The Art of Poison (2)
The realm of Peak was truly ambiguous. Those who could freely wield their qi were First-class, and those who could project it outward were Peak. Super Peak simply meant surpassing Peak. Opinions varied on the exact boundary, but most agreed that anyone who held a decisive edge over other Peak masters qualified as Super Peak. By that standard, however, the promising heirs of great clans aiming for the Top 100 Masters and the Five Great Masters who stood at the pinnacle of the Central Plains were all lumped together as Super Peak. Since their actual strength and prestige clearly differed, further distinctions such as Top 100 Master or Absolute Master were introduced even within the Super Peak category. Yet there was no reason the top hundred or so should all possess comparable skill. The divisions were arbitrary rather than reflections of any true qualitative leap, and upon reflection, the very category of Super Peak was no different.
Thus, only after clashing several times could Yeom Ho-yun be certain. She had now reached Super Peak.
"...More troublesome than I expected. Where did you learn that martial art?"
The Black Poison King spoke with feigned ease. Yet anyone who had followed the course of the fight would know better than to trust that composure. In terms of realm and depth of inner force, the Black Poison King, one of the Eight Lords, far surpassed Yeom Ho-yun, who had only just entered Super Peak. His fame, however, rested on poison arts and venom manipulation; while his claw techniques were sharp, they were not considered his signature killing art. Moreover, even granting the gap in inner force, one had only to compare the Black Poison King's aged body—well past seventy and still bearing unhealed wounds from a recent injury—with Yeom Ho-yun's seven-foot-three frame clad in thick muscle like armor, and the difference in raw physical power more than compensated.
The outcome had been made plain through three exchanges. The Black Poison King's Black Claw was being driven back helplessly by Yeom Ho-yun's close-quarters boxing. He used his experience to slip through gaps and avoid being caught, yet before he could mount a counterattack he was forced to focus entirely on deflecting the feather-needles that flew at him whenever she unleashed her grappling techniques.
Still, even the Black Poison King, who appeared to be merely fleeing, had something he relied upon.
"You hold your breath quite well."
"..."
To his eyes, Yeom Ho-yun—unlike Dang Ju-yeon—possessed neither resistance to the black fog nor the ability to neutralize it. She was simply enduring without breathing by reinforcing her cardiovascular system through some special reverse-breathing or breath-holding method. No matter how long a person held their breath, they could not exceed one incense stick's time, and violent movement shortened that span further. Worse still, she had taken one or two breaths at the beginning, so poison had already seeped into her lungs.
Yeom Ho-yun gave no reply and hurled herself forward with all her strength. The Black Poison King responded by dashing away, but Yeom Ho-yun held a clear advantage not only in strength but in speed. In an instant she closed the distance and thrust out her arm—a grappling technique meant to end the fight quickly.
Even masters of poison arts trained their bodies. An attack that flesh and bone could not withstand could still be endured for a moment by gathering one's qi into a protective barrier. Yet if she caught him with a grappling technique and they locked arms or rolled across the ground, he would have no escape once trapped. It was a strategy that concealed her weaknesses while maximizing her strengths. With no other advantages in the fight and retreat impossible, the Black Poison King found himself in a dire position.
Of course, had the situation been one where difficulty meant certain death, he would never have survived even to his thirtieth year, let alone his sixtieth. The Black Poison King suddenly halted his wildly moving arms and blocked Yeom Ho-yun's palm. His fingers, laden with decades of experience, interlocked with hers, producing a grating metallic screech. Though Yeom Ho-yun's strength was no longer at its peak after holding her breath so long, she still far outclassed him. If the close-quarters struggle continued, the Black Poison King would inevitably lose.
So why had he chosen this? Yeom Ho-yun instinctively looked up at his face and squeezed her eyes shut. A split second later, a murky gray mist erupted from the Black Poison King's mouth. Yeom Ho-yun's head surged upward through the poisonous cascade and slammed into his forehead.
The Black Poison King sprang backward, smiling. Her decision to ram him at the last moment to prevent him from using his hands had been sound, yet he had anticipated even that. By relaxing his legs and lightening his body, the impact, while not nonexistent, was minimal, and the distance between them widened once more. Yeom Ho-yun, however, had already exhausted her breath, moved violently, and finally exerted her protective qi throughout her body. No matter how robust her constitution, her next attack would be her last.
Then came the sound of feet striking the ground with great force. Thinking Yeom Ho-yun was attempting to settle the fight at once, the Black Poison King quickly rose and drew his daggers with both hands. What met his eyes, however, was Yeom Ho-yun charging toward Dang Ju-yeon instead.
Sensing something amiss, the Black Poison King tried to pursue, but at that precise instant Dang Ju-yeon's hidden weapon tube flew toward him. Though the technique itself was only barely at Peak, the tube itself was not something even he could ignore. He twisted his waist sharply to evade it. That single moment was enough.
After sharing a deep breath with Dang Ju-yeon, Yeom Ho-yun rolled her shoulders and faced the Black Poison King once more. The Black Poison King let out a hollow laugh.
The Black Poison King decided to be honest with himself. In this fight, he had been a fool. It was impossible to conduct a battle solely according to a prearranged plan, yet as a master of poison and hidden weapons, he should at least have been able to shape the general flow of the fight—and he had failed. Yeom Ho-yun's talent had far exceeded his expectations, and the fact that the Poison King's granddaughter had mastered his black fog was something he had never even imagined.
He could guess what had happened. That madman had copied the black fog and passed it on, through some intermediary, to the Poison King's granddaughter. Since he had come to settle old grudges with the Illusion Sword and the Poison King, he had never intended to let anyone leave alive. Now, however, he had an even greater reason to kill them without delay. Should even one of them survive and transmit the poison fog to the Dang Clan, any future conflict with them would become far more troublesome.
It was fortunate, at least, that the Jipmudang Jeje he had been wary of due to lack of information had fallen so easily. Had she also possessed a means of withstanding the black fog, the situation would truly have gone awry.
"It seems you were right. I really have grown old."
The Black Poison King sighed. Dang Ju-yeon answered at once.
"You've already passed the age of following your heart's desires, so it's only natural. The waves of the Yangtze push the ones before them onward—that is the way of the world. It's time to entrust the future of the martial world to the younger generation and close your eyes."
"Your grandfather is two years older than I am, you know?"
"Since you were such close friends, the two of you can go together. You won't be lonely."
At that, the Black Poison King burst into laughter.
"The Dang Clan has raised quite the filial granddaughter."
Instead of replying, Dang Ju-yeon hurled her hidden weapon tube. The sharp crack of splitting bamboo rang out, and iron needles faster than sound flew toward him. This was the fourth time. The Dang Clan's secret weapon, the hidden needle tube, was a formidable device. Thanks to needles that moved faster than a master's eye and pierced protective qi like paper, Dang Ju-yeon, who had only just reached Peak, had been able to hold the Black Poison King's attention for brief moments.
Yet, like all weapons, it was not omnipotent. Its greatest drawback was the difficulty of its manufacture. Even the most skilled hidden-weapon artisans required several full days to produce a single tube, and the materials were anything but ordinary. Normally, such a device was far too wasteful to expend on killing a single person. However, Dang Ju-yeon was a direct descendant of the Poison King, and her opponent was the Black Poison King, the Dang Clan's mortal enemy. The first issue was therefore irrelevant in this fight. The second drawback, however, was far more pressing.
The tubes were bulky and difficult to carry in large numbers. Even when made from slender bamboo stalks, they remained cumbersome. Only two shots remained. If the opponent were unaware, she might still manage something, but the Black Poison King, a grandmaster of poison and hidden weapons, would never fail to recognize them.
"How many left? One? Two? If you didn't bring anything else, maybe three."
The Black Poison King sneered. Yeom Ho-yun, having received another breath, stepped forward. Her body showed no sign of fatigue, yet her furrowed brow betrayed her impatience. She had expected to finish him by the third or fourth exchange. Indeed, judging by the flow of the fight alone, he should have fallen on the second. Each time, either Yeom Ho-yun had made a mistake at the critical moment or the Black Poison King had produced some ingenious move to escape defeat. A fool might think the Black Poison King had simply been lucky. But how could the same thing happen three times? Those who won only when victory was assured were not called masters. Masters were masters because they saw paths invisible to others.
Smiling faintly, the Black Poison King raised his arms as Yeom Ho-yun charged without further hesitation. The posture of their exchange was the same as before. Yeom Ho-yun spread her long arms wide, pressing from all directions, while the Black Poison King crouched, drawing his shorter arms inward to meet her. He looked like a spider facing a charging bee.
The struggle continued—him trying to shake her off, her trying to close in. Their arms tangled and parted like two fighting snakes, over and over. Yet Yeom Ho-yun's arms were longer and heavier; each time they separated, his arms were driven outward until at last an opening appeared inside his guard, within easy reach of her grasp. This much had happened before, but previously the Black Poison King had always found a sliver of space to slip through and end the exchange. This time, perhaps thinking that would no longer suffice, Yeom Ho-yun played her trump card.
Instead of trying to seize his arms, she swung both of hers past his flanks and clasped her hands behind his back. If she pulled, his torso would be trapped within the circle of her arms. It was not a technique one saw often. By leaving the opponent's limbs and head free while exposing her own flanks and neck, she risked being struck in her vital areas with qi-infused palm strikes or short blades before she could complete the hold. Those with only superficial understanding would call it a mistake—a technique viable only in weaponless, qi-less sparring, and therefore useless. Yet they failed to grasp that in combat, conventional propriety was the surest path to defeat.
Yeom Ho-yun had no need to tighten her arms. If she simply rotated half a turn while holding him, the hidden weapon tube would already be flying toward them. Unless he could somehow reverse the joint lock on his arms, there would be no way to block it. The Black Poison King would be dead. She must have thought so. And that, too, was exactly what the Black Poison King had been waiting for.
The moment Yeom Ho-yun began to squeeze, his feet slid as though they had been waiting. His body slipped between her legs from the toes upward. Realizing the trick a moment too late, Yeom Ho-yun desperately brought her arms down, trying to trap him with her elbows, but his fingertips slipped through by a hair's breadth.
The cost of the missed strike was heavy. Yeom Ho-yun's large frame was bent forward, limiting her mobility, and her back was turned. The Black Poison King was also on the ground, but his smaller build worked to his advantage in this situation. He kicked off the earth, flipped once in the air, and landed. Dang Ju-yeon's hidden weapon tube shot toward him while his movement was restricted, yet he extended his left arm as though he had known it was coming and caught the needles. With a metallic clash, the needles pierced his forearm but stopped short of reaching his body.
Then his foot, charged with inner force, struck Yeom Ho-yun's back as she half-rose. Her body crashed into the rubble, and the recoil sent the Black Poison King hurtling toward Dang Ju-yeon. The distance closed rapidly. When only a single jang remained, a faint whisper of wind brushed past the hem of Dang Ju-yeon's robes.
If the hidden needle tube was the Dang Clan's most feared secret weapon, then the Porcupine Leather was their most treasured. Unlike other hidden weapons, the Porcupine Leather was not designed for assassination. It was given only to direct descendants of the clan and was never to be used unless one's life was in danger. It existed solely for the moment when an enemy had closed to within a single jang and no other options remained—a final means of self-defense, or more bluntly, a weapon of mutual destruction.
Because its existence was unknown to the outside world, many had lost their lives to the storm of countless fine needles that erupted when victory seemed assured. Yet the Black Poison King, who had already slain more direct descendants of the Dang Clan than could be counted on one hand, could hardly be ignorant of it. The needles fired from the Porcupine Leather were finer than ox-hair needles and reflected no light, making them nearly impossible to see. Their number reached several dozen, and the trigger mechanism was silent, so even skilled masters struggled to detect the danger. But if one already knew, there was no hidden weapon easier to counter.
The Black Poison King exhaled sharply and released a powerful burst of protective qi throughout his body. The exceedingly thin needles snapped and scattered, none of them reaching his skin. With that, no further obstacles remained.
In that fleeting instant, the Black Poison King savored the joy of vengeance to the fullest. Not only would he dispose of the insolent brat who had humiliated him, but he would also present the Poison King with the corpse of his beloved granddaughter. Nothing could have pleased him more. As he reached out to seize Dang Ju-yeon's heart, he suddenly felt something catch at his ankle.
A small hand.
Literally, his own mistake had seized him by the ankle.
If one were to tally the Black Poison King's errors today, they would be too numerous to count. Had he observed her feet carefully instead of provoking Dang Ju-yeon while watching her expression, he might have noticed the moment Gyeon Yo's eyes opened a sliver. Had he not rushed forward in excitement but first finished Yeom Ho-yun before turning on Dang Ju-yeon, he would have noticed when Gyeon Yo, experiencing real combat for the first time, unconsciously drew a breath. Had he paused to catch his breath after deflecting the Porcupine Leather at the final moment, he might have had time to raise his protective qi when Gyeon Yo's fingers closed around his ankle.
And there were countless other miscalculations—refusing to retreat even after realizing his plan had gone awry among them. This was the price.
Pain served to warn living creatures away from death, yet paradoxically, excessive pain could also invite it. Movement of muscles and perception through the five senses both traveled along nerves. Pain, being a sensation, traveled the same path. This had been proven.
Moving an arm naturally through True Lightning Essence Electricity was difficult. One had to meticulously map the connections between countless signals and muscle movements. In contrast, simply amplifying the propagation of those signals was not particularly hard. What happened when one supplied the maximum pain a nerve could endure? The result was obvious and uninteresting, and it violated ethical boundaries, so she had never bothered to experiment. Still, it was not without potential use, so she had memorized the method just in case.
Looking back now, it was fortunate indeed.
She was a born scholar. No matter how many combat scenarios filled her mind, simply being near a killing-intent-filled master made her heart race and fear fill her chest. Even as she worried about making a mistake, she followed the method she had learned and channeled lightning qi through the skin she touched.
The amount of lightning qi was not particularly great, yet it flowed into the Black Poison King through his ankle. The lightning qi did its work, and the stimulated nerves did theirs. The moment the neural signal raced up his spine and reached his brain, the Black Poison King died.
Just as the hypothesis had predicted.
As his body collapsed, Gyeon Yo closed her eyes. Whether from using her head too much while short of breath or from staying awake for days, she felt dizzy and drowsy.