Mount Jagnyang (2)
KWAKWAKWANG!
Yuan Bisu's flame arts burst forth in a blaze.
Five or six cultivators of the Mandok Yuksamun were engulfed in fire all at once, and those the flames didn't catch scrambled desperately backward.
Cheon Woo-jin seized that opening and dove into the front lines.
The other enemies lunged at him to take him down, but he had already generated a sphere of lightning qi in his grip.
Leibo — Thunder Step
He hurled the lightning sphere and immediately slipped out of the spot.
The sphere detonated like an explosion, instantly killing the cultivators who had tried to overwhelm him.
Crackle by crackle, lightning qi sparking beneath his feet, Cheon Woo-jin slid deep into the heart of the enemy formation.
At the sight of him, the Mandok Yuksamun cultivators shrieked.
"Kill him!"
"We have to take him down!"
KUKUKUKU!
Arts of every description rained down on Cheon Woo-jin.
The Mandok Yuksamun did not rely on poison alone. It was true that they prized poison above all else, but they also mastered offensive techniques and arts of entirely unrelated schools.
Especially in a battle like this — a group engagement where reckless use of poison risked poisoning their own allies.
Today they had already unfurled a grand poison formation, spewing poisonous miasma from their poison jars. The cultivators guarding the jars had been informed in advance of which toxins would emerge from their assigned zones, and they had already taken the antidotes, so they could neutralize the miasma on their own.
All they had to do was hold the jars and counter the Geumsijong cultivators with ordinary arts. Hold out long enough, and the enemies would succumb to the jars' poison and collapse one by one.
That had been the plan... and everything had fallen apart.
"That bastard, he won't approach the jars...!"
"No! What he's after is...!"
Cheon Woo-jin never went anywhere near the jars where the poison concentration was thickest. Instead he threaded through the gaps where the miasma was thin, pressing steadily toward his target point.
There it is.
The central hub where the spirit meridians connecting the jars converged. Toward the nerve center of the poison formation, disguised as an ordinary boulder, Cheon Woo-jin stretched out his hand.
By the formation formula linking the lightning spirit channels, fire qi and water qi collided within his body. The spear of lightning qi born of that clash was driven into the boulder at point-blank range.
CRACK!
Fissures spiderwebbed across the rock, and then it exploded.
The spirit meridian snapped, and the poisonous miasma pouring from the jars began to die down.
"Now! Everyone, press the attack!"
Jang Ryang shouted as he flung out talismans.
The nearby Geumsijong cultivators gritted their teeth and launched their counterattack. Thanks to Cheon Woo-jin carving his way through the poison formation's vital points one after another, the breathing room for their side was opening up.
"Cheon Do-u, which direction next... gah!"
PAPAPAT!
Blades of wind came lashing down without warning.
Jang Ryang hastily threw up a defensive art, and Yuan Bisu stumbled back. Had Cheon Woo-jin not evaded with Thunder Step, his entire body would have been shredded to ribbons.
"You're the one who killed Danmok-gil and Bok Si-wan, aren't you?"
A woman with a single sword was glaring at Cheon Woo-jin from across the lava ravine.
Core Formation, Middle stage. A master she had not encountered even once on the way here.
"I'll ask you once more."
She raised her bluish blade and pressed the question.
"Was it you who killed my juniors, Danmok-gil and Bok Si-wan?"
"..."
Those two were the Core Formation Early stage cultivators Cheon Woo-jin had cut down recently. They had never exchanged introductions, but he knew their names from their status windows.
Still, Cheon Woo-jin ignored the question. There was no particular reason to answer.
"I take that as a yes."
Without waiting for a reply, Seo Yeong swung her blade. In the next instant, razor-sharp wind blades came flying at Cheon Woo-jin.
SHWAAAENG!
Wind-attribute sword qi so fierce it sent waves rolling through the valley of lava. Power enough to cleave several grown men in two at once.
But it never touched him.
Because while she had kept firing off her questions, he had already drawn out the Eunryeong Gangwisons. The protective barrier deployed from the silver shield enveloped his body. A top-grade defensive artifact like the Eunryeong Gangwisons could turn aside even the sword qi of a Core Formation cultivator.
"You handle your artifacts well!"
KUNG!
Seo Yeong kicked off the blood-red ground as though grinding it beneath her heel and leapt skyward. It looked as though she would soar over the bubbling lava and crash down on him head-on in a perfect arc — but mid-air, she bent her trajectory on the power of the wind.
SHWAAAENG!
A chill blade bored in from Cheon Woo-jin's flank. Yet again, it failed to land. Cheon Woo-jin was reading the currents of the wind, predicting her every movement.
KA-KANG!
Seo Yeong's blade rebounded off the Eunryeong Gangwisons.
You blocked even that? — her eyes seemed to say — and toward them, Cheon Woo-jin swept his left hand out in a rough slash.
The sphere of lightning qi flew.
Seeing him throw the lightning sphere, Seo Yeong retreated a single step. She had no doubt calculated that pulling back that much would be enough to dodge it.
It was a misjudgment.
The lightning qi burst outward like a pomegranate splitting open and crashed over her.
"Ugh...!"
Even so, Seo Yeong was no pushover. Shielding herself with her blade, she minimized the damage.
"Cheon Do-u!"
"We'll help!"
Just then, Jang Ryang and Yuan Bisu charged in from Seo Yeong's rear. But without so much as a backward glance, she unleashed her art. A blue whirlwind whirled up and barred their approach.
"Ugh!"
"Damn it...!"
Even so, it bought Cheon Woo-jin some breathing room. His sleeves billowing, he deployed the Cheongap Biryong. Six flying spirits surged toward Seo Yeong in unison.
She scoffed and swung her sword, but all she managed was to deflect the flying spirits — she could not destroy them. The Cheongap Biryong were the exoskeleton of the Amro Great Sage O'gong, a Core Formation-rank yao. To break them, even Seo Yeong would have to concentrate her full power into focused strikes.
But doing so risked opening a fatal gap against Cheon Woo-jin.
What do I do?
A flicker of hesitation passed through Seo Yeong's eyes.
Cheon Woo-jin did not let that instant slip away.
Blades of black lightning qi came pouring down. Not one — hundreds of ink-dark blades whirling in a storm, and Seo Yeong's eyes flew wide open.
"Kgh...!"
She answered with wind-attribute sword qi of her own, again and again. But the problem was that she had reacted one beat too late. The space of death and annihilation Cheon Woo-jin had unfurled was already filling her vision to the brim.
The pitch-black blades devoured the blades of wind. No matter how keen the wind was, it was utterly outmatched against his Heukryeol Seolgyeong.
And when the maddened storm of black lightning finally subsided —
Seo Yeong knelt on one knee, her whole body reduced to rags.
"Ugh...!"
Thud. Thud.
Flesh sloughed from her body along with the blood. Being a Core Formation cultivator, her life still clung on, but with her limbs ruined so badly, she could no longer lift her sword.
Cheon Woo-jin was about to hurl lightning qi to finish her off when — a suddenly sinister wind began to blow.
Cheon Woo-jin fired his lightning qi at once, but Seo Yeong used her blade as a shield and guarded her dantian in her abdomen with everything she had. He diverted the lightning around her guard and did pierce her dantian in the end, but her final art had already been completed by then.
With a bitter smile, Seo Yeong crumpled to the ground.
Watching her fall, Cheon Woo-jin felt his body go cold with shivers, as though he had caught a chill.
The wind evil?
Pungsa. It was the very first of the six evils — wind, cold, heat, dampness, dryness, and fire. Put simply, it was the poison of the wind. When wind poison infiltrates through the pores, fever and chills strike simultaneously. Left to worsen, it brings a raging heat that leaves one hovering between life and death.
But this was not a poison harvested from nature — it was a six-evil poison forged from spiritual power. Danmok-gil, whom he had fought before, had likewise created the poison of dryness with his Yangmyeong Dryness-Diffusing Method.
Being a poison born of spiritual power, even the antidote made from the Amro Great Sage O'gong's venom had no effect on it.
"Cheon Do-u!"
"You've been poisoned!"
Jang Ryang and Yuan Bisu, who had been dealing with the other cultivators, came rushing over.
"What kind of poison is it? For now, a general-purpose antidote should—"
"Wait."
Cheon Woo-jin slipped a hand into his storage pouch and drew out a single yellow mushroom.
"Uh...?"
Crunch, crunch.
He chewed the mushroom raw. At the sight, Jang Ryang and Yuan Bisu's eyes went wide.
"Why are you suddenly eating a mushroom...?"
"It's Sinhwangmok-i, from the poison mushroom cultivation facility we raided last time."
"...!"
Despite being a mushroom, it tasted sharp and acrid. Forcing it down his throat, Cheon Woo-jin explained.
"Its nature is so fierce that it damages the vital qi — but in exchange, it has a powerful exterior-releasing, wind-dispelling effect."
"Ah...!"
Exterior-releasing, wind-dispelling — meaning it drove out wind poison that had invaded the body's surface. In plain terms, it could be called a cold remedy.
And the Mandok Yuksamun had cultivated a variant strain, its properties amplified for use in manufacturing poisons. Cheon Woo-jin had exploited exactly that. To an ordinary person it was outright poison, but if one used spiritual power to deftly circulate the mushroom's energy, it could become a wonder drug capable of driving out even six-evil poisons.
Ever since experiencing Danmok-gil's Yangmyeong Dryness-Diffusing Method, Cheon Woo-jin had researched countermeasures against the Mandok Yuksamun's six-evil poisons without pause. The reason he had swept up every interesting specimen whenever he raided a poison cultivation facility had also been for this. Eating each one himself and studying them one by one, he had concluded that when struck by wind poison, this Sinhwangmok-i was the panacea. Nor was it only wind poison — he had found a specific counter-agent for each of the remaining six evils as well.
"Whew..."
He melted the Sinhwangmok-i's energy down with his spiritual power and spread it through his whole body. The shivering subsided, little by little. When he touched his forehead, the fever had broken as well.
"You seem all right now."
"Ah...!"
Jang Ryang and Yuan Bisu beamed and clapped him on the back.
"Haha, is there no end to your talents!"
"I did wonder why you kept gathering all those books on poison — so it was all part of the plan!"
It may have looked like too much leisure for men in the middle of an enemy formation, but there was no real problem. With Cheon Woo-jin tearing through enemy lines and paralyzing the poison formation at will, the Geumsijong side had already seized the advantage.
"Cheon Do-u!"
Just then, Gwak Gyeong-in approached him. His golden armor was dented and blood was streaming from his forehead, but he did not appear to be seriously wounded.
"You're too reckless! I did ask you to play the part of striking the enemy's vitals, but I never meant for you to take such risks!"
"My apologies for moving so rashly."
"There's nothing to apologize for...!"
With that, Gwak Gyeong-in let out a long sigh. His emotions seemed to have welled up, choking off his words.
"Truly... thank you."
Resting a hand on Cheon Woo-jin's shoulder, he went on.
"Without you, the losses would have been devastating. I hardly know how I could ever repay this debt..."
"Save that talk for later."
Cheon Woo-jin cut him off mid-sentence.
It was true that the battle on the surface favored Geumsijong. If things continued this way, they would be able to subdue every last cultivator of the Mandok Yuksamun.
But — that did not mean Geumsijong would win today's decisive battle. It would be no exaggeration to say that the fight on the surface had little bearing on the day's outcome at all.
Because the battle that mattered most was unfolding somewhere else entirely.
"The situation doesn't look good."
"What do you—"
The moment Cheon Woo-jin raised his head, a body plummeted from the sky.
"S-Sect Master?!"
KUUNG!
Geumsijong's sect master, Lee Seon-gyeong, crashed down in a corner of the volcano. By sheer fortune he had not landed on the lava itself, but his condition was wretched. His entire body had swollen an angry red, and pus oozed in slow rivulets from the patches where his skin had rotted away.
Everyone held their breath at that ghastly sight.
"Fire poison...!"
In pathology, fire meant inflammation. Right now, Lee Seon-gyeong was in a state of extreme inflammation from the poison that had invaded his body.
Only one man alive could have reduced a Core Formation Great Circle cultivator like Lee Seon-gyeong to this.
"Did I not tell you earlier?"
Just then, a voice drifted down from above. From the same sky from which Lee Seon-gyeong had fallen, another Core Formation Great Circle cultivator was gazing down at them.
"That there would be a great deal of blood shed."
Giu Sin-ryeo, sect master of the Mandok Yuksamun. Victor of the clash between sect masters, he smiled with cruel delight upon his face seamed with wrinkles.