The Azure-Spotted Centipede 2
"What?! Really?"
"You think you know where it is?"
Two men shot the questions back at me, voices sharp with surprise, faces full of open disbelief.
In my past life they would never have asked me something like that or worn expressions like those. I really had lost every scrap of fame as the Spicy Fabre after reincarnating.
After all, I had been the man they called a walking encyclopedia of venomous snakes, poisonous insects, and toxic creatures.
Ha… this never happened in my past life. Come to think of it, it wasn’t my reputation that died—I actually died… Damn it…
It wasn’t my reputation that was dead; I myself was truly dead.
Pulling free of that dazed reality, I answered the two men.
"Yes, well… If it’s a large centipede, I naturally have a good idea where it would be."
"W-where do you think it is?!"
"Yes, where would it be?!"
They looked ready to demand the location at once, but I decided first to ask which areas they had already searched.
I wanted to know whether they had checked the place I was thinking of.
Centipede species are many, and each has slightly different habits and preferred environments.
"Could you tell me which directions you searched, and when?"
At my question they glanced at each other; then the old man nodded and began describing the ground they had covered over the past few days.
"We searched north and east from here. Mostly during the day. To the north, mainly around the riverbank…"
North of the Taoist temple lay the river; east was jungle.
I could already see why they had been wandering for days.
A giant centipede would never favor places like those.
Besides, in broad daylight catching even a glimpse of a centipede was never easy.
"Then of course you wouldn’t have found it."
"What? Of course? Is there a reason for that?"
I could have listed dozens of reasons, but I kept the explanation simple for now. This was not the moment for a full professional lecture.
"Yes. At first glance centipedes turn up in dark, damp places, so people assume they’re easy to find in thickets or dense vegetation. But not every centipede likes those spots."
Centipedes are rather unusual animals.
They belong to the phylum Arthropoda, subphylum Myriapoda, class Chilopoda. As cold-blooded creatures they are oddly territorial and require a proper hideout.
Another curious fact: most insects have smooth bodies coated with a waterproof membrane, so rain or droplets simply roll off. Centipedes, however, have weak waterproofing and spiracles on the surface of their exoskeleton; they actively dislike places with standing water.
They need high humidity, yet they hate excess water. On the other hand—perhaps because of all those legs—they cannot survive long without moisture either.
Therefore the odds of a large specimen settling in a jungle where it cannot hide its bulk, or along a riverbank, were low.
"So the places centipedes like aren’t gaps in rotting logs or the like?"
The old man’s voice showed he was struggling to follow.
He seemed to know the basics, so I explained why those spots would not yield the creature they sought.
"Some small centipedes are found in such places, but didn’t you say this one was large?"
"That’s right."
"Centipedes do like dampness, yet too much moisture is actually harmful. Moreover they love to hide their bodies. If the body is big, fallen trees in dense forest or small riverside rocks simply won’t do—there’s nowhere to conceal themselves."
People often decide centipedes adore wet ground because that is where they are usually spotted, but that is only true in well-ventilated outdoor settings. In captivity, excessive humidity invites fungal infections that kill them.
"All right, then where would it be?! If I find the Azure-Spotted Centipede in the place you name, I’ll reward you handsomely!"
My explanation had finally begun to sound plausible; expectation lit their eyes.
I pointed west.
"You should search the rocky mountain to the west."
Centipedes rest by day under stones warmed by the sun, then roam at night.
The crimson sunset was burning itself out, and so was the heart of Dang Cheol-san, Lord of the Sichuan Tang Family and the Heavenly Poison Scholar.
The sun was setting once more.
"Family Head, could the young hero’s words be wrong?"
At the cautious question from the captain of the Poison Blood Corps, Dang Cheol-san simply stared at him.
Twenty days had already passed since they entered Hainan Island. Four days since they left the strange young hero’s Taoist temple.
Dang Cheol-san had left the crumbling temple and, almost without rest, searched the rocky mountain by day and the border between mountain and river by evening, together with the warriors of the Sichuan Tang Family.
All of them had pinned their last hope on the boy’s story.
"If it’s a large centipede it will certainly need plenty of water, so at night—when it is active—check between the rocky mountain and the riverbank. By day look under the large rocks on the mountain itself. Centipedes warm themselves under sun-heated stones during the day and use that residual heat to move at night."
Was the young hero wrong…?
Behind the captain stood a line of exhausted warriors, faces streaked with sweat and dust, eyes begging for rest. They must have been bone-weary, yet not one of them uttered a complaint. They understood their lord’s heart.
Dang Cheol-san decided to grant the family warriors a respite. They needed dinner, and further searching today looked impossible.
"We’ll rest for today. We still have to eat. Send a signal flare toward Father’s group as well."
"Understood, Family Head."
—Piiiiing.
A signal flare arced into the sky as ordered, and the warriors began settling their spent bodies here and there along the mid-slope of the rocky mountain.
"Aigoo… I’m dying."
"Finally we can rest. Hope the young hero was right. Why won’t this damned centipede show itself?"
"Yeah, that boy looked pretty sharp."
The reason Dang Cheol-san had led even the family’s elite force—the Poison Blood Corps—and brought his father, the Myriad Poisons Divine Sovereign Dang Mu-seong, all the way from Sichuan to distant Hainan was his precious daughter.
Dang Hwa-eun, judged one of the most outstanding talents in Tang Clan history. At only eighteen she had reached first-rate, then grown greedy for poison arts and fallen into qi deviation.
With poison arts, qi deviation is both heart demon and poisoning. Because the poisoning had arrived hand-in-hand with deviation, even his father—bearer of the title Myriad Poisons Divine Sovereign—could not purge the toxin. Back in Sichuan his daughter was dying by inches.
Family elders and his wife had joined forces, sealing meridians with internal energy and pouring true qi into her to slow the poison’s advance, yet they were only delaying death. The venom seeping into her marrow was killing her moment by moment.
Their final hope had been to obtain the inner elixir of a poisonous creature and forcibly elevate the level of her martial arts—raising her realm high enough to neutralize every last drop of the poison arts toxin inside her.
So the Sichuan Tang Clan had commissioned both the Beggars’ Sect and the Haoma Sect, purchasing every scrap of intelligence on poisonous creatures scattered across the Central Plains. Warriors had been dispatched to every promising site.
They had scoured the jungles of Yunnan for a Two-Headed Snake and the forests of Guangxi for a Human-Faced Spider. All for nothing.
The last remaining lead—the most promising so far—was Hainan Island. A few years earlier a herb gatherer had reported seeing a large centipede marked with blue spots deep in the island’s jungle.
A large centipede with blue spots might not rank among the Ten Legendary Poisons of the Central Plains, yet it was certainly the Azure-Spotted Centipede, a creature known to form an inner elixir. The description matched the entry in the Tang Clan’s secret tome, the Secret Record of the World’s Poisons.
After landing on Hainan and confirming the herb gatherer’s testimony, they had ended up searching the area around the abandoned Taoist temple. Then, following the advice of a strange boy, they had hunted the rocky mountain by day and the mountain-river border after sunset. Three days had yielded not a single trace, and Dang Cheol-san’s chest burned with mounting dread.
Is Heaven abandoning Hwa-eun, the greatest talent in Tang Clan history?
A short while later the remaining half of the warriors, having seen the signal flare, gathered with his father. The Myriad Poisons Divine Sovereign Dang Mu-seong asked in a voice tight with anxiety,
"You found nothing today either?"
"Yes, Father… Did you find nothing as well?"
"…"
They already knew from each other’s faces that the day had been barren, yet the same desperate questions kept coming. His daughter’s poisoning could last three months at most; counting the journey home, they needed a discovery within ten days. Both father and son felt each dwindling day like a knife.
"Father, how about searching south tomorrow? Since we’ve found no traces, perhaps we should change the area…"
Dang Cheol-san decided to set aside the young hero’s advice and spoke carefully. He wanted to cover as much ground as possible in the time left. The western rocky mountain seemed exhausted; the unsearched south was the next logical step.
"Nothing… Certainly nothing so far… Hmm!? Nothing!?"
Dang Mu-seong had been shaking his head; suddenly his voice brightened with realization.
"Yes! That’s it! How did I not notice sooner! Yes! This is the place!"
They had found no sign of the Azure-Spotted Centipede, yet his father declared it was definitely here. Wondering whether the old man had sensed something he himself had missed, Dang Cheol-san asked quickly,
"H-have you discovered or sensed something?"
"No. As you said, I felt no traces and no presence."
The answer was strange—nothing felt, nothing found.
"Then why?"
"That is precisely why I feel it is here."
"Pardon?"
When Dang Cheol-san tilted his head in confusion, his father turned the question back on him.
"In three full days on this rocky mountain, what traces did you find?"
"None. No traces at all—no beast droppings, nothing… C-could it be!?"
The thought struck them both at once.
"Yes. Does it make sense that on this wide rocky mountain there are no rat droppings, not even a single bird feather? I only realized it a moment ago!"
Thinking back, Dang Cheol-san saw it clearly: not a single trace of deer, roe deer, or wild boar. Not even the ubiquitous rats.
And then—
Just as the warriors lit a fire and began preparing the evening meal—
—Rumble-rumble.
The flat rock they had chosen for their fire suddenly heaved, then was flung far away.
—Crash! Thud!
From the hole that opened where the rock had been, a sound rose that chilled the spine.
—Ssssssss…
Under the fully set sun, from a hole barely large enough for a man to crawl into, that eerie sound continued. Then, beneath the rising moonlight, something slowly pushed its head out of the darkness.
A massive body. Countless legs. Blue spots glittering along its back in the moonlight.
"That’s—!"
It was the Azure-Spotted Centipede recorded in the Tang Clan’s secret tome, the Secret Record of the World’s Poisons.
—Drip. Drip.
—Hiss…
Poison droplets fell from its venomous claws; the green grass blackened and withered on contact. Dang Cheol-san shouted at once to the Tang Family warriors.
"Everyone be careful! It’s the Azure-Spotted Centipede!"
Exactly as the young hero had said, the Azure-Spotted Centipede had been under the rock all along.
"Really on a rocky mountain like that?"
"I’m an expert in this field. I’m certain."
"Expert?"
The young hero’s absurd reply somehow flashed through Dang Cheol-san’s mind.