One-Turn Kill Duel
As a rule, the weight of a dirty joke changes with the situation.
Who you say it to.
When you say it.
Where you say it.
Two close friends trading filthy jokes with each other? Totally fine.
Even if those friends are opposite sexes — as long as they're close, and it's just the two of them at home — banter like, "Hey, don't my feet look pretty?" "Dude, those are hideous. You look like a gorilla." "Be honest, you wanna lick them? I'll let you." "Ahahaha, keep that up and I might jump you." "Fr lmao" "Pfft hahahaha" is no problem at all. Just another scene out of a standard rom-com.
Another example: right before the free-for-all earlier, the mercenaries had been lobbing sex jokes at each other in a pack, and nobody batted an eye.
A bunch of hyped-up mercs one step shy of a brawl, hiding behind the mask of a group, needling each other with the wholesome goal of pissing the other side off. Perfectly within the bounds of common sense.
But in Gong Ryun's case—
To a woman he'd never met before, in the middle of a life-or-death duel, in a public square with every eye locked on them, blurting out, "Wanna have an internal force contest (= yin-yang union) in front of all these people?" — that, unquestionably, carried a very different weight.
And when a guy who'd been playing the genteel young master of the righteous path only moments earlier flipped his attitude like a split personality and said it with a straight face? The effect doubled.
In the end, another stack of notoriety was added to the Poison-Dispelling Poison Freak.
The Northern Mercenary Gate people tore into him hard.
"That piece of trash!"
"Worse than a mercenary!"
"Leave our girl alone!"
If this had been a normal life-or-death match, it wouldn't have been any of their business — but this was a team game, and the Poison Loneblade was their representative. Of course they had some loyalty. Empathy kicked in on its own.
It was absolutely not because their own interests were on the line. Definitely not because the commission would go up in smoke if the Poison Loneblade lost.
What the hell is this…?
Gong Ryun was completely lost.
Wait — so men and women aren't allowed to do internal force contests?
He still couldn't believe he had just become a public sexual harasser.
And in the middle of that confusion—
"Kyahahahahahahaha!!!!!"
The Poison Loneblade's bold, booming laugh rang out across the square.
"Too bad for you, Poison-Dispelling Poison Freak!!!!!"
She didn't look offended in the slightest. She was grinning.
"I guess that righteous-path young master act isn't all for show!!! Your cheap provocations are really half-baked!!!! Poison-Dispelling Poison Freak!! Your taunt had a massive blind spot!!!!! You know what it was!!!!!"
"…What?"
While Gong Ryun was still trying to figure out where this was going, the Poison Loneblade laughed with wicked delight and shouted,
"Listen carefully!!! You!!!!! Kyahahaha!!! Are pretty damn good-looking!!!!! So it doesn't bother me at all!!!!!! Kyahahahaha!!!!"
"…??"
"You can drop all the dirty jokes you want with a face like that!!!!! It just turns me on!!! You idiot!!!!!"
"……Oh."
"I'll tell you what instead!!!!! Me!!! After I smear your dantian thick and sticky with my internal energy until it's a complete mess!!! I'll carve my green brand tattoo right into the skin over your dantian!!!!! I'll make sure you can never get married for the rest of your life!!!! Every time you change clothes or take a bath, you'll think of me!!!! Kyahahahahahaha!!!!!!"
Reverse sexual harassment!
The Poison Loneblade's tongue spat out a string of shameless lines.
"So, Poison-Dispelling Poison Freak!!! I accept!!!!! That provocation of yours!!!!! Let's have that internal force contest!!!!! Get ready to piss yourself!!!!!"
A roar went up from the spectators.
Some marveled at her guts.
Some were stunned by this brand of unorthodox vulgarity.
And some simply felt a vague, inexplicable sense of injustice…
In any case, under that feverish reaction, the two martial artists walked toward each other.
No lightfoot technique, no footwork forms, no charging arts — just two feet, soft and even.
With every step the Poison Loneblade took, the floating daggers she had bound in a barrier kept pace, holding their distance. Her mechanical right arm whirred busily as well, preparing something.
Gong Ryun, for his part, wrapped himself in protective qi at full strength and readied himself to activate Geumnasu.
Naturally, neither of them had any intention of actually doing an internal force contest.
Thud. Thud.
Step. Step.
Before long they had closed to near enough that their hands could touch, and they faced each other.
The Poison Loneblade raised her right hand and extended it forward — as if offering a handshake.
Both hands would be a bit much. Even for a woman this bold, using both hands in front of everyone was still pretty mortifying. That would be genuinely too lewd. Surely the Poison-Dispelling Poison Freak would agree. So she sent a silent look that said: right hand only.
Reading it, Gong Ryun slowly put out his right hand as well. Fine. One hand was enough.
Two hands moved toward each other.
Like two snakes opening their jaws and lunging for each other's throats.
The crowd held its breath.
They were about to witness a public, full-exposure yin-yang union live.
And then…
Clasp.
A handshake.
Two hands locked together.
The instant their palms met, both attacks began.
"Got youuuuuuuuu!!!!!!"
The Poison Loneblade was faster off the mark.
Her attack went like this.
From the palm of her mechanical right hand, a ultra-hard special-alloy poison needle shot out. Coated on it was a nerve toxin that could instantly paralyze the entire body of most martial artists. A perfect assassin's trick, the kind of sucker-punch method she loved to use. She'd been setting it up the whole walk over. No one could complain. Assassins were supposed to work that way.
At the same time, she drove every floating dagger forward at once through aerial object control. Flying dagger arts — a mongrel technique that tried to imitate sword-riding with telekinetic object manipulation. Fine control wasn't required. Just fire more than ten blades hard in one direction and nick the target with little cuts. That was enough. This was the Poison Loneblade, after all. Different toxins would flood the body and chew through protective qi in seconds.
"Kyahaha!!! Ten Thousand Blossoms Rain (not really)!!!!!"
With her left hand she also snatched one of the poison daggers and settled into a wide stance for a big finishing motion. The plan was to drive the blade into a vital point the moment the rain of daggers ended.
All of that took roughly one second.
And Gong Ryun's response went like this.
Seize the mechanical right arm with inhuman grip strength.
He clamped the Poison Loneblade's mechanical right arm with a grip that defied common sense.
Her hand was crushed in his grasp.
The poison needle did fire in the middle of it — but unfortunately, Gong Ryun's palm was under a complete invincibility judgment. If she'd aimed for the back of his hand, she might have had a sliver of a chance. The needle failed to pierce the skin and snapped clean.
Gong Ryun didn't stop there.
It was a mechanical arm anyway. No need to hold back.
What Gong Ryun was good at: rotating the palm and shredding flesh and muscle to pieces. Same idea as what he'd done to that bandit last time.
Only this time, he was even more merciless.
KRAAAAAACK!!!!!!!
With a thunderous screech, the mechanical arm shattered evenly from hand to shoulder.
It was hard to believe the thing was made of metal. It was crumpling almost like a cookie.
And at the same time, his left hand fired Parangjang. From the moment he'd started walking over, he'd been preparing the form from an angle she couldn't see. All it needed was a surge of internal energy and he could unleash it instantly.
The second Geumnasu finished, he struck. The form he used was the third: Parangchungbyeok — Blue Wave Shockwall — which launched a shockwave. He'd practiced a lot; the power had grown.
A shockwave palm that crashes through the torso and breaks the enemy's advance.
BOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!
Parangjang slammed dead-center into the Poison Loneblade's upper body. It also cut the thrusting force of the daggers. The form she'd been winding up with her left hand was interrupted cold.
Hit by the shockwave, her body was hurled violently backward.
But Gong Ryun still hadn't released her right hand. The moment the Parangjang stance ended, he poured internal force into his right hand instead. A shockingly fast chain. Geumnasu again. Power flooded into his grip.
While rotating his hand, he yanked hard and rough toward himself with all his strength.
A mechanical arm already past its durability limit. The body flew backward — the arm was dragged forward.
In the end…
CRACK!!!!!!!!!
The shoulder split wide, and the entire arm tore free.
Their hands were still locked tight — but one of those hands no longer had an owner. It had been forcibly conscripted, hauled brutally in Gong Ryun's direction.
Like drawing a sword from its scabbard, Gong Ryun pulled the arm clean out of the Poison Loneblade's body.
Mechanical fragments sprayed in every direction.
That, too, took roughly one second.
…And then time began to flow normally again.
CRASH-TUMBLE-BANG!!!!!!!!!!
The Poison Loneblade went flying through the air and tumbled hard across the ground.
"Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!!!!"
A scream tore out of her.
"My arm!!!!! Hwaaaaaaaaaagh!!!!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!!!!!!"
As the mechanical arm shattered, a tidal wave of pain — as if the nerves linked to it were being shredded — crashed through her.
"Grrrrrk…"
Before long the Poison Loneblade was out of the fight. Pain, physical impact, and internal trauma — the triple set — knocked her cold.
Opposite the woman sprawled on the ground stood one man. Gong Ryun.
A few of the daggers had grazed him.
Of the blades launched through the air by flying-dagger arts, several had punched through the Parangjang and reached him — but with most of their thrusting force bled off, they hadn't cut deep.
Light, thread-thin scratches. Protective qi could stop them; a cycle of qi circulation and breath regulation would purify the rest. In the middle of a fight they would have been a real nuisance — but he had already won.
Gong Ryun muttered briefly.
"I won."