611.
Park Seong-jin sprinted across the mud,
where wind and the stench of blood were mixed together.
A Japanese warrior raised his sword with both hands,
aiming to split Park's crown.
Park did not block with steel.
He drove in first with his shoulder.
"Kkh—!"
As the breath burst from the man's chest,
Park's blade swept upward from below.
Trained bodywork gave way to flashing swordplay.
The man's waist was cut diagonally through.
Before the blade even cleared the body,
Park spun half a turn and struck another warrior's wrist.
Crack—!
The sound of bone breaking rang naked across the sand.
The sword fell.
Park did not bother avoiding the blood.
He ran straight for the next enemy.
Five Japanese charged together at the spear wall.
As spearpoints punched into chests,
running bodies stopped dead,
steel clashed as momentum rebounded.
One man folded as a spear bored into his abdomen.
The second slammed into his back and offered his neck.
The third and fourth tangled on the spear shafts and fell.
The spearmen took one step back and drew their spears free.
From the tips, a thick clump of blood and sand dropped—thuk.
Archers lowered their bows.
This was now close-range fire, inside twenty paces.
One arrow shattered a kneecap.
The falling body tripped the one behind it.
The archer had already nocked a second arrow
and drove it into the man's back.
Grdk—
the sound of bone being scraped through.
The rougher the melee became,
the clearer Goryeo's advantage grew.
Shieldmen absorbed the shock.
Spearmen thrust.
Long-swordsmen took heads.
Archers sealed the gaps.
Park Seong-jin read the waves of the formation.
As the enemy elite tried to gather strength again,
he shouted with finality,
"Spearmen, half-step forward!"
"Shields, shift left!"
"Long swords, advance!"
The formation moved all at once, like a breaking wave.
Spears pushed first.
Shields blocked movement.
Long swords cut into the collapsed space.
Waist.
Flank.
Calf.
The places people tried to save
were cut first.
In a single flow,
the elites' second assault line lost all momentum.
Attack turned into retreat,
retreat into confusion.
They ran and fell.
Snagged ankles on armor.
Collided and lost direction.
With every step the spear wall advanced,
the enemy's space shrank.
Shields pressed.
Spears shook.
Archers shifted spacing to fill openings.
The fight moved
from chaos
to control.
At the center of the melee,
Park shook the blood from his blade.
Then he shouted, short and sharp.
"Push."
The line on the sand advanced one more stage.
Even when the enemy's last elites swung their swords,
there was no longer any attempt to evade the blades.
Goryeo forces pressed down sand, blood, and steel sounds,
slowly—
but certainly—
expanding the Izuhara beachhead.
The purpose of building the beachhead now stood revealed.
The enemy had prepared as well.
They had numbers.
But most had already become ghosts of Izuhara Harbor.
Defeat clung to the Japanese ranks.
They gathered all remaining forces
and tried to cover from three sides,
yet their formation unraveled at once
before Goryeo's prepared lines.
This was a force that knew, in its bones,
how battles with raiders unfolded.
After expanding the beachhead,
the formation pressed into the first alley of the small port village.
Between shattered palisades and burning masts,
a narrow mud road ran forward.
Low wooden houses on both sides
emerged through the smoke.
The alley was only two to three paces wide.
Here, long spears lost their strength.
Spearpoints caught on walls.
The push from behind was cut off.
Length and rhythm collapsed.
"Fold spears. Long swords forward."
At the order, spearmen passed their weapons back,
and long-sword troops took the front.
In a narrow alley,
space itself becomes the enemy.
Wooden walls throw sound back.
Mud underfoot steals balance.
Smoke under the eaves swallows vision.
Here, armor and rank mean nothing.
Concentration and reflex decide life and death.
Three leading long-swordsmen collided head-on
with Japanese bursting from the alley mouth.
Shak— jjeaek—
the clash of steel echoed long.
One swordsman caught a blade on his shield,
used the rebound,
and cut diagonally at waist height.
Leather armor split open.
From the side, another enemy lunged low with a dagger.
A shieldman tried to block,
but as the blade slipped under the shield's edge,
a rear swordsman stepped on the wrist and snapped it down.
Park Seong-jin passed through the center of the formation
and entered the first alley.
He lowered his body, narrowing his profile.
He did not swing wide.
He created space with his body first,
then advanced.
An enemy burst from the wall.
Park did not make a large cut.
He twisted his wrist and slashed short.
The throat opened beneath the jaw,
blood painting the wooden wall.
A second enemy came with a horizontal cut.
Park brushed the wall with his back,
lowered his waist,
and cut the calf.
Tendons snapped.
The body folded down.
Park's movement was not about creating space for a sword—
it was about creating space for a living body.
Deeper in the alley,
a pocket of silence appeared.
From it came a heavy presence.
Red leather armor.
Thick vambraces.
A long blade.
A mid-level Japanese commander.
He raised his sword without a word,
its height aligned exactly with Park's neck.
His breathing was quiet.
Two elites spread into a half-circle behind him.
Park lowered his body,
blade held beneath his heart.
The commander thrust first, like firing a shot.
As the tip reached his nose,
Park twisted left and let it pass.
Chrrrk—
steel scraped the wall
as Park's blade arced toward the wrist.
The commander withdrew his arm,
slid his left foot half a step,
and cut for the waist.
The blade skimmed past.
The space was narrow.
Which made it lethal.
One hand.
One foot.
That difference decides a neck.
The commander lifted his blade upward toward the jaw.
Park fixed on the shadow of the elite to the left.
He laid his sword spine against the commander's blade
and forced it down.
The hilt collapsed.
Park pivoted on his ankle,
rotated his body,
and cut deep on a diagonal behind the armpit.
Ssk—
with the sound of breath breaking,
the commander's waist slackened.
As an elite lunged from behind,
striking at Park's back,
Park seized the staggering commander
and dragged him backward.
The elite's blade buried itself deep into the commander's back.
Thud.
In the instant the second elite froze,
Park drew his blade sideways
and cut his throat.
As the commander and two elites fell in succession,
the air in the alley changed.
Footsteps ceased.
Shouts vanished.
With the leading blades gone,
the rest collided into one another and retreated.
Only Park's ragged breathing
and smoke remained in the alley.
"Push. Secure the alley."
Goryeo long-swordsmen advanced with shouts.
The battle inside the village
was shifting
into pursuit.