542.Geonryong Guard officer swallowed and whispered,
At that moment, from within the shadows of the ramparts above Sinbong Gate, a Geonryong Guard officer swallowed and whispered,
"…They've entered."
This was not a report but a confirmation.
It meant the trap was functioning exactly as expected.
The palace archers on the ramparts said nothing.
They were already focused solely on their targets.
Light.
Movement.
Sound.
From that moment on, it felt as though it was no longer people but rules that were firing the arrows.
When light appeared, they fired.
When someone ran, they fired.
When the crowd packed together, they fired.
When it scattered, the strike unit swept through.
And there was someone who had created those rules.
Park Seong-jin.
He had not yet revealed himself.
He never did.
Even on the battlefield, the decisive blow always came last.
Only after people charged in shouting his name did he confirm how thin their resolve, rage, and courage truly were.
Then, at the very end, he folded everything in at once.
That was the method of civil war he had learned in Jiangnan.
In a civil war, the enemy does not come from outside.
It rises from within.
That was why he severed the internal current in a single stroke.
From the rear of the rebel force, those buried in the deepest darkness began to reach a judgment, belatedly.
"This is strange."
"We got in too easily."
"No. We didn't get in. We were let in."
At that moment, a commander said in a trembling voice,
"It's a trap."
The word trap spread faster than arrows.
"A trap, they say."
"Fall back."
"There's no way out."
"Find a gate, a gate."
"What gate? Where did we even come in from?"
People lost their footing.
They trampled and shoved one another.
Those who fell were stepped on again.
The sight of bodies trying to live crushing other bodies trying to live repeated over and over.
Watching the scene, Park Seong-jin spoke so quietly it was almost a sigh,
"Yes."
"This is a civil war."
Then it happened.
From within the darkness, a single tiny spark flared.
Someone, driven by impatience, had raised a torch again.
The moment the flame rose, the air split first.
Pak—!
The flame burst briefly and went out at once.
The hand holding the torch fell first, and the body followed a heartbeat later.
The light existed for only a single breath, and that single breath severed one life.
From the rear ranks of the rebels who saw it, screams erupted.
"This can't be won."
"Run."
Run.
The moment that word was spoken, the rebellion was already half over.
A rebellion remains a rebellion only as long as forward momentum is maintained.
Once retreat begins, it becomes a procession of fugitives.
Park Seong-jin waited.
He waited for the moment when flight ceased to be individual escape and became the movement of a mass.
The moment it became a mass, it would flow in only one direction.
If that direction was seized in advance, even thousands could be bound at once.
"Left wing, open."
Park Seong-jin's low voice once again cut through the darkness.
As the words fell, the strike unit hidden in the shadows along the left wall cleared a section, as if opening a path.
Seeing the gap, part of the rebel force rushed toward it, believing it to be a way out.
"There."
"Get through there."
"Hurry."
They did not know that it was not a path to escape, but a path meant to gather them.
On the opposite right side, elements of the Geonryong Guard moved quietly.
Like placing a stone at the end of a waterway, they sealed off the end of the flight.
Blocked where they tried to exit and herded toward where they sought to live, the rebels were ultimately forced together in the very direction they had tried to avoid.
At last, in the center of the yard before Sinbong Gate, roughly a thousand remaining rebels gathered into a single mass.
At that moment, Park Seong-jin stepped out of the darkness for the first time.
Step.
The sound was not loud.
Yet that single step struck as though it had seized hundreds of hearts at once.
Step.
The second step fell.
Someone inhaled—and stopped breathing altogether.
"There."
No one needed to point.
Every gaze gathered in one place.
A single man walking out of the darkness.
He needed no torch.
Not because he was bright, but because the darkness around him seemed deeper where he stood.
Killing intent pressed down on the space.
Park Seong-jin stopped directly before the rebels.
And he said, very briefly,
"Let's end this."
As the words fell, the front ranks of the rebels bent their knees instinctively.
It was not those with strength left to fight, but those with only the instinct to survive who bent first.
That instinct was always honest.
More honest than justification.
More honest than arrogance.