saber, using the recoil to spring forward.

  Stepping on heads and shoulders, he chased the direction Yi In-jung had vanished.

  But this was not a charge of two men alone.

  Warriors scattered in tens and twenties raised the same cry from their positions.They all rushed toward a single point—leaping over enemy soldiers, surging deeper into the city, toward where the guard was emerging.

  Fewer than forty elite fighters poured into a sea of thousands.

  And there—Zhang Shicheng stood.

  Deep within the city, where red smoke tangled in the air.Behind him burned rooftops and torn banners.Before him surged the flow of soldiers.

  His face was cold, but his eyes were alive.

  "Do not fall back.Not one step."

  His voice was not loud.Yet the soldiers' breathing stopped at those words.

  A sense crept down their spines—that disobedience would bring a far greater calamity.

  Zhang Shicheng drew a long spear.His black cloak lashed in the bloody wind.Armor cords clattered beneath his throat.

  He walked directly into the ranks.

  Bodies struck him.Blood splashed his face.

  He did not even flick an eyebrow.

  "Set your spear butts.Thrust.Do not let them come close.Push with strength."

  Where he passed, the air froze.

  Fear hardened into resolve.When one soldier, panicked, tried to step back, Zhang Shicheng seized him by the collar and dragged him upright.

  "If you retreat, the hundred behind you die.Go forward."

  The soldier staggered—and raised his spear again.

  Throughout the city's narrow alleys the fighting was brutal,but wherever Zhang Shicheng's voice reached, soldiers advanced once more.

  The tip of his spear flashed as it struck the ground.

  "There is nowhere left to retreat.Fight!"

  Firelight painted his face red.Through dust, blood, and the stink of powder, he did not waver.

  His gaze pierced straight through the chaos at the foothold.

  "Do not fear the enemy.They do not know this city.These are the roads we know—the land we live on."

  He signaled to the riders in the rear.

  "Send the cavalry through the inner passages.Strike the flanks.Archers—loose every arrow you have left."

  Then, low but unmistakable:

  "If my life ends with this city,then let it end here today."

  Zhang Shicheng leveled his spear once more.Blood pooled at his feet.

  The soldiers' roar rose again.

  The city had not yet fallen.

  His will had become the wall.His resolve held the soldiers' hearts.

  That dawn, at the very center of Gaoyou,Zhang Shicheng stood—like a living battlement.