What Is Poison Arts?
Gong Ryun had been thinking it since before the duel even began — he wanted this match over as fast as possible.
Because his opponent was a poison user, and dragging things out would put him at a disadvantage?
No.
He simply hated the situation itself.
"Kihihihi! I wonder what kind of poison you'll use! As a fellow poison artist, I can hardly wait!!!"
The Poison Dagger Girl needled him with her chirping laugh.
"Go get him, Poison-Dispelling Poison Freak! You may not have San-gong-dok, but you've gotta have some other poison stacked to the ceiling! Flesh-melting, bone-dissolving super-toxin, right!"
"Wrong! Poison-Dispelling Poison Freak! You've already lost! Not a single proper hidden weapon on you — disqualified as an assassin!!"
"No way! The invisible blade is the scariest kind! Big bro San-gong-dok's definitely holding back his ultimate poison! Last time he turned some guy's arms into mush!"
"Don't tell me he's gonna spit actual poison-art breath!"
The mercenaries cheered and heckled with equal enthusiasm.
"Oh my. San-gong-dok… what is the martial world's sense of righteousness coming to… It's terrible for the children's education… I really hope that man never walks past a school route…"
"The world's gone to hell. A raving lunatic like that, strolling around in public. At least the shopkeeper had the sense to ban San-gong-dok — thank goodness for that."
"Still, you never know. Knowing how mercenaries are, it wouldn't be weird if he actually used it. What if he just snaps and starts spraying the place out of pure resentment? Where's the emergency exit again?"
Ordinary patrons whispered among themselves, eyes full of worry.
"Disposable gas masks for sale~"
The shopkeeper was already hunting a niche market.
Gong Ryun was getting genuinely pissed off.
What the hell do these people take me for?
And to say it right to my face, no less.
He kept his poker face, but the vein throbbing on his forehead refused to stay hidden.
Just putting up with this without making a scene already makes me a truly gentle man, he consoled himself.
Which was exactly why he wanted it finished. Fast.
Win already and go drink. Maybe grab Un-rang by the collar while I'm at it.
Right in front of him, the Poison Dagger Girl started moving.
She filled both hands with small daggers.
She wasn't throwing them. The blades rose as if weightless, then left her fingers to drift and hover in the air — she had lifted the poison daggers with void manipulation.
More than ten of them floated around her like a barrier.
"Wha~t poi~son shall I choo~se, kekekeke!"
Next, her mechanical arm hissed and began venting thin trails of poison smoke. The components inside whirred into motion. Various toxins were stored within that arm, and right now it was synthesizing the appropriate blend.
And then…
—Hissss…!!
Poison smoke sprayed slowly from the mechanical arm. A mysterious green haze settled low along the floor like dry ice at a wedding reception. The toxin was the kind that dulled movement — though in truth its effect was negligible. Pure style points.
She was probably going for a "mysterious fairy of the mist" aesthetic. Of course, the smoke was green, she was wearing leather, and she had a mechanical arm bolted on, so the overall impression landed closer to a mad scientist from some chemical steampunk undercity than any fairy.
The cold edges of the floating poison daggers caught the lights and glittered. They looked like a formation of bright stars lined up inside a green nebula.
This was not her first time putting on a show. She would have made a fortune as a concert stage designer.
The Poison Dagger Girl was visibly thrilled.
"For the record, this mechanical arm can synthesize any poison I want on the spot!! And every single dagger floating in the air is loaded with a different toxin!! A total arsenal of every poison under the sun!! Behold my Poison Arts!!"
"Truly impressive."
Gong Ryun's reply was half-hearted at best.
So-called Poison Arts… in the end, isn't this just gear-dependent? Expensive poison wins, better hidden weapons win? And this is officially registered as a legitimate martial art? He was beyond baffled.
Gong Ryun filed away yet another new piece of common sense.
Meanwhile, the mercenaries of the North Dragon Gate were losing their minds over the flashy performance.
Fair enough — the visual impact was overwhelming. After getting humiliated by the shopkeeper earlier, their spirits had been crushed; this was clearly their chance to bounce back.
"Woooah!! What incredible Poison Arts!!"
"So many different kinds of Poison Arts!!"
Admiration erupted from the crowd as well.
And though none of them knew it, among that crowd stood the only true poison artist present.
"What do you make of those 'Poison Arts,' Bernouilli?"
"Uuuugh… calling that Poison Arts…"
A member of the Sichuan Tang family — the galaxy's sole clan of poison — and the poison-host their house took such pride in. Dang Bernouilli's face went scarlet.
"I'm the one getting embarrassed here… Poison Arts aren't like that…"
"Then what do you consider Poison Arts to be?"
"At the very least, smearing poison on a dagger is not Poison Arts… It feels like watching kids eat beer-flavored candy and call it actual beer… Augh, so embarrassing…"
Bernouilli's shy complaint was, of course, swallowed whole by the racket of the inn. No one but his companions heard a word of it.
In the middle of the roaring, marketplace din — as momentum threatened to swing entirely to the North Dragon Gate — a clear, ringing voice cut through.
"South Dragon Gate brothers, don't you dare lose heart!! Our big bro San-gong-dok has!!! been chugging San-gong-dok since he was a kid!!! hanging out with San-gong-dok plants like they were drinking buddies!!! sleeping with a pot of San-gong-cho hugged like a teddy bear!!! and if some random stranger blocked his path he'd turn both their arms into shredded rags, knock them cold, then pour San-gong-dok straight down the corpse's throat!!! He's a terrifying man, I tell you!!! He will not lose!!! Poison Dagger Girl is already dead!!!"
The mercenaries around him shivered in fear.
"What kind of monster is that!!!!!"
"That's a psychopath!! Even orthodox sects have standards!!"
"Anyone who deals in poison is a complete lunatic!!"
"There's a bottom below the bottom!! Even unorthodox mercenaries would cut this guy off!!!"
That adorable walking disaster had finally done it again.
With Loro's speech as the spark, the South Dragon Gate ignited.
"I heard he melts arms with San-gong-dok!"
"I heard he hands out San-gong-dok like homemade cookies!!"
"I heard San-gong-dok is the ultimate poison, and anyone who won't admit it gets challenged to a death match!!"
"A merciless assassin!! His schemes reach the heavens!!"
"He boarded an enemy ship alone, breathed out poison-art breath, and sank a hundred warships!!!"
The vein on Gong Ryun's forehead throbbed even harder.
He kept his poker face just in case, but the corner of his mouth was twitching. In the end, Gong Ryun cracked a smile. He was the type who laughed when he got too angry. A rigid, trembling little grin settled on his face — like a Buddha holding in a murderous rage.
Honestly, more than anger, what he felt was pure humiliation. Poison-art breath? How far are they going to fabricate this?
Why am I stuck in this mess…
This was not what Gong Ryun had hoped for. He would have preferred a clean, satisfying brawl like when Three-Sword Style fought the Unfilial Son.
They hadn't even properly started fighting yet.
The Poison Dagger Girl was not the type to charge first. Why else would she have floated her daggers into a barrier? She was an assassin — the kind who kept her distance, harassed with poison, dodged every which way, then delivered a dirty finishing blow the moment her opponent let their guard down.
And Gong Ryun, for his part, didn't know any charging techniques either.
So what did the fight look like?
Exactly like this.
The Poison Dagger Girl threw a poison dagger.
Gong Ryun snatched it out of the air. Learning light-footwork had made his hands fast enough for that.
The Poison Dagger Girl threw two.
Gong Ryun caught them with both hands.
The Poison Dagger Girl threw five.
Gong Ryun blocked them with Parangjang.
The Poison Dagger Girl flung a whole volley of daggers.
Gong Ryun whipped Parangjang in a flurry and bounced every last one away.
…
They repeated that.
Truly, a breathlessly boring spectacle.
People scrambled to pick up the ricocheting poison daggers. Home-run balls belonged to the crowd — that was the unwritten rule.
There was no helping it. The Poison Dagger Girl's only usable ranged attack was throwing poison daggers. The poison smoke spread too thin to be practical; it was pure aesthetics. As for Gong Ryun… there was nothing more to say. He could have used footwork techniques for ranged options, but…
His hand drifted toward his inner pocket, and he hesitated over whether he really needed to pull that out.
The completely unexpected shape of the fight was turning public opinion against them.
"What is this? This is a death match?"
"This isn't even catch."
"Just spit some poison already!!"
"Grown adults with this little fire in their bellies…"
"Booo~~ Call yourselves martial artists after that! Chop your dicks off!"
"Nice, second home-run ball."
Even the two fighters were starting to worry.
The Poison Dagger Girl was running out of daggers — and those bastards in the stands were pocketing every single one. She was going broke in real time.
Gong Ryun was short on internal energy. Keep using Parangjang like this and he'd run dry any second.
They both knew this game of catch couldn't continue.
Whether she was truly out or just rationing, the Poison Dagger Girl had gone from throwing several at a time to tossing them one by one. Watching her expensive daggers get converted into souvenir home-run balls was rotting her face from the inside out. Pride alone kept her from stopping. It was almost enough to make a person feel sorry for her.
At last, Gong Ryun made a decision.
"Hey, Poison Dagger. How about we stop playing around?"
"Yesexactlyright! The probing's over! Time to really go at it!"
"I'll yield the first move. Come at me."
"Hahaha! Asking a woman to make the first move — aren't you embarrassed!?"
"Oh, is that the rule?"
"Uh… it's not exactly a rule, but…"
"Then come on."
"No. You come."
"I said I'm yielding the first move."
"I said I'm yielding it."
Ah.
Only then did Gong Ryun understand.
This woman had no charging techniques either. No footwork that would let her close the gap in a single leap. Rushing in clumsily without the skill for it would only open her up to counters.
"No choice, then. As a gentleman, I'll propose a solution."
"Oh? And what would that be, Poison-Dispelling Poison Freak?"
Gong Ryun held out his palm.
"How about we both walk slowly to the center of the stage… take each other's hands… and have an inner power contest?"
Of course he didn't mean an actual inner power contest.
As if a poison artist would ever honestly compete in pure internal energy. Two assassins making physical contact would naturally try to ambush each other with hidden weapons and toxins. That was Gong Ryun's working image of how Poison Arts were supposed to function.
In other words, he was openly proposing they lean into the poison-user's passive skill: mutual deception.
They both needed to close the distance anyway. And once they did, it would turn into a surprise-attack battle, right?
If that was how it was going to go, they might as well do it out in the open. No clumsy charging. Just walk over slowly, meet in the middle, and settle it.
If they were poison artists, they should fight like poison artists — with nothing but fair, upright schemes and plots.
That was the content of his taunt.
Gong Ryun was quietly impressed with the clever move he'd come up with. A perfectly calibrated provocation that understood an assassin's psychology. The Poison Dagger Girl would certainly have gotten the message. Offering a pretext to close the distance safely — she might even feel a little grateful to him, deep down.
And he already had the next step planned.
When the Poison Dagger Girl attempted her "fair and upright" assassination, Gong Ryun intended to underhandedly use the straightforward Geumna-su joint lock. Ah. Truly wicked.
Experience really does teach a man. He'd taken inspiration from that street thug who'd walked right up to him under the pretense of an inner power contest. Propose something similar again, and the other side would obligingly close the gap themselves, right? That was the idea.
He only needed to touch her. One touch and the game was over. He could drag these cowards who hid behind ranged attacks and evasion into the sacred realm of close combat.
The plan was perfect.
But it was only perfect inside Gong Ryun's head.
Gong Ryun had made a critical mistake.
He had learned a lesson from last time — yet somehow failed to acquire the one piece of knowledge that actually mattered.
After that fight with the thug, he really should have searched the internet for what an "inner power contest" was.
Then he would have known what a man and a woman doing an inner power contest implied.
The instant Gong Ryun finished speaking, the entire inn went quiet.
What now?
Before he could even process the situation, someone in the audience screamed.
"The Poison-Dispelling Poison Freak just sexually harassed her!!!!!!!!"
That shout set the inn ablaze.
"How dare he say something so filthy in public!!!!!!"
"A man and a woman doing an inner power contest in a public place!!!! That's the kind of thing that only shows up in doujinshi!!!!!!"
"If you're gonna fight like that, just say you want an inner power contest!!! How spicy!!!"
"Such a politically incorrect remark!!!!! That's a report to the committee!!!!!"
"Acting like some upright scholar!!! Hiding a lecher's true nature all along!!!"
"No wonder they call him a freak!! This two-faced bastard!!!!"
"Kwahahaha!! An open sex appeal play!! Now that's unorthodox!!"
"I see you in a new light, Poison-Dispelling Poison Freak!!! You're no orthodox softie — you're a filthy unorthodox bastard!!!"
"I heard the orthodox sects dumped him on this backwater planet because he couldn't control his monstrous lust!!"
"He could knock out a whole erotic chivalry novel in one sitting!!! The scoundrel of the age!!! But if you're a mercenary living life on the edge, you need that side of you too!!!"
"Big bro San-gong-dok!! A mental attack that strikes straight at a woman's heart!!!!! Terrifying beyond measure!!!!!"
"Is that it!!!!! Completely context-free sex appeal doubles the mental attack power!!!!!!"
"Kwahaha!!! Look at the average unorthodox mercenary!!!!! The galaxy is in excellent hands!!!!"
Gong Ryun's mind reeled.