Chapter 147
Chapter 147
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 42
>Chapter Title: Poison Person (3)
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-Drip! Drip!
Thick droplets of blood falling from Mok Kyung-un's palm.
The Island Poison King Baek Sa-ha, who had been staring at it with eyes full of disbelief, finally opened his mouth.
"You whelp. Do you even know what you just said?"
"Who knows."
"That your blood is poison means you've reached a realm even this old man couldn't ascend to. Does that make any sense?"
Merely seventeen years old.
Too young to even call a young man.
Was this boy claiming to have achieved what even he, who had trained in poison arts his entire life, could not?
It was utterly unacceptable.
Mok Kyung-un smiled faintly at him and said,
"For someone known as the foremost master of poison arts, does tasting my blood prove so difficult? That's the impression I get from all this elaborate denial."
"What did you say? You dare to say that to..."
"Then go ahead and taste it. It's not that hard, is it?"
At Mok Kyung-un's words, the Island Poison King Baek Sa-ha's eyes narrowed.
If the boy's blood truly was poison incarnate, it would be nothing short of a shock to him.
Baek Sa-ha hesitated for a moment before extending his hand.
He gripped Mok Kyung-un's wrist, pulled it close, and let the blood flowing from the palm drop into his mouth.
-Tap, tap, tap!
Mok Kyung-un's blood wetting his tongue.
The instant it touched, the Island Poison King Baek Sa-ha's eyes widened.
'!?'
He had lived his whole life with poison.
The moment he tasted the blood, he instinctively knew.
'This is...'
It was poison, without a doubt.
A burning sensation spread across his tongue, accompanied by a complex flavor unfolding.
This taste—one yet containing countless transformations—was a type of poison he had never encountered before.
'What in the world...'
Baek Sa-ha's discernment of poisons was at the pinnacle.
Yet even he couldn't identify what poison this was.
That meant it wasn't formed from poisoning—it was proof that the blood itself had become poison.
"Ha..."
An exclamation escaped Baek Sa-ha's lips.
Even he, who preserved poison within his body through the Demon Wave Poison Scripture, couldn't turn his blood into poison itself.
But Mok Kyung-un's blood truly was poison incarnate.
Which meant,
"...Poison Person."
Mok Kyung-un had truly reached the realm of the Poison Person.
Baek Sa-ha stared at Mok Kyung-un's face with shocked eyes.
What in the world was this boy?
How had a mere whelp like this attained the Poison Person realm, which even he, after decades of training in poison arts, could not?
It transcended understanding, filling him with questions.
After a long silence, Baek Sa-ha finally managed to speak.
"How... how did you ascend to the Poison Person realm?"
"What's a Poison Person, exactly?"
"...What's a Poison Person?"
"Yes."
Baek Sa-ha felt a vein throb in the back of his head at Mok Kyung-un's question.
This boy didn't even know what realm he had achieved.
It was utterly absurd.
"Are you trying to mock this old man?"
"I'm not mocking—I'm genuinely asking because I don't know."
"Ha..."
"Is it because my blood is poison?"
At Mok Kyung-un's question, Baek Sa-ha clicked his tongue before answering.
"Yes. When a person themselves becomes poison. That is the Poison Person realm."
"Ah, so that's it?"
Baek Sa-ha felt a mix of incredulity and envy at Mok Kyung-un's nonchalant response, as if it were no big deal.
How could this whelp so effortlessly achieve what he had strived for with near-death efforts?
'It's utterly futile.'
A whelp who hadn't even properly trained in poison arts, much less utilized poison effectively, had reached the Poison Person realm.
It made all his past efforts feel meaningless.
It was like finding a pearl necklace around a pig's neck.
"...Fine. Let me change the question. How did poison infuse your blood? You must know the answer to that yourself."
"Well, sure."
"Then tell me."
"You mean the method?"
"Yes."
Mok Kyung-un scratched his head and let out a groan of contemplation at his response.
"Hmm."
"You don't want to teach it?"
"You seem awfully eager after hearing about it."
"Eager? This is a lifelong aspiration for this old man."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. So tell me what you know. In return, I'll teach you proper poison arts to fully utilize that poison essence of yours."
"Not a bad deal."
"Ha! Not bad? Boy, learning poison arts from this old man would make you the undisputed top among the later generation talents."
"That good?"
"Indeed."
Mok Kyung-un had already reached the Poison Person realm.
With proper guidance, he had more than enough talent to ascend to the eighth layer of the Demon Wave Poison Scripture.
Yet unexpected words came from Mok Kyung-un's mouth.
"Could we tweak the terms a bit?"
"What?"
"It's nothing difficult."
Baek Sa-ha clicked his tongue again at Mok Kyung-un's words.
Now that he was the desperate one, the boy was trying to negotiate—as bold as brass.
"...What do you want?"
"It's not hard. I just want you to tell me what I want to know..."
It was right then.
"Guh."
Baek Sa-ha suddenly clutched his chest.
His eyes turned bloodshot as he looked at Mok Kyung-un with a bewildered expression.
'Th-this... what...'
The reason for Baek Sa-ha's bewilderment was simple.
An excruciating pain, as if his chest were burning from within, was spreading.
Baek Sa-ha instantly knew the source of the pain.
'No way.'
This was a symptom of poisoning.
Baek Sa-ha was dumbfounded.
Having reached his level through poison arts, he possessed the ability to neutralize any invading poison with the hundreds of toxins stored in his body.
And yet,
"Cough... cough..."
Black-red blood poured from his mouth.
Baek Sa-ha's pupils trembled violently.
"How could this..."
It was beyond absurd.
Did it make sense that he, the Island Poison King, had been poisoned by something he couldn't neutralize?
[Some fierce poison, huh? This one?]
Suddenly, Baek Sa-ha recalled what Mok Kyung-un had said.
He had dismissed his own poison dispersal as insignificant, offending him.
But as the poison rapidly spread, Baek Sa-ha realized.
'This boy... was speaking in earnest?'
It wasn't bravado to provoke him.
Baek Sa-ha hurriedly circulated the Demon Wave Poison Scripture, directing his energy to neutralize the spreading poison from Mok Kyung-un invading his five viscera and six bowels.
-Ssssh!
Black-red steam rose from his shoulders.
It was a phenomenon accompanying poison expulsion.
With his profound inner energy, he was managing to expel it, albeit belatedly.
But the problem lay elsewhere.
-Crack!
"Guh!"
As he circulated his energy, Baek Sa-ha clutched the back of his neck.
"Senior?"
"Groooan."
Mok Kyung-un looked at him puzzled.
Even a poison arts master could dispel his own poison? As he watched, something seemed off.
Baek Sa-ha's eyes, clutching the back of his neck, were growing dull.
Something was wrong.
'Hmm.'
To check his condition, Mok Kyung-un tried to lay Baek Sa-ha down.
But then,
-Creaaaak!
'Hm?'
His legs, crossed in lotus position, wouldn't unfold.
No, it wasn't just that—they seemed fixed in that position for so long that the bones and muscles in his lower body had severely weakened.
Mok Kyung-un pressed the acupoints there.
'...Is this why he's been sitting all this time?'
As he touched the acupoints, Mok Kyung-un uncovered Baek Sa-ha's secret.
The acupoints in his lower body had become blocked where reverse-flowing poison essence clashed with his body's true energy, causing paralysis.
'He's been using true energy to constantly block the reverse-flowing poison essence?'
That explained why he only sat.
Mok Kyung-un slowly swept his hand upward along Baek Sa-ha's acupoints.
The poison essence, reversing along the key meridians where true energy flowed, had finally reached the brain.
The cause was likely,
'My blood?'
In expelling the new poison from Mok Kyung-un's blood, his true energy had dispersed, failing to block the reverse flow.
'What to do.'
If left alone, Baek Sa-ha would either become a vegetable or die.
Infusing true energy now to block the reversing poison might offer some hope, but the issue was,
'Would death energy work?'
His death energy would only scatter true energy further.
It could backfire.
As he pondered, a clear voice rang in his ear.
-Do you have the Moonlight Pill?
-Pardon?
-The one they called the Heaven-Earth Pill.
-Oh, that? Yeah, I carry it around.
Unable to benefit from its vital energy since he hadn't trained in yang cultivation, Mok Kyung-un just kept it in his pouch.
-Good. Put the Moonlight Pill in the old man's mouth and somehow block the poison essence that's reached his brain acupoint.
-The poison in his brain?
Mok Kyung-un looked at the back of Baek Sa-ha's neck.
He moved the hand clutching it aside and pressed the acupoint connected to the brain with his finger.
-Swish!
Then he executed the "Contact" form.
The rising poison essence focused on his single fingertip, then flowed into Mok Kyung-un's finger.
"Cough."
At that moment, Baek Sa-ha, who had lost consciousness, regained his senses.
"Are you back to your senses?"
"You... how?"
To the bewildered man, Mok Kyung-un said,
"More than that, it's hard for me to help directly, so make do with this."
"What?"
-Pop!
Mok Kyung-un promptly shoved the Heaven-Earth Pill into Baek Sa-ha's mouth.
'This is?'
Instinctively, Baek Sa-ha with the pill in his mouth recognized it as a spiritual elixir.
He was already unable to block the reversing poison essence because his true energy flow was disrupted while expelling Mok Kyung-un's poison.
In no position to be picky, Baek Sa-ha,
-Gulp!
Swallowed the Heaven-Earth Pill whole.
As befitting the Heaven-Earth Society's prized elixir, a hot energy spread from his esophagus the moment he swallowed.
Normally, he would assimilate it to make it his own, but,
'Push it out.'
Baek Sa-ha used the elixir's energy to force back the reversing poison essence.
Fail, and the paralysis wouldn't stop at his lower body—he could end up fully paralyzed, a vegetable.
-Ssssh!
As Baek Sa-ha strained with the elixir's energy, Mok Kyung-un muttered while watching him.
"It's strange. I don't get why you're fighting the poison. Just accept it."
'!?'
At that instant, Baek Sa-ha's pupils shook violently.
* * *
Fifty years ago.
The young Baek Sa-ha knelt before a middle-aged man burning incense and asked,
[How can one ascend to the eighth layer of the Demon Wave Poison Scripture?]
[...]
[Won't you answer? Father.]
The middle-aged man was none other than Baek Sa-ha's father, Baek Yu—the Myriad Poison Lord and founder of the Baek Clan.
He was the man who overturned the martial world's axiom that the Sacheon Tang Clan and Gu Yang Clan were unbeatable in poison.
When the head of the Sacheon Tang Clan, the Flower Thousand Poison Hands Tang Yeon-jong, died by his hand, the Central Plains martial world acknowledged Baek Yu as the new grandmaster of poison arts.
The Demon Wave Poison Scripture was the poison art created by this Baek Clan founder, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in fame with the Tang Clan's Myriad Flower Poison Art and the Gu Yang Clan's Poison Demon Art.
However, mastering the Demon Wave Poison Scripture was arduous, and each layer grew harder to comprehend, so aside from its creator Baek Yu, none of his sons had reached the eighth layer, known as the pinnacle.
Even Baek Sa-ha, who had become the eldest after his older brother's death, was no exception.
[Is the eighth layer of the Demon Wave Poison Scripture impossible without you, Father?]
[...]
Baek Yu gave no answer.
The reason was that this was the ancestral hall housing the eldest son's memorial tablet.
While training in the eighth layer, the eldest son Baek Seong-ha had suffered poison reversal, blocking his brain's blood flow, leading to full-body paralysis and death.
[Please tell me, Father.]
[...]
[If I try the eighth layer like this, won't I lose my life like my brother?]
After losing his brother, the young Baek Sa-ha grew skeptical of training the Demon Wave Poison Scripture.
The eldest died, the third brother was paralyzed from the waist down.
He was the only one relatively intact, but no matter how he thought, this poison art seemed impossible for anyone but its creator, his father Baek Yu.
[The Demon Wave Poison Scripture is the path to becoming a Poison Person.]
[That again?]
[The pinnacle of poison arts is to become poison yourself.]
[How? From the moment we train in poison arts, we can't sleep properly, living in constant tension. How can a person become poison?]
[Surrender to it.]
[...What does surrender even mean?]
[You can't understand now, and I know you resent this father. But you must realize it yourself.]
[...]
'Surrender... surrender... that damned surrender...'
Advice too vague even for his own son.
One son died, another crippled—yet this was his way.
From that day, Baek Sa-ha vowed.
Rather than chasing his father's shadow recklessly, he would forge his own path.
Thirty-three years later.
"Haa... haa..."
Baek Sa-ha wiped blood from his mouth, breathing raggedly.
For the first time in nearly a decade, he had been injured in a one-on-one duel, and he couldn't hide his shock.
He had never clashed with the Heaven-Earth Society's leader, hailed as their top expert.
But he had sparred friendly-like with Ho Tae-gang, the Wall-Transcending Tyrant King, one of the Eight Stars.
Even then, he felt a gap, but never such helplessness.
'How can this be?'
Even the Wall-Transcending Tyrant King couldn't take his poison essence head-on.
Because he knew the peril of poison's power.
Yet that man clashed directly, deflecting all the indiscriminate poison mists.
Poison that didn't touch him had no effect.
'To lightly deflect even poison essence with such profound Flower Shifting Wood Transplantation technique.'
It required handling true energy as naturally as breathing.
'Ghost Sword...'
The man was a true monster.
Baek Sa-ha felt utter self-loathing.
But through this duel, he realized his shortcomings.
Without handling true energy as meticulously as that man, he could go no further.
So he honed himself anew.
If he could manipulate true energy as freely as breathing, he might succeed in the eighth layer he had abandoned.
But his judgment was half right, half wrong.
Confident in his fine true energy control, Baek Sa-ha challenged the eighth layer of the Demon Wave Poison Scripture.
The eighth layer that only his ancestor and father, Baek Yu, had achieved.
This time, he was certain of success.
But,
"Groooan."
Baek Sa-ha failed to reach the eighth layer.
With fine true energy control, he tried harmonizing with the poison essence.
Instead, poison reversal paralyzed his lower body.
Just like his third brother.
'...Is the pinnacle of the Demon Wave Poison Scripture truly impossible?'
The Poison Person realm might be impossible for anyone but his grandmaster father.
With his lower body paralyzed, Baek Sa-ha secluded himself under the pretext of three years' mourning.
His goal wasn't mastering the eighth layer.
He just hoped to suppress the reversing poison and restore his paralyzed lower body.
But to this day, he remained stuck.
'Must I live half-crippled like this?'
He had grown weary.
Then,
"It's strange. I don't get why you're fighting the poison. Just accept it."
Hearing Mok Kyung-un's words, his father Baek Yu's voice suddenly echoed.
[Surrender to it.]
'Surrender?'
The moment that word resurfaced,
Baek Sa-ha released the reversing poison essence and the true energy blocking it.
He abandoned all notions of separating them.
Then,
-Roooar!
His true energy and poison essence, once immiscible like water and oil, began to blend.
And then,
-Crack! Craaaack!
Cracks formed on Baek Sa-ha's skin.
The phenomenon was precisely,
-The old man's lucky. He's undergoing bone transformation and fetal rebirth.
Just as the voice said.
Bone Transformation and Fetal Rebirth.
His body was mutating to match his new enlightenment.
Into a body befitting the eighth layer of the Demon Wave Poison Scripture, which he had so desired.
It didn't take long.
Baek Sa-ha's body had long been prepared.
He had merely been forcibly blocking it.
[Chapter 42: Poison Person (3)] End