The Poison King's Legacy (3)
Dang Juju stared at the Night Pearl glowing in my palm, eyes wide with wonder.
"Ah—wait, that really is a Night Pearl? Wow. To think you'd actually have something this rare."
A Night Pearl is nothing like a modern lightbulb. Its glow is a faint, bluish shimmer—barely there at all. At that brightness, you might just manage to read a page if you held the paper right up against it. But even a light that dim becomes brilliantly bright in absolute darkness.
For a martial artist whose qi sense has been honed through training, the difference between the faintest glimmer and total black is enormous. And I, with both vision and hearing maxed out at ten stars among my Neuron Senses, could see every object in the cave as clearly as if it were day.
"Wow… I can see everything around us now."
With the Night Pearl out, the cave's interior resolved into a hazy twilight. It wasn't bright enough for Dang Juju to pick out every corner in sharp detail, but it was more than enough to survey the space.
"Huh? What's that?"
"Dark-Dwelling Poison Moss. It clings to rock walls and exudes toxin as it grows."
Thanks to the Night Pearl, the cave finally came into focus. The walls were blanketed in blue-tinged moss. Dang Juju's eyes went wide the moment she confirmed it.
"Ah—so the poison filling this cave right now is what that Dark-Dwelling Poison Moss is putting out?"
"That's right. How are you holding up?"
"Mm. Not bad, thanks to the antidote. The Dang Family's Hundred Poisons Antidote is the best there is."
"Yeah. The Hundred Poisons Antidote is an excellent detoxifier."
"But even with a medicine like that, Second Uncle still can't shake his poisoning, and Father never came back. Even the Dang Family's physicians and elders can't detoxify my uncle. Just what kind of poison did they use on him?"
I knew what the poison was. How to cure it, though—that I didn't know either.
"Let's go deeper."
"Okay."
Together with Dang Juju, I pressed farther into the cave.
"Having a Night Pearl is so nice. I can see the whole cave. Wait—?"
Something came into view as we advanced. The stark white of the clothes told us it wasn't a rock.
"A—a person?"
— Whoosh— thud—
"Aaaah, Father—!"
If it was Dang Juju's father, that meant Dang Ducheon. She let out a sharp scream and threw her arms around him at once. Even in her shock, she seized his wrist pulse first—checking whether he was still alive. Every one of those instincts was pure Dang Family training, drilled into her bones.
"Hic! H-he's alive."
Still alive?
"He barely seems to be breathing."
"That's because Father shut down every metabolic process in his body."
"Shut down his metabolism?"
"The moment he was poisoned, he sealed off his bodily functions so the toxin couldn't spread any farther. Then he used the Tortoise Breath Technique to drop himself into a suspended state—just enough to keep the bare minimum of life going. After he was poisoned, he put himself into suspended animation on purpose. Aaaaah…! Sniff. Father's alive. Th-thank goodness."
A response worthy of the Dang Family Chief, I supposed. He'd frozen himself in place and left the rest to whatever Dang clansman found him later. And now Dang Juju actually had.
"But if he's still poisoned, taking him out of here won't mean we can treat him. Second Uncle still hasn't been cured either."
"Th-that's true, but… just finding Father is more than enough. Living or dying can wait—I'm so grateful we found him at all. Aah, Young Hero Hyeon, we found Father because of you. Young Hero Hyeon! Thank you so much."
"Right. Don't forget how grateful you are."
"Of course I won't forget. Thanks to you, we finally found Father in the Poison King Cave. Come on—now that we've found him, let's get him out of here."
Leave? I still hadn't claimed the Poison King's Legacy.
I needed that to complete the Poison King Valley Quest. That was how I'd level up and obtain martial arts.
But Dang Juju, having found Dang Ducheon, had zero interest in the Poison King's Legacy. From the start, her reason for coming to the Poison King Valley with me as her guide had been to recover her father's body—or whatever remained of it. She had already achieved her goal.
"Taking the Family Chief out is something you can handle alone, Miss Dang… huh?"
A chill ran straight down my spine. Something dangerous was behind us—I felt it in my senses before I saw it. I spun around on pure reflex, and Dang Juju turned with me as if pulled by the same instinct.
"Th-th-that… wh-what is that? Hic!"
Even in the dark, Dang Juju's eyes went huge with shock. Two red lanterns burned in the blackness. Not lanterns—both of us knew that. Those were eyes. Enormous snake eyes.
Crimson pupils catching the Night Pearl's light. And, clear to my ten-star vision, a horn.
So the Crimson-Eyed Unicorn Serpent was here all along.
Not a boss character, exactly—but close enough to a boss mob.
"A s-snake… that huge? Th-that's a monster."
The massive Crimson-Eyed Unicorn Serpent had closed the distance without giving us so much as a flicker of presence to work with.
— Ssssshhh— hiss-crack—
"Ugh! Wh-what is this? Ugh? P-poison…?"
The Crimson-Eyed Unicorn Serpent lunged at us like a bolt of lightning, jaws yawning open, and sprayed liquid in a pressurized mist. A sword or a hidden weapon you can cut aside. A torrent of fluid raining down like a cloudburst or a waterfall—there is no way to parry that. Neither of us managed any defense. We took the serpent's venom full-on.
"Uuuugh…! M-my body… the H-Hundred Poisons Antidote…!"
— Rustle— gulp—
The moment the venom hit her, Dang Juju swallowed the Hundred Poisons Antidote. It wasn't enough.
"Ugh…! E-even the Hundred Poisons Antidote isn't working. S-so this is why Father went into suspended animation… this monster… ugh! I-I have to stop the poison from spreading."
— Pik-pik-pik-pik—!
"Ugh!"
Dang Juju began sealing her own pressure points—then slumped bonelessly to the ground.
"Miss Dang?"
"Ugh, ugh…! I sealed the meridians so the poison can't spread any farther, but… haah, haah… I c-can't move… already p-poisoned… ugh!"
— Thud—
Her head dropped. She wasn't dead. With the meridians sealed, the toxin wouldn't spread further. She had simply blacked out from the poison already in her system.
— Shing—
I had no weapon of my own, so I drew Dang Juju's personal sword. The Crimson-Eyed Unicorn Serpent fixed its gaze on me.
— Ssssshhh— hiss-crack—
Venom sprayed again. Once more the serpent's toxin sheeted over my body. There was no way to cut aside a rain of poison. The only real option was to leap far back out of range.
I ran straight into it instead.
Other martial arts might lag behind, but my lightness skill and footwork had reached the absolute peak within Murim Noona. Before the Crimson-Eyed Unicorn Serpent could even flinch, I drove in under its guard and swung the sword.
— Slash— schlick— thwack—
— "Kiiieeek—!"
Caught completely off guard, the serpent failed to dodge. Its body split clean in two with a shriek. The bisected Crimson-Eyed Unicorn Serpent thrashed and writhed, then went limp a short while later. Severed through the trunk—dead.
"Hah. What did you think ten-star Resistance was for?"
My body's Resistance sat at ten stars—the absolute maximum against any harmful energy. The reason the cold of the Cold Heaven Qi had left me untouched was that same ten-star Resistance to cold. And the reason I was still standing after being drenched in the Crimson-Eyed Unicorn Serpent's venom was the same: ten-star Resistance to poison.
"Listen, you bastard—I'm walking around with a body that's Impervious to All Poisons."
The serpent had gone down so absurdly easily because it had never met anyone like me. Every person it had ever faced, it had sent to the next world with a single spray of venom. Even Dang Ducheon—a master of toxins from the Dang Family itself—had been helpless against that spray. Everyone else went without saying. No one who had ever faced the Crimson-Eyed Unicorn Serpent had walked away unharmed. It had probably never even been struck by a human attack. So when I closed the distance and put a blade through it, it had nothing.
The serpent was handled. Dang Juju collapsing from poison on top of everything else, though—that was a problem.
"Hmm. This got messy. I didn't expect her to go down too. Haah. Getting both of them out of here won't be easy."
A thoroughly inconvenient situation.
"I'll finish the Poison King Valley Quest first, then figure it out."
I still hadn't obtained the Poison King's Legacy.
"A Crimson-Eyed Unicorn Serpent being here means it was the mob guarding the legacy. Which means the Poison King's Legacy is definitely farther in."
With the serpent dead, I headed deeper with a light heart. The cave ran a long way. Only after pressing on another several dozen zhang did I finally reach the end.
"Unbelievable. A cave studded with luminous stones."
Phosphorescent stones were set into the far wall—rocks that glowed like Night Pearls—and the chamber was brightly lit. For a martial artist, or for someone with ten-star vision like me, it was more than enough light.
At last, I had arrived where the Poison King waited. At the end of the cave sat a single mummy, cross-legged in the lotus position.
"So this is the Poison King?"
Before the corpse, still seated in meditation, lay a single booklet.
I had finally reached the resting place of the Poison King's Legacy.