If You Seek Death, You Shall Live
A round, pale face cast a soft light like the moon itself.
It was a face of androgynous beauty, the kind that dulled a person's reason and left them dazed. A moment that made the old phrase beauty under the moon rise unbidden to the tongue.
"Mmm…"
And maybe Ilhong's warning had been right all along. From the instant our eyes met, I couldn't tear my gaze from that face. My whole body locked up as if bound by some hex, and I just stood there staring blankly.
"Ugh."
Beside me, not a muscle moved either. Dang Yeohye looked just as trapped as I was.
So this was the magic of a yaosu that had lived for hundreds, even thousands of years in the cutthroat world of the Murim.
"Kuuwoooong!"
But Hyeol-ungmyo, who couldn't have cared less about human aesthetics, let out a roar that snapped us both back to our senses. She gave me and Dang Yeohye a firm nudge, shattering the spell.
"Hah—thank you, Ungmyo!"
"That was really terrifying!"
We both exhaled in relief. Hyeol-ungmyo let out a satisfied kuheung at the sight of us.
Kirrr—
The Human-Faced Spider, which had been working its strange trick on us, tilted its head to one side as if puzzled that we had broken free.
"This is a grenade."
Tssss.
I should have done this from the start. The fuse caught the torch flame and began to burn with a spray of sparks. I hurled the iron sphere Ilhong had given me hard toward the creature.
KWAANG—!
A flash and a blast that shook the whole cave. The explosion itself wasn't huge, but the thing—so used to darkness and silence—writhed as if a flashbang had gone off right in its face.
"Kirrrrrrk—!"
Its bizarre face twisted in agony. Then something large and heavy dropped from the cave ceiling with a dull thud.
"…Holy shit."
"Wow. I'd only heard about them, but I never thought a spider could get that big."
I tossed a torch nearby, and the spider's body came fully into view. A spider the size of a grown man twitched its six pairs of legs and glared at us, its venomous eyes flashing red in the torchlight.
"Those bones…"
"Animal and human mixed together. Remains of whatever it ate, no doubt."
All of them from around here—people from the Five Poison Gate, the Poison Valley, the Nanman Beast Palace, picked off one by one.
"Kirrrrk—"
A yaosu with a spider's body and a human face, unsettling just to look at. On closer inspection, beneath the human face it also had a real spider's mouth and jaws—thick fangs that looked made for stabbing, a hard carapace, and a pair of solid mandibles.
Click-click.
It looked us over, then clacked its fangs together as if smacking its lips.
"Like I said on the way—no matter what happens, do not get bitten by those fangs."
The poison sac connected to those fangs was exactly what we had come for today. One of the fifteen ingredients for the Ten-Thousand-Sovereign Great Soul Pill—the final piece that would harmonize every poison and bring them into balance. Dry it and take it back, and we could raise Clan Head Dang Yangcheon to his feet. I would earn a massive store of merit, and on top of that, an ironclad network of connections inside Sichuan.
"That's on a completely different level from the poison powder it sprays periodically. Even you would die from it."
Your whole body would melt down until nothing was left but a handful of bloody water, she said, then bit down hard on her anti-poison bead again. Instead of pumping me up for the fight, Dang Yeohye just kept spitting out grim warnings. A glance at her small, pale face showed worry pouring off it in waves.
Her main weapon—poison—was all but sealed against this thing, and even with the detox pill and anti-poison bead in her mouth she could barely bring half her usual strength to bear. If she had come alone, she would never have put up a real fight. Just one more set of human bones on that pile.
"No retreat before battle!"
So I had to step up and take its head myself. I poured every scrap of demon-slaying inner energy I had stored into the Beggar's Staff, and the weapon blazed up like a holy flame wrapped in white light.
…!
As my whole body pulsed with the power of the Seongun Simbeop, the Heavenly Killing Star thrashed violently in response.
"Kirrrk—!"
A red line scored across my vision. The Human-Faced Spider launched itself into the air and came at me with its blade-like leg tips, killing intent pouring off every strike.
"If you seek death, you shall live!"
Every fight was the same. Fight as if you mean to die, and you win. I twisted my head aside, dodging a plunging leg by a hair's breadth, and deployed the Seonpungbo.
I vanished as if the ground had swallowed me, and the Human-Faced Spider rolled its eyes in panic. Then—
Taat!
I sprang up behind it like a coil of steel and swung the Beggar's Staff. A pure white arc cut a clean half-circle through the air.
Puhk!
The exoskeleton that was supposed to be impervious to blades shattered under a blow loaded with inner energy—kwajajak!
"Kirrrreeeek—!"
Its human face gaped wide and let out a grotesque scream. Up close, it was even more hideous.
Shhhik! Shik-shik-shik!
Its expression twisted into something pure evil as it flailed at me without pause with all six pairs of legs. Red lines scored every which way, as if I were under attack by a whole group of people. It felt like being trapped inside a web of blazing crimson threads. All the real combat experience I had built up against human opponents suddenly felt useless.
Puk!
In the end, one leg I couldn't dodge kicked me hard in the side.
"Kehk! Son of a bitch!"
A vicious blow that made my organs shudder. I went flying into the cave wall and tumbled across the dirt floor. Hit by a spider leg, and it felt like being clubbed with an iron mace.
"Die!"
While its eyes and legs were locked on me, Dang Yeohye unleashed a venomous glare. She drove her five fingers, pinched together like a raptor's beak, deep into one of the creature's thick thigh joints.
"Kirrrrrk—!"
Dark green fluid gushed out as one of its massive legs snapped clean through. The price was a hastily extended leg that sent her flying into the wall the same way I had.
"Kh—this isn't the Paleozoic, what the hell kind of spider—!"
It was absurdly huge and swinging around monstrous strength. The biggest spider I had ever seen in my life had been palm-sized at most. Anyway, the problem was this damned "qi" that supposedly existed between heaven and earth.
Pteuek!
Red dots filled every direction. I opened my eyes wide and saw it lifting its abdomen to spray spider silk laced with venom.
"What the fuck…!"
If it had been blades flying at me, I could have traded flesh for bone and counterattacked. Instead I had to keep rolling and tumbling under an attack so outlandish I couldn't even think of a counter.
Pteuek! Pteuek!
It seemed to have marked me as the greatest threat and chased me relentlessly. At last one strand of the sticky silk it had spat in every direction snagged my ankle.
"Kirrrk!"
Its eyes flashed as if to say, Got you. Its front legs moved like lightning, reeling in the thread.
"Oh, shit…!"
Pain like my ankle was about to tear. I screamed and pulled with everything I had, but my body just dragged steadily toward it. The Human-Faced Spider watched me approach and opened its lower mouth wide, revealing teeth sharp as saw blades.
"Kuuwooong!"
In that instant, a massive beast charged the Human-Faced Spider with a thunderous roar.
Kung—!
A body slam that must have weighed well over a thousand jin sent the creature flying into the wall this time.
"Kirrrreeugh…!"
The impact was enormous; it barely managed to get its six pairs of legs under itself and rise. Hyeol-ungmyo didn't miss the opening. She charged again with pure aggression and hammered it with her heavy claws.
Kung! Jjeok! Puhk! Kwadeuk!
She focused her power into single points, bursting and splitting the hard exoskeleton again and again. Yellowish fluid sprayed everywhere as the Human-Faced Spider screamed. Sensing it couldn't go on like this, it spat silk from the half-torn tip of its abdomen and covered Hyeol-ungmyo's face.
With her vision blocked, all her martial precision vanished; she thrashed her whole body wildly.
"Kirrrrr—!"
"Kuuwooong—!"
Spirit beast and yaosu tangled together in a savage brawl. Claws and fangs crashed, flesh flew—a pure animal fight. A monster battle of things tearing and bursting. The cave walls shook with their desperate struggle.
Jjik!
I tore the tough spider silk off my skin and pushed myself up. And in that very moment—
Pook.
The Human-Faced Spider's lower fangs sank deep into Hyeol-ungmyo's shoulder. Blue-green venom bored into the spirit beast's flesh and overflowed, dripping steadily. Raised on poison as she was, she didn't melt, but her whole body locked up and blood poured from her mouth—she was in mortal danger.
"No…! You son of a bitch, that's our Ungmyo!"
The creature wore a cruel smile on its human face, ready to finish her.
"Howl… Hellish Vengeance Staff!"
Taat!
I poured everything into the Seonpungbo and shot forward like an arrow. The distance closed in an instant; the sharp legs that had been about to finish Hyeol-ungmyo turned on me instead. I met them with the Beggar's Staff, white energy of righteousness whipping around it.
Puk! Puhk!
The three legs left after the blood-duel with Hyeol-ungmyo burst one after another, spraying fluid. From six pairs at the start, it had been reduced to something no worse than facing a three-sword style.
"Kirrrreugh…!"
With all its legs gone, the creature twisted its whole body and flopped over. I thought it was disabled and charged in—only to realize it was a feint so it could spit silk.
Pteuek!
At point-blank range it sprayed a wide net of silk. There was no dodging it. I twisted desperately, but part of the web seized my right hand and the Beggar's Staff.
Pteuek!
It squeezed its blunt abdomen and wrapped my other hand in silk as well.
"Kirrrk, kirrrrrk!"
Its grinning human face radiated pure malice. It was clearly planning to smother me in venomous silk, and the smile was vicious.
Then a sharp whistle of air cut through the cave—like a raptor's beak.
Puhk!
A smooth, slender hand punched straight through the Human-Faced Spider's laughing face. No brain, no skull—just scraps of skin flapping free.
"Die, you piece of shit…"
The Human-Faced Spider crumpled completely to the floor. Behind it stood Dang Yeohye, her face deathly pale.
"Huuuk, huuk…"
"Noona, are you okay?"
She sucked in ragged breaths and shook her head.
"Of course I'm not okay. Hah—what about you?"
Jjiiik.
I forced the stubborn silk off my arms as I answered.
"I'm a wreck from head to toe."
Ungmyo was the same; none of us were in anything close to good shape.
"Ugh… the poison sac… I have to harvest the poison sac to save Father."
Even exhausted, she muttered that she still had a job to do, drew a short blade, and approached the spider whose head had been blown open.
"…Let's take a breather first."
I walked over with a weary face.
"No. It has to be a fresh poison sac for the best efficacy…"
But then a flash of blood-red killing intent from the thing we had thought dead. I saw a red line score toward Dang Yeohye's temple.
"Oh, fuck!"
A dying thrash. I threw my arm out and barely blocked its fang right in front of her nose.
Pook!
The very fang she had warned me so carefully about punched through my body. Dang Yeohye's eyes went wide.
Kwadeuk!
Her hand-blade, shimmering with water qi, finished the creature for good—severing its last breath.
And I collapsed to the floor like a kite with a cut string.
The Human-Faced Spider's deadly venom spread through me like fire, melting my insides. I thrashed my limbs under pain like being cast into the fires of hell.
"Keugh, keuaaagh!"
"No! Nooo! There's no antidote for Human-Faced Spider venom!"
She dropped to her knees where she stood, face full of despair. The sharp eyes she usually wore were gone; she looked at me with tears welling up.
A body that felt like it had fallen into qi deviation, skin melting away, and that hopeless face staring down at me—my life started flashing before my eyes.
Is this how I go?
When I fell off that cliff there had at least been a shred of hope. Getting hit by a poison that seemed to outrun even my regeneration was a first for me.
"Yeohye noona."
"Y-yeah."
"If I don't get up from this…"
"…Hey! Don't say that kind of thing! I'll do something—I'll find a way!"
The moment I started to spit out what sounded like last words, she frantically began sucking the poison from the wound and spitting it out. I'd heard that was a dangerous thing to do.
"Moyong Cheonghye… tell her to stay strong and keep living. And tell Ilhong I'm sorry I couldn't keep my promise."
My tongue was already twisting, and I could feel myself melting bit by bit. I knew I didn't have much time left.
"And Yeohye noona… fix that godawful personality of yours a little and try making some friends."
"…"
My tongue grew more and more clumsy. Still, there was one more thing I had to say. I squeezed out every last drop of strength I had left.
"And—keugh—to Master Hwang Geolgae, who beat me up every single day…"
"To him…?"
"Tell him the Mysterious Daoist act does not suit him at all and looks completely fake… so please, for the love of god, stop…"
A little flippant for a dying wish, but it was the honest truth. Who knew how many people were suffering right now because of that old man's self-actualization.
"Con… what?"
She'd get the general idea. I had said everything I needed to say. The moment I thought that, the strength drained out of my body.
"N-no! Don't close your eyes, Mujin!"
My eyelids were shutting on their own. Her scream echoing through the cave was the last thing I heard as my consciousness cut out.
Consciousness rose slowly through a haze of dull sensation.
It felt like I had been dead for a long time. My whole body was so leaden that even opening my eyes felt like a struggle.
Chirp-chirp.
Mountain birds were singing, so this probably wasn't hell.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was an unfamiliar ceiling of stone and timber. And next to me, Dang Yeohye's profile—gaunt as if she had spent weeks nursing me.
I seemed to remember throwing out all kinds of last words. Awkwardly enough, I had lived.
"Good morning."
But what could I do? The living had to keep living.
"…!"
At my quiet greeting, Dang Yeohye's half-closed eyes flew wide open.