Chapter 64
Chapter 64
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 64
Chapter Title: Spectating
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The sudden onslaught threw the Poison Admiral Hall into chaos.
With Central Dark Hall having relocated to Hanyang County and Shadow Ink Pavilion to Hangoojin, there was only one force in Muchang County capable of assaulting the Poison Admiral Hall.
The sect leader's personal strike force.
The Tyrant Escort Squad.
They should have departed alongside the sect leader, but he had left them behind in Muchang.
He had no need for them anyway.
Though they were the Tyrant Apex Sect's premier fighting unit, even their combined might couldn't match the sect leader, who had forged the Three Tyrant Bases.
With the Tyrant Escort Squad merely tagging along in his shadow, needing his protection in turn, why would he bother with them?
Yet their prowess was undeniably devastating.
They were a force more renowned than Mount Hua Sect's elite Plum Blossom Swordsmen or the Nangong family's Nine Heavens Sword Brigade, touted as the pinnacle among the Eight Great Clans.
That was the Tyrant Escort Squad.
The Poison Admiral Hall's warriors were masters who would command respect in any faction, but they paled against the Escort Squad.
Moreover, the Escort Squad hailed from the same Tyrant Apex Sect as the Poison Admiral Hall.
They knew the Poison Hall's martial arts all too well.
It was overwhelming suppression.
A one-sided rampage.
The Poison Admiral Hall had prepared defenses, but they hadn't anticipated such a full-throttle assault.
Besides, the true power of their signature poison arts stemmed from meticulous preparation.
With the enemy breaching from within, dismantling their traps and mechanisms, then charging in clad head to toe in anti-poison gear, the Poison Hall couldn't bring their strengths to bear.
"Activate the Phantom Veil Formation!"
"The formation's core has already been destroyed!"
"Already? Those bastards came prepared!"
"Smash their anti-poison masks! There aren't many in the Escort Squad who train in poison arts anyway! We can subdue them with poison mist afterward!"
"The distance..."
"They're too fast!"
Screams and shouts erupted from every corner of the Poison Admiral Hall's compound.
Among the Tyrant Apex Sect's three major factions, the Poison Admiral Hall naturally outnumbered the Escort Squad, which consisted of carefully vetted elites based on skill and loyalty.
Yet the Escort Squad held the upper hand even against several times their number.
They demonstrated the textbook perfection of a small elite unit of peak masters exploiting the element of surprise to strike at vital points.
Even more fatal to the Poison Admiral Hall was how few of their disciples fought the Escort Squad to the death.
"Those loyal to the sect leader, surrender!"
"Surrender and we'll seal your acupoints—fall back!"
At the Escort Squad's call, most Poison Hall warriors obediently dropped their fans and hidden weapons, raising their hands in submission.
The human experiments in the slums hadn't been the Poison Admiral's orders.
In fact, only a select few even knew about them.
They knew full well that their deeds must never leak out.
The fewer who knew, the better.
Still, not every unrelated warrior in the Poison Admiral Hall surrendered.
The clash between Poison Admiral Hall and Tyrant Escort Squad teetered without tipping decisively, crumbling bit by bit.
Once frontlines began to form...
He made his move.
"So be it...!"
Determined to draw blood, was he?
Then we won't back down either.
Poison Admiral Leader Gong Yatak.
The former sect leader himself.
Gritting his teeth at the carnage unfolding outside, he seethed.
His cherished Poison Admiral disciples were being subdued or surrendering before his eyes, filling him with visceral heartbreak.
As leader of the Poison Admiral Hall—and once head of the Tyrant Apex Sect.
Gong Yatak's face twisted into a demonic scowl.
"Poison Admiral disciples, hear me! Do not surrender! They seek our annihilation—fight back! I will stand at your forefront!"
The roar of a transcendent master was a sonic assault in itself.
Gong Yatak's bellow reverberated across the battlefield, shifting the momentum.
"Whoa... they're really putting on a show."
From atop one of the Tyrant Apex Sect's palace roofs, Wi Sowol and Hwang Bo Yun spectated the melee below.
Naturally, they held snacks in hand—Dongpo Cakes, a specialty from neighboring Hwangju County's bakery.
"Sowol, did you see that guy just now? Nailed the Cloud Hands Reversal."
"Mm. Su Dongpo's culinary skills are pretty solid, yeah."
"...I was talking about martial arts, you know."
Hwang Bo Yun shot a sullen glance at Wi Sowol, who was devouring the Dongpo Cakes at twice her own pace despite claiming not to eat them.
"Like this, right?"
Mimicking the technique she'd just witnessed, Hwang Bo Yun slapped her palm upward, then flipped it downward.
A swift linkage of downward palm strike (覆手) and upward deflection (翻手).
"Textbook perfect. So what?"
"Usually it's done with both hands, no? One deflects with Flip Hand, the other attacks with Covering Hand. But chaining them like that merges defense-breaking and counter into a single form."
Whoosh—whoosh—
Repeating the motion a few times like review, Hwang Bo Yun refined her clumsy initial attempt into a seamless whole.
"Picked up something good."
"Me too."
Su Dongpo was one hell of a chef.
Wi Sowol thought so as she cleared her empty Dongpo Cake pouch and snatched another snack bag—Ginseng Nuts—from Hwang Bo Yun's belt.
"Oh."
This one's Yellow Bean Crisps, huh.
'Liu Bei. Liu Bei was a fine chef too.'
The Three Kingdoms' Liu Bei, yes.
The Yellow Bean Crisps, said to be his battlefield rations, translated literally as "yellow bean fries"—but used wheat flour and egg batter sliced thin and fried, no beans in sight.
Bean-less bean snacks, essentially.
Shaped like beans, fried, tossed in malt candy or honey, coated in sesame for neat squares that mimicked yellow bean chews—hence the name.
Yellow Bean Crisps were a Hyeongju County specialty, a familiar taste from her days in Gangneung County.
'Originally, Liu Bei steamed them without frying, right?'
Then the frying innovation must've come from Lu Xun of Yiling fame.
No chef rivaled Lu Xun at wielding fire.
Today's Yellow Bean Crisps were practically the joint masterpiece of master chefs Liu Bei and Lu Xun.
"Ah! That last one was good too. Body Reliance Strikes are rare to see. Central Dark Hall really turns the whole body into a weapon. The name checks out."
For someone born with the Heavenly King Physique, using her own body brought Hwang Bo Yun near perfection.
After a few experimental twists, she instantly adapted Central Dark Hall's Body Reliance to her frame.
While Hwang Bo Yun pilfered Tyrant Apex Sect fist techniques, Wi Sowol pilfered her snack pouch.
What goes around comes around—taiji in action.
Such was the way of the world.
Thus, Wi Sowol tuned her ears to Hwang Bo Yun's play-by-play, her mouth to the snacks, and finally tasked her eyes.
"Here he comes."
Pat-pat.
Dusting crumbs from her hands with a flick.
Only then did Hwang Bo Yun realize Wi Sowol had monopolized the snacks, lightning-checking her pouch.
And there she beheld the massacre: her hard-hoarded pouches utterly ransacked.
"You—you!"
As Hwang Bo Yun squawked, Gong Yatak's roar swept the battlefield.
Wi Sowol brushed off the side noise, sharpening all her senses on the man who would anchor this fray.
"His martial arts are the real deal, at least."
Not like those vaguely peak-to-transcendent straddlers, dubbing themselves "utmost peak" or whatever baseless nonsense.
This was true transcendence, breaching limits into another realm, his aura whipping the battlefield into frenzy.
The one-sidedly pushed Poison Admiral Hall rallied around him.
The Hall launched a counteroffensive.
The Tyrant Escort Squad fell back for the first time.
Even as their leaders gathered to block Gong Yatak, they scrambled desperately to defend, adding numbers in vain.
Transcendent masters demand transcendent counters.
An age-old rivers-and-lakes truth.
Peak masters ganging up on a transcendent? Casualties would be anyone's guess.
Best case: a few deaths. Worst: all the peaks wiped out for nothing.
That was the nature of transcendent masters.
Walking calamities.
"...We jumping in?"
Hwang Bo Yun, grasping the stakes, tabled her snack grudge for the moment.
She'd always thought fighting alongside Wi Sowol made even transcendent masters no threat.
'Maybe this is our chance to test that.'
Wi Sowol gave a conditional reply to the tense, thrilled query.
"If they keep taking losses without committing another transcendent..."
"Wouldn't they have sent one already if they had?"
"That venomous hag wouldn't move on my word alone without at least one sure trump card..."
Wi Sowol figured the vicious Golden Queen Bee would only act with a guaranteed win in pocket.
Her surest ace was the sect leader himself—that's why she'd waited.
But sly rabbits dig three burrows.
Wi Sowol pictured the Golden Queen Bee lurking somewhere.
Probably thinking the exact same thing.
'A battle of patience, is it?'
The first to crack loses.
A shallow ploy to expose Wi Sowol's hand.
Curious to gauge her elusive realm at last?
But to Wi Sowol, it was laughable provocation.
'Tyrant Apex Sect infighting—why should I butt in?'
Thought she was cunning, but turns out she's just a fool?
Must've wildly misread her diving into the sect's tiger den to save slum lives, stake and all.
Did "I'll smash the Poison Admiral leader's face" sound like she'd personally finish him off?
If so, that was peak idiocy.
Does she think I'm some saintly gentleman?
'If the Tyrant Apex Sect looks set to shatter, then Central Dark Hall or Shadow Ink Pavilion steps in.'
And as always, Wi Sowol would be the victor.
"There she is."
Another transcendent master emerged from the Tyrant Escort Squad side.
Wi Sowol, focused on Huabei operations, didn't recognize him, but Hwang Bo Yun, versed in jianghu lore, did.
"Black robes, Ebony Dragon Fist Gauntlets. It's the Dark Lord."
Dark Lord Geun Wan-geuk.
Head of the Tyrant Apex Sect's Enforcement Division.
"It's over."
Wi Sowol, who'd risen, plopped back onto the roof.
Then extended her palm flat toward Hwang Bo Yun.
"Got any snacks left?"