Special Operations Unit — Internal Fracture
Five returned.
The air inside the tent was damp.
The smell of blood had not yet faded.
No one spoke first.
The longer the silence stretched, the sharper the glances became.
The first to break it was a swordsman from a Hebei sect.
"Who told you to rush in first?"
The Sichuan assassin's eyes flashed.
"If I hadn't moved, you'd still be hiding out there."
"I created the opening."
"An opening?"
The poison expert laughed coldly.
"Charging straight into an arrow net?"
The assassin ground his teeth.
"The poison should've been deployed first."
"If you'd accounted for the wind—"
"Wind?"
The poison expert's voice dropped.
"There was no wind."
"That just means you missed it."
A spear-wielder cut in.
"Enough."
"The real problem was command."
All eyes turned to him.
"Then why didn't you take it?"
"Why did you stand still?"
The spearman exhaled.
"There was no order."
"We were told to judge for ourselves."
That was the spark.
"Judge for ourselves?"
"So that's why everyone scattered?"
"That's why the assassin died first?"
The word died froze the tent.
Someone muttered,
"They were faster than expected."
Immediate rebuttal.
"No."
"They weren't fast."
"They were organized."
"You don't know that."
"I do."
"Their momentum didn't move."
"That was an army."
Silence.
Then another voice.
"So whose fault is it?"
"We're masters, aren't we?"
No one answered.
Blame could not be gathered.
The more it concentrated, the closer it came to one's own throat.
Eventually, the words drifted elsewhere.
"The enemy was abnormal."
"That wasn't a normal army."
"They had… a standard."
A standard.
The word lingered in the tent.
"Park Seong-jin."
Someone said the name.
No one denied it.
But the next line shifted.
"He's still just one man."
"If we swarm him—"
"No."
The surviving assassin shook his head.
"That's not a numbers problem."
"Then what is?"
He swallowed once.
"When he stands there…"
"Our judgment slows first."
No one spoke after that.
That night, the Special Operations Unit did not gather again.
The tent remained, but there was no center.
Blades that do not trust each other
inevitably turn inward.
And the fracture was growing—
far faster than Zhu Yuanzhang expected.
Liu Bowen — Beyond Control
Liu Bowen heard the voices from outside the tent.
They were not shouts.
Low voices, sharpened like drawn steel.
He did not enter.
There was no need.
The conclusion was already clear.
Inside, the masters were watching one another.
No blades drawn—yet their gazes were already cutting.
Who moved first.
Who hesitated.
Who miscalculated.
Responsibility floated in the air,
like an object no one wanted to grab.
Liu Bowen exhaled slowly.
Control is not achieved through orders.
Martial artists do not obey commands.
They move only when they are convinced.
And tonight, that conviction had shattered.
The Goryeo arrow net.
Park Seong-jin's fixed momentum.
An army structured to swallow individuals.
Before that, the masters had not lost.
But they had not stood above it either.
That was the problem.
The martial world fears uncertainty more than defeat.
Liu Bowen understood.
At this moment, the masters inside were measuring one another—
not the enemy.
This is already broken.
Control is not about orders being delivered.
It is about orders retaining meaning.
That meaning was fading.
He thought of Zhu Yuanzhang.
The Emperor believed in blades.
Believed that gathering stronger blades would solve everything.
But Liu Bowen knew.
Blades do not become one simply by being collected.
To become one,
there must be a standard.
That standard was with the Goryeo army.
With Park Seong-jin.
Liu Bowen organized the thought quietly.
The Special Operations Unit split before it ever truly fought.
They do not wait for orders.
And the next failure will be blamed on each other.
He turned away.
He had to report this to the Emperor—
but not directly.
"Beyond control"
was the most dangerous phrase one could speak to a ruler.
So he prepared another sentence.
"Your Majesty."
"These blades are not yet blades you can wield."
And silently added—
They are already aimed at one another.