320.
Those Who Did Not Return
Until the sun dipped low and the light in men's eyes turned red, the scouts did not return.
Three times, four times, signal flags were raised—there was no answer.
The wind blowing down from the mountains was cold, carrying with it the smell of blood and burned iron.
Xu Da spurred his horse forward.
Each time the hooves sank into the mud with a wet sound, unease stirred inside him.
"Have those fools lost their nerve…?"
He spoke it as rebuke, yet the words echoed back at himself.
An adjutant approached carefully.
"Commander, shall we send another probing unit?"
"I've already sent three."
His fingers tightened around the riding whip without thought.
The tip trembled.
When the wind suddenly died, a distant thud—as if something had fallen—reached them.
All turned their heads, but nothing could be seen.
Moments later, a flock of black birds burst into the sky from the ridgeline.
The arc traced by their wings looked like the shadow of a slaughter.
"…They aren't coming back."
Xu Da murmured it.
It was not an order, but a premonition.
He dismounted and climbed the watchtower.
Even in the dark, the walls of Chizhou glimmered faintly.
Lights flickered.
Somewhere, metal struck metal—someone was sharpening a blade.
The thought chilled the back of his hand.
That fortress is like a living beast.
If we enter… it will swallow us.
He turned and looked behind him.
His camp—thousands of soldiers—was lit by firelight as men cooked, cleaned weapons, waited.
All eyes were on him.
In those eyes were doubt, fear, and the silence of men awaiting an order to die.
Xu Da could not speak at once.
For a brief moment, he asked himself why this battle still had to be fought.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low—yet every soldier heard it.
"…We halt tonight.
The night is deep.
We resume probing at dawn."
The officers nodded and dispersed.
Still, no one left easily.
The wind came again from the direction of the city.
It carried the scent of the dead, mixed with the smell of burned steel.
Xu Da lifted his head.
Far away, the lights of Chizhou flickered like distant stars.
That fortress is still breathing.
Still alive.
Our scouts…
He closed his eyes.
Then, exhaling slowly, he said,
"Park Seong-jin…
What you've built isn't a fortress.
It's a grave."
Park Seong-jin's Night Infiltration
Park Seong-jin did not wait.
On the very night the scouts were annihilated, as the moon began to tilt, he had already slipped out through the gates.
"One who guards the night must move within it."
Three scouts followed him.
All wore enemy armor.
Their faces were smeared with ash and mud.
To mask the scent of blood, they tied cloth soaked in pine resin around their necks and matched their steps in silence.
Each time their ankles grew wet, they lifted their feet, brushed off the mud, and stepped again.
One careless sound could wake the plain.
Xu Da's camp lay in the middle of the open field.
Hundreds of lamps burned, but the light was slack, unfocused.
The scouts had not returned.
Stragglers kept arriving.
Vigilance had loosened.
Torches stood at each post, yet their light failed to overlap.
The gaps were wide enough for men to slip through.
Park Seong-jin wore the clothing of a man who had died in the traps—
the armor of a commander slain before the city that day.
The build fit him well.
He deliberately left the blood on the helmet.
Under firelight, it looked like proof of survival.
Blood became a mask that erased suspicion.
A sentry, seeing him, dropped to his knees in shock.
"You're alive!"
Park scratched his throat, answering in a voice roughened as if by reopened wounds.
"I must report to Commander Xu Da."
That single sentence opened the way.
He walked slowly through the camp.
Bloodstained armor lay scattered.
Cold hearths.
Damp piles of firewood.
Mended banners.
Overturned cauldrons.
The smell of gruel boiled through the night.
It was the heavy, stagnant air of a camp on the brink of defeat.
Eyes followed him—
the eyes that looked to a survivor for news.
Two officers stood before the command tent.
Their armor straps were loose.
Their spears rested on the ground.
Fatigue and anxiety had softened their guard.
"Commander Xu Da has gone to inspect the scouts."
Park nodded once.
"Then relay this for me.
Come closer."
They stepped forward.
Park did not raise his arm high.
He did not draw his blade fully.
His right hand passed once beneath the line of the shoulder.
Shk—
The sound of throats being cut was low, like dew breaking before dawn.
It was not the volume of the sound, but the sudden severing of sensation that stopped the world.
Both officers dropped to their knees almost at the same time.
One clutched his neck, mouth opening.
The other stared wide-eyed, searching for breath.
Blood came late.
What left first was air.
As it escaped, a wet gurgle bubbled up from their throats.
They collapsed.
His men followed.
Hands parted the tent flap with care.
Even the whisper of cloth could wake someone inside.
A clerk slept within.
A logistics officer lay slumped over documents.
Another man slept smiling, drunk.
A blade touched a nose.
Before breath could be drawn, a hand covered the mouth.
Park's dagger passed through the hand and into the throat.
"Quiet."
The whisper was mere procedure.
Someone twisted, trying to rise.
Another pushed at the ground with an elbow.
Neither motion completed.
The blade moved once more.
Breath was cut off halfway.
Blood did not spread across the tent floor.
The damp earth drank it in.
As blood sank into soil, sound vanished with it.
It took only moments.
Before a single line of light could leak out, all seven officers, the clerk, and the logistics chief in the command tent were dead.
They lay in different postures—
gripping swords, holding brushes, clutching documents.
Some hands never released the paper they held.
When the flap was lifted, the tent was soaked in blood.
On the desk lay a schedule.
Xu Da's itinerary.
An itinerary, in a battlefield.
Absurd—but such men existed.
Commander Xu Da
Departure: Fifth Watch
Park folded the paper and slipped it into his robes.
It was damp, sticking slightly to his fingers.
As he exited the tent, he wiped the blood from his blade with a cloth.
The motion was indifferent.
His eyes smiled coldly.
On the way back to Chizhou, dawn fog filled the valley.
One of his men whispered,
"Commander… won't this be discovered?"
Park did not turn his head.
"It's already too late."
He looked back once.
In the distance, a haze rose over Xu Da's camp.
It was not fire—
but the low, dull vapor of wet tents and cooling blood.
The mist failed to rise, sinking instead across the field.
At the gate, the guards opened it in silence.
Park entered without a word.
When the first light touched the eastern ridge, he stripped off the blood-soaked cloth.
Upon it clung the dark, resin-thick stench of blood.
"He'll lose the will to fight before the battle even begins."
Park Seong-jin said quietly.
Fatigue and cold resolve rested together on his face.