Chapter 82
Chapter 82
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Poison Core
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It felt like her skin was being peeled off while she was still alive.
Not just her skin—the excruciating pain seeped into every bone in her body.
Her sense of her body felt strange.
*This is similar to the symptoms that appeared when I ingested extreme poison.*
Dang Harin thought that, unable even to open her eyes.
But it wasn't just pain.
Occasionally, a refreshing sensation would return along with some sense of her body.
*Am I still alive?*
Her mind was hazy, preventing clear judgment.
Still, Dang Harin could only wait for this agonizing moment to end quickly, unable to even properly resist the incessantly infiltrating poison.
At that moment.
*-Circulate the Thousand Poisons Immunity Art.*
*What was that? Did someone just speak? Or was it a hallucination?*
Her senses were still off, but it felt like someone had said it.
She circulated the Thousand Poisons Immunity Art.
After all, in this moment, it was the only thing she could do.
It was a poison art she had just learned, and operating it while enduring the pain involved trial and error, but she eventually succeeded in moving her qi.
Following the Thousand Poisons Immunity Art's internal energy circulation method, her qi circulated through her body, alleviating the pain.
Thanks to that, some sensation returned—or perhaps it worsened.
In her daze, she felt like someone was massaging her arms and legs.
When pain intensified in her arms and legs, a refreshing sensation swept through those areas.
When pain surged in her torso, it felt like her back, hips, chest, and abdomen were being massaged, accompanied by the refreshing sensation that subsided the pain again.
Occasionally, the refreshing sensation lingered in her head.
*Huh? My poison qi...*
At some point, Dang Harin realized that sticky poison qi was accumulating in her own poison pill formed in one corner of her dantian.
It was a phenomenon she knew well from her immersion in Poison Person research.
Even without experiencing it herself, humanity passed down experiences through records to later generations.
*This seems like what happens when absorbing the Poison Core with the Thousand Poisons Immunity Art...?*
She didn't know how, but her mind cleared instantly.
Somehow, she might have unconsciously crawled to the center of the Poison Blood Pool and embraced the Poison Core.
*As expected of me! There's no way I'd break that easily!*
Dang Harin swelled with hope.
Thanks to the mysterious phenomenon, she was holding on, but she didn't know when the Poison Blood Pool's poison qi would completely break down her body.
But stabilizing the Poison Core alone would achieve the purpose of entering this place.
She gave it her all.
Gradually, as the Thousand Poisons Immunity Art became familiar, the speed of her qi circulating through her body increased.
Slowly, Dang Harin noticed something strange.
*No matter how I look at it, something's off... It's getting easier to endure.*
As sticky poison qi accumulated in her poison pill, the pain afflicting her whole body gradually lessened, and even the sticky poison qi seemed to be clumping together.
It was remarkably similar to the process of a poison pill absorbing the Poison Core to form a Poison Nucleus.
*If I succeed in forming a Poison Nucleus, I can become a Poison Person... Did my talent extend this far?*
Even without achieving great success in the Thousand Poisons Immunity Art—just at the entry level—she could endure the Poison Blood Pool's extreme poison to this degree.
Dang Harin marveled at her own genius.
With newfound confidence, her progress accelerated.
And soon after.
As her mind cleared and her bodily sensations rapidly recovered,
Dang Harin realized the true reason her body hadn't collapsed and was holding on.
*This feels just like when Yuseong detoxified me during the experiments!*
When pain arose in her chest, someone's touch lingered there.
The pain vanished along with the refreshing sensation.
“...!”
This time, pain in her lower abdomen...
Unable to move freely or speak while circulating the Thousand Poisons Immunity Art, Dang Harin could only blush,
surrendering her body to the touch without choice.
***
At some point, the touch vanished.
It was after the Poison Blood Pool's extreme poison could no longer affect Dang Harin's body.
Her entry-level Thousand Poisons Immunity Art had rapidly achieved great success in this special situation.
Even after the touch disappeared, she continued cultivating while harboring the Poison Core.
How many days had passed?
Around the time her stomach cried out fiercely with hunger, a Poison Nucleus finally took root in her body.
*I really succeeded...*
She had become the Poison Person of her dreams.
And at that, the youngest in history.
The unstable Poison Core had long stabilized.
She had entered the Poison Blood Pool without thought of returning alive, merely to stabilize the Poison Core, yet achieved the greatest possible result.
With the help of the person she presumed was Yuseong.
The Poison Nucleus had only just taken root in her body; to wield power as a Poison Person, she needed to sufficiently absorb the Poison Core's energy, but Dang Harin paused her cultivation and slyly opened her eyes.
Moonlight seeped in from a hole somewhere in the ceiling, illuminating her location and allowing her to make out her surroundings.
She was submerged in a violet poison pond.
No other beings were visible in the cave's vast open space.
Splash—
Dang Harin rose from the poison pond.
The Poison Core must have been located in the center of the poison pond.
But then.
“Eek!”
As her body was exposed under the moonlight, Dang Harin reflexively covered herself.
Not a single thread clung to her body.
Whether due to the poison art's influence, only her hair and body hair remained intact.
Seeing the remnants of green clothes and the white robes Yuseong had worn scattered along the cave passage she had presumably traversed, she pieced it together.
Her clothes must have disintegrated from enduring the vicious poison qi while coming here.
*Yuseong must have detoxified my body and carried me here to aid my cultivation. It wasn't just my mental fortitude...*
The voice she had heard in her haze was also Yuseong's, upon reflection.
Good heavens!
Even she, who had cultivated the Thousand Poisons Immunity Art, found it so painful—however exceptional his detoxification ability, how had Yuseong endured that agony...
Moreover.
The fact that Yuseong had massaged her entire body for detoxification directly on her bare skin...
Feeling embarrassed yet grateful toward Yuseong, she suddenly cried out.
“No way!”
Quite some time had passed since Yuseong's touch ceased.
If he had detoxified himself and safely exited, that would be one thing—but what if he had collapsed nearby?
If the man she would repay lifelong debts to met harm, Dang Harin wouldn't endure the guilt.
She unleashed her movement technique.
Her body felt light, her form shooting forward swiftly.
*Where is Yuseong?*
Despite the long cave passage, Yuseong was nowhere to be seen.
Relieved that he must have exited safely, she passed through dazzling white light and burst out the Poison Blood Pool entrance.
“Young Lady! You're truly safe!”
A single female warrior waited, holding clothes.
***
“Harin!”
After donning the clothes handed by the maid and passing through the gate marking the Poison Blood Pool boundary, countless people awaited Dang Harin.
“Really, what were you thinking, entering the Poison Blood Pool without a word... Ha... Still, you worked hard.”
“Well done! You saved our clan! You succeeded in your research and stabilized the Poison Blood Pool!”
“Harin, have you become a Poison Person?”
People clamored to speak, but Dang Harin's gaze searched only for Yuseong.
Even after hearing from the warrior that Yuseong had exited the Poison Blood Pool days ago, she wanted to confirm his safety herself.
“Where is Yuseong?”
“He left with the Murim Alliance group on some business. More importantly, aren't you hungry? Hurry and eat to sate your hunger, then rest well.”
“No issues with Yuseong, right? He didn't stagger when exiting the Poison Blood Pool or anything...”
“Well, from what Muha said, it didn't seem so...”
Dang Harin's gaze finally turned to her second brother.
He had been with her from the start of entering the Poison Blood Pool, so his words held the most credibility.
Dang Muha nodded and said,
“Rest assured. The Medical Pavilion Leader is safe.”
Though saddened by Yuseong's departure, hearing repeated assurances of his safety finally eased Dang Harin's tension.
“Phew...”
Dang Harin took a deep rest.
She would need to re-enter soon to absorb more from the Poison Core.
Dang Muha secretly visited Dang Harin.
“Harin, the Medical Pavilion Leader looked fatigued entering and exiting the Poison Blood Pool, but showed no signs of poisoning.”
“Ha... That's a relief. I was worried how much pain he endured...”
No matter how mysterious his detoxification ability, enduring the agony of one's body melting was another matter.
She could vividly imagine how much Yuseong, with an ordinary body, had suffered, weighing on her heart...
Just as she sighed in relief that he had detoxified appropriately.
“To be precise, he showed no effect from the Poison Blood Pool's extreme poison from the very start.”
“What...? What do you mean, brother...?”
“You know what I mean, don't you?”
“That... That's impossible...?”
Immunity to All Poisons was mere legend.
There were those in the past who boasted of achieving it, but they merely resisted poison better—no one was truly immune to all poisons.
But Dang Muha's serious expression conveyed it.
Yuseong's display could only be explained as the legendary Immunity to All Poisons.
“...”
In the end, amid the immense accomplishment of successfully becoming a Poison Person as her great-aunt wished came the sense of loss that she could now truly never wed.
That sense of loss transformed into anticipation.
Dang Harin suddenly recalled Yuseong's hypothetical question: *If there were a safe way to enter the Poison Blood Pool.*
*If that was real...*
She had developed great fondness for Yuseong through this incident—she absolutely could not let him go.
He was the destined match permitted by fate.
*I was too hasty. Yurin, something unforgivable might happen...*
A man with innate talent in poisons and medicine was perfectly suited as a son-in-law for the Sichuan Tang Clan.
Yet suddenly, another thought arose.
What if it wasn't Immunity to All Poisons?
It might sting a bit, but with detoxification ability to endure the Poison Blood Pool, Yuseong could surely accept her, right?
She'd have to forgo children, though.
*If he groped my virgin body to his heart's content, he has to take responsibility.*
Dang Harin licked her lips.