A Taste of His Own Medicine (1)
Han Bi-woo felt wronged.
What did I even do?
Granted, he had roamed the Jianghu for over several decades, so it wasn't as if he lacked enemies. He had likely accumulated more than a few grudges along the way, but still...
"No, it doesn't matter," Han Bi-woo muttered, deciding to think rationally.
The kid before him was bizarre, but it didn't change anything.
"I just have to kill him here."
A faint crimson energy began to rise from Han Bi-woo's body, shimmering like a heat haze.
Watching the crimson mist drift upward, Han Cheong-un murmured, "The Blood Night Divine Art."
"...!"
Shock flashed across Han Bi-woo's face, unable to hide his astonishment. Regardless of his reaction, Han Cheong-un continued nonchalantly.
"Created by a rogue monk who was excommunicated and fled from Shaolin two hundred years ago, wasn't it? He went on to establish an assassin sect called the Blood Night Gate."
"How do you know that?"
"Who knows? I wonder how I found out," Han Cheong-un replied with a smirk.
In truth, the Blood Poison Snake, Han Bi-woo, was a notorious figure of the Unorthodox Faction. He had fought fiercely and survived the First Great War between the Orthodox and Unorthodox Factions, and had gone on to make a significant name for himself in the Second Great War.
He was a man whose path had crossed multiple times with the Annihilation Squad led by Han Cheong-un in his past life.
Naturally, Cheong-un knew everything about him.
The Blood Night Divine Art was a corrupt, demonic art derived from Shaolin martial arts. In the future, Han Bi-woo would master it to the twelfth stage. But right now...
"Looking at your current progress, you seem to be only at the seventh stage."
"..."
"Good for me. You're still a novice."
"What did you say?"
"If you don't pluck the sprout early, you'll need an axe to cut it down later."
Han Cheong-un stepped forward, a faint smile playing on his lips.
Watching him approach, Han Bi-woo unconsciously took a step back and shouted, "Who the hell are you?"
"You don't need to know that."
The smile vanished from Han Cheong-un's face. In the next instant, he lunged forward.
"Just die."
Han Bi-woo threw a punch to counter the strike.
Crash!
His fist collided head-on with the spearhead. Infused with dense internal force, his fist should have shattered Han Cheong-un's spear. Yet, the spear did not yield even an inch.
Fist and spearhead locked in a tense struggle of raw power. But in that moment, the corner of Han Cheong-un's mouth curled upward.
I can overpower him with sheer strength.
The current Han Bi-woo was far weaker than the one in his memories.
Although Cheong-un himself was far from his peak, he possessed more than enough strength to crush the present Han Bi-woo. And so...
"Hup!"
Thud!
Han Cheong-un brought his back foot forward, stomping hard against the ground. Simultaneously, he forced the stationary spear forward, driving it through the resistance.
"Ugh!"
Han Bi-woo hastily pulled back his fist and twisted his body out of the way.
Swoosh!
With a sharp tear of rushing wind, the air exploded right next to Han Bi-woo's face. It was a clean, perfectly refined thrust. Had his reaction been even a fraction of a second slower, his head would have been taken off.
"Good reflexes," Cheong-un remarked.
"How dare you...!"
"Let's see how long you can keep dodging."
Han Cheong-un unleashed a barrage of spear strikes, relentlessly pressing his opponent.
Thud! Bang!
Faced with the relentless torrent of thrusts, Han Bi-woo didn't dare to block. He kept shifting his feet, desperately dodging the attacks.
He's strong.
He had to admit it. Despite his youth, the boy possessed incredibly deep internal energy and highly refined techniques. His skills were undoubtedly those of a true master.
Faced with such an opponent, anything less than his absolute best would mean death.
I won't let it end like this!
Han Bi-woo grit his teeth and focused entirely on his movements. Stepping nimbly to evade Han Cheong-un's strikes, he kept his hands in constant motion, looking for an opportunity to seize the weapon.
When a spearman fought a bare-handed martial artist, the one thing they had to avoid at all costs was having their spear grabbed. Unlike a sword or a saber, a spear became remarkably easy to neutralize once grabbed by bare hands. It could easily lead to a counterattack.
Of course, catching a spear that thrust and retracted with such flawless precision was no easy task, but...
I will catch it.
Han Bi-woo channeled his concentration, moving his hands even as he dodged. The creator of his martial arts was originally a rogue Shaolin monk. Naturally, his arsenal included a grappling technique modeled after Shaolin's Dragon Claw Hand.
He activated the technique.
His hands, infused with crimson qi, split into dozens of afterimages, weaving chaotically around Han Cheong-un's spear.
Spear strikes as sharp as lightning clashed against Han Bi-woo's grappling hands. In the blink of an eye, their exchange surpassed thirty exchanges.
Boom! Bang!
"Ugh...!"
Han Bi-woo gradually closed the distance, attempting to stifle the spear's reach. He sustained several cuts in the process, but it was unavoidable. He wasn't foolish enough to believe he could defeat such a formidable foe without taking any damage.
Just a little... just a little more...
A spear was more sensitive to distance than any other weapon. As he closed the gap, he felt the opponent's speed decrease slightly, as if the tight space was restricting him.
And finally...
Crack! Crunch! Snap!
"Got you!" Han Bi-woo roared.
He had succeeded in grabbing the spearhead. The moment he gripped it, his wrist dislocated and his finger bones shattered, but he didn't care.
"It's over!"
Han Bi-woo pulled the spear with one hand while concentrating his qi into his other fist. All he had to do now was smash the head of his opponent as he was dragged forward—
"Huh?"
Han Bi-woo froze in confusion. Despite pulling with all his might, the boy didn't budge. It felt as though he were trying to pull a massive mountain.
Then, Han Bi-woo saw it.
"Why the surprised face?"
"You...!"
"I let you grab it on purpose. Why don't you put some back into it?"
"Ugh..."
The boy was smiling with absolute composure. Looking down at his feet, Han Bi-woo gasped, "The Thousand-Catty Weight?"
Han Cheong-un's feet had sunk three inches deep into the solid earth.
He grinned. "Something like that."
It was the Taishan Rigid Stance, one of the foundational stances of the Celestial Eight Trigrams Spear. It was similar to the Thousand-Catty Weight, but with one key difference.
And that difference was...
"Hold on tight."
"What?!"
He could still move while maintaining the stance.
As Han Cheong-un hoisted his spear, Han Bi-woo was lifted into the air like a fish caught on a hook.
Whoosh!
"Whoa!"
Hurled nearly thirty feet into the air, Han Bi-woo panicked. Suspended in midair against his will, he was completely defenseless.
And on the ground...
"It's over," Han Cheong-un muttered, preparing to finish him.
The Blood Poison Snake, Han Bi-woo. Starting as the leader of the Red Snake Squad, he would eventually become the Sect Leader of the Poison Hand Sect, earning infamous notoriety across two great wars.
Since he had the chance to nip that threat in the bud right here...
I can't let this opportunity slip away.
In an instant, Han Cheong-un's body soared into the sky.
Lightning Straight Strike
He looked like a bolt of lightning rising from the earth to strike the heavens.
Han Bi-woo braced himself as Han Cheong-un hurtled toward him.
Come on.
He concentrated his qi into both fists, prepared to take his opponent down with him if necessary. But...
The space warped, slowing time to a crawl.
The moment they crossed paths, the domain Han Cheong-un deployed completely severed Han Bi-woo's consciousness. And after a flash of lightning passed...
"...?"
Han Bi-woo felt perfectly fine. Or at least, that was what he thought.
The two men who had soared into the sky landed on the ground at the same time.
Han Bi-woo immediately assumed a defensive stance and glared at Han Cheong-un. "Are you pitying me?"
"..."
Han Cheong-un didn't answer. He didn't even spare a glance in Han Bi-woo's direction.
His indifference only infuriated Han Bi-woo further.
"How dare you!"
The moment he tried to step forward to launch a powerful punch at Han Cheong-un's back...
Huh?
Something was wrong. Why was the ground rising up to meet him?
And why couldn't he feel his lower half...?
Thud.
Han Bi-woo's body collapsed, cleanly severed in half at the waist.
Han Cheong-un looked down at the corpse and muttered, "I don't make a habit of talking to dead men."
Han Cheong-un had eliminated the leader of the Red Snake Squad. And he had done so with overwhelming ease.
Watching the scene unfold, Tang Jin spoke in disbelief. "What kind of monster is he?"
Their opponent was no random thug. He was a martial artist capable of leading an entire combat unit within the Poison Hand Sect, one of the Sado-palmun. In the Orthodox Faction, his standing would be equivalent to a top-tier first-generation disciple representing a major sect.
Yet, a boy who hadn't even reached twenty had completely dominated him.
"A literal monster."
But with such a monster on their side, things became much simpler.
Whoosh!
Han Cheong-un pointed his spear at the remaining enemies.
"I'll only say this once. If you value your lives, get lost."
"..."
"..."
The remaining members of the Red Snake Squad hesitated.
Had their leader still been alive, it might have been different. But now that he was dead, they felt no obligation to throw away their lives for the sect. If they were the loyal type, they wouldn't have joined the Unorthodox Faction in the first place.
They exchanged wary glances before scattering in all directions. At the same time, Tang Jin rushed over to Tang Seo-yeon.
"Seo-yeon!"
Tang Jin tried to tend to his fallen sister, but he couldn't get too close.
"Ugh..."
Even though she was bound by multiple layers of Poison-Avoiding Beads, the toxic energy leaking from her body was still incredibly potent.
"Young Master."
"Leave this to us."
The warriors of the Secret Rain Squad, who had arrived late, put on thick leather gloves and carefully lifted Tang Seo-yeon.
"How is her condition?" Tang Jin asked.
"We'll have to take her to the Hall of Medicine to be sure, but there are no visible anomalies for now."
"Thank goodness," Tang Jin sighed in relief.
Watching Tang Jin, Han Cheong-un also let out a faint smile.
Does this mean the tragedy of the Tang Family has been averted?
It was a massive relief. He had managed to prevent that horrific catastrophe.
Though he didn't know what the Poison Hand Sect might try next, the Tang Family would surely guard her much more strictly after this incident. As long as she remained within the Tang Family estate, she should be safe...
Wait.
Han Cheong-un's expression stiffened as a sudden realization struck him.
In the history before his regression, Tang Seo-yeon's poison had gone out of control inside the Tang Family estate. In other words, the eruption had occurred while she was under their ironclad protection. If so...
Is there still a chance of her poison erupting? Even after defeating the Poison Hand Sect?
Just as the thought crossed his mind—
Ring.
The sound of a bell echoed from somewhere. It was an eerie, ominous chime. The moment he heard it, Han Cheong-un's face grew graver than ever before.
"Ugh..."
"My head..."
The Secret Rain Squad warriors groaned, clutching their heads. Tang Jin was no exception, his brow furrowing in pain.
Right then—
"Hah!"
Han Cheong-un channeled his internal energy into a thunderous shout that reverberated through the area.
"Circulate your qi and resist it! Quick!"
At Han Cheong-un's urgent cry, Tang Jin and the Secret Rain Squad members tried to circulate their qi. However...
Ring, ring, ring...
The chiming grew more violent. Several of the Secret Rain Squad warriors collapsed to their knees, unable to withstand the agonizing pain.
Han Cheong-un bit his lower lip at the sight.
"Gwiryeongdosa. It was you."
Han Cheong-un knew exactly what that bell sound meant.
If a god were to appear before him and offer to kill just one person of his choosing, the name Han Cheong-un would speak was already decided.
It would be Cheonmaseonggun Dokgo Dan, the leader of the Sado-palmun and the Sect Leader of the Heavenly Demon Sect.
But there was one name that deserved to be placed even higher on that list.
And that was Gwiryeongdosa.
It was him. He was the one behind this.
If so, everything made sense.
The Poison Hand Sect had only intended to capture Tang Seo-yeon, who possessed the Myriad Poisons Body, not trigger her eruption. Yet, in the original history, her toxic energy had run wild, causing a bloodbath within the Tang Family before she roamed the world as a calamity, slaughtering everyone in her path.
If Gwiryeongdosa, that monster, was the mastermind behind it all, the pieces of the puzzle fell perfectly into place.
As his thoughts reached this conclusion, Han Cheong-un's gaze snapped to Tang Seo-yeon.
Bound tightly by the Poison-Avoiding Beads, she was slowly rising to her feet.
Crack. Snap.
The Poison-Avoiding Beads shattered, and the iron chains binding her corroded and fell away.
Her body began to transform.
Her ebony hair turned stark white, and a toxic fog, denser than anything they had seen before, began to roll off her skin.
The moment she stood fully upright and opened her eyes—
"Everyone, get back!"
At Han Cheong-un's desperate scream, the toxic energy exploded from her body like an erupting volcano.
The tragedy known as the Tang Family Bloodbath had finally begun.