The Three Bannermen | Vminkook ✓

Twenty Six: Setback

Jihoon

Rain pelted down on Jihoon's masked face as he saw his plan coming to fruition right in front of his eyes. Chuckles slipped out from behind the thick material of the protective mask he wore, and the excitement in his men's eyes couldn't match the satisfaction Jihoon was feeling in that moment. The northern soldiers laughed along as their opponent was taken off guard by the sudden use of their lethal weapon. 

Jihoon's favorite weapon. 

Made from his very own garden. 

Jihoon had been planning something like this for ages, experimenting with several forms of plant mixtures and testing them out on prisoners in his dungeons. Like most Jeons, he was exceptionally intelligent when it came to inventions and problem solving. He worked day and night in his yard cataloging the chemical composition of several plants known to be poisonous. Over the years, hundreds of strains of different plants were grown and mixed, tested and tampered with, eaten and used to kill to find the perfect weapon.

A spreadable liquid that evaporated quickly into a dangerous gas, any person unlucky enough to breathe it in suffering instant paralysis of the body, intense convulsions, and hallucinations. 

And he was witnessing it with his very own eyes on the battlefield; the Laurel Soldiers would stop running in their tracks to fall over, terror spread across their faces, some convulsing as they tried to scream for the pain to stop. 

Jihoon put a stop to it though. With the sweet mercy of death. 

His masked soldiers were protected from the lethal gases, sweeping barbarously through the rows of fallen soldiers, murdering the incapable with sharp stabs from their swords. Some of his men even found entertainment by setting some of Kim's men on fire as their bodies shook from the effect of the poison. The desperate screams of soldiers trying to warn the squads in the back of the odorless gas up ahead were ended with decapitations. A few stragglers who were holding their breath were put out easily, dizzy from the lack of air. 

Jihoon was very pleased at the sight. 

And as an added bonus, he was even more pleased to see the Laurel Prince himself, right in the front of his prized dying army, bare and helpless without armor. Jihoon thought the sight deserved pity. The Laurel Prince really thought he could rely upon his soldiers to protect him. 

What a sick surprise for him then!

Jihoon was enraptured by the shocked look on the Laurel Prince's face as the capsules flew into his squadrons, burst open, and started doing their precious work. He reveled in the sight of the Kim boy yelling out frantic orders as his horse bucked around, and rejoiced when the boy finally slumped over himself, falling off of his horse and onto the ground. 

"Get the prince!" he demanded to his men, "Nothing matters now but getting the boy into our hands!" Jihoon was screaming in a booming voice that would scare most men.  

Jihoon watched as the Kim soldiers in the back witnessed their beloved prince collapse only to rush forward and suffer the same fate. Panicked shouting buzzed on the Kim side as the soldiers realized that Jihoon intended to capture the prince. Desperation caused them to push forward with makeshift face-coverings, swords held high as they sprinted towards the prince's convulsing body. 

Their masks prolonged the time it took for the gas to seep into their lungs, but they ended up on the ground eventually, Jihoon's soldiers rushing to brutally kill the fallen. 

Soon, a space around the blonde prince had opened. Jihoon's men jumped at the opportunity. 

A dozen armed men charged forward, grabbing onto the styled prince with their dirty hands. They lifted his twitching body up and rushed to deliver him to Jihoon, who was watching the entire thing from the far back, gloating over the blonde's failed attempt to say something amidst his convulsions.