At some point, the Wood Banner Captain, Oh Chi-yeong, had come to believe that his life was following a steady trajectory down into the abyss.
Thus, when an urgent message came from the Demon Venerable Pavilion the previous night, he had felt neither surprise nor alarm.
He had already finished preparing himself to accept everything without resistance.
By then, his sole remaining wish was that his own incompetence as a superior would not bring harm to his subordinates in the Wood Banner Unit.
So when he heard early in the morning that his Deputy Captain, Cheol Myeong-hwan, had stormed the Demon Venerable Pavilion, how could he not have been aghast?!
Oh Chi-yeong immediately crumpled the will he had been writing and raced to the Demon Venerable Pavilion.
Even then, Oh Chi-yeong had believed beyond doubt that his life would continue along the course it had followed until now.
But.
“Eat.”
The Alliance Leader invited Oh Chi-yeong and his Deputy Captain, Cheol Myeong-hwan, to partake of the food filling the table, then began his own meal.
Cheol Myeong-hwan's madness should have been more than enough to send their heads flying at once, so what in the world was this situation?
While Oh Chi-yeong remained at a loss, the Alliance Leader finished his meal.
What would happen now?
As Oh Chi-yeong's mind churned with every kind of worry, a voice sliced through his thoughts in a single stroke.
“I shall assign the Martial Wheel to you.”
Oh Chi-yeong did not immediately understand and remained frozen with his eyes lowered. A forefinger abruptly entered his field of vision and audibly tapped the table as if ordering him to come to his senses.
Tap.
As if startled awake, Oh Chi-yeong raised his face and slowly followed the owner of the finger that had drawn his attention upward.
When his gaze was fully raised, it held the Alliance Leader seated opposite him, head tilted to one side as he stared intently back.
The Alliance Leader's mouth slowly opened.
“You seem confused as to whether what I am giving you is a reward or a punishment. Would that not mean I need only make the answer clear?”
The words were tossed out as if they were nothing, and surely to the Alliance Leader they were nothing, but.......
Oh Chi-yeong heard it distinctly.
His life was already leaving the course he had believed fixed.
Wi So-baek thought.
Sending the Martial Wheel with the envoy delegation as both escort and deputy leader meant that whatever result Oh Chi-yeong produced at the Martial Alliance, the Martial Wheel would shoulder half of it.
Unless Wi So-baek was attempting the idiocy of using the Martial Wheel as bait merely to dispose of a single Wood Banner Captain.......
This truly was a fine opportunity for Oh Chi-yeong.
Had there not, however, been a few problems between them in the past?
There was Cheol Myeong-hwan's resentful outcry and the pitch-black, lifeless look in Oh Chi-yeong's eyes that Wi So-baek had seen outside the Demon Venerable Pavilion moments ago.
Would the man even swallow what Wi So-baek was offering properly?
‘What if I force it down his throat and it gives him indigestion?’
If he did, he might go and shit in the Martial Alliance, of all places, instead of the Demon Alliance.
That could never be allowed!
Wi So-baek shook his head and asked.
“Are you wondering why I am suddenly acting this way?”
“That is... in truth, yes. I am.”
Oh Chi-yeong lacked the social wit to offer some polished answer about feeling nothing but gratitude, so Wi So-baek had known he would respond honestly.
Before, such a sight would have frustrated him enough to provoke anger first. Now it drew only one short sigh.
Accepting it for what it was, Wi So-baek continued.
“As I watched during this Righteous-Demonic War, the bastards of the righteous sects seemed to have lost all shame over no longer walking the righteous path. Should one say there was only a single proper member of the righteous sects among them? Then the Righteous-Demonic War ended and an envoy came from the Martial Alliance, and I suddenly thought of you.”
“Why... would you think of me?”
“If even the righteous sects are in such a state, I thought, there is no need for everyone who walks the demonic path to become a demonic fiend. And I came to wish to boast to those righteous bastards that even without calling themselves upright or claiming to defend justice as well as benevolence and righteousness, there are those who walk the demonic path without forgetting their humanity. I wanted them to see you and be ashamed.”
Oh Chi-yeong's eyes widened as though they would tear.
He had never imagined such words.
And the man was not finished.
“Looking back, I believe I treated you especially harshly. I grew angry without ever giving you a proper opportunity. So this time, do whatever you wish. I have grown curious to see where the path of a man who refuses to become a demonic fiend while walking the demonic path will lead.”
Perhaps Wi So-baek himself had already set one foot upon that road.
Believing he had said enough to make himself understood, Wi So-baek was about to end the meal when he heard sobbing from across the table.
“Sob......!”
Thick tears were dripping from Oh Chi-yeong's eyes onto the table.
Beside him, Cheol Myeong-hwan curled one large hand into a fist, pounded his own chest, and shouted.
“I believed in you! I knew the Alliance Leader would not abandon us like that!”
“That is remarkably shameless coming from someone who caused such a commotion first thing in the morning, is it not?”
“At the time, I was too foolish to understand the Alliance Leader's profound intentions! If you wish it even now, I shall immediately apologize......!”
He looked ready to plant his head into something again, and Wi So-baek raised an eyebrow.
Cheol Myeong-hwan stopped himself and grinned foolishly.
He had heard that the Wood Banner Unit resembled its Captain and gathered only those who stood apart even within the Demon Alliance. How much worse, then, would its Deputy Captain be?
“Now that you have heard everything, be on your way. You must have much to prepare if you are to assemble an envoy delegation, so use your time wisely.”
Wi So-baek had merely ordered them to leave, yet the two sprang to their feet as if they had received tremendous counsel.
“You are entirely correct. I shall engrave those words upon my heart and act accordingly!”
“As you have instructed, I will attend our Captain well and return with tremendous achievements!”
Their fervor was so intense that the air around them seemed to heat.
His words had worked far better than expected, so Wi So-baek looked back over what he had said.
He had merely spoken the truth as it was.
There really had been nothing much to it, had there?
Wi So-baek watched the pair leave, still trembling and unable to contain their emotion, and hummed thoughtfully.
‘Why was that so easy?’
Apparently, those fools.
‘Were even greater pushovers than I thought.’
How starved for affection and how deeply aggrieved by a lack of recognition must they have been to react that way?
They were such pathetic, pitiable fools that perhaps Wi So-baek had been slightly wicked to consider killing them merely because they had shrieked a little that morning.
This must be what his younger brother meant by having compassion for others, correct?
“Yeo-hwa.”
“Yes, Alliance Leader.”
Yeo-hwa, who had been waiting to one side while attending him, approached.
“It has been a long time since the Wood Banner Captain had an outside assignment, and I do not know whether he will even manage to claim his proper share. He can grant another's request but cannot speak of his own needs, so look after matters appropriately.”
Having gone this far, he even added that final instruction. Yeo-hwa tugged her sleeve down to conceal her fidgeting fingers and answered.
“I will make certain he lacks nothing.”
Wi So-baek nodded.
Only then did the customary silence return to the Demon Venerable Pavilion.
***
A few days later.
The Demon Alliance's envoy delegation, centered on the Martial Wheel and Wood Banner Captain, departed for the Martial Alliance with Cho Myeong.
The Martial Wheel was excited that he would see “that person” so soon, the Wood Banner Captain brimmed with determination, and Cho Myeong kept sending meaningful looks. As their backs receded side by side, Wi So-baek had a feeling that the envoy delegation's journey would be exceptionally eventful.
“Yes, go and enjoy yourselves, then come back.”
Wi So-baek offered that farewell and turned away.
The Demon Alliance dignitaries who had hurried out after hearing that, for once, the Alliance Leader would personally see off the envoy delegation all withdrew in a flurry.
As if it were only natural, Wi So-baek walked along the path they made for him.
Previously, they had never dared approach first for fear that one wrong word might cost them their heads. Now the Demon Alliance dignitaries exchanged glances before scurrying after him.
“A-Alliance Leader.”
“What is your schedule after today? There is some excellent tea......”
“There is an important matter we must discuss. I would ask that you spare us a little time.”
The voices erupting around him fell instantly silent when Wi So-baek merely glanced back.
“I cannot imagine how you endured when you had so much to say. But restrain yourselves. I have softened somewhat of late, so I will not cut off your heads for babbling nonsense. That does not mean you would count yourselves fortunate merely to lose your tongues.”
At Wi So-baek's words, everyone held their tongues and rolled only their eyes.
“If there is something you must say despite that, leave it with Yeo-hwa. I shall examine it and summon you separately if I deem it necessary.”
“Yes!”
When everyone bowed in unison, Wi So-baek vanished at once as though he had not the slightest interest in them.
Those who remained did not dare follow him again, but neither did they tremble in terror merely because they had offended the Alliance Leader as they would have before.
At the very least, they now believed... that he would warn them before taking action or give them one chance to explain themselves.
“Shall we return?”
“Let us. He spared us once, but if we continue, he truly will cut off our heads, hahaha!”
That difference opened their constricted throats.
The air within the Demon Alliance, which had known only suppression and ever-mounting tension and seemed forever on the verge of tearing, was unmistakably changing.
When Wi So-baek reached his office, he learned that the news he had been awaiting had arrived at just the right time.
Wi So-baek approached his chair, sat, and casually extended a hand. A black shadow dropped from the sky and pressed its cheek into his palm.
“You should report first when you return.”
Wi So-baek patted the cheek against his hand with his forefinger and middle finger. A petite woman dressed entirely in black nodded, took his palm, and pulled it before her eyes.
Still crouching, she raised her forefinger and wrote characters upon his palm.
There were exactly four, and Wi So-baek slowly read them aloud.
“Jiangxi, Xinyu?”
The woman shaped a silent affirmation with her lips.
Then she continued writing on his palm.
When the woman's finger left his skin, Wi So-baek covered the crown of her head with his hand and stroked it from side to side.
“To think that the head of the Buil Academy, a man whose name was unknown, possessed such profound knowledge of formations. How surprising.”
Yet in a sense, it was only natural.
Records and traces remained, but formations had been so mysterious that in antiquity they were called a game of Go played upon the world by immortals using the energies of nature as stones.
That meant everyone knew of them, yet no one believed such things could truly be accomplished in reality.
Even the Jaegal Clan of the Martial Alliance, renowned for its intellect, and the Cha Family, a member of the Six Families of the Divine Cult and said to have mastered every secret art of the Black Path across the demonic path and unorthodox path, had long since abandoned the field because the results were so paltry compared to their efforts.
Anyone who remained interested in formations could therefore be called either a stubborn scholar pursuing fantasies or an eccentric with peculiar tastes.
What opportunity could such people have had to spread their names across the murim and the realm?
Wi So-baek himself would never have taken an interest had it not been for the incident he experienced during the Righteous-Demonic War.
His thoughts wandered briefly before Wi So-baek felt the petite head slip out from beneath his palm and lowered his gaze.
“What is it, Mi-a?”
Shall, I, bring, him, here?
The woman called Mi-a looked up at him and silently shaped the question.
“Do you mean the head of the Buil Academy?”
When Mi-a answered with her eyes, Wi So-baek shook his head.
“No. It has been a long time since I fed the dogs, so I shall go myself and take the air along the way.”
Did Master keep dogs outside the Demon Alliance?
Mi-a found it strange but did not ask again.
She deemed it beyond what she was permitted to question.
Still, she was disappointed.
Mi-a was the wheel among the Demon Alliance's Four Wheels that ran through the darkness, and she never accompanied her master on his daytime affairs.
“You have worked hard. Rest.”
At Wi So-baek's words, Mi-a curled her already petite body into an even smaller ball as if that would make her inconspicuous. She remained leaning against his feet a little longer before disappearing.