Heavenly Palace 3
"Thank you for your cooperation. Have a good day."
The so-called cooperative inspection wrapped up quickly. This was an inn the Demonic Cult had built as a front from the start, after all. Everything that might have drawn the Martial Alliance's suspicion had already been scrubbed clean.
A deeper probe would only have turned public opinion against the Martial Alliance. In the end the Martial Alliance party came up empty and headed back to their Shaanxi branch.
"You're still thinking of going near Mount Hua after things have gotten this bad?"
"It's the Gongcheongseogyu we're talking about. The Gongcheongseogyu. We can't just hand it over to those Mount Hua bastards."
Shin Gi-woon swallowed a sigh. The cave where the Gongcheongseogyu Ryu-jin had mentioned actually existed—and that cave was on Mount Hua.
Mount Hua, one of the Five Great Mountains. Mount Hua, home to the Mount Hua Sect of the Nine Great Sects. A mountain every bit as treacherous as Cheon-san itself.
He didn't have a single good memory of the place. The Mount Hua lot were arrogant to the bone. Who did they think they were, preening over blooming plum blossoms like that?
Granted, they had the skill to back the arrogance. But for Taoists, they sure put away meat and liquor like it was nothing. Their speech was crude, their manners nonexistent. Among the Nine Great Sects, the Mount Hua Sect was the one rumored to sit closest to the unorthodox path.
The Plum Blossom Sword Art was beautiful—he'd give them that. The problem was that Mount Hua's founding master had been a complete lunatic, and the sect had grown generation after generation from that lunatic. The fundamental rot in the Mount Hua Sect had never changed. Approach carelessly, and you could get wiped out like a dog.
"We have to be careful. Security's going to be brutal after you blew up the Black Spirit Sect."
Bi So-hyang had a point. If the two of them charged into Mount Hua… they weren't coming back.
All eighteen of Mount Hua's Plum Blossom Swordsmen were Transcendent experts, and the sect leader had to be a master of the Transformation Realm at minimum. Factor in the retired former Plum Blossom Swordsmen and—ugh. Curses rose on their own.
They wouldn't run into the recluses, so those could be left out of the count. The Mount Hua sect leader was away as well, so strike him too. Four Plum Blossom Swordsmen had gone along as escorts. Even so, counting the remaining Plum Blossom Swordsmen and the elders, the main mountain alone would still hold at least twenty Transcendent experts.
Two people facing that was like trying to pluck stars out of the sky.
And then—
BANG!
The inn door slammed open hard. A blood-soaked woman staggered through.
Shin Gi-woon knew her on instinct. It was Sama Yul.
"W-what's going on?!"
"Yul! Are you okay?"
"Gi-woon…"
She crumpled.
The waiter rushed over in a panic while Shin Gi-woon and Bi So-hyang scrambled up from their seats. Sama Yul confirmed his face and then blacked out on the spot. He sealed her pressure points in a hurry to stop the bleeding, then looked at Bi So-hyang.
"I'll get a physician. Wait here."
"Got it."
Bi So-hyang shot out like an arrow. As an archer, her lightness skill had grown far enough to outstrip even Shin Gi-woon.
He carried Sama Yul up to the second floor and laid her on a bed. Her face was deathly pale—she'd been poisoned as well.
Where the hell did she pick this up…!
"Her condition's critical. If we don't pull the poison out, she could die within half a shichen."
Ryu-jin had read the severity of it too. There was no one around with the skill to extract poison, no matter how hard you looked. Leave her alone and the poison would kill her. In the end, Shin Gi-woon decided to absorb it himself.
"I'm extracting the poison. Clear everyone off the second floor."
"Yes, sir!"
The waiter flipped into a Demonic Cultist in a heartbeat and moved on the order. A poison that could put a Peak expert's life on the line—how vicious it really was, even Shin Gi-woon couldn't say.
"Ryu-jin. Ready?"
"Let's go."
"Open."
Water-attribute All-Power Realm — drawing the poison through the upper dantian.
Whoooosh.
Shin Gi-woon blinked, and his eyes turned the cold blue of the deep sea. Water qi surged through his entire body at the same time. He gathered it into a single point and pressed it to Sama Yul's forehead.
It wasn't a technique that literally drank water. If he had to define it, it felt closest to the Star-Absorbing Great Method.
Through her upper dantian, he began pulling the poison that was flooding her whole body.
Veins bulged angry and red across his skin. The poison was vicious. Just taking it in felt like it was carving half his lifespan away.
"Krrgh!"
"Now! Drop the All-Power Realm and start circulating!"
At Ryu-jin's signal he cut the technique at once and settled into a lotus seat. The moment energy circulation began, a reeling clash of poison qi and internal energy erupted.
It hit like a tidal wave. Without caring which dantian it was—upper, middle, or lower—the poison strained with everything it had to smash them all.
Lose one dantian and you could still live without internal energy. Shatter all three, and the flooding energy would erode you until your breath stopped. To survive, every last scrap of the poison had to go.
"Krrrrgh…"
Sweat poured off him. Somehow the poison refused to move cleanly—it felt like it was trying to seal the meridians themselves. The same force that had been trying to break his dantians a moment ago had switched tactics, choking off blood flow to rot the body from the inside.
He'd never taken a poison like this. It was no ordinary brew. It had to be driven out.
"Hey. This isn't easy."
Instead of talking, put more power into it!!
"I am working hard!"
Ryu-jin was helping with the detoxification, but it wasn't nearly enough. Even as they fought, the meridians kept packing solid with poison. Normal blood pressure had already spiked into extreme hypertension.
Then—
Whoooosh!
Demonic energy?
"Huh? Should we stop this first?"
…Leave it for now!
The demonic energy that had been tucked into a corner of his dantian unfurled. The poison qi flinched in shock and started to break apart.
Shin Gi-woon nearly cheered. The danger of the demonic energy didn't matter. He was about to die right now—what was the point of fretting over later?
He poured every scrap of focus into the demonic energy's flow. Bit by bit he herded the poison qi in one direction, drove it into a dead end, and sealed both flanks with demonic energy.
Goooooh.
It worked. Right in front of the tightly shut lower dantian, demonic energy boxed the poison in on both sides. There was nowhere left to run.
Pin it like this and push it out—huh?
"The demonic energy is absorbing the poison qi."
He was dumbfounded. Speechless, really. The demonic energy was gnawing down the poison that had nowhere left to go.
Was the stuff some kind of delicacy? He tried to wrestle the demonic energy under control, but it wouldn't listen. Dead weight again, right at the critical moment. A short while later, though, it finished the job—every last bit of poison qi was gone.
And then came the shock.
"That was delicious."
..!
"What the—whose voice is that?!"
It had spoken. The demonic energy had voiced its own will. Neither Shin Gi-woon nor Ryu-jin could believe it. Something they'd written off as mere energy had just expressed emotion—in clear human language.
Confusion hit hard. He even found himself turning over the once-in-a-lifetime question of whether to leave the thing alone.
"I won't eat you. Don't worry."
"Shin Gi-woon! Decide already! Are you dealing with it before it gets stronger, or what?!"
"Kill me and the poison qi spreads through your whole body. Don't talk to me anymore. It's annoying."
With that, the demonic energy fell silent. Watching it retreat to the corner of his dantian, he could feel the iron resolve not to speak even if he tried to move it.
Along with that came the realization. By devouring the poison qi, the demonic energy had—
Not merely granted him immunity to ten poisons, but vaulted him straight into the realm of immunity to a hundred.
Whether I should be happy about this or not…
"For now… since the poison's out, want to break through?"
Let's break through.
The moment he agreed, the energy of the Battle Demon Divine Art stored in his dantian uncoiled and drove into the deepest blood vessels of his body. The dam that had been locked tight was smashed under a merciless wave of internal energy—a force too vast to stop even if you tried.
Right here, Shin Gi-woon meant to reach the Transcendent realm.
Can I open every minor meridian in the body?
"No. Don't force it—open only half."
Confirmed.
He poured his entire spirit into energy circulation. Time no longer mattered. Now that he knew the demonic energy had a self, he needed to raise his realm fast and prepare a countermeasure.
"Cough! Gah! Kh!"
Before long he had reached the Transcendent realm. Who would have thought black blood rising from inside could feel so welcome.
He reined in the thrashing energy and stood. That was when his eyes met Bi So-hyang's—one corner of hers already twitching hard.
"You're here?"
"You're here? Did you just say 'you're here'? You crazy bastard!!"
"Wait—I get what you're about to say, but if I hadn't pulled the poison, Yul would have di—huh? Where'd she go?"
He looked around. Sama Yul should have been lying on that bed with her eyes closed. She wasn't there. There wasn't even any warmth left.
Bi So-hyang shouted.
"A full day has passed, you idiot! Yul opened her eyes ages ago!"
"Oh. That's a relief."
Crunch.
The sound of grinding teeth. Bi So-hyang. Reading her face—yeah. She was properly pissed. In times like this…
"I'm getting out of here."
"Huh? Hey—you! Get back here!"
Running was the best option.
He'd reached a new realm; he needed to get used to it anyway. A light chase first.
If he got caught…
It would be worse than dying, wouldn't it?