Chapter 219: King Sosurim
The a.s.sault that night had caused aminimum of fifty deaths each for the four peaks of Kunwu Training Camp.As for Shenwei and Longwei, their death tolls were similar. Thetrainees’ deaths added up to a hulking sum of more than five hundred.With so many recruits dying in the battle, the damage caused by thea.s.sailants was tremendous!
Yet, the lord before him said that this number was within the acceptable range for the death quota!
In an instant, the young man felt a cold s.h.i.+ver run down his spine.
Theexistence of the death quota was no secret at all, but he had alwaysthought it would just be a maximum of twenty or thirty. However, fromthe looks of things now, he had severely underestimated it.
Forsome reason, when the lord he respected from the bottom of his heartspoke these words, he suddenly felt incomparably terrified.
“The will of the heavens was indeed scary!”
(The emperor is known as the Son of Heavens)
This was the only thought he had in his mind now.
“…What the royal court needs are wolves; not sheep! In this, I share thesame thoughts as His Majesty. War isn’t a game. Our actions may seemcallous to you, but in both His Majesty and my eyes, this is alreadyutmost benevolence.”
That lord’s voice sounded from the darkness.
“Ahundred master archers, a few hundred Goguryeon warriors, and a handfulof Turk wolves… This is nothing compared to what awaits them on thecallous battlefield. If they cannot even survive this ordeal, then theyare even less likely to survive on future battlefields!”
“Dyinghere is at least much better than dying on the battlefield. At the veryleast, their corpses will be intact and they will be buried here!”
“Thefaster they understand their situation, the faster they will learn.This is the reason why His Majesty and I allowed the enemy to attack asthey please. Even though more than five hundred recruits died in theThree Great Training Camps today, more of them will remember today andsurvive future battlefields!”
“This is a lesson that His Majesty and I are conducting for them!”
The lord’s words were calm and confident.
“You know that Zhao Qianqiu requested some tigers from His Majesty to teach his students a precious lesson, right?”
“AH!”
The latter was astonished.
“These are the ‘tigers’ that we prepared for all of the recruits!”
That figure spoke with a deep tone, and the young man found himself unable to utter a single word in response.
“Report!”
Asthe conversation lulled, a voice suddenly came from the surroundingforest, breaking the silence. A heavily-armored Imperial Army commanderstepped forward from the lush woodland with widened strides. Strongbloodthirst emanated from his body.
A gust of mountain wind blewpast. Even before he could reach them, the duo could already smell anoverwhelming stench of blood wafting from him.
“Reportingto the two lords, all of the Goguryeons and Turks have been cleared.Other than a single Goguryeon who managed to escape our encirclement,not another one remains!”
The Imperial Army commander kneeledforcefully to the ground; viscous blood dripped down from the gaps inhis armor, staining the gra.s.s crimson.
This battle had ended muchfaster than anyone could have expected. Six Imperial Army regiments hadworked together, and under such might, no one could survive. TheGoguryeon and Turk master archers had barely begun to retaliate beforethey were cleared out entirely.
“He could still escape!”
A deep sigh echoed from above. However, a moment later, that figure recovered and issued his instructions.
“Relaymy orders, clean up all traces of the battle. Make sure not to leavebehind any clues, including blood. No one must know that we made amove!”
“Yes, lord!”
The Imperial Army commander replied and swiftly left.
“Li Tong, you should leave as well. Inform His Majesty that that person has escaped!”
Turning around, that figure looked back down at the young man kneeling below.
“But lord, isn’t it still unconfirmed?”
LiTong raised his head. He knew that on top of clearing away the Turksand Goguryeons, the mission tonight also involved capturing an importanttarget.
“Hmph, an encirclement formed by six Imperial Armyregiments, yet a person still manages to escape. Do you think that thisis a feat ordinary martial artists are capable of? There’s no need tocheck, our target must have surely escaped. That Goguryeon is cunning!”
Standingatop the outcropping, the lord spoke. Then, with a slight sway, hedisappeared into the night. Behind him, the young Li Tong hesitatedbriefly before departing as well.
A light breeze blew over the empty mountainside.
Tothe members of the Three Great Training Camps, the operation tonightwould remain as a secret. The camp members and the outside world wouldnever learn that six Imperial Army regiments had been here.
More importantly, no one would know that these three men had appeared here.
…
Peng!
Frenziedwind blew as the carca.s.s of a wolf was thrown down a menacing cliff. Atthe foot of the mountain, the corpses and carca.s.ses had already piledup to form a mountain of their own.
Azure Dragon, White Tiger,Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise; the four peaks were covered with thebodies of the dead. If they didn’t deal with it quickly, soon decaywould set-in, and in less than three days, the entire mountain wouldwreak like a charnel house.
Thebattle may have ended, but there was still plenty of cleaning andrebuilding left to be done. Thus, everyone, including w.a.n.g Chong and WeiHao, was currently busy at work.
Even the ladies like Marchioness Yi were included in the operation.
“w.a.n.g Chong, don’t you think that those women are terrifying?”
Amidst the crowd, Wei Hao suddenly jabbed w.a.n.g Chong lightly with his elbow and whispered.
Following Wei Hao’s gaze, w.a.n.g Chong saw Marchioness Yi and the others.
“Areyou tired of living? If they were to hear your words, you will be infor a round of suffering. Try recalling her spear, do you want to trywhat it feels like to be impaled by it?”
w.a.n.g Chong chuckled.
Wei Hao’s face paled. Remembering how deadly Marchioness Yi’s spear was, his hair immediately stood on end.
“b.a.s.t.a.r.d! How dare you scare me!”
But he soon recovered and pushed against w.a.n.g Chong angrily.
“Hey, who asked you to be so spineless? How could you leave me behind during the day?”
w.a.n.g Chong protested.
“It’s not my fault! Isn’t it because I… I’m not a match for them either?”
Hearing his friend bringing up this matter, Wei Hao could only reply sheepishly.
w.a.n.gChong chose not to bicker with him over this. Instead, he lifted hishead and looked at Marchioness Yi with a contemplative expression.
Eventhough Wei Hao considered Marchioness Yi and the members of VermilionBird as female dinosaurs—violent, arrogant, and fearless—w.a.n.g Chongdidn’t share the same thoughts
Even though they were clearing thebodies just like everyone else, judging from their expressions, theywere obviously discomforted. In fact, it felt as if they wanted to fleeas far from the corpses as possible. This formed a stark contrast withthe image of a war G.o.ddess that had been imprinted in their minds duringthe prior battle.
“Hm?”
Just as w.a.n.g Chong was contemplating, he suddenly caught sight of something that made his heart skip a beat.
“Wei Hao, wait a moment. Put the corpse down.”
w.a.n.g Chong suddenly stopped Wei Hao.
“Why? You are interested in corpses now?”
Wei Hao teased.
Chi la!
However,w.a.n.g Chong wasn’t in the mood to joke around any longer. Walking over,he grabbed the black pants of the Goguryeon warrior Wei Hao was stillcarrying and tore them apart. In the next instant, a bizarre tattoo onthe warrior’s right leg was revealed.
Spotting the tattoo, evenWei Hao’s expression warped in shock. Reining in his joking nature, heput down the body and examined the image closely.
It was in theshape of a circle. In the tattoo, there was a snake and a three-leggedcrow. The three-legged crow was above while the snake was below, andtheir eyes stared at one another, creating a bizarre sight.
“This is… the symbol of a certain influence?”
WeiHao swiftly came to a realization. w.a.n.g Chong didn’t reply. He simplystared fixedly at the tattoo as his heart thumped wildly.
He recognized this symbol!
w.a.n.gChong had thought this nighttime a.s.sault was just a normal alliancebetween the Goguryeon and the Turks to test and disrupt the Three GreatTraining Camps and dampen the Great Tang’s arrogance. Upon seeing thissymbol however, he realized that he’d made a mistake and considerablyunderestimated the nature of the affair.
“King Sosurim!”
A name flashed across w.a.n.g Chong’s mind as he stared at the bizarre tattoo.
Eventhough the Eastern and Western Turkic Khaganate and Ü-Tsang hadconsumed all of Great Tang’s attention, the eastern Goguryeo Empire hadnever slackened in its information gathering operations against GreatTang.
Andthis ‘King Sosurim’ was the top spy that Goguryeo had in Great Tang, asharp thorn that the Goguryeon emperor, Yeon Gaesomun, had planted inthe Central Plains.
Even though this top spy wasn’t born ofn.o.bility, rumor had it that the Goguryeon emperor had conferred him as amember of the royal family. His t.i.tle of ‘King Sosurim’ was bestowed byYeon Gaesomun, and this reflected how highly he regarded the former.
And the three-legged crow and snake tattoo was the symbol of his subordinates.
Eventhough his job scope mainly revolved around information gathering andspying, the doings of King Sosurim in the capital far exceeded that.
Destruction,a.s.sa.s.sination… Anything and everything that would be damaging to GreatTang and beneficial to Goguryeo entered his purview. What brought himthe greatest notoriety was his successful a.s.sa.s.sinations of influentialofficials of the Central Plains.
Every single official whosupported waging war against Goguryeo had suffered a.s.sa.s.sination, andwhat makes things worse, was that this a.s.sa.s.sination wasn’t just limitedto the person in question. Even the maids, servants, ladies, andchildren in the target’s residence wouldn’t be spared.
Censor TangZhao was one of the victims. In the tragedy eight years ago, not asingle person in his residence was spared. The incident had taken GreatTang by storm.
Even though the royal court flew into a rage andcaptured innumerable Goguryeon spies and sentenced them to death, themain culprit, King Sosurim, still remained at large. The reason wassimple. No one had ever seen him before and no one knew what he lookedlike. Even his t.i.tle, King Sosurim, also only came from buying off theofficials of the Goguryeo Empire.
His appearance and characteristics were still a mystery.
But,two things that they knew for certain were that he spoke fluently inChinese and knew Great Tang very well, be it the history or the culture.To summarize, he was no different from a Han. Even if one were to meethim face-to-face, it would be impossible to determine whether he was aHan or a Goguryeon.
“To think that it would actually be him!”
w.a.n.g Chong thought. He didn’t expect the elusive King Sosurim to be behind this operation as well.