Chapter 212
Chapter 212: Eight Trigram Hall (1)
"By now those three must have met."
A smile slipped out.
Walking along the quiet mountain path leading to Formation Tower, Dong Mu-toe was snickering to himself.
The one they would be meeting in Gangdo wasn't him but Kim Rae-won—within the limits of what he currently knew, the most interesting and dangerous existence in the Martial World.
'If Sae-mae and Trigram Leader Myo meet Guild Master Kim……'
The corners of Dong Mu-toe's mouth curved deeper.
What happens when flame meets flame?
Nothing but a larger fire can result.
"Heh-heh-heh."
Ah, he wanted to see it in person.
At that moment.
Thump.
One side of his chest gave a tug.
He could tell without needing to measure or deliberate. The direction of Hero Gate.
'Is this also an effect of the vow?'
This peculiar shackle always left the sensation of something occasionally pulling him in the direction where Kim Rae-won was.
He naturally didn't understand the principle yet.
But this pull was not unpleasant.
On the contrary.
'Interesting.'
For a scholar, the unknown was in most cases not fear, but excitement.
"Ha—. When am I going to get there? Seriously?"
It had been almost exactly three days of walking.
"Finally. Phew—. Now I can rest a little."
The dense bundles of Formation Energy unique to the Alliance Under Heaven Formation pricked at his skin.
Passing through the Communication Post at the outer edge of Formation Tower and entering the main compound, an access path encircled layer upon layer by the barrier formations of compound formation techniques appeared. An ordinary person who set foot in this area would immediately be caught in the Bewilderment Formation and go around in circles, but to a Trigram Leader, this was no different from a front door.
It was simply familiar air and a familiar road.
A kind of home, after all.
'Well, I suppose I should now call it my former home.'
Upon entering Formation Tower's main compound, unusual things were immediately noticeable.
The lower-ranking Formation Taoists were moving about with conspicuous haste, and the faces of those passing through the corridors were taut with tension.
Dong Mu-toe caught hold of one Formation Taoist who happened to be passing by.
"What's going on?"
"Who are you?"
Keeping to oneself and rarely being recognized was an advantage in most cases, but in moments like this it was inconvenient.
"A Trigram Leader."
"Pardon? The Trigram Leaders are all currently in the Eight Trigram Hall……"
"The Eight Trigram Hall?"
The Eight Trigram Hall.
The conference room located on the topmost floor of Formation Tower.
An octagonal room with a round table engraved with Eight Trigrams patterns placed at its center, around which eight Trigram Leader seats were arranged.
All the Trigram Leaders gathered there meant……
"Ah, so they're still in the middle of a heated debate. That's it, right?"
"Yes……. But who are you?"
"A Trigram Leader, I said, you."
Dong Mu-toe, paying no mind to the lower-ranking Formation Taoist tilting his head in puzzlement, placed his foot on the staircase.
As he was climbing the spiral staircase like that.
[You've arrived.]
Suddenly a voice resonating inside his mind.
No, to be precise, it wasn't a voice. Whether to call it will, or whether to call it thought-impression.
But whose it was could be understood with absolute clarity.
"Must actually be a god? Since something like this is possible."
Mind Speech transmitted across several hundred miles……
On top of that, it had accurately perceived that he had arrived at Formation Tower.
Was he truly a being beyond human?
Storing away yet another point of curiosity, Dong Mu-toe smiled at the corner of his lips and moved his feet once more.
Toward the Eight Trigram Hall, where the Trigram Leaders who were probably still grinding away, wrestling back and forth over the Vast Heaven Limitless Sword Sect and Dark Net Rakshasa Path matter.
***
Inside the Eight Trigram Hall.
Of the eight Trigram Leader seats, three were empty.
Fire Formation Division. Mountain Formation Division. Thunder Formation Division.
Dong Mu-toe, Eom Bi-ryeong, Myo Jin-heo.
With all three absent, the conference had been continuing for two days, and the remaining five Trigram Leaders along with the Grand Zenith Position were seated around the octagonal table.
The loudest voice among them belonged to the Trigram Leader of the Heaven Trigram Sky Formation Division, Baek Jang-gyeong.
"I'll say it again."
A large-framed man in his late fifties, white hair neatly tied back, brought one hand down on the table. With a crack, the teacups on the table trembled all at once.
"What Formation Tower has maintained for three hundred years is not neutrality but standing. Lose the standing, and you lose the neutrality."
The gazes of the other Trigram Leaders gathered on Baek Jang-gyeong.
"The Vast Heaven Limitless Sword Sect is the paramount pillar of the Orthodox Path. Among the Ten Great Sects, the very place called First Sword. To join hands with such a place means establishing Formation Tower's standing."
His voice was thick as thunder. A gravity befitting the eldest among the Trigram Leaders pressed down upon the entire Eight Trigram Hall.
"Conversely, to join hands with the Dark Net Rakshasa Path? With lunatics who cry out Killing Is Liberation? That is the same as proclaiming to the world that Formation Tower is a lackey of Evil Demons and Heretics."
He was firm.
"The moment we join hands with Evil Demons and Heretics, the entire Orthodox Path will drop the tacit hand they have maintained with Formation Tower. What good is money then?"
When Baek Jang-gyeong finished speaking, a brief silence fell.
The one to break that silence was a woman seated on the directly opposite side.
The Trigram Leader of the Lake Trigram Marsh Formation Division, Ga Myo-ryeon.
Early thirties. A slender frame, always working an abacus. A woman with narrow eyes so that her pupils were only visible when she smiled—an inscrutable impression.
Click, click, click.
After flicking the abacus beads three times, Ga Myo-ryeon opened her mouth.
"Standing, you say?"
She laughed lightly.
"Can Formation Stones be purchased with standing?"
"What?"
"I'm asking whether research costs can be covered with standing. Can the contract fees of lower-ranking Formation Taoists be paid with standing?"
Click, click.
"The Dark Net Rakshasa Path's advance payment is larger than the Vast Heaven's total proposed amount. Exactly three times. Moreover, the Dark Net Rakshasa Path has proposed advance payment, while Vast Heaven is insisting on payment upon completion."
Ga Myo-ryeon's abacus did not stop.
"If you intend to disregard the numbers, why not start by redrafting the Research Pavilion budget instead. If Trigram Leader Baek personally procures Formation Stones through standing, then I too would gladly agree."
"This place! Is the Eight Trigram Hall a place to talk about money!"
Baek Jang-gyeong's fist struck the table once more.
"Are you aware of Formation Tower's founding maxim, Trigram Leader Baek?"
Ga Myo-ryeon's voice remained composed.
'Money is Self, and no Money is Other.' Was it not the founding patriarch himself who personally decreed that those with money are Orthodox and those without are Evil?"
"That maxim does not mean that!"
"Then what does it mean?"
"It means Formation Tower can take any commission without discrimination—not that we should join hands in madness!"
"Madness."
Ga Myo-ryeon tilted her head slightly. Those narrow eyes opened halfway.
"Is there a side in this current war that isn't mad?"
"……"
"That the Vast Heaven Limitless Sword Sect doesn't vacate their main mountain even after having one of their branch sects exterminated—is that pride? Or arrogance? If the paramount pillar of the Orthodox Path cannot avenge the enemy of their own branch sect, then where exactly is that standing of yours?"
Click.
The abacus sounded once.
"The standing that Trigram Leader Baek speaks of, I believe, is standing that Vast Heaven itself has already shattered."
"……!"
Baek Jang-gyeong's eyes shot upward.
At that moment, the Trigram Leader of the Water Trigram Water Formation Division cut in. A gentle-looking man in his late thirties.
"Don't both sides have a point. How about rather deploying a small number of personnel to both sides……"
"Half-hearted talk."
Baek Jang-gyeong cut him off immediately.
"It isn't half-hearted, however."
Ga Myo-ryeon cut him off just as quickly. Her eyes maintaining their smile throughout.
"Playing both sides is the surest way to make enemies of both."
In the face of the fierce clash that felt like a duel to the death with two tongue-forged blades, the Water Formation Division Trigram Leader fell silent.
The Trigram Leader of the Wind Trigram Wind Formation Division folded his arms and offered a word.
"The reason this conference has gone on for two days is precisely that. Is any conclusion reached while three Trigram Leaders are absent even valid? Rather, until Trigram Leader Dong, Trigram Leader Eom, and Trigram Leader Myo return……"
"Continue."
A brief utterance stilled the entire Eight Trigram Hall.
The proper seat of the octagonal table. One step higher than the eight Trigram Leader seats, yet the most modest chair of all—a small old man seated there.
In his sixties. Lean and small-framed. Less than half the build of Baek Jang-gyeong, and even more slight than Ga Myo-ryeon. The person who appeared the weakest among the Trigram Leaders.
Yet what this old man wore was not the eight-colored Taoist robes of the Trigram Leaders. The pure white Grand Zenith Robe engraved with Eight Trigrams patterns said to have been personally embroidered by the founding Grand Zenith Position three hundred years ago. The only long robe of its kind in the entire world at present.
And.
The energy flowing beneath that garment was too still to be called Formation Energy. As if the Eight Trigram Hall itself were this old man's formation. No—in truth it was exactly so. Every flow of Formation Energy in the Eight Trigram Hall was circulating with that small old man as its central axis.
One who, merely by sitting in this room, was already deploying a formation.
One said to be capable of deploying five formations with every step, and capable of giving seven variations with every breath.
Step by Step Five Formations, One Breath Seven Variations.
He was none other than the current Grand Zenith Position, Jin Mu-geuk.
The two keen eyes set in his wrinkle-lined face were deeper than any light on the table, and clearer than any blade.
After taking a sip from his teacup, those eyes leisurely swept across the table.
That alone was sufficient.
The Wind Formation Division Trigram Leader fell silent, and both Baek Jang-gyeong and Ga Myo-ryeon swallowed their next words.
The conference continued.
But it was a deadlock.
Vast Heaven or Dark Net Rakshasa Path. Justification or profit. Standing or money.
Between these two axes, the remaining Trigram Leaders did nothing but weigh the scales, unable to deliver a decisive blow.
The Trigram Leader of the Earth Trigram Ground Formation Division was a taciturn man in his forties who throughout the entire conference communicated only by nodding or shaking his head. He did not speak a single word.
Baek Jang-gyeong's argument of standing, Ga Myo-ryeon's argument of profit, the Water Formation Division's compromise proposal, the Wind Formation Division's procedural argument.
And the Grand Zenith Position's silence.
Two days of deadlock in this fashion meant both sides had already said everything there was to say.
Without a new variable, a tail-chasing loop that would never end.
"My position has not changed. Standing……"
Just as Baek Jang-gyeong and Ga Myo-ryeon's infinite quarrel was about to open the floodgates once more.
Cree-eak—
The tightly shut door of the Eight Trigram Hall swung open.
And then.
"Ah, how can you discuss such an interesting topic without me."
Immediately following, a languid voice.
A bloodless, pallid face, a slender frame, an impression that looked as though it might break in the wind.
Yet with corners of his mouth brimming with mischief.
Dong Mu-toe stepped into the Eight Trigram Hall.
The moment he entered, he shook his Taoist robe once. Three days' worth of dust fluttered off.
"Dong Mu-toe? Where in the world have you been, showing up only now!"
Baek Jang-gyeong twisted his large frame and shouted. Half reproach, half relief.
Ga Myo-ryeon's abacus also stopped. Those narrow eyes swept over Dong Mu-toe once.
"……You've arrived."
The Ground Formation Division Trigram Leader, expression unchanged, gave a single slight nod.
The Water Formation Division Trigram Leader let out a sigh of relief.
And then.
The Grand Zenith Position.
He held the teacup to his lips and took a sip of the hot tea.
"You've come."
The overall reaction leaned strongly toward relief.
Whatever else, Dong Mu-toe was Formation Tower's greatest talent. His appearance was certain to bring a tremendous seismic shift to the stalled conference—that much was clear.
Swish
Having swept a glance over all of them, Dong Mu-toe smiled slightly and walked to the empty Fire Formation Division Trigram Leader's seat, sitting down naturally. As if he had been in that seat from two days ago.
"I heard various things on the way here. I have a rough grasp of the situation, so please continue."
"Before that."
The Wind Formation Division Trigram Leader looked around and asked.
"Trigram Leader Eom and Trigram Leader Myo? Did they not come together?"
"The two of them had something urgent."
Dong Mu-toe replied lightly.
"They'll return soon."
With the corners of his mouth still lifted, Dong Mu-toe naturally redirected the topic.
"Two days on just this topic of Vast Heaven versus Dark Net Rakshasa Path—you must all be quite weary of it. May I bring up a somewhat different matter?"
Baek Jang-gyeong's eyes narrowed.
"A different matter?"
"Yes. The premise of this debate is somewhat mistaken, you see."
Ga Myo-ryeon's abacus began moving again.
Dong Mu-toe propped his elbow on the table and rested his chin on it.
Right at that moment.
Thump.
There it was again.
That will resonating in his mind, transcending all distance.
The corners of Dong Mu-toe's mouth deepened yet another level right on cue.
"By any chance—have any of you heard of a newly founded sect called Hero Gate?"