533.Maintain your distance.
The moment the king's resolve fell into place, Song I-sul moved first.
Park Seong-jin was faster still, heading straight for the North Gate.
The palace corridors felt as if they were narrowing.
Lanterns shook in every hall.
Soldiers and eunuchs rushed back and forth.
It was like the skirmish before a battle.
He spread his sensing as he ran.
The point where the retainers' energy had clumped together became starkly clear.
A momentum mixed of fear and resolve—
a wave of men whose bodies were moving before their thoughts.
A guard stationed at the Imperial Gate shouted as soon as he saw Park Seong-jin.
"The retainers have reached directly below!"
Without a word, Park Seong-jin took the wall stairs two, three steps at a time.
From above, he looked down.
Under the moonlight, the backs of the retainers stretched out in three or four lines.
Reserve troops were attached behind them.
At the front stood a mounted man, holding his breath.
Silence settled.
That silence itself was a threat.
Park Seong-jin read their momentum.
What he saw first was resolve—the decision to cut off their own retreat.
The courage to raise blades, however, betrayed its tremor.
Short breaths spread along the wall above.
From the ramparts, Park Seong-jin let his presence flow downward.
He did not speak.
He sent only existence.
The retainers' momentum visibly flinched.
Even the man at the front bowed his head without realizing it.
One soldier murmured under his breath,
"…Is that really a man?"
Armor clashed in a chain of sounds.
Park Seong-jin lightly touched the parapet and dropped down in a single step.
His presence spread outward as if welling up from deep underground.
The retainers were pushed back in unison.
Park Seong-jin spoke.
"Maintain your distance."
"One more step, and this is treated as an attack on the palace."
As he spoke, his momentum spread along the ground.
A faint tremor ran through the retainers' knees.
The mounted man clenched his teeth and shouted,
"We did not come to start a rebellion!"
Park Seong-jin answered immediately.
"Then tell me why you brought private troops to the foot of the palace."
No reply came.
The retainers watched only the man at the front.
One man's gaze held back hundreds of feet.
Seong-jin stepped closer, slowly.
His footsteps were soft.
His presence shrank the space first.
He said,
"Fear can arise from the resignation order and the land investigation."
"Even so, you placed troops at the palace gate."
"From that moment, the charge is set."
"This will be handled as treason."
The retainers were pushed back again.
The mounted man spoke in a trembling voice.
"They said all the land would be taken… we came to ask what that meant."
"If no answer came—"
Park Seong-jin raised one hand and cut him off.
"Your circumstances are your own."
"If you moved troops toward the palace, the conclusion is already decided."
The air turned cold.
A ripple of instability spread through the ranks.
Hands groped for sword hilts.
Sweat-glossed palms showed.
Eyes searched for a retreat.
Some hands appeared, gripping the man in front from behind.
Then, from afar, the footsteps of Song I-sul's forces approached.
On the wall above, the Gyeonryong Guard drew their bowstrings.
This was a moment where a single breath could become a fuse.
Where one mistake could become a fuse.
Where even one scream from a single soldier could become a fuse.
Park Seong-jin said quietly,
"Withdraw. Now."
The man clenched his teeth.
"We can't retreat… we can't… any longer—"
Then someone ran forward from behind and shouted,
"Let's go back."
"End it here."
"Let's leave alive."
The formation wavered.
It sounded like a cry soaked in fear.
It also sounded like the last thread of common sense.
The man at the front began to shake.
He had believed that occupying the palace gate would open a path.
That someone would come out and resolve this in the language of politics.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Stop here."
"State your demands."
"If you withdraw the troops, we'll listen."
That belief rested on several assumptions:
that the king's base was shallow,
that armies tilted toward their commanders rather than royal orders,
that the structure depended on private retainers of the powerful.
He believed that simply lining men up at the gate would open negotiations.
Park Seong-jin overturned that calculation.
He offered severance instead of negotiation.
Lines instead of persuasion.
Charges instead of politics.
Only then did the man understand what stood before him.
Not a negotiator sent from the palace,
but a warrior who had cut men down on battlefields.
And that warrior stood having already erased his own retreat.
Park Seong-jin said lowly,
"My name is Park Seong-jin."
"I hold the rank of Jungnangjang."
The leader of the retainers lifted his eyes.
"Park… Seong-jin…?"
The chill that ran down his spine finally took shape.
A master of the Hwagyung realm who had led victories in Yodong and Jiangnan.
A name that froze people by itself.
That man was standing before the palace gate.
A murmur burst out among the retainers.
"A Hwagyung master!"
"That guy?"
"Why is he here…?"
Unease spread like contagion.
Park Seong-jin spoke briefly.
"There's business of the state, so I broke my seclusion."
"I don't intend to hold onto this long either."
"Let's finish this quickly."
He cut his words off and added,
"There are two choices."
"Charge."
"Or withdraw."
Then he pressed once more.
"If you withdraw, state your affiliation."
"Who lined you up here?"
The leader trailed off and looked back.
No answer rose from behind.
Control was breaking.
The instigator was hidden deeper inside.
The front line was hardening into scapegoats.
At that moment, reinforcements from the rear surged forward—
a push that had not read the standoff ahead.
"Why are you standing still!"
"What are you doing up there!"
"You're blocking the way!"
Curses flew.
Torches twisted in the wind.
Flames shook violently.
The ominous momentum shook even the retainers' minds.
Park Seong-jin drew in a deep breath.
The man who had stepped forward as leader had already lost control.
So Seong-jin loaded his voice with force.
The entire North Gate rang.
"Withdraw."
"If you withdraw now, it ends here."
The vibration reached the ground itself.
For a moment, hooves and armor fell silent.
The front line flinched.
The rear hesitated.
That was the moment.
From the back, a voice thick like drunken heat shouted in the same tone,
"If we withdraw now, it ends?!"
"Open the gate, you bastard!"
The entire formation froze.
The upper ranks shook violently.
The lower ranks surged upward.
Fear, curses, and footsteps tangled together.
Chaos climbed to the edge of explosion.
Park Seong-jin's eyes flashed.
That single sentence was the fuse.
He kicked off the parapet and leapt down.
Under the red torchlight, his shadow slammed onto the ground.
The front line of retainers stepped back on instinct.
Park Seong-jin advanced the moment he landed.
Step.
Step.
Each footfall struck the earth.
The men blocking his path split to either side.
No order was given, yet the road opened.
At the end of that road stood the man who had just cursed at the gate.
Realizing what was happening, the man drew his sword.
"D-don't come—!"
Before the words could reach him, Park Seong-jin's hand did.
He seized the man by the nape—precise, absolute.
Even a twitch of a toe was erased.
The air fell into stillness.
The next instant—whoosh.
Park Seong-jin lifted him into the air as if picking up a handful of dry grass.
Then—slam.
The ground received the body with a dull roar.
The shoulders of the front line locked all at once.
Screams broke off in throats.
Park Seong-jin did not bother to look down at the man on the ground.
He spoke shortly.
"Close that mouth."
"Now choose."