Provocation (2)
Kukukukuung!
A monstrous bolt of lightning descended from the heavens — Black Thunder Heaven-Shaking Strike.
This time he had drawn upon the Yangming qi of the Yangming Subduing Poison Stone Method as well, and the strike came down with far greater fury than any before it.
Dan Mok-gil had erected a defensive formation and sealed himself within a barrier as impregnable as a fortress.
But this Black Thunder Heaven-Shaking Strike punched straight through even that barrier.
“Ah—.”
Dan Mok-gil tried to scream.
He never managed to finish it.
The black thunder qi raining down from above bored in through the crown of his head and riddled his entire body, until at last his flesh was annihilated outright.
And the thunder qi did not stop at erasing Dan Mok-gil's body. It spread rippling outward in every direction, scorching even the poison-herb garden he had been guarding into bare wasteland.
It's over.
Cheon Woo-jin fished a Yin-Replenishing Pill out of his storage pouch with fingers that had gone completely withered and dry.
Then he pushed it into his equally parched mouth and forced himself to swallow.
Only when he felt the yin qi being replenished and his vital fluids recovering did he finally let out a breath.
Until a moment ago, he had barely dared to breathe at all, desperate to minimize every last drop of moisture escaping his body.
He was only early Core Formation, yet he gave me more trouble than any Core Formation cultivator I've fought so far. So it's true — against an opponent who isn't careless, things get difficult in every way.
Down in the lower strata of Ghost Head City, Cheon Woo-jin had already cut down several Core Formation powerhouses.
But they had always faced him without proper preparations in place.
What Core Formation cultivator would bother staying on guard against a mere Qi Condensation nobody, much less make full preparations for him?
Cheon Woo-jin had been able to win against them precisely because they were so complacent.
This time, Dan Mok-gil had been different.
It wasn't that he dismissed Cheon Woo-jin entirely — he had treated him as a Foundation Establishment cultivator and moved to suppress him in earnest.
He had set up a defensive formation to hold the garden alone, and even prepared a powerful wide-area poison technique.
When a Core Formation cultivator came prepared like that, even Cheon Woo-jin had a hard time of it.
Operating in the middle strata of Ghost Head City, I'll be running into more situations like this. I need to keep my wits sharp.
Cheon Woo-jin looked around.
The garden at the peak of the spirit mountain — his final target — was nearly burned down to nothing.
But not every poison herb growing in it had gone up in flames.
I managed to save one.
In a corner of the garden that had just barely escaped the effective range of the Black Thunder Heaven-Shaking Strike, a single white flower was blooming.
Nine leaves on the stem... that's White Flower Nine-Leaf Grass.
Combined with the herbs he had gathered on the way up the mountain, it could yield a potent poison.
It wouldn't match the venom of the Dark Road Great King Wasp, but it would be enough to poison a Foundation Establishment cultivator or thereabouts.
Cheon Woo-jin pulled the White Flower Nine-Leaf Grass up by its roots and tucked it into his storage pouch.
Just then, a low murmur of voices drifted up from below the mountain.
“I can't make head or tail of this.”
“When the Myriad Poison Six Masters Sect's poison miasma swept over everything, I figured we were all dead. Then the wind suddenly died down and now everything's fine...”
They were the loose cultivators who had fought their way up the mountain trails from the south.
Lee Gyeong-gyeol came climbing toward the peak as well, glancing around with a bewildered expression.
“Did something happen to Dan Mok-gil? Why on earth...”
“Hey, you! Look over there!”
At that moment, one of the loose cultivators at the front spotted Cheon Woo-jin.
Every gaze — Lee Gyeong-gyeol's included — converged on him.
“You. How are you already up here—”
Lee Gyeong-gyeol had been about to demand answers, but the words died in his throat.
He had only just now taken in the state of his surroundings.
The garden, his final target, had been razed to the ground.
There was no sign of Dan Mok-gil, the Core Formation cultivator who should have been waiting at the summit.
And only Cheon Woo-jin stood there — looking, if anything, merely a little tired.
“H-hey.”
Lee Gyeong-gyeol swallowed hard and addressed him.
“What in the world happened here?”
“...”
Without answering, Cheon Woo-jin looked down the mountainside.
Plumes of smoke were rising here and there.
“Two, is it?”
“What?”
“The number of gardens you burned on your way up that way.”
Checking the locations of the gardens he had burned thus far, Cheon Woo-jin spoke in a perfectly level voice.
“I burned about eight. I believe I win our wager.”
“E-eight?”
Lee Gyeong-gyeol's mouth hung open.
“Then all the gardens that were already burning on our way up... you're telling me you burned every one of them? All eight?”
“Counting this one here.”
Cheon Woo-jin gestured at the garden that had just been scoured by the Black Thunder Heaven-Shaking Strike.
With this one, that made eight.
“Th-that's absurd! This place was guarded by Dan Mok-gil, an inner disciple of the Myriad Poison Six Masters Sect! A Core Formation Daoist was holding it — how could you possibly—!”
Just as Lee Gyeong-gyeol raised his voice in disbelief, a voice came from behind them.
“Truly astonishing.”
Clank, clank.
Cultivators clad in golden armor came climbing up to the summit.
Unlike Lee Gyeong-gyeol's group, who had come by the southern path, these had appeared via the northern trail.
At the sight of them, Lee Gyeong-gyeol caught his breath.
“G-Gwak Doin...”
The man Lee Gyeong-gyeol addressed as Gwak Doin was the powerfully built figure leading the column.
His thick, straight eyebrows spoke of an iron will.
This was Gwak Gyeong-in, the commander of the Geumsijong forces.
The plan had been for Lee Gyeong-gyeol to lead the loose cultivators up from the south while Gwak Gyeong-in and his companions ascended from the north, the two groups joining forces at the summit.
The trouble was, this side was short on numbers.
Even counting Gwak Gyeong-in, there were only five of them in all.
Geumsijong had recently lost many disciples to a trap laid by the Myriad Poison Six Masters Sect.
That manpower shortage seemed to be showing itself here as well.
“We'd agreed to strike from north and south because Dan Mok-gil was sure to hole up behind some foul formation and hold out.”
Gwak Gyeong-in looked around, smiling.
“To think you dispatched Dan Mok-gil before we even finished climbing — it's genuinely remarkable.”
“N-no, well, that is...”
Lee Gyeong-gyeol tried to say something, but Gwak Gyeong-in spared him not so much as a glance.
“Cheon Do-u, I take it this was your doing?”
Gwak Gyeong-in pointed at Cheon Woo-jin with a smile.
“As expected of the cultivator who made such a name for himself in the lower strata. I heard you only recently reached Foundation Establishment — with feats like this already, you'll be making waves in the middle strata before long.”
Unlike the others, Gwak Gyeong-in did not look down on Cheon Woo-jin for being an alumnus of Ghost Head City's lower strata.
That was because he had already heard about him in advance through Seo Seol-ryeong.
“Huh...?”
Meanwhile, Lee Gyeong-gyeol stood blinking in confusion.
He had assumed Cheon Woo-jin was just an ordinary loose cultivator hired to fill out their numbers.
It had never crossed his mind that the man was a helper Gwak Gyeong-in had personally recruited through Seo Seol-ryeong.
“Even the northern trail alone took us considerable time, yet in that span, Cheon Do-u, you climbed all the way to the summit and put Dan Mok-gil down. Truly excellent work.”
“I could never have managed it alone.”
Cheon Woo-jin said in a calm voice.
“It was because the northern and southern routes drew the enemies' attention that I was able to infiltrate the peak at all.”
“Heh heh, is that so?”
“The loose cultivators on the southern route put in a great deal of effort, too.”
At those words, the loose cultivators who had climbed up with Lee Gyeong-gyeol wore astonished expressions.
They had never expected him to say such a thing to their employers from Geumsijong.
“I see. Understood. I'll take that into account when the pay is handed out.”
Gwak Gyeong-in looked to be in an excellent mood.
The Myriad Poison Six Masters Sect, with their poisons, was a thorn in Geumsijong's side.
And this operation had been wrapped up early with hardly any losses.
The mood was such that not only Cheon Woo-jin but the other loose cultivators would be paid handsomely as well.
“Though, one thing.”
“Hmm?”
“Pay the others their compensation if you like — but do not pay any to that cultivator over there, Lee Gyeong-gyeol.”
When Cheon Woo-jin pointed at Lee Gyeong-gyeol and said this, everyone's expressions turned to surprise.
“I made a wager with Cultivator Lee. Whoever earned the greater merit would take the entire payment.”
“Heh heh, quite the fighting spirit.”
Gwak Gyeong-in laughed and looked at Lee Gyeong-gyeol.
“Cultivator Lee — I suppose we're to hand your entire compensation over to Cheon Do-u here?”
“...”
Lee Gyeong-gyeol had no choice but to stand in rigid silence, his face frozen stiff.
“Cheon Do-u, have a word with me.”
The other loose cultivators had all dispersed, but Cheon Woo-jin followed Gwak Gyeong-in toward the northwestern quarter of the fourth stratum.
There stood the main hall — the headquarters of Geumsijong.
“A great sect with power like Seonggak Ilwonmun keeps its main hall in the upper strata of Ghost Head City, but a mid-sized sect like ours has no choice but to make do with the middle strata.”
The Toyomun Sect, which had recently allied with the Gwangse-eumnyeong Sect, had also kept its main hall in the fourth stratum — though now that the Gwangse-eumnyeong Sect had withdrawn from Ghost Head City, Toyomun was said to be utterly ruined and left in ruins itself.
“Come in, come in. This is our Geumsijong main hall.”
“...”
Geumsijong's headquarters was imposing from the very entrance.
Its gate was a grand ceremonial archway — a roof set atop red pillars — with beautiful divine birds carved mid-flight into the pillars.
They were almost certainly Golden-Winged Birds, the birds hailed as kings of all feathered creatures.
They said it was a wealthy sect — clearly no exaggeration.
Cheon Woo-jin followed Gwak Gyeong-in through the archway.
The interior was every bit as lavish as the entrance.
And yet, for all that splendor, the place struck him as strangely deserted.
Presumably because so few people passed through it.
“The branch hall in the second stratum has quite a few outer disciples.”
Gwak Gyeong-in said in a bitter voice, as though reading Cheon Woo-jin's mind.
“But they're all Qi Condensation, so none of them can climb this far. Even if they did, they'd be of no help.”
“...”
“We're desperately short of Foundation Establishment cultivators right now. The Myriad Poison Six Masters Sect's trap saw to that — they were beaten to death in droves.”
Cheon Woo-jin had never once seen a sect called Geumsijong in the game.
He had speculated that it must have been destroyed by the Myriad Poison Six Masters Sect — and it seemed that guess had been right.
Shorthanded like this, they would indeed have struggled to withstand the Myriad Poison Six Masters Sect.
“Have a seat in this room. We'll talk over a cup of spirit tea.”
Once he was seated in the room Gwak Gyeong-in showed him to, another disciple came in and prepared the tea.
“The qi I sense from this tea is remarkably deep.”
“It's spirit tea we cultivate ourselves. A single cup of this is worth tens of thousands of ordinary spirit stones.”
“Khhm!”
He'd nearly choked.
Even for tea infused with spiritual qi, tens of thousands of spirit stones a cup? Wasn't that absurdly expensive?
“Hmm...”
But one sip changed his mind.
He could feel his entire body — worn to the bone from fighting the Myriad Poison Six Masters Sect — being restored.
The qi dwelling in the tea was immaculately pure.
If he could drink this regularly, it would be a tremendous aid to cultivation.
“Did you hear why we're at odds with the Myriad Poison Six Masters Sect?”
“I hadn't heard.”
While Cheon Woo-jin applied himself diligently to the tea, Gwak Gyeong-in explained at an easy pace.
“They have their eyes on our sect's sacred treasure.”
“Sacred treasure?”
“A dharma treasure that grants entry to a cave-heaven.”
The term cave-heaven originally referred to the idyllic paradises of Daoist legend.
But in today's cultivation world, even artificially constructed sub-spaces with tailored environments were called cave-heavens.
The Supreme Ultimate Cave-Heaven Realm that Cheon Woo-jin frequented was one such place.
“Inside that dharma treasure spreads a vast open field, and because its environment can be freely adjusted, any spirit herb at all can be grown there without restriction. What's more, it grows more than ten times faster than cultivation outside.”
“...”
Unlike the Supreme Ultimate Cave-Heaven Realm, this one seemed to be specialized for growing spirit herbs.
Which meant...
“So the Myriad Poison Six Masters Sect wants that cave-heaven to grow their poison herbs.”
“Precisely it.”
Poison herbs could not be raised just anywhere.
The spirit mountain earlier had only been able to sustain poison herbs of a dry, desiccating nature.
But if they seized Geumsijong's cave-heaven, they would be able to grow any poison herb they pleased, in any quantity they pleased.
The environment could be freely adjusted, and the growth rate was more than ten times faster besides.
They would be able to mass-produce whatever venomous plants they desired.
“If that happens, the middle strata of Ghost Head City will fall entirely into the Myriad Poison Six Masters Sect's hands. It will become a world ruled by their poison techniques.”