Chapter 247
Chapter 247
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 247
Chapter Title: Poison Pit Experiment
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Dang Myeong-ok slipped out of the warehouse, suppressing her surging emotions as she dashed to her brother Dang Myeong-jin's quarters.
She clutched a notebook meticulously recording the names and ratios of the poison herbs, her body hunched over tightly.
With swift lightness skills, she entered the hall where Dang Myeong-jin was staying in an instant, locked the door, and plopped down at the table.
Thud!
Dang Myeong-jin, who had been crouched on the bed soothing his wounded heart after getting scolded by Dang Ui-cheon, looked at her with baffled eyes.
"...What are you doing?"
Dang Myeong-ok didn't answer right away and took several deep breaths.
Even as she did, she kept rolling her eyes left and right, vigilantly scanning the surroundings.
Dang Myeong-jin let out a hollow laugh at her blatantly suspicious behavior.
Has this sister lost her mind?
"Did you go eat some bad medicine or something?"
"I wrote down the secret method."
"What?"
"The method to build poison resistance! I wrote it all down!"
Heat radiated from Dang Myeong-ok's voice.
Dang Myeong-jin stared at her in bewilderment.
"What secret method did you figure out already?"
"I saw it from start to finish."
"Seeing it doesn't make it a secret method you know."
"We'll have to mix it ourselves. I wrote down all the ingredients and ratios. Nothing's missing. I even saw how they distribute it."
"Seeing it doesn't make it a secret method. There must be some other technique."
"No, it's right. You'll understand if you see it too."
Dang Myeong-ok handed the notebook to Dang Myeong-jin.
It was filled densely with writing and diagrams, like a miniature martial arts manual.
It detailed the pit's depth and width, even the body type of the person inside.
And how the mixture was done.
The amount of information Dang Myeong-ok had jotted down in that short time was beyond what ordinary people could even dream of.
"Faded Leaf Herb, Ecstasy Bone, Broadleaf Scripture... They're all poison herbs, aren't they?"
"The stuff that Elder Gwang-ryong took from the Poison Pill Hall's warehouse was all poison herbs too. He said he was building resistance over three days and took them for that."
"Mm!"
Dang Myeong-jin nodded.
She was right.
Hadn't they mocked it themselves, wondering if that would really build poison resistance?
And with this level of detail and perfection in the mixture, he thought it sufficient for building resistance.
Dang Myeong-ok's eyes gleamed as she spoke.
"Now that we know the method, we just need to experiment and confirm."
"...Who?"
"You and me."
"Wait a second."
Is this crazy sister seriously suggesting...?
Dang Myeong-jin looked at her with trembling eyes.
"...You're not telling me to get in that pit, are you?"
"Yeah, why wouldn't I?"
"...."
"Poor little brother. Doesn't your big sis worry about you?"
Dang Myeong-ok spoke bluntly yet calmly.
"You can't stay down forever. If I say you helped uncover the secret method, Father will be pleased."
Dang Myeong-jin rolled his eyes wildly before nodding.
"...So how do we do it?"
"First, follow the handwritten notes in the notebook."
"Do we have to dig a hole in the ground?"
"That's what they did in the Nangong Clan."
At Dang Myeong-ok's words, Dang Myeong-jin sighed and went outside.
He dug the pit just as specified in the notebook.
Meanwhile, Dang Myeong-ok fetched the poison herbs and dumped them into the pit.
"Get in."
"...."
"Hurry."
Dang Myeong-jin peered into the pit with a reluctant face.
The poison herbs inside were all vicious ones that induced agony.
Even Dang Myeong-jin, who had some resistance to poison, would have to endure tremendous pain from these.
'She picked only the ones that hurt like hell, damn it.'
Dang Myeong-jin gave Dang Myeong-ok a pitiful look, but she was resolute.
"No, get in."
"...Crazy."
"Come on."
Gulp!
Dang Myeong-jin swallowed dryly as he stared into the pit writhing with poison herbs.
After hesitating several times, he squeezed his eyes shut and threw himself into the pit.
'Alright, just endure it once...'
A squelching sensation hit, and the toxic fumes from the poison herbs seeped into his skin.
Alternating between Three Yang Divine Art and Returning Origin Divine Art, Dang Myeong-jin gritted his teeth.
Itchy.
The slippery, squelchy feeling intensified.
It felt like armies of ants crawling up from his toes.
From outside the pit, Dang Myeong-ok asked.
"How is it?"
"I don't kn— Urp!"
"Keep telling me what it feels like."
"I said I don't— Ugh!"
"Keep circulating your qi. See if anything changes."
Dang Myeong-ok began solemnly recording Dang Myeong-jin's changes.
Rustle, rustle.
"What, what are you doing?"
"Need to adjust the amount. Can't have you dying from shock, so I'll increase the ratios bit by bit."
"You didn't say anything like that!"
"It's in the notebook?"
"Wh-what?!"
Dang Myeong-jin started twisting his body, groaning in pain.
"Ugh! Uuugh! Uuuuugh!"
"Aaah. Aaaaaugh!"
"Aaaagh! Shit, aaaagh! Is this right?! Aagh, augh! Aaaagh! Aaaaaagh!"
"It hurts! It huuuurts!"
Dang Myeong-jin thrashed about inside the pit.
He'd never felt pain like this in his life.
It was incomparable to swallowing poison powder in tea.
'Crazy bastards! They endured this?! This?!'
Do they enjoy the pain?
Why suffer like this?!
Why the hell did the Nangong Clan make this resistance method to torture people!
Hey, you crazy sister! Get me out, please!
Glug! Gluglug!
As Dang Myeong-jin flailed, he foamed at the mouth and rolled his eyes back.
Twitch, twitch!
Dang Myeong-ok stopped writing and tilted her head.
Dang Myeong-jin, who had briefly passed out, snapped awake from the poison's torment.
"Huaaaagh!"
"...Not enough?"
"Ugh, uugh! Wh-what?!"
"How the hell did they endure this? Or is there a special way to endure it?"
"A, aaaagh! S-save... save meee!"
"Wait a sec. Let's add more poison."
"I-is this really right? Is it?!"
"Yeah."
Probably.
Dang Myeong-ok didn't voice the last part and just watched Dang Myeong-jin.
After thrashing for a while, Dang Myeong-jin went still.
As his mind went white, he bit his lower lip until it bled.
His head spun, his stomach churned, his skin burned like fire...
'What? It, it's better than at first?'
Is it actually working?
"Uugh! Uuugh!"
Does this insane method really work?
"How is it?"
"B-bearable?"
"Right?"
"B-but... how long do we do this?"
"Well, three days?"
"Th-three days?!"
"Or maybe make it stronger."
You crazy sister! What if I die?!
Wait, hold on.
Pffft!
Hideous poison from the incoming poison herbs and juices spread through his body.
Dang Myeong-jin shuddered and writhed in the pit.
Dang Myeong-ok noted it down, then quietly threw herself into the dug pit.
She'd finished recording; now it was time to experience it herself.
"Kuueuugh!"
"Kaaaaagh!"
The two siblings of the Sichuan Tang Clan writhed and trembled in the poison pit.
They didn't know.
The poison pit they were soaking in was the secret(?) torture method Nangong-hyeok had used since long ago.
If they'd known, they never would have jumped in willingly.
And they certainly wouldn't have chattered like this.
"B-bearable?"
"K-kh! R-resistance is building!"
"It really works!"
"S-see, I told you?!"
"S-seems so?"
The two siblings gritted their teeth and endured.
A day passed like that.
* * *
A space blocked by cliffs on three sides, shrouded in fog.
In this mysterious terrain on the border between the Central Plains and the Western Frontier, Oduk Sect Leader Cheop Cheong-won lay prostrate, tense and body low.
His dark skin looked pale with fear as he trembled in tension.
No one could imagine the lord of the Oduk Sect, who dominated northern Southern Barbarians and was called the Southern Barbarian Poison King, showing such a sight.
He raised his head with shaking eyes.
A man in a red robe with a stern expression gazed down at Cheop Cheong-won.
His gaze naturally carried an overwhelming pressure that crushed people.
He was Demon Shadow, one of the Twelve Emissaries under Sa-ryeong.
"The formation guarded by the Thousand Poisons Squad was breached by the Sichuan Tang Clan?"
"We urgently sent reinforcements, but the Sichuan Tang Clan had already routed the Thousand Poisons Squad..."
"They withstood Blood Curtain Poison?"
"According to the survivors... the N-Nangong Clan intervened midway and swept away the Thousand Poisons Squad."
"Nangong Clan..."
Demon Shadow's expression shifted subtly.
"So those guys have come."
"Yes... The Sichuan Tang Clan must have requested aid and pulled in outside forces. More reinforcements might come."
"Hm."
Demon Shadow exhaled lowly.
'Lord Sa-ryeong was right.'
He had said the Nangong Clan might appear here too.
Whether the Sichuan Tang Clan requested it or not, Sa-ryeong had foreseen that the Nangong Clan—especially those Thunder Dragon Squad bastards—were strangely entangled with their side.
And if they truly appeared, what they were after.
"The Millennium Crimson Crane must be their goal."
"Pardon? How would the Sichuan Tang Clan and Nangong Clan know the true nature of the Millennium Crimson Crane..."
Cheop Cheong-won showed bewilderment.
The Millennium Crimson Crane's existence was top secret.
Who would think a spirit beast like the Millennium Crimson Crane existed in this barren border of Western Frontier and Sichuan?
No one in the world should know.
If things went wrong...
"You should hurry a bit..."
Demon Shadow glanced at him.
The blazing intensity in his eyes made Cheop Cheong-won prostrate flat.
Just meeting the gaze sent chills down his spine.
Demon Shadow's presence felt abyssally distant.
"The Millennium Crimson Crane's poison reaches its peak for only a single moment. Any other time, it's meaningless."
The common knowledge about the Millennium Crimson Crane was wrong.
No, inaccurate was more precise.
The Millennium Crimson Crane releases all the poison accumulated in its body over a thousand years in one burst, once in its lifetime.
That virulent poison turns the surroundings into a land of death.
To use the Millennium Crimson Crane, one must strike at that peak moment.
Miss it, and it's worthless.
Cheop Cheong-won bowed his head under Demon Shadow's chilling gaze.
"I-I'm sorry."
"Strengthen the perimeter guards even more. Especially, let no one enter the Millennium Crimson Crane's territory. It's most sensitive when the poison peaks."
"I'll keep it in mind."
Demon Shadow stood.
'Nangong Clan.'
He vowed to turn this border into their grave.
As Demon Shadow moved, the revealed sight made Cheop Cheong-won shudder.
The corpses of the Thousand Poisons Squad and Oduk Sect's elite warriors who had returned alive were stained red.
Behind the departing Demon Shadow, a thick shadow of death seemed to loom.
* * *
"Kaaaa..."
"Uaaaa..."
"Guh, guh!"
"K-kill... me..."
Nangong-hyeok perked his ears at the Thousand Poisons Squad warriors drooling saliva.
Sal Mu-geuk wheezed, tears streaming.
'Just let me die peacefully...'
His poison pearl stolen, tongue bound, acupoints sealed...
He couldn't even suicide.
Yet somehow, they shoved him into a pit full of poison herbs and sprinkled bizarre drugs, unleashing pain worse than death.
Even burning alive wouldn't hurt this much.
The horrific agony melting his soul left him gaping.
No poison from the Southern Barbarians, not even the extreme anguish poisons, reached this level...
In the timeless warehouse hell, even he, trained in poison arts, couldn't keep his sanity.
"...I-I'll tell you everything. Everything, so please spare me."
Nangong-hyeok scratched his head.
"H-hey, I haven't even shown half of what I prepared."
Y-you mad bastard... Is this a show-off? What more?
"Wh-what do you want..."
"Ah, hold on. Roughly tenderized, now time to mince."
"I-I'm not meat..."
"Lightly mince first, then talk."
"W-wait!"
Sal Mu-geuk hurriedly opened his mouth.
"We were guarding the area because of the Millennium Crimson Crane! The reason we entered the border region was precisely for the Millennium Crimson Crane..."
"I know."
"Yes, exactly... Yes?"
What?
He knows?
This is top secret?
Nangong-hyeok grinned.
"Not ready to talk yet? Let's keep going until you are."
"I was just about to teeeell! Mmph! Mmmph!"
"Shh, shh. Ah, open wide. Ah!"
Nangong-hyeok roughly pried open Sal Mu-geuk's mouth and poured in poison.
The watching Thousand Poisons Squad gasped and trembled.
A horror worse than death was descending on them.