The Isahaya Pass was a place of ghosts and bad memories. The trees stood silent witness to the slaughter of Colonel Feng's patrol, and the air itself seemed to hold a chill. It was into this place that a new kind of hunter came. One hundred men of the Emperor's Imperial Guard, led by Meng Tian himself, moved through the dense forest. They did not march on the road. They flowed through the woods on the high ridges, moving in utter silence, communicating only with the subtle hand signals of a predator.
Their appearance was as unsettling as their silence. They wore no bright colors, no polished brass. Their uniforms were a dark, smoky grey that blended with the rocks and shadows. Their steel weapons—swords, bayonets, and the metal fittings of their rifles—had been blackened to prevent reflection. Some carried not rifles, but powerful, compact crossbows, their bolts fletched with dark feathers. They were not an army. They were an instrument of extermination.
"This is where Captain Feng's patrol was hit," a young lieutenant whispered to the man next to him, pointing down at the road below.
"Amateurs," the other guard grunted, his eyes scanning the opposite ridge. "They walked on the road like oxen going to market. We walk on the ridges like tigers. The Emperor said to find the nest. We will find it."
They reached the site of the ambush. While his men secured a perimeter, Meng Tian dismounted and knelt on the ground. He was not a tracker in the conventional sense. He closed his eyes, his massive frame still, and extended his senses. It was a facet of his power he rarely used, a subtle connection to the world around him. He felt not for footprints, but for the lingering echoes of violence, the faint psychic residue of the desperate fight that had occurred there.
"They were here," he said quietly, his eyes still closed. "Twenty men. Most wore straw peasant sandals to disguise their tracks, but three… three wore military-issue boots. Their leader was disciplined." He opened his eyes and pointed up a steep, almost impassable slope covered in thick brush and loose scree. "They retreated this way. Up the rock face. They believe no ordinary soldier can follow them there."
He was right. It was a path no army would take. But the Imperial Guard was no ordinary army. With silent nods, they began their ascent, moving with a speed and agility that defied their heavy gear. They were wolves, and they had the scent.
They followed the trail for two miles, deep into the mountains, to a series of hidden caves tucked behind a waterfall—a natural fortress. They did not rush in. For hours, they observed from concealed positions, noting the two sentries posted at the main entrance, mapping the routines of the men inside, the rhythm of their guard changes.
"They are confident in their position," Meng Tian whispered to his lieutenant. "Too confident. They watch the path below, but not the cliffs above." He outlined his plan. It would not be a battle. It would be a silent, surgical removal.
As night fell, the attack began. Two crossbow bolts, fired from the darkness a hundred yards away, thudded into the throats of the Japanese sentries. They fell without a sound. At the same time, two teams of Meng Tian's best climbers, using ropes and grappling hooks, had scaled the sheer cliff face above the caves. They now lowered themselves into unguarded upper entrances, ventilation shafts barely wide enough for a man to squeeze through.
From their pouches, they produced their new, terrifying weapons, designed by Shen Ke's alchemists. They were simple earthenware pots, sealed with wax, containing a mixture of sulfur, dried chili peppers, and other noxious chemicals. They lit the fuses and dropped the pots down into the main cavern where the guerillas were sleeping.
The effect was instantaneous and horrific. The pots shattered, releasing a thick, acrid smoke that was not lethal, but was designed to incapacitate. It burned the eyes, choked the lungs, and induced violent, wracking coughing fits. The Japanese fighters, roused from their sleep, were blinded and suffocating, their mountain fortress turned into a gas-filled trap.
Panicked and desperate for air, they stumbled out of the main cave entrance, right into the killing field Meng Tian had prepared. But they were not met with a volley of rifle fire. They were met by the Imperial Guard, who had formed a semi-circle around the entrance, their swords and bayonets gleaming in the moonlight.
What followed was a brutal, one-sided lesson in close-quarters combat. The Japanese guerillas, disoriented and half-choked, were no match for the Emperor's elite. Meng Tian himself was an unstoppable force at the center of it, his greatsword a blur of motion. He was not just a man; he was a force of nature. His superhuman strength, a gift from his reincarnation, allowed him to cut through men and their weapons alike. A samurai lord, one of Lord Shimazu's proudest retainers, charged him with a cry of defiance, his katana raised high. Meng Tian's sword met his, not with a clang, but with a sharp crack as the legendary folded steel of the katana shattered against the unnaturally dense metal of his blade. He cut the man down without a second thought.
The fight was over in less than five minutes. The ground was littered with the bodies of the resistance fighters. But Meng Tian's orders had been precise. Most were killed, but a handful of the younger, less fanatical-looking men were subdued non-lethally, their limbs broken or disabled with brutal, efficient strikes. Among them was the young idealist, Kenji, who now knelt on the bloody ground, his arm broken, staring in horror at the carnage and the silent, terrifying soldiers who surrounded him.
Meng Tian walked through the bodies until he stood before the captured boy. Kenji looked up, his face a mess of tears, mucus, and terror.
"Your leader left a message for my Emperor after your last ambush," Meng Tian said, his voice a low, terrifying growl. He gestured with his bloody sword to the bodies of Kenji's comrades littering the ground. "This is his reply."
He turned to his lieutenant. "Bind the prisoners. Take them back to Nagasaki. The Emperor wished to speak with one of them, to understand the nature of their foolish defiance." He looked down at Kenji again, a cold, predatory light in his eyes. "And Lord Kuroda, the spymaster who hides in the shadows, wanted to know how the Emperor's men fight. I think we have just given him a lesson in terror he will never forget."
The Imperial Guard had made its true debut on the battlefield. They were not an honor guard, meant for parades. They were QSH's personal blade, a dedicated unit of counter-insurgency specialists, and they had just unveiled a new, far more brutal chapter in the war for Japan.