Chapter 1167: Chapter 1167

Yoshinobu waded past the seawater to reach the shore. He glanced behind him and was greeted by the sight of the Korean Coast Guard patrol boats in utter disorganization.

‘Things have gone according to plan...’

In a way, one could say this strategy verged on being reckless. But it was backed up by Cai Kechang’s flawless calculations.

Maritime activities were the domain of the surface world. As long as you used this tool called sea transport, you were bound by the surface world’s rules and restrictions, even if martial artists were your passengers.

However, people enforcing these rules and regulations weren’t machines.

The ones that had dived into the sea were all martial artists, Japan’s proud warriors. Trying to arrest them through force would lead to the shattering of the delicate balancing act between the surface world and the martial world.

The Coast Guard probably couldn’t figure out what was going on. Their higher-ups must’ve ordered them to leave the ones in the water alone, after all!

Yoshinobu scanned his fellow warriors. “Men! Assemble!”

Warriors rushed outside the water and rapidly stood in perfectly organized lines. Yoshinobu did a quick headcount, then pulled out his sword from the vinyl wrapping.

Yoshinobu grunted while nodding briefly.

He figured at least one or two might drown or meet with some other accident, but it seemed the heavens were on their side. Luckily, everyone had made it to the shore. Despite the freezing temperature, the gentler-than-expected waves made this feat possible.

‘Indeed, the heavens are smiling at us!’

Their situation meant delaying the landing because of bad weather was out of the question. Even the moderately strong waves could’ve produced losses of personnel. Worse still, had the weather been much worse, at least one-third of the advance party wouldn’t have reached their destination alive. However, the Japanese were still prepared to take on such losses.

Thankfully, though... The heavens were looking out for Yoshinobu and Shinichi-kai, it seemed!

Like how fierce storms had prevented the great army of Mongolia from reaching the archipelago, the gods had quietened the winds down as if to cheer on the Japanese and their grand endeavor.

Yoshinobu never was a believer in the supernatural. But he still welcomed things starting off smoothly .

“Captain! Everyone has assembled!”

“Good!” Yoshinobu replied with a firm nod, his eyes burning fiercely. “There are too many eyes around this place. For now, we go into hiding! Rather than rashly charging into enemy territory... We’ll wait for the arrival of the second wave!”

“Captain? Are you planning to work together with them?”

“Of course not,” Yoshinobu smirked derisively. “I won’t stoop myself low enough to work with the cowards from Kanto. However, those idiots will surely attract the enemy’s attention. In other words, they’ll serve as distractions!”

“While they do that, we’ll attack the enemy stronghold!” Yoshinobu growled, a murderous aura flickering eerily within his eyes.

‘And I will behead Kang Jin-Ho myself!’

Yoshinobu glanced at the warriors and roared, “Let’s go!”

Shinichi-kai’s agents dashed away from the beach and melted into the darkness of the night.

Wiggins sat up in his seat.

“The enemy has already landed?”

Wiggins’ expression crumpled instantly.

They’ve been had. The Japanese had gotten them good! Nothing could make up for such a grave mistake.

Lee Hyeon-Su hurriedly asked, “Do we know their landing location?”

The messenger shook his head. “We still haven’t narrowed it down yet, sir! If it’s not near Taean, then it should have been near Gunsan.”[1]

Lee Hyeon-Su shot back in irritation. “Taean or Gunsan?! There’s almost a hundred kilometers between the two! Are you seriously telling me we can’t even narrow down where they have landed?!”

“The nighttime has made it difficult to track them down, sir. I’ve been told that the best our team can do is roughly estimate the enemy’s location from the direction they swam in from.”

Lee Hyeon-Su growled before rubbing his face fiercely.

Now wasn’t the time to lose his cool. If he wanted to get angry at someone, he should do so at his own incompetence, not at his subordinates or messengers. Blaming others would only paralyze the chain of command or sharing of intelligence.

“...Got it. Get the guard posts located around the western coast to cooperate with us. Tell them to contact us as soon as they detect a large group of suspicious individuals.”

“Understood, Chief Lee!”

The messenger roared before dashing outside the office.

Lee Hyeon-Su, now looking anxious, switched his tablet on and accessed a map app.

‘If it’s Taean or Gunsan...!’

He randomly picked a suitable spot between those two locations as the landing location.

‘Three hours with a car...?’

The Japanese would need around three hours to reach the Assembly if they were driving on Korea’s national highway system.

Lee Hyeon-Su turned his head and looked at Bang Jin-Hun.

“Director Bang, sir!”

“Mm?” Bang Jin-Hun looked back, his expression just as grave as Lee Hyeon-Su’s.

“Martial artists on the level of the Japanese elites, can they travel faster than cars?”

“No, not possible,” Bang Jin-Hun replied without hesitation. “A small number might be able to. You could run as fast as possible without worrying about leaving witnesses behind, but the story changes when you’re on the enemy territory. Besides, we think around a thousand of the bastards have landed, right? To avoid being spotted, that many people won’t have a choice but to travel in the wilderness.”

“Even so, shouldn’t they be able to maintain their speed?”

“Nah. If they had been Koreans, then I guess so. Imagine you’re in their shoes for a sec. Let’s say you got dropped into the middle of the Japanese wilderness. Do you think you can reach Tokyo at your top speed? While leading a large army, to boot?”

“...No, that will be asking for too much.”

Running in one direction while using a compass would certainly reduce the time required to reach the destination, but the enemy would spot you before you had the chance to cover a hundred kilometers.

You could rely on modern tech like apps on your smartphone or other gadgets to navigate. And you could still access GPS without involving the mobile communication companies.

All things considered, you could say the conditions were much better than in the past—Even so, it’d not be easy for the invaders to cover this distance quickly.

“In that case...” Lee Hyeon-Su muttered, his expression stiffening.

He couldn’t pin anything down. How long would the Japanese need to reach their destination, assuming that the destination was the Martial Assembly? He couldn’t calculate it at all!

The Martial Assembly’s original plan was to stop the Japanese invaders at the shore. With things , though, it was clearly the time for the ‘Plan B.’

However, their backup plan was to defend the territory from here to the eastern coastline. The plan didn’t account for the enemy breaching the border from the west.

“T-then, our priority should be...”

Wiggins suddenly addressed his disciple. “Let’s all calm down first, shall we?”

Lee Hyeon-Su sobered up almost immediately and bit his lower lip.

‘Master is right. I got too agitated.’

A man tasked with strategies and tactics should not get agitated under any circumstances. Lee Hyeon-Su wouldn’t have displayed such a disgraceful sight in any other situations, but the fluster and humiliation of the Japanese hitting him in the blind spot had temporarily disrupted his focus.

‘No, hold on. Let’s call it what it is. It’s... the sense of impending danger, isn’t it?’

They were dealing with Japan here, not some random riff-raff.

As far as the combat strength was concerned, Japan could rival or even surpass the Round Table. However, fighting off the Japanese was a completely different prospect compared to when the Assembly fought the Round Table.

First of all, the Assembly was the invader attacking the Round Table back then. Even if the ‘expedition’ had failed, the only major losses the Assembly would have incurred were the death of the combatants deployed to the front lines.

As long as Kang Jin-Ho and the directors were alive and the home base remained unaffected, the Assembly could recover with enough time.

Besides, the Assembly only had to fight against a small number of elites that consisted of the representative Knights and their personal knight orders visiting the Round Table at that time, plus the reawakened Elder Knights.

Compared to them, the Assembly’s elite warriors, including Kang Jin-Ho and the directors, were demonstrably superior. What happened back then was basically the Assembly hitting the enemy’s weak points with its strongest attack.

However, what if the Round Table’s main force collided against the Japanese main force? The outcome of that potential conflict would not be the same at all as the one between the Round Table and the Martial Assembly.

The Martial Assembly’s top elites, including the Assembly Master and the directors, were certainly some of the strongest fighters in the world. But its ordinary martial artists were so much weaker than the members of similar-sized organizations in other nations.

What flustered Lee Hyeon-Su here was that, since the Japanese had successfully entered Korea, it became no longer possible to end the war in an elite-versus-elite small scale battle.

That also meant the possibility of the Martial Assembly incurring massive losses was all too real now!

“First of all,” Lee Hyeon-Su addressed the directors and Kang Jin-Ho in the conference room. “We need to figure out what their goal is. They might recklessly charge straight at the Assembly HQ, but it’s more likely that they would try to build a base of operations somewhere first.”

“Yes, for sure...” Wiggins nodded, his narrowed eyes scanning the map.

It would have been easier to respond had the Japanese rushed straight into the Assembly’s territory. However, if their plan was something else, then...?

“Before that...” Kang Jin-Ho, who had been silently observing the meeting, abruptly said something. “Don’t we have something else to confirm first?”

“Sir?” Lee Hyeon-Su turned his head to stare at his boss.

Kang Jin-Ho asked flatly, “How many have entered the country?”

“We estimate the number to be around one thousand, sir.”

“Then, how many disappeared in the Japanese airport?”

“That’s also around one thou...”

Lee Hyeon-Su abruptly clamped his mouth shut.

Around two thousand Japanese warriors were initially estimated to be at the airport. About half of them had disappeared, and roughly the same number had seemingly reappeared in the Yellow Sea.

‘But it can’t be that simple.’

Only two thousand Japanese warriors had been spotted so far, which suggested that the actual number could be way, way higher. Even though the Round Table boasted a world-class intelligence network, could it gather accurate information on the number and the movements of the enemy combatants on foreign soil? Not likely.

Kang Jin-Ho turned his head. “Wiggins.”

“How many enemies are we expecting?”

“Around five thousand, my lord.”

“And how many have entered the country, again?”

“It’s... one thousand.”

Kang Jin-Ho stared into Wiggins’ eyes before unhurriedly asking his next question. “Where are the other four thousand, then?”

Wiggins bit his lip in silence. He realized that he, too, had been agitated by this situation. Even though he was the one telling Lee Hyeon-Su to calm down earlier!

‘This is also new to me.’

Wiggins experienced an epiphany just then.

Despite having experienced countless battles and carrying out many operations in various parts of the world, he had never once fought off invaders targeting his country or even his faction.

He finally understood how mentally taxing the knowledge of an enemy invasion could be to a defender tasked with protecting his territory.

Everyone sobered up at the sight of a lighter coming to life. Kang Jin-Ho leisurely lit a cigarette before glancing back at the people inside the conference room. His expression remained pretty much the same as his usual self. And that expressionless face had this powerful effect of calming everyone’s wildly beating hearts.

Even though an army of enemies were rushing toward his position, Kang Jin-Ho didn’t look unsettled at all.

Wiggins nodded slightly.

‘In a way, this is to be expected.’

Kang Jin-Ho was the leader of the demon cult.

Judging from what Chang Min said, plus hints dropped by Kang Jin-Ho in passing, it sounded like the latter had gone through countless life-or-death battles. Crucially, though, he used those wars as a springboard to temper the demon cult until it became the strongest and most prosperous sect under the heavens.

On top of that, Kang Jin-Ho had always fought as the spearhead in those wars. To a man like him, wars and battles couldn’t have been anything special. He probably didn’t see a need to get upset at the news of bloodthirsty enemies aiming for his neck.

“No war ever unfolds according to your plan,” Kang Jin-Ho relaxedly addressed everyone in the room. Those calm words helped everyone to catch their breaths.

Wiggins couldn’t help but chuckle softly.

‘As expected of a man at the top...’

Wiggins knew his destiny was to become the next Master of the Round Table had he not left the organization. However, seeing Kang Jin-Ho made him rather glad that he didn’t choose that career path.

Kang Jin-Ho was the living proof that a true leader didn’t reveal their capabilities in times of peace. In such times, even people like Wiggins could serve as a capable leader.

However, only in times of strife could a true leader demonstrate their worth to the world! And that time of strife was now.

Just one sentence from Kang Jin-Ho was enough to cool down the boiling temperature within the conference room. Almost at the same time, the look in everyone’s eyes subtly but noticeably transformed.

With that, Kang Jin-Ho demonstrated why he was the Assembly Master.

“Look at this situation objectively,” said Kang Jin-Ho, while pointing at the map. “Around one thousand enemy combatants have entered the country.”

“In other words... It’s only one thousand.”

The cigarette in Kang Jin-Ho’s hand steadily got crushed.

“We can crush such a small number without a problem.”

Wiggins slowly nodded.

Although the news of the enemy’s landing had agitated him, when objectively analyzed... One thousand enemy combatants could easily be dealt with. They might become a nuisance by spreading around the country, but could they be a realistic threat to the Assembly? Not likely.

“Then the enemy surely can’t be thinking of stopping here. Without a doubt, more will try to enter the country.”

Wiggins and the rest firmly nodded.

“You’re correct, sir!”

Kang Jin-Ho scanned everyone’s faces. “We must accurately analyze the current situation first. Start from scratch.”

Wiggins resolutely replied, then passed his tablet to the person next to him.

1. Taean is a county in Chungcheongnam-do, while Gunsan, also romanized as Kunsan, is a city in Jeonbuk-do. ☜