Chapter 100
Chapter 100
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 100
Chapter Title: Tang Clan
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The impromptu duel in the middle of the street was about to begin without delay.
Hundreds of warriors who had come wary of the Tang Clan blocked off the road to form an arena, and Tang Seojin stood there leisurely with his hands behind his back, covering his mouth with his widely opened fan.
—Why did it turn out like this?
“Yuri-nim, wait a moment.”
Ha-ryeong moved hurriedly without getting lost in thought. Yuri, who had been sitting on the ground massaging his knee and shoulder joints, spoke without even glancing at the approaching Ha-ryeong.
“Just watch from behind.”
“Why are you suddenly acting like this?”
“Acting like what?”
“You’re not the type to do something this aggressive.”
“I often gauged the mood and bent a little.”
Yuri replied with an indifferent expression as he shook out his wrists.
“When it came to opponents stronger than me, ones I didn’t want as enemies, or ones whose intentions I couldn’t read.”
“The Tang Clan…”
“Probably stronger than me. Don’t want them as enemies. Can’t read why they’re suddenly throwing this tantrum. So, do you want to go to the Tang Clan, Ha-ryeong-nim?”
At the question, Ha-ryeong fell silent for a moment. The doubt of why this man was suddenly stepping up for her flashed through her mind. But what needed to be done now wasn’t asking for reasons—it was answering the question.
“I…”
This time, she didn’t evade the answer. Ha-ryeong looked straight into Yuri’s face and continued slowly.
“Not yet… no, I don’t want to be dragged off like this. And especially not with those annoying nephews.”
“Understood.”
Preparations were complete. Yuri stood from his spot and handed his robe to Ha-ryeong after taking it off.
“If you don’t want to go, then don’t.”
He didn’t ask if he could win. Yuri’s actions now were unlike his usual self, but Ha-ryeong believed one thing hadn’t changed.
If he thought he’d lose, that man wouldn’t step into the duel. He must believe he could win.
‘Four Seasons Reverse Heaven Shift?’
Was he planning to test the war cult’s divine relic? No, more than that…
‘Gevra.’
That wasn’t the whole reason, but as Ha-ryeong surmised, Yuri wanted to test Gevra’s capabilities.
It was impossible to use the Four Seasons Reverse Heaven Shift in a mere duel that wasn’t a fight to the death, but Gevra was different. Gevra’s power was already within Yuri, and the flame serpent dwelled in the flames of the Heavenly Principle Annihilating Evil Art.
“I won’t yield the first move.”
Tang Seojin, with one arm behind his back, spoke with a thin smile. Behind him stood Tang Museok and Tang Seowoo. Tang Museok wore an expression that showed he wasn’t pleased with the situation itself, but Tang Seowoo’s eyes sparkled as she stared intently at Yuri.
She imagined Yuri suffering a crushing defeat. How dare this fool insult the Tang Clan’s name. It was a duel where killing wasn’t allowed, but she hoped he’d face a humiliating loss that would drag his reputation through the mud.
How entertaining would it be if the man called the Cloud Dragon, his shoulders tense with power, ended up crawling on the ground like an Earth Dragon in front of all these people?
‘What would that millennium guy think seeing that?’
Just the thought was so delightful that a smile spread across her face unbidden.
“Thank you for yielding the first move.”
Yuri nodded as he thrust his right fist forward.
In duels or spars, it was common for the more skilled or senior party to yield the first strike. Tang Seojin was 33 years old—11 years older than Yuri—and higher in tier, so it made sense for him to yield.
Of course, yielding the first strike didn’t mean he had to take the attack unconditionally. Dodge or block. But no counterattacking. Typically, they would flow with it and exchange moves.
‘First one for starters.’
So, if he slammed home a first strike that couldn’t be dodged or blocked, that would do it. Yuri steadied his breathing and circulated the Heavenly Principle Annihilating Evil Art. —Whoosh. Crimson flames wrapped around his right arm like a living serpent before concentrating in his fist.
“...?”
Tang Seojin’s eyes, hidden behind his fan-covered mouth, widened in surprise. Flame-like battle aura. It didn’t just look that way. Even to the naked eye, those flames followed a different trajectory from ordinary battle aura.
‘What… is that?’
Yuri had no concern for whatever Tang Seojin was thinking. He continued guiding the fiercely blazing flames toward his fist. Thump, thump, thump… The vigorously pulsing flames repeatedly expanded and contracted, gradually morphing into a ‘point.’
He concentrated his power into that single point. He even infused it with his intent. It was Tang Seojin who had said to go all out, so Yuri held nothing back.
He had halted midway on his path to the 6th tier. Yuri’s current tier was at the peak of the 5th, but what he could accomplish far surpassed the 5th. Especially in manipulating intent, he was in no way inferior even to the 6th tier.
“Wai…”
He couldn’t let it continue. The moment Tang Seojin voiced his judgment, Yuri’s foot pushed off the ground.
What he desired was a first strike that could neither be blocked nor dodged, no matter what. His martial art followed that desire. Yuri’s body, enhanced by Gevra’s flames, was incomparably stronger than when he had faced the asura, and lightning dwelled within that body’s explosive power.
—Spinning Sunbolt.
A purple bolt of lightning, tipped with a red point, tore through space. In Tang Seojin’s bulging eyes, nothing was visible but a crimson flood surging toward him. The intensely focused power, enough to distort the surrounding scenery, threw his vision into chaos.
‘Gasp…!’
Tang Seojin hurriedly leaped backward while concentrating his protective battle aura. He couldn’t counterattack. He had to dodge or block.
‘Too fast…!’
He lacked confidence in dodging cleanly. Then he had to block.
Could he block it?
—KABOOM!
His mind went blank. He couldn’t properly assess what had happened to his body, and the sky visible in his eyes spun dizzily. Then it flipped over, revealing the ground.
“Urk…”
Crack, crack…! His twisted arm returned to its original angle. His distant mind returned. Just before smashing his face into the ground, Tang Seojin urgently braked his body.
If he had regained his senses even a little later, he would have faceplanted. Gulping down his breath, Tang Seojin raised his body. Even with his protective battle aura up, he hadn’t been able to hold his ground and had been launched high into the air. The left arm that had taken the fist had its bones crushed, and the shock he hadn’t fully deflected had shaken his internals.
But it was fine. As a direct descendant of the Tang Clan, Tang Seojin was a poison man. His body was on a different level from ordinary people, and even from warriors or mages.
‘As expected of a Tang direct descendant.’
Yuri turned his foot without panic. Compared to their low health pools, the Tang Clan in the game were annoyingly hard to kill. That was because they mostly had strong resistance to elemental attacks, and on top of that, their health regeneration speed was ridiculously fast.
The standard strategies were to calculate their resistances and one-shot them, to pile on debuffs, or to beat them down faster than they could regenerate.
What Yuri was familiar with was the latter.
“Grit…!”
Sticky green light oozed from the eyes of the staggering Tang Seojin. He couldn’t use killing strikes. He couldn’t use poison. He couldn’t kill. The conditions of the duel that Tang Seojin himself had stated became shackles.
The line between the 5th and 6th tiers was whether one could use intent.
As a direct descendant of a famed house who had learned divine arts, Tang Seojin knew that this ‘intent’ wasn’t exclusively for the 6th tier and above. If one had learned divine arts, they could handle intent even at the 5th tier.
But even so, 5th-tier intent couldn’t match the 6th. At best, intent handled at that level was used to manipulate qi and mix it into battle aura to boost power. Even if the opponent wasn’t a normal 5th tier, he couldn’t be a match for Tang Seojin, who had properly reached the 6th tier through the Tang Clan’s divine arts.
—Whoooo…
An eerie sound scratched at Yuri’s eardrums. He wasn’t sure exactly where it was coming from. Sounds approaching from all directions clung stickily to his mind, and ink began creeping in from the edges of his vision.
‘Sound art… no, illusion technique?’
His tiptoes, raised like a bird’s, scraped the ground. Tang Seojin’s body shook like a ghost. Beyond the ink encroaching from the edges of his vision, Tang Seojin’s form vanished.
It was footwork similar to Ha-ryeong’s but on a far higher level. That was probably the Tang Clan martial art that Ha-ryeong hadn’t been properly taught.
‘He said no poison. Is the intent spread with qi sticking to my mind to create illusions? Or is this sound actually functioning as sound art?’
Either way, it was the art of an assassin who concealed their presence and aimed for blind spots. There was no need for Yuri to panic. The Four Gates Thunder Net was already spread around him.
Thud!
Tang Seojin, who had approached like a ghost, recoiled in alarm. It was because of the attack that had flown at him the instant he closed the distance.
‘How?’
It was an attack a 5th tier couldn’t perceive. How had he known? —With his eyes?
‘He wasn’t even looking.’
Yuri’s eyes were only now turning this way. He had perceived it without looking? What kind of freakish senses were these? Instead of retreating further, Tang Seojin closed the distance. Slash! The fully opened fan dove toward Yuri.
‘It’s not just any fan, of course.’
A mere graze would sever bones with its sharpness. If that was all, it would be better to just swing a sword.
Whoooo…
Every time the fan cut through the air, a bizarre vibrational hum rang out. Was it a weapon for sound art? The moment one became conscious of sound art, it clung to the mind. It showed hallucinations, disrupted the senses, and ultimately shook the spirit. The speed of the ink encroaching from the edges of his vision quickened, and he felt a churning nausea as if the world had flipped upside down.
Crack.
He already had a countermeasure for mental attacks. The moment he became aware of it, the Veil of Deception around his neck activated. He had resisted even the nightmares created by the asura’s divine authority, so there was no way his mind would be shaken by sound art of this level. The ink’s advance halted, and his senses returned.
A counter had already been launched against the attack detected by the Four Gates Thunder before his eyes even registered it.
Bang!
The fan bounced backward. Tang Seojin’s eyes widened in disbelief. He wasn’t even staggered by the sound art at this range?
‘What the hell is this bastard?’
Neither sound art nor illusions worked, and ambushes were perceived before they could even reach him. How was this possible? Tang Seojin gripped his disordered mind and folded his fan once before opening it again.
Tap! With a crisp sound, Tang Seojin’s stance shifted. He was now properly unfolding his martial art. Ghost Sound Killing Fan Dance. The fan moved languidly in time with his ghost-like shaking footwork.
Disorienting with sound wasn’t the entirety of sound art. Sound infused with inner power shook space itself. If intent was added, it could strike space with sound.
The Ghost Sound Killing Fan Dance was such an art. As Tang Seojin’s fan slashed empty air, slashing strikes crossed the distance and assaulted Yuri.
Four Gates Thunder.
The web of thunder qi perceived the slashes. Yuri leisurely dodged the attack while swinging his hand. A small sphere of battle aura floated lightly between Tang Seojin and Yuri.
—Crackle! The sphere burst, unleashing a blast of thunder qi. The throwing knives he had tossed amid the fan dance were blocked by the thunder.
‘Damn it…’
He had learned man-slaying martial arts but was banned from killing strikes, and as a poison man, he was banned from poison.
He hadn’t thought there would be a problem. Less because of his arrogance and more because Yuri was too far beyond common sense.
Resisting disorientation with the Veil of Deception and sealing ambushes at the source with the Four Gates Thunder while not skimping on firepower. With killing strikes and poison banned, Yuri’s firepower was overwhelmingly superior.
KABOOM!
That was why Tang Seojin’s body was pushed back once more. He barely suppressed the ‘poison’ bubbling in his gut. Not much time had passed since the duel began, but he had already swallowed his killing intent more than ten times. Should he draw out the poison? Use a killing strike? He kept suppressing such impulses.
It was Tang Seojin who had said to go all out, so Yuri had no need to hold back. That was why Yuri freely poured violence onto Tang Seojin.
His cherished fan was gradually chipping away. A poison man’s resilient body instantly recovered from ordinary wounds, but that guy’s fist made his bones ache even on a graze. No, it burned. Like being seared with a branding iron.
“No way…”
“Really? Is that Tang Clan’s Dark Mist Poison Dragon losing to the Cloud Dragon?”
The onlookers’ voices grated on him. You ignorant vermin yapping away without knowing anything. Losing? How was not going all out, not using killing strikes or poison, a loss? Victory and defeat were decided by life and death, not some piddling duel. This was—this was a way for warriors to build camaraderie…
“Brother?”
Tang Seowoo’s voice rang out. Ah, a fist grazed his chin. Hot heat surged straight to his brain. He didn’t know if it was the fist’s heat or just his rage boiling over.
Green light overflowed from Tang Seojin’s pupils. Rumble! His veins bulged and writhed across his entire body, and the nature of his protective battle aura changed. The poison surging from his dantian had dyed his inner power.
‘You bastard, I’ll kill…’
KABOOM!
Before he could properly unleash the poison, a fist slammed into his chest.
“Guh.”
Black blood sprayed from his gaping mouth. As the staggering Tang Seojin retreated, another fist plunged into his chest. KABOOM! Unable to hold his ground, Tang Seojin’s body flew backward, rolling across the dirt.
“Kraaaah!”
He sprang to his feet the moment he stopped rolling. Tang Seojin wrapped poison around his arms and lunged again, only to freeze stiff in place.
“You… what are you doing?”
“The duel is over.”
Yuri, who had raised both arms high above his head, replied.
“You said no killing strikes and no poison, Tang Seojin-nim.”
“…”
“But right now, you used poison. So the duel is finished.”
Tang Seojin had no words to reply and could only twitch his lips.
“Thank you for the duel. I gained a valuable lesson.”
It wasn’t something he had much practice with, so it felt unfamiliar, but Yuri formed a fist salute and smiled.
“With this exchange deepening our camaraderie, who knows—someday I might even call you brother.”
At the blatant taunt, Tang Seojin’s shoulders trembled violently.