Cultivation System: Elder Edition

Chapter 368

Ghosts of the Mine (XIV)

A memory surfaced in the back of his mind, almost like a bolt of thunder that had come out from nowhere. It was one of those memories that were distant--like an echo of something buried deep down--but also extremely close, as it always seemed to float on the surface, waiting to be summoned by an external call.

The moment Long Tao laid his eyes on the formation, it was as though his entire world swiveled, and he found himself spinning; the lines were a bit straighter, and the materials were clearly listed, and the positions of everything were perfectly marked, but... this was the one. The formation that he swore he'd find the creator of and do things to them that no human should ever be succumbed to.

Though he tried to keep the anger under the lid, some of it must have seeped out as he noticed Master's expression shift from the corner of his eyes; taking a deep breath, he settled the excited bits of Qi, turning stoic yet again.

There was no way Master was the creator of this thing--even Long Tao didn't know who it was, as it predated him by epochs rather than centuries or millennia. And he made sure to destroy that damned parchment and kill everyone even remotely associated with that godforsaken sect. There was less than zero chance that anyone with the knowledge of the formation survived, but he didn't actually find it strange that Master was in possession of it.

Largely because he was in possession of a perfect one. As with most things associated with the strange man, Long Tao had long since abandoned figuring out 'where' Master got all these random things; it was clear that he had the conscious ability to create Martial Arts and Shamanic Arts and even Alchemy Recipes, it seemed, but that wasn't the extent of his miracles.

There were also strange items, talent-altering ones, unique physiques, odd formations, and miscellaneous items that Long Tao himself liked carrying in the past, as he liked being prepared for any kind of situation.

This formation was simply the extent of that; it was entirely likely that whoever possessed the original Lu Qi's body originated from an Upper Realm, or maybe even an entirely different epoch, but even that didn't really explain the totality of his Master's strangeness.

"You know it?" Lao Shun asked.

"My grandmother once told me about it," Long Tao said. It'd do none of them any good if he kept it hidden; the formation, for however much he loathed it from the bottom of his soul, was extremely powerful and, if applied correctly, could become their greatest trump card. He looked up, meeting their rather... strange looks, though maintaining his expression just fine. "It's an ancient formation, designed in such a way that it's practically impossible to make anymore--not to this level. It reverses Dao itself within its capacity, shifting wounds from one side to the other, no matter how grave."

"Is that even possible?" the alchemist asked with a frown. "Even malignant paths like the Dao of Transference require consent first."

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"I can't say." Of course it was possible, but even Long Tao himself did not know how it was possible. The thing with arrays and formations was that, even if one had the perfect guide to set them up and operate them, that didn't mean they knew their principles. Those were hidden, obscured by the layers that one had to first discern. "It's just a story. But if true..."

"Its existence cannot get exposed," the alchemist said. "If we ever do deploy it... we need to deploy it with the intent to kill everyone."

"For an alchemist," his Master said. "You're awfully quick to doll out death sentences."

"Did you know that alchemists were originally assassins? We'd use poison to invisibly kill our targets."

"That can't be right."

"It's true. The root work of 'alche' means 'poison,' and 'mists' means 'veil.' Poison veil."

"... if you're going to bullshit me, at least try to do a better job of it."

"Like you bullshit us by pulling out these random things that would have the Emperors questioning reality?"

"Exactly!"

"Haah."

Long Tao listened to them squabble in silence, his mind still recovering. That boost in enlightenment was already a windfall beyond windfalls, and now there was this...

He truly thought he'd gotten accustomed to his Master making things appear as if out of thin air--that no matter what the crazy kid pulled out, he would have met it with a steely resolve of apathy.

And yet, here he sat, reeling still.

Closing his eyes, that hour flashed in his mind as though it occurred yesterday.

He'd just finished celebrating Lan'er's sixteenth birthday, with all of his family and friends in attendance. By then, he'd made a name for himself across the Heavenly Realms and had already become an Emperor, albeit still a far cry from his peak. Yet, in the midst of that joy, strange fog and haze appeared, and beyond it an army of a thousand.

He recalled leaping out, meeting them just outside the pavilion, and engaging in a battle that lasted over an hour. There were ten Emperors in total and over a hundred cultivators at the Imperial Realm, but it didn't matter; they were largely old and meek, and he easily pushed them back... but he was never able to kill anyone, and he could not understand why.

For a while, he figured it was because they were using some special, undying artifact--he'd fought others like that before, and the key was simply to keep sapping their Life Qi until the artifact itself broke.

But the longer the battle raged... the more unease he felt.

Just past an hour mark, something unthinkable happened--they all began running away, as though there were demons chasing them. He managed to catch up to quite a few and finally kill them but could not make heads or tails of the attack.

Though he constantly checked with his Divine Sense to make sure nobody went past him and that nobody snuck into the pavilion's formation, he already had a bad feeling by then.

He spun back around and went back to the hall... only to find... death. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Everybody--down to the last child--was dead.

Their bodies were splayed and delimbed and cut up and shattered and horrendously destroyed, viscera, organs, blood, and bones decorating every inch of the place.

It did not dawn on him how they did it until he saw the sword marks on the more 'whole' bodies--those were his sword marks. Somehow, some way, he was the one to kill them all.

... that was the beginning, he'd realize quite some time later.

Whoever organized that specific attack perfectly orchestrated his downfall--and that was the first note played.

Rumor spread throughout the heavens that he was a mad murderer who slaughtered his entire family in a bid for power and that he'd strayed to the Demonic Path. Just how many friends did he lose because of that? No... they weren't friends. Just shallow suck-ups who never would have stood by his side, no matter what.

And that formation... was the beginning of it all. Even if he did eventually find the sect behind the attack, he'd learned they, too, were merely puppets in a play somebody else had put on. Perhaps, in some way he himself was not aware of yet, his Master might actually be able to lead him back to the source--to the conductor of the performance that began the end of the legend of Divine Blade.