WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME NOVELS
Translator/Editor: Chen
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◈ The Former Supreme ◈
Chapter 100: When Returning It, Only Return What You Received (1)
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Pajeong had been visiting each of the eight directions surrounding the Alliance Leader's Hall.
"We discovered five locations in total, but I believe he must have visited the other directions while we weren't watching."
Baek Socheon estimated that Pajeong had visited six locations in total. Of the eight directions, only the southwest and northwest remained.
If he needed to do something involving the Alliance Leader's Hall at the center, they had a little more time.
Zhuge Hyeon's expression turned grave.
"Could it be a formation?"
"Or perhaps a heretical art. Whatever it is, it will pose an enormous threat once completed."
"Those damned bastards!"
Zhuge Hyeon, who rarely let curses pass his lips, erupted in anger. When their plot to plant the Heaven-Exiled Grudge Gu had failed, they had begun plotting against the Alliance Leader again.
"Ah, forgive me. I was too angry."
"It's fine. I feel the same way."
Baek Socheon spoke calmly, but he was furious.
At least Yeom Hwasin was someone who fought head-on. He might sacrifice even his own son for the sake of justification and morale, but he would never resort to underhanded tricks like this.
Bang.
Unable to contain himself, Zhuge Hyeon slammed a hand on the desk.
"I cannot forgive them."
It was truly unimaginable. The Blood Cult Leader's daughter had come for a marriage arrangement, yet who could have expected her escorts to be plotting something like this?
Had Baek Socheon not uncovered it, they would have fallen into the trap without being able to do anything.
"First, we need to find out what this is."
Only then could they prepare a response, whether they chose to turn it to their advantage or punish them.
"Senior Maeng Sa of the Elder Council possesses deep knowledge of such formations. I will summon him at once."
"Please do."
Zhuge Hyeon gave Sima Iljung a separate instruction.
"Bring him to my office in the Sage Heaven Pavilion, but do so discreetly."
"Yes!"
Sima Iljung left the Strategic Command Center.
Since Maeng Sa did not have authorization to enter the Strategic Command Center, the two waited for him in Zhuge Hyeon's office at the Sage Heaven Pavilion.
Baek Socheon stood silently by the window, looking outside.
Was it because he had heard Baek Socheon say he wanted to leave?
His back seemed especially lonely today, and Zhuge Hyeon felt a wave of melancholy.
There must have been times when Baek Socheon wanted to throw aside this complicated reality and leave it all behind. Yet he had endured without a single complaint.
Zhuge Hyeon respected him. At the same time, he found himself thinking that he had grown too old. His mind no longer worked as sharply as it once had. He used to stay awake for three straight days and devise strategies that astonished everyone...
Now, never mind devising strategies, even staying awake for one night was difficult.
The Blood Cult's schemes were proof enough. They had done nothing but fall victim to one plot after another.
'The one who should truly retire is me.'
Once matters with the Black Heaven Alliance were settled, he would step down as Grand Strategist as well. It was time for a young and intelligent successor to lead the Sage Heaven Pavilion.
Then a thought suddenly occurred to him.
'Come to think of it, the Alliance Leader also wishes to pass his position to Unit Commander Baek... All three of us want to leave.'
Three people who wanted to leave were gathered together, facing those who would do anything to seize their positions.
It was one of life's bitter ironies, enough to make him laugh hollowly.
A short while later, Maeng Sa of the Elder Council entered.
He would turn eighty next year and was the Murim Alliance's foremost master of formations. He had been responsible for constructing many of the formations installed throughout the Alliance. Beyond formations, he had devoted himself to studying mechanical formations, ambushes, concealment, and heretical arts, giving him broad knowledge and insight in those fields as well.
Now retired from active duty, he was spending the rest of his days in the Elder Council.
"Welcome, Senior."
"It has been a long time."
Maeng Sa was inwardly flustered by the unexpected summons. What was more, Baek Socheon, the subject of recent discussion throughout the Alliance, was there as well.
"I watched the duel. It was truly excellent."
"Thank you."
After briefly greeting Baek Socheon, Maeng Sa asked Zhuge Hyeon, "What brings you to summon me?"
"Please take a look at this."
They showed him what Baek Socheon had shown them earlier.
Maeng Sa looked at the go stones arranged over the outer grounds map and asked, "What is this?"
"That is what we summoned you to ask."
"Hmm."
He looked down at the map once more. The next moment, he flinched.
The Alliance Leader's Hall stood at the center.
"Surely not? This... is it a formation?"
"Does it appear to be one?"
"If the building in the center were not the Alliance Leader's Hall, they would be nothing more than stones on a piece of paper. But if it is the Alliance Leader's Hall, then this... is a formation."
Otherwise, there would have been no reason to summon a formation expert like him. The building at the center explained why they had called him in secret.
Baek Socheon finally asked, "If it is a formation, what kind of harm could it cause?"
"That depends on the formation. In most cases, it affects those inside the building."
Maeng Sa pointed at the go stones.
"Can you show me these places? To identify the formation, I must inspect them myself."
"Yes. Come with me."
Baek Socheon turned to Zhuge Hyeon.
"If they notice anything, it could become troublesome. I think you should keep Myeol Jiryun and her two escorts occupied."
"I understand. I will report this to the Alliance Leader and invite them to the Alliance Leader's Hall."
Zhuge Hyeon asked Maeng Sa, "How much time will you need for the investigation?"
"Half a siju should be enough."
"Understood. Ah, Senior Maeng. Please treat this matter with the utmost secrecy."
The wrinkles around Maeng Sa's eyes deepened as he smiled.
"The Elder Council is where old people gather when discernment is all they have left."
* * *
While Myeol Jiryun, Rapsa, and Pajeong went to the Alliance Leader's Hall at the invitation, Baek Socheon and Maeng Sa set out.
The first place they reached was the stables.
The people working there had been sent elsewhere in advance.
Maeng Sa raised his internal energy and examined the surroundings.
"I cannot tell what sort of formation it is, but it feels immensely heavy and stifling. This is no ordinary formation."
Only someone who had spent a lifetime studying formations could sense such an aura.
Maeng Sa examined the horses in the stables. At a glance, they appeared perfectly normal.
He took incense from the bag he had brought and began to burn it. It was no ordinary incense. The smoke rising from it was blue, and it quickly spread throughout the stables.
Before long, the horses began to cry out.
Baek Socheon watched as the eyes of the screaming horses turned vivid blood-red.
Maeng Sa approached one horse that was especially agitated.
Taking several medicine bottles from his bag, Maeng Sa mixed their contents together. He then smeared the mixture across the fence enclosing the horse.
Something strange happened.
Blood-red writing began to appear densely across the fence.
They were ancient characters he could not understand. They had not been written with red ink, but with actual blood.
"According to the person who watched him, the one who came here did not write these characters."
There were far too many characters. Had Pajeong written them here, Cheon Geuk could not possibly have missed it.
"Those characters were not written by hand."
"What?"
"That person must have scattered only a single drop of blood over the wall."
"That blood formed the characters by itself?"
Maeng Sa nodded.
"He must have prepared thoroughly before coming here. Even while pretending to stroll through the grounds, he would have been reciting a martial formula."
It was a formation based on an utterly bizarre heretical art.
When Maeng Sa extinguished the incense, the horses gradually calmed down.
"The horses here will all have to be put down later. They have been infused with Blood Qi. They will appear normal, but when agitated, they will go mad and run wild."
"I will see to it."
They were horses ridden by martial artists of the Iron Cavalry Corps. They could not be left as they were. Innocent horses would be sacrificed because of the enemy's plot.
"We have seen enough here. Let us go to the next place."
Baek Socheon led Maeng Sa to the next location, the warehouse to the south.
Maeng Sa slowly inspected the area around the warehouse, then sprayed the medicine he had prepared over a wall. Characters began to appear on the previously blank surface.
Once again, all sorts of ancient characters he could not recognize filled the enormous wall. Their twisting shapes looked as if they might come alive and leap from the wall at any moment.
"Let us proceed to the next location."
"Yes."
Baek Socheon guided him onward.
Maeng Sa examined the area around the White Dragon Corps. A secret order had been issued in advance, so every member had gone out to train.
Maeng Sa carried the incense and walked around the White Dragon Corps building.
"Are there characters carved into the walls here as well?"
"No."
He followed the direction in which the rising smoke drifted.
There was a small pond there.
Maeng Sa mixed another medicine and poured it into the pond.
The water turned into blood, and the same characters they had seen before appeared across the bodies of the carp swimming within it. It was a shocking and grotesque sight.
When Maeng Sa mixed another medicine and poured it into the pond, the water returned to its original color.
As Maeng Sa turned away from the pond, he staggered.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine."
Burning incense and sprinkling medicine might have looked like little effort, but it consumed a tremendous amount of mental strength.
"Have you identified the formation?"
"I have a rough idea, but I must examine more to be certain. Hurry to the next place. We do not have much time. We were given only half a siju."
"Yes."
They went to the next location.
There, they witnessed something truly astonishing. When Maeng Sa lit the incense from the stables, flowers that had completely withered began to bloom again.
They bloomed as blood-red flowers rather than in their original colors.
The moment the flowers bloomed, Maeng Sa vomited blood.
"Senior!"
"I'm fine. I'm fine."
He extinguished the incense, causing the flowers to wither again. He knew they could not leave any trace that this place had been inspected.
Baek Socheon led him far from the garden.
After barely catching his breath, Maeng Sa spoke.
"The formation is called the Eight-Directional Ghost Blood Formation. It creates a formation by placing blood curses in the eight directions around the target. It is the Blood Cult's greatest formation, a great ritual so difficult to master that it is said only Jeok Parap can use it. To think I would see this great ritual here!"
Pajeong, Jeok Parap's disciple, had inherited that formation.
"What happens once the formation activates?"
"The person targeted by the formation becomes a slave to its creator. Put simply, their mind can be controlled."
It had the same effect as the Heaven-Exiled Grudge Gu.
Baek Socheon could guess why the Blood Cult was attempting this.
Of the Murim Alliance, the Black Heaven Alliance, and the Blood Cult, the Blood Cult was comparatively the weakest.
So they intended to make the Murim Alliance Leader their puppet and make up for that weakness.
If they could place the Alliance Leader in their grasp, they could even make the Murim Alliance strike the Black Heaven Alliance first. Once both sides destroyed each other, the Blood Cult would profit from their mutual destruction. That was the grand design behind their unification of the martial world.
"When will the formation activate?"
"To activate the formation, preparations must first be completed in all eight directions. At the end, the formation's target must be met in person, and a single drop of blood must be placed upon their body."
"Ah!"
Baek Socheon knew how the final step would unfold.
When Myeol Jiryun departed from the Murim Alliance, Ak Sogun would offer the two escorts a fist-and-palm salute and shake their hands. It was Alliance etiquette when seeing off distinguished guests who had come from afar.
At that moment, they planned to place a drop of blood on the Alliance Leader's palm.
They had an opportunity to officially touch the Murim Alliance Leader's body.
It was a great ritual that could never normally be carried out. They could not wander through eight locations inside the Murim Alliance to prepare the formation, much less touch the Alliance Leader's body.
But it was possible when they came as honored guests, as they had this time.
"Can the formation already in place be dismantled?"
"It has not yet been completed, so the existing formation can be broken. If necessary, I can prepare at once..."
"No. Please dismantle it slowly."
Baek Socheon escorted Maeng Sa back to his residence.
After helping him lie down on the bed, he expressed his gratitude.
"You have spent a great deal of mental strength, so please rest well for a few days. Thanks to you, we can prevent a great calamity from befalling the Alliance. Thank you."
Baek Socheon clasped his hand.
"I am glad this old man was of help."
It was a day when the Elder Council had properly demonstrated its strength.
"Then please rest."
As Baek Socheon rose to leave, Maeng Sa asked, "What do you intend to do now?"
Baek Socheon looked at him and answered calmly.
"I received something, so I should return it. I do not intend to add anything. I will return exactly what I received."
Even someone as sharp as the old master could not guess exactly what that meant. Still, what they had given was quite heavy.
Maeng Sa smiled faintly.
"That should be enough."
Footnotes:
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