The Poisoned Ambush
Water knows the answer. Cheong’s expression darkened instantly. She had never met a single decent person who played the flute at others. Especially not after the scars left by the Heaven-Encompassing Net incident with Jin Jangmyeong still lingered in her heart.
Soon, fishermen burst out from inside the cloth-covered fish farm, each gripping weapons. Cheong drew her sword with a cold glint in her eyes. Quite a few of them came out—more than expected. They poured out like a disturbed beehive, making it impossible to tell whether this was a fish farm or a barracks.
“Huh. There’s quite a lot of them.”
It wasn’t a flustered remark. Her expression was bright as she said it. At a glance, their cultivation levels were mediocre at best. To Cheong, who was strong against the weak, this was nothing more than an opportunity to dance with her blade without any burden.
“Ah. Jayu! You stay out of this.”
Even in the middle of the chaos, Cheong looked after her frail friend. From their conversation the day before, she knew Paeng Cho-ryo was a true martial artist who understood the genuine joy of chivalry. If she had to classify it, it would be the joy of battle. She didn’t want to waste the chance to fight just because some weakling had tagged along.
Jayu tried to protest, but Gyeon No swiftly grabbed the prince and tucked him against his waist like luggage.
“No, wait—”
“Young miss, even in this situation you’re looking after the young master. Please take care of your body.”
With a voice full of gratitude, Gyeon No displayed the agility befitting a Harmonious Realm expert and immediately withdrew. With nothing left to worry about, Cheong stepped forward, ready to meet the enemies one step at a time.
That was when the leading fishermen simultaneously threw something. Pouch-like objects flew over the fence one after another. Fire caught on the yellow phosphorus inside, mixing with the contents, and in an instant thick yellow smoke billowed out and formed clouds. Carried by the wind from the riverbank, the clouds rushed straight toward them.
“Wait, hey! Poison! Poison! Poison!”
Dang Nan-a grabbed Cheong’s wrist from behind and shouted in a panic. Cheong smiled and replied.
“It’s fine.”
Jet-black Heavenly Demon Qi surged from the soles of Cheong’s feet. She took a light step. The ground trembled, and so did the inner energy. In a wedge shape centered on Cheong, the earth flipped over with a loud crack, sending soil and dry grass flying upward. The poison cloud was torn left and right, flowing along the seams of the ground.
Heavenly Demon Dominion Step One. Earth Reverence. When the Heavenly Demon leads the charge of ten thousand demons, even the earth reveres him and rises to protect them. It was a legendary divine art said to be capable of deflecting tens of thousands of arrows with earth rising ten jang high. Cheong, who couldn’t even handle Gang Qi, was merely imitating it from memory, but even that aura alone was enough to easily split the smoke screen on the ground.
“W-what the—?”
“Well done, Cheong-ah!”
One fisherman charged in, unable to hide his shock at the clean air around Cheong. No matter how astonishing a technique one witnessed, one must never lose focus in battle. Cheong dashed past him and grabbed his hair. With her monstrous strength, his body was dragged straight out. Using Wolnyeo Mountain Steps combined with Heavenly Demon Dominion Steps, she advanced rapidly, her inner energy draining quickly. But she had no reason to conserve the Heaven-Destroying Demonic Qi. With every step she took, the ground flipped, the earth churned, and the poison fog was pushed aside left and right.
“Huh? What? Where are you going? Why?”
“Nan-a! Get a hold of yourself! Don’t break away!”
“Y-yes! Unni!”
Dang Nan-a snapped back to her senses. Her hands darted in and out of her robes, and soon sharp needles appeared between her fingers as she followed behind. They carved a straight path through the poison-spewing pouches all the way to the crude fence that reached waist height. The fishermen who had been about to charge into the poison fog hesitated, weapons half-raised.
Cheong slipped through the gap and swung the thing she held in her left hand with gusto. The fisherman whose hair she had grabbed traced a large circle, and his foot smashed into another fisherman’s eye socket. The clash between foot and eye socket ended in mutual defeat. The fisherman with the crushed head was sent flying, while the toes of the one being used as a club shattered into pieces. It was because the fishermen wore only straw sandals woven from straw. Had they been wearing safety boots, only the struck fisherman’s head would have broken, and the human club’s toes would have remained intact.
Cheong once again confirmed the importance of safety footwear as she continued swinging the human weapon in her hand. Bones shattered on impact—ankles, shinbones—and when she extended her sword with that vicious momentum, a comrade’s blade severed another’s shin and knee. Every time she struck an enemy, screams doubled. Even when she missed, at least one scream rang out. It was an excellent weapon that never left her ears disappointed. However, it didn’t last long.
Crack. With a delightful sensation of something giving way under her grip, her swinging left hand lost its weight and flailed through empty air. The human weapon she had finally taken a liking to flew off somewhere, leaving only a scalp still attached to a clump of hair, blood dripping from it.
“Tch.”
Cheong casually tossed away the natural human-hair wig. Grabbing someone by the hair and swinging them really wasn’t economical. Just as she clicked her tongue in regret—
“You witch!”
A man charged forward, violet sword light rising from his blade. Yet compared to his realm, his swordsmanship was merely second-rate, somewhere between white and blue. Surprisingly, Cheong was a swordmaster! Having already mastered peerless swordsmanship, trained through sparring with Seomun Su-rin, and witnessed Mucheon-daeje’s sword forms, her insight was already that of a master. She scattered the clumsy illusions hidden within his swift sword and thrust her Wolgwang Sword (No. 8) straight toward his heart. It was a move Seomun Su-rin would have praised as an excellent example of striking late but arriving first. However, the opponent was a late-stage Peak expert and not so easily dealt with. He twisted his body at the last moment, narrowly avoiding his heart as the blade pierced through his ribs and out his back.
Then came a woman’s scream, like shattering glass.
“No! Gaga!”
“Shimei! That witch! Quickly!”
The Peak fisherman grabbed the thin blade of the Wolgwang Sword with both hands and shouted. Cheong tried to pull the sword free, but his protective inner energy shielded his bones, and his hands clamped down, causing only his body to shake. He intended to die together with her. Cheong frowned. She could simply let go, but that would mean releasing a late-stage Peak enemy, which she didn’t want to do.
—Besides, it somehow felt like losing.
Cheong raised her right arm high. A person’s strength comes from planting their feet on the ground; once lifted, there is no way to resist. The late-stage Peak fisherman, still impaled on the sword, was hoisted into the air. Behind him, the slender female fisherman was revealed, her eyes widening.
“Let Gaga go!”
Cheong answered.
“As you command!”
She brought her right arm down with all her might. The man impaled on the sword planted both feet on the ground, and by the law of inertia, only Cheong’s blade slipped out between his legs. The late-stage Peak master, now truly resembling the character for “person” (人), sprawled on the ground. His head lolled to the side, looking more like the character for “enter” (入) than “person.”
“Gaga! Gaga!”
The woman clung to her man’s corpse, shaking it even as she faced her enemy. Thanks to her, the hands that had been gripping the sword were about to slip free, turning the situation into something resembling the character for “big” (大). Were they lovers? A pair whose combined evil karma exceeded six hundred. Rather than being bound by marriage, these two would have done the world a favor by stabbing each other and heading to the underworld together—yet here they were, indulging in melodrama.
What Cheong hated most in the world was racial discrimination, followed by the Chinese, then Black people, then European imperialists, and finally, in fifth place, excessive melodrama. Since these two satisfied two of her top five hates, the verdict was naturally death. Just as she was about to enjoy the solid impact of the Black Killing Demonic Palm after so long—
“Shijie! You wench! I’ll tear your crotch apart!”
A middle-aged fisherman leaped forward with an ominous aura. Damn it. A Super Peak. Cheong took a step sideways. Of course, she didn’t forget to speak.
“Tearing my crotch? That’s a bit much. Let’s shorten it to ‘overstepping.’ Both of them shortened: crotch-tearing overstepping. That’s how young people these days talk, you know?”
“You wench!”
The middle-aged fisherman’s face flushed red.
“Besides, your shijie died with her crotch torn apart like that. Is this really the time to say such things while her widow is grieving?”
“I’ll kill you!”
The middle-aged fisherman’s sword began to glow on its own. Sword Gang. The starlight destruction permitted only to Super Peak experts. At that moment, Cheong launched herself forward. She planted her hands on the ground, rolled twice, and charged low, grabbing the ankle of the kneeling female fisherman.
“Shimei whose name I don’t know! Your shixiong cowardly attacked a Peak expert, so I’ll be borrowing your strength for a bit!”
Cheong spun her arm above her head. The female fisherman rotated at the same speed.
“W-what are you doing?!”
“Your shimei weighs about eighty geun and stands about five cheok and a half at one rotation per second! Save your shimei at this rate!”
Cheong charged forward, swinging the female fisherman. The Super Peak fisherman recoiled in horror. For the first time wielding Sword Gang in real combat, he couldn’t bring himself to swing and instead scrambled backward.
“Shimei, I’m counting on you!”
Cheong staggered and put all her strength into the throw. The female fisherman shot forward like an arrow in a straight line. Cheong followed right behind, sword raised. The Super Peak fisherman chose self-preservation over his shimei. He leaped high into the air, and the female fisherman he had sent flying crashed violently into the ground, carving a long red line across the earth.
Cheong seized the opening and charged, shouting.
“You won’t even catch her! Murderer! You killed her! How dare you—after doing that to your own shimei, you still call yourself her shixiong?!”
Cheong reached out amid her barrage of nonsense.
Clang—! The sound of a great bell! The Super Peak fisherman, floating in midair after leaping, had no way to dodge a technique he never imagined she would use. Cheong rushed to the fallen Super Peak fisherman.
“S-spare me…”
Cheong checked his evil karma. If it had been just two hundred points lower, she might have spared him. What a shame.
“The shimei you killed probably wanted to live too.”
She stomped on the Super Peak fisherman’s neck. Her footprint sank deeply into the earth, and compressed meat remained in the shape of her leather shoe sole. It was a historic moment—the Super Peak fisherman’s head was liberated from his torso—but it was immediately seized by Cheong’s hand grabbing his hair. How regrettable.
Cheong raised the Super Peak fisherman’s severed head high.
“The enemy commander! I have defeated him!”