Night of the full moon.
The moonlight was too bright; the darkness of the forest could offer no hiding place.
The light filtering through the leaves thinly revealed the outlines of people, and the more they held their breath, the louder their heartbeats sounded.
They were close enough to see the camp with the naked eye.
A simple wooden palisade formed a circle, and beyond it carts of varying sizes had been arrayed around the perimeter.
If they set it on fire, it would end quickly.
But that would not be “victory.” It would be slaughter.
Rangnan raised his hand.
The signal was brief.
Stop—
Lower yourselves—
Wait.
Jincheong and several members pressed their hands to the ground.
As if reading the warmth and moisture of the soil, their fingertips paused for a moment.
Then Jincheong spoke with only his breath.
“Now.”
At that instant,
the ground heaved.
Arkin amplified by the full moon interlocked in several streams, and the earth rose up.
Like a wave, like a flowing wall.
Masses of soil surged all at once toward the carts and slammed into them.
Kwaaang—!
A thunderous roar burst out.
Carts were crushed beneath the weight of the earth, wheels buckled, and cargo beds were mangled.
More soil piled over the wreckage.
A slope high enough to cross the palisade was forcibly created.
Immediately, a horn sounded.
“Invaders!”
“Positions—!”
But Rangnan’s hand had already fallen forward.
Charge.
Rangnan went straight to the side of the slope—
stepping over the heap of collapsed carts, he climbed to the edge of the palisade.
Under the moonlight, the outline of the camp came into view at a glance.
Ed stuck close beside him.
When Rangnan crooked his fingers to form a signal, Ed scattered that signal with whistles and gestures.
The members rode up the earthen slope,
flowing into the palisade all at once.
Miryeong leaped down from the top of the palisade.
She could see a mass of soldiers rushing toward them beneath the moonlight.
Miryeong immediately gathered the wind.
These were not knights. What was needed was not a storm, but wind.
The moment she landed, the wind burst forth.
A powerful gust swept across the ground and lifted the soldiers’ feet.
The front line collapsed first, and the rear line piled over them.
Shields and spears tangled together and scraped across the ground, and short screams burst out.
Miryeong did not stop; her eyes moved quickly.
‘No knights in sight yet.’
But they were coming.
They would undoubtedly choose the “front.”
The moment this commotion grew inside the camp, the knights would move.
“Split up.”
Miryeong said in a low voice.
“Supplies first. Check every tent. Don’t touch the wounded.”
The members split off in their assigned directions.
Some groups rushed at the fallen soldiers,
while others burrowed deeper into the camp.
What mattered here was not “killing,” but making them unable to move.
Once someone was knocked down, it took time for them to get back up.
During that time, their side would work.
Just then, Mendel stepped forward, steadying her breath.
She did not close her eyes.
Instead, she “felt” her surroundings.
The location of water.
The water inside buckets, the moisture in the damp earth, even the water seeped into the tent fabric—
all those minute things caught on her senses.
When Mendel raised her hand, the buckets rattled.
The wooden tubs rolled toward her, collided with one another, and broke apart.
The water seeping through the cracks was drawn up into the air and began to spin.
A massive sphere of water formed before her.
The wooden tubs remained inside it only as debris.
Cold sweat beaded on Mendel’s forehead.
On the night of the full moon, power had become easier, but “control” had become harder.
“Hup…!”
Mendel thrust out her arm.
The sphere of water flew in that direction.
The spinning current struck the charging soldiers head-on,
and at the same time the debris of the wooden tubs mixed within it whipped outward, hammering armor and helmets with force.
The soldiers fell one after another.
The water scattered and soaked the ground, while the debris flew in every direction.
Other members did not miss that opening and charged in.
They knocked them down, twisted arms, kicked away weapons, and rendered them “combat incapable.”
Briefly and swiftly.
In a way that did not increase the bloodshed.
The Arkin users who had joined from the rear moved deeper in.
They looked at facilities before people.
They cut ropes hanging from stakes, broke the wheels of supply carts,
and covered stacked crates with earth so they could not be moved.
So that this camp would become not a “base,” but a “burden.”
Miryeong leaped into the air once more.
From above, she swept her eyes across the inside of the camp.
What she had to find now was clear.
The place where the remaining supplies were gathered.
And—
the tents of the wounded that must never be touched, and the beings who would walk toward the center of this commotion.
The knights.
Miryeong landed and said quietly.
“They’re coming.”
“Don’t panic!”
A loud voice burst from inside the camp.
“Do not falter! Maintain formation! Shields forward! Spears low!”
When the order fell,
the disorganized soldiers surprisingly began to form ranks quickly.
Shields interlocked, and spearpoints lowered in a line at the same height.
From behind, crossbows were raised, and torches moved about, breaking the darkness.
But as quickly as the firelight increased, it was extinguished just as fast.
Here and there inside the palisade—
torches suddenly went out.
As if someone had snatched the flames away with their palm, they were killed, and oil lamps were snapped off at the wick.
The soldiers’ shouts grew louder.
Miryeong gritted her teeth.
‘There are more than I thought. And… they’re responding quickly.’
She thrust wind toward the “breathing gap” of that formation.
As a small storm twisted into them, the front-line soldiers wavered for an instant.
But they endured, supporting themselves with one another’s shoulders and shields.
The formation did not collapse greatly.
Instead, it only faltered half a step at a time.
Just then,
a whistle rang out from inside the camp.
Fweeet—!
It was the signal that the members who had entered by another route had found the supplies.
Rangnan, atop the palisade, heard it and merely nodded.
Ed immediately blew the same note once more.
It was a signal conveying “supplies secured” to the other groups.
The moment Miryeong turned her head,
crossbow shots rang out in succession from the opposite side.
Jincheong reacted first.
When he lowered his hand as if striking the ground, the earth hurriedly rose up.
A wall of soil surged upward, and crossbow bolts lodged into it with a rattling stop.
Miryeong also raised her hand and drew in the wind.
The wind knocked several bolts aside and disrupted their paths.
But the crossbow bolts kept flying.
Among the members, the sound of sharp inhalations spread briefly.
It was not tension, but breathing for the “next movement.”
Miryeong gestured and split the nearby groups apart.
“Scatter. Avoid the front of their formation. Hit only the flanks and pull away.”
Just then,
a thin stream of smoke rose from inside the camp.
—
Inside a tent stacked with crates deeper in the camp.
Ria and Rion were concentrating.
When Ria moved her hand,
fire rolled flat across the ground.
Flames curled round like a wheel passed through the inside of the tent, brushing the crates.
The sound of wood charring came faintly, and the packing cloth split open as if torn.
Rion immediately lowered his hand.
Before the flames could rise higher, they went out as if their breath had been smothered.
Only smoke remained; the fire did not.
“Good. More—”
That was when it happened.
“You bastards…!”
A low, rough voice burst from behind the tent.
The sound of armor scraping, heavy footsteps.
It was a knight who had rushed toward the supply tent.
Kyle Everheim.
The moment Kyle was about to step in front of the tent—
Whip.
A rope suddenly tangled around his leg.
It was Marin.
The rope, fitted with a hook, scraped along the ground and wound around him,
then pulled at Kyle’s ankle.
“Twins!”
Marin shouted through gritted teeth.
“Focus! Don’t fall back!”
Ria and Rion fixed their hands once more.
The fire rolled again and began burning the remaining crates.
Kyle ground his teeth.
“How dare—”
He drew up Idrin.
Tendons bulged beneath his skin, and his ankle held fast as if “tearing” the rope apart.
The rope pulled taut, dragging Marin’s arms with it.
At that moment, Hurta rushed in from the side.
Hurta’s palm struck toward Kyle’s thigh—
aiming for a joint in the armor.
Fire Palm.
It was not a technique that burned fire from the outside,
but a palm art that pressed heat in a thin layer, making it hot “from within.”
Even if armor blocked it, the heat would dig through the gaps and stab into flesh.
Kyle’s face twisted for an instant.
“Kh—!”
But the knight did not fall.
He gritted his teeth and endured the pain, then swung his leg with the Idrin he had drawn up.
Bang!
Hurta was flung sideways.
At the same time, Marin, who had been holding on to the rope and resisting, lost her balance.
The taut line suddenly shook, lifting her body into the air.
“Ugh—!”
Still not letting go of the rope, Marin slammed into a tent pole.
The tent fabric tore and swayed.
Ria gritted her teeth.
“Rion—!”
Rion immediately lowered his hand and quelled the flames.
They had stopped the fire from spreading. But in that moment, the air before the tent had completely turned into battle.
Kyle planted his foot again, breathing roughly.
“I’ll end this.”
He looked down at Hurta and said,
“While you burn the supplies, I’ll burn you.”
And from behind, another set of heavy footsteps was approaching.
A knight.
Now the real thing was coming.
—
“Earth-grabbers!”
Miryeong shouted in a low voice.
“Get the wounded!”
Jincheong and the other members moved at once.
Using the opening Miryeong had created with wind—
the instant the shield wall shook and the angle of the arrows broke down,
they pulled the wounded members into their arms one by one and lowered them into the ground.
The earth opened as if it were a mouth, then closed again.
That was how the wounded “disappeared.”
Miryeong briefly steadied her breath.
“Hoo….”
The enemy before her was not simply a “powerful individual.”
There were soldiers who seemed to be elites, and command that made them move as one body.
Even if each person’s martial strength was not exceptional, an army was still an army.
Formation and orders made gathered people into a single weapon.
On top of that,
Miryeong was suppressing the Arkin amplified by the full moon.
If she called up a storm on a large scale, a formation like that could easily be shattered.
But in that instant, her allies would be swept away with them.
Here, “survival” came before “victory.”
Miryeong was fighting while shackled by that restraint.
In effect,
they had entered the enemy’s mouth.
“Urgh—!”
Somewhere, a member was struck by an arrow again and collapsed.
The sound of breath catching.
Miryeong’s gaze snapped in that direction for an instant.
‘This won’t do.’
Miryeong gritted her teeth and shouted.
“Combat groups, retreat!”
At that moment, a sharp voice immediately struck back.
“Who decided that—!”
It was a knight.
A motion that cut through armor as he charged.
A relentless frontal breakthrough.
Kwaak—!
Miryeong caught and stopped the wrist of the hand that swung the sword.
Her palm drove force into the gap in his armor as if digging inside.
“I’ll hold him!”
Miryeong said in a low voice.
“Everyone—brace for impact!”
The members reflexively lowered themselves.
Jincheong’s side had already secured a route to sink into the earth.
Miryeong inhaled.
Wind gathered around her.
This time, it was not merely “wind,” but a “storm.”
First, it shoved the knight’s charge to the side.
Then it knocked away the incoming arrows.
The storm deflected the arrows and disrupted their trajectories.
And then—
Miryeong turned that flow backward.
A force that pushed at the members’ backs.
Not a force that blew them away, but one that “pushed them out.”
Toward the palisade, to the outside, a wind that made them escape alive.
One by one, the members were lifted over the palisade and slipped outside.
“Lady Miryeong!”
Someone shouted.
Miryeong did not answer.
She swallowed another breath.
“Haaah—!”
This time, left alone, she drove the storm head-on.
“Grrrgh—!”
The knight and soldiers staggered all at once.
The shield wall split, and spearpoints wavered.
Bodies were lifted by the wind and scattered around the camp.
The storm was short and violent, yet it precisely made a “path.”
Miryeong did not miss that opening.
She caught the remaining wind beneath her feet and leaped onto the palisade.
Her body floated lightly and landed atop the logs.
Her breathing was rough.
But her eyes were still alive.
Miryeong swept her gaze across the inside of the camp once more.
Already, battles large and small were breaking out all throughout the camp.