'How..?'

Even the freezing ocean that Geochin felt himself to be immersed in didn't seem to help in containing the chaotic mess that his mind had been sent into. If anything, it had already started boiling away into vapor..

Every single step! Everything that he had done to this point was carefully calculated, the most difficult of which was the startup. Geochin embarked on his path with nothing more than a group of newly initiated Martial Artists, yet he had accomplished it!

Geochin stood on the infamous flat plains, unfazed by the pressure of his undertaking, heading what he believed to be the current strongest organization in Murim. Though it was undeniably a sand castle prone to collapse at its core, it momentarily held the power to raze anything in its way..

At least it should have!

Today was supposed to be just like every other day he knocked on a Grand Family or a Great Sect's door. Like always, everything should have fallen to place just as he expected it to.

Unfortunately, aside from the very first 30 minutes of this engagement, nothing had been in place ever since.

'Just what could have gone wrong?'

Although it was too quick to say that the Liberation Army was spiraling into failure this early into the battle, the sequence of events that continued to deviate from Geochin's plans had left his body operating on its own for more than a few minutes.

Leo wasn't certain of what was going on inside of Geochin's mind as he sparred with the Murim Lord, but it wasn't hard to guess from the interchanging expression on his face.

"Now then, don't you think it's about time for this to get serious as well?"

Despite things turning out for the better on his end, Leo pulled Geochin out of his trance. Regardless of how much he cared for the Heavenly Strength Society, this was his personal confrontation, and he had no plans of maintaining its stagnancy in favor of a more stable conclusion.

"It's me, you know. I'm the reason things are going so differently for you."

Since the battlefield was too loud for anyone else to hear anything without shouting, Leo took the liberty of having a very personal conversation with his adversary. The state that Geochin was in made him a perfect target for psychological warfare.

"You.."

"The Mount Hua Sword Conference, I made sure that you wouldn't make it to the finals."

Thud!

The White Tiger's attacks suddenly turned heavy as Leo let out his first trigger. Naturally, he wouldn't tell everything about himself to the maniacal protagonist even if death was his ultimate fate. An out-of-place statement was all that he needed to use.

"That was your rising point, right? I imagine establishing the Murim League wasn't as easy."

Swish!

Despite the striking revelation, the Blue Dragon didn't fail to deliver a few close call swings after Leo broke slightly out of tempo. However, this was a risk that he was willing to take.

"Did I go a little too far back? You had no plans to indirectly weaken the Heavenly Strength Society, so stopping that shouldn't count as my fault, so.. Yup, it was also me who suggested that we send letters to alert certain factions of your true threat."

Rather than resuming sword resonance, Leo pushed out more Telekinetic Energy at the cost of overconsumption. He couldn't predict the position to which Geochin would instantly move, so he slowly spread the target of his pressure to a larger area of effect.

"All of your feats were miraculous in nature, which made it easy for others to attribute it to luck, so I made sure that the more smart ones out of the sleepyheads you were targeting would be more conscious of you in the hope they would provide help here."

'You..'

Leo's actions so far might have been exceptionally detrimental to Geochin's plans, but they could all be explained by his loyalty to the Society. However, the timely reinforcements were obviously the result of predated planning.

Geochin wasn't exactly incognito with his plans, something that only helped him accrue the ridicule of his target to his advantage. If someone was to partially convince them otherwise, he had to have given them some specifics that weren't viable to many.

'Do I have a mole?'

Aside from the Northern Ice Palace, there was a collage of small squads from various Great Sects and forces that he crushed on his way here. At the precipice of a panic attack, Geochin couldn't help wondering if he had been compromised.

This notion didn't last for long, however. While Geochin undeniably had to rely on a few extra hands to manage his ever-growing army, those he chose were all deep believers of his cause who stood to gain nothing from such crude betrayal.historical

"What are you?"

"I confess that I might know a little too much for my own good, but one thing I know for sure. I had to use that knowledge to stop you in any form possible. Unfortunately, I didn't have the means to do that before you had gone this far."

Like a fisher carefully casting his net, Leo slowly laid out his ambiguous statements as he discreetly advanced his combat plans. Since this was more of a three-way interaction, both a heated discussion and a heated battle were in order.

"Do you.. Find this funny? You can condemn me for invading your organization's territory with the intent to eliminate it, but you do not have the right to judge me for trying to correct the deep corruption of this world!"

After keeping to a few words policy while processing what was happening, Geochin finally exploded with an indignant rebuttal. The idea that everything he worked for might be crumbling despite the sacrifices that he made wasn't something that he could accept.

"You are.. correct. I do not have the right to judge you, but what about your family, your real family. What do you think 'they' would have to say about the massacres you committed?"