Centipede Poison Fang Claw 1
Slurp. Slurrrp.
The wet, cold sensation on my face snapped me wide awake. Something sticky began to trickle from my right eyebrow, sliding down my cheek and dripping onto my chest.
When I opened my eyes, the goo made my right field of vision a blur. I cracked my left eye wider instead and saw a big pink mass looming toward my face.
Splat.
I was still half-conscious and everything happened too fast for me to react. The pink lump slapped itself right onto my face and stuck there. Then a familiar cry and a lazy voice I’d never heard before filled my ears and my mind at the same time.
Peep.Food…
So that’s Hwa-yang’s voice. True to form, even our first heartfelt conversation was about food.
She must have woken up before me and started licking my face, demanding a meal. Our minds were linked through the Beast Heart Technique for the first time—a moment that should have been moving—and all she wanted was food. I couldn’t help a wry smile at her unwavering love of eating and answered her.
At this rate my face was going to get worn away.
“All right, you little glutton. Just hang on a second.”
I wiped the drool running from the corner of my mouth as I spoke, and voices rose all around me.
Tsrut!
Tsrrrr!
Tsr!
Kishit!
Guk-gu!
Guu!
“So-ryong! Did it work? How’s your body? Your internal energy?”
“Oppa, are you awake!?”
Cho and Bin, Yo-hwa and the other poison beasts, Hwa-eun, even Sister Seol—everyone was packed in close. They must have been standing guard out of worry.
“Yes. Aside from feeling a bit stiff, I’m fine. How many days has it been since then?”
I answered Hwa-eun and Sister Seol while circulating my energy for a quick internal inspection. Now that I was conscious, I needed to check what the second stage of the Five Poisons Returning to Origin Divine Art actually felt like.
I focused on the slow current of my energy and traced it back to my dantian. Inside, two streams of poison qi were rotating steadily in the same direction, balanced against each other like the twin poles of a taiji diagram.
When Grandfather Man-dok Shin-gun taught me the fundamentals of martial arts, he said the taiji was like the wuji—chaos itself, yet the origin of all things and therefore the most stable state. This had to be that stability. Cho’s poison and Hwa-yang’s new poison had both settled safely into my dantian.
I’d briefly worried that Hwa-yang’s poison—the kind that burned internal energy—might reject me, but it had taken root without trouble. There were no side effects. The absolute resistance granted by poison arts made the body treat the toxin as its own, so the harmful effects never turned inward. Of course they didn’t; if they had, Hwa-yang herself would have been the first to die.
I guided the two rotating poison streams according to the formula, and a power unlike anything before surged through me. Poison qi rode my internal energy from the dantian all the way out to my fingertips and toes. My fingers tingled with the force.
So this is the world of the Two Poisons Realm? Damn… that’s amazing!
Until now my energy had been too shallow even to dream of palm techniques. Full-blown palm winds might still be out of reach, but I felt sure I could at least detonate energy in my grip. My body now held enough power that practicing palm winds seemed possible.
I finished the inspection in high spirits and looked around. The first thing I noticed was a bamboo sunshade. Enough time had passed that someone had built a frame of bamboo and thatched it with reeds to cover Hwa-yang and me. They’d probably rounded up people to keep the sun off us; even under the harsh sunlight the shade felt cool.
“Ten days, So-ryong.”
“It’s been ten days since that day, Oppa.”
Sister Seol and Hwa-eun answered as soon as they saw I’d finished looking inward. Sister Seol had once told me that registering ordinary beasts with the Beast Heart Technique only took a few hours, but spiritual beasts always took a full ten days. Without my knowing it, another ten days had slipped by.
I set Hwa-yang down beside me and pushed my creaking body upright. This was the third time; the hollow hunger and stiff joints already felt familiar. When I stretched, every locked joint and muscle screamed in protest.
“Aigoo. Every single time, my body feels like it’s falling apart.”
“Are you really okay, So-ryong?”
“Yes. After going through it a few times, you get used to it.”
I had just finished loosening up when something dropped from my body with soft little sounds.
Tuk. Tuduk.
I bent to check the ground at my feet. Several translucent, shell-like pieces lay scattered on the ash-and-dirt floor. What the…? They had clearly fallen from me, yet I didn’t recognize them.
I reached down to pick one up. The moment my fingertips touched the earth I felt something odd—my sense of touch at the tips of my fingers was slightly dull. I lifted the object and examined it. A translucent, rounded something. Looking closer, I realized it was a fingernail.
“A fingernail?”
“A fingernail?”
It wasn’t a clipped nail; it looked as if the entire nail had come off in one piece. Sister Seol and I both tilted our heads at the nail resting in my palm. Then Hwa-eun’s startled voice rang in my ear.
“So-ryong! Your nails…!”
I flipped my hands over. No nails. That explained the strange sensation. All ten of my fingernails had fallen out without exception. The soft dropping sounds a moment ago must have been my own nails hitting the ground.
“W-why are my nails gone!?”
I stared at Hwa-eun and Sister Seol in shock. Hwa-eun rushed over, seized my hands, and examined them. Her voice turned puzzled as she studied the bare nail beds.
“That’s strange. They all fell out, but new ones are already growing. Why?”
I checked myself and saw the tiny new nails beginning to form. Sister Seol frowned beside her.
“It’s not a full bone-marrow cleansing—only the nails fell off. That’s definitely odd. Why would new nails grow? It’s clearly because of a martial art… but I don’t think it’s our Beast Heart Technique. The Beast Heart Technique affects the mind more than the body. Hwa-eun, think carefully. If it isn’t the Beast Heart Technique, then it has to be the poison art.”
Sister Seol’s reasoning made sense; this didn’t feel like a Beast Heart Technique side effect. Hwa-eun answered with a troubled look.
“I haven’t cultivated the Five Poisons Returning to Origin Divine Art myself, so I don’t know why this happened either. We’ll probably have to ask Father—no, Grandfather…”
She fretted over my hands again, worry plain on her face.
“So-ryong, when you checked your body, was there anything else wrong?”
“Huh? No. Nothing at all.”
Her expression was full of concern, but my internal inspection had shown nothing unusual, so I could only look as baffled as she did.
Then Hwa-yang’s cry rose from my feet again.
Peep!
If you’re done, hurry up and get me food—that was the clear message.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Let’s go down, let’s go.”
Aside from the missing nails there was nothing seriously wrong, and my little nap had already delayed the group by ten days. Time to head down the mountain. Hwa-yang had gone ten days without a meal, too; she needed feeding.
“Nothing’s wrong except the nails, so we’ll ask Grandfather about my body once we’re back at the clan. For now let’s go down. Hwa-yang needs food.”
I scooped her up, ready to leave. She immediately tried to climb my shoulder and onto my head, short legs paddling furiously. I laughed and boosted her the rest of the way. Once she was fully grown she had actually gotten a little smaller; now she settled on my head like a living hat. Her soft belly pressed against my scalp, and the weight felt as solid as a ballistic helmet. Still, the plush warmth made me smile.
“All right, let’s go!”
I took the first step down the mountain—and two hands clamped onto my shoulders.
Clap.
I turned slowly. Hwa-eun and Sister Seol were staring at me with icy expressions.
“So-ryong, you clearly still have something to discuss with me.”
“Oppa, this noona distinctly remembers saying we needed to talk once you were better.”
I’d hoped they’d forgotten. Apparently not. The chance of quietly sweeping things under the rug was looking very slim.
“Ah, haha… Talk… y-yeah, we should talk.”
I needed to check my internals again right away—specifically whether I could wrap my back in internal energy yet.
Luck was on my side. I thought I was about to be dragged into a long private lecture with Hwa-eun and Sister Seol, but Hwa-yang’s irritated cries forced us to hurry down the mountain. She even started flickering with fire on top of my head; the little glutton was furious.
Anyone who gets between me and my food is the enemy. That was the vibe rolling off her in waves.
Peeeeeep!
“O-okay, okay, Hwa-yang. Nice— I mean, yeah, let’s go. M-maybe we should save the talk for later? She seems really mad.”
“Haah… Don’t think this is over, Ryong. This noona is not letting it slide.”
“So-ryong, we’ll talk quietly tonight.”
“S-sure.”
Ten days later we finally reached Itae’s riverside settlement. The place looked very different. A couple of the houses burned during the bedbug war had been rebuilt, and the Murim Alliance ship that had been moored in the village was gone. According to Hwa-eun, the cleanup here was finished and they needed to get the Blood Essence Pills back to the Alliance quickly—along with Ji-ryong’s report.
“So-ryong, are you all right?”
“Is your body okay?”
“Young hero, are you well?”
When we boarded our ship, the Three Dragons and Two Phoenixes were waiting for us. They had promised to travel with us to the Tang Clan, so they had stayed aboard.
“I’m sorry for worrying you. My body is fine; please don’t concern yourselves.”
I was offering the polite apology when the irritated cry started up again from the top of my head.
Peeeeeep!
“Ah—right, got it. I should feed this one first, then we can talk.”
“Go ahead. When I saw her sleeping up on the mountain she looked so gentle, but her temper’s quite fiery.”
Hwa-yang clearly needed food first. I asked for Itae. When he arrived I requested a proper blaze; a lamp flame wouldn’t even register as a snack for her now.
“Itae, could you cut some reeds and build a fire? Hwa-yang needs to eat.”
“Understood, Young Master So-ryong. Please wait a moment.”
Soon a large fire was roaring. Hwa-yang swallowed the flames with obvious satisfaction, then waddled over on drowsy eyes and bumped my leg with her head.
“Ready to go now?”
Kii.
I set her back on her favorite perch atop my head. Full and content, she began nodding off at once. When I returned to the cabin, Fist Dragon and Sword Dragon came straight over and clapped my shoulders.
“Little brother, you’re back?”
“Yes. I’ve delayed the schedule quite a bit. We should cast off right away.”
The ship was already fully repaired, so I suggested leaving for the Tang Clan immediately. Both of them only smiled.
“Whether we leave today or tomorrow hardly matters.”
“Exactly. What’s important right now is something else.”
I tilted my head at their leisurely tone. They spoke almost in unison from either side of me.
“You’re probably wondering what we’re talking about. After seeing your martial prowess ten days ago, we decided we simply couldn’t let it pass.”
“Excuse me?”
“Who would have thought you’d dive from the sky straight into a mountain peak? With skill like that, how could your elder brothers just ignore it?”
“Exactly. Watching you that day, we felt strongly that you needed a proper epithet. You don’t have one yet, do you?”
So that was it. My spectacular plunge from the heavens into the flames ten days ago had impressed them so much they wanted to give me a title. Coming from Fist Dragon and Sword Dragon themselves, the offer was hard to refuse. My eyes lit up.
“If my two elder brothers bestow a title, this younger brother will gratefully accept it.”
They exchanged a look, grinned, and answered together.
“How about Mad Dragon of the Tang Clan?”
Mad Dragon of the Tang Clan. Since my name contained “dragon,” it basically meant “the Tang Clan’s lunatic.”
These brothers…
Well, these were the same people who had nicknamed Ji-ryong “Wall Tiger” just because he only managed a kiss. Expecting a normal title had been my mistake.