The Special Antidote
“Kgh!”
Clang! Clang!
Every attack he launched was turned aside by the iron wire, and a flicker of impatience began to creep across Il Sal's face.
“Raaagh!”
He bled out killing intent, trying to hamper Sanlong's movements, but against a man standing at a similar realm—one who in his previous life had faced far worse—it accomplished nothing worth mentioning. Compared to the aura of a boss he'd met in a dungeon in his past life, Il Sal's murderous pressure was no different from a toddler throwing both arms in the air and roaring.
“Six Devils Killing Saber!”
Il Sal unleashed a furious barrage, yet Sanlong slipped past each strike by the barest hair's breadth with the Poison Dragon Step. Excessive evasion was inefficient—the footwork carried the Tang Clan's will to extract maximum results from minimal movement.
“Will you do nothing but dodge?!”
Watching Sanlong hover just beyond his reach, Il Sal could only seethe.
“There's no reason I have to fight you head-on, is there?”
Shrrrak!
Sanlong snapped his fan open, and poisoned, needle-thin projectiles shot out like arrows.
“Hmph!”
Clang!
Deflect the projectiles and he'd open the distance; close the distance and the iron wire came flying—Il Sal felt like he was losing his mind.
If he won't come to me, then I'll make him come.
Il Sal whirled around and charged at the survivors of Seoksu Village. As he'd noted before, this was exactly how he had fought the second-generation disciples of Qingcheng—and won. The orthodox sects were the sort who worried even about these lowly worms.
“Raaagh!”
“Kyaaak!”
“Curse the Tang Clan!”
“Idiot. That's the best scheme you could come up with?”
Il Sal had turned his back and opened the distance—and Sanlong, without a moment's hesitation, hurled his flying dagger at him.
But this was precisely what Il Sal had been hoping for.
“Hahaha!”
Il Sal twisted his body along the dagger's trajectory, and Sanlong's blade was a hair's breadth from skewering one of the surviving villagers.
“Pfft!”
Then Sanlong gave a derisive snort and moved his hand, and the dagger wrenched its trajectory aside in an instant—right before the survivor's nose. A maneuver that should have been impossible without attaining the realm of Soul-Commanding Sword or Void-Grasping Thing.
And yet, on closer inspection, something thin as a thread was trailing from the dagger.
“No—!”
Caught midair, Il Sal failed to evade the blade entirely.
Sssk!
It was only a shallow cut, though, so he decided not to dwell on it.
“Not bad… hm?”
The arm that had been cut suddenly began to go numb, and Il Sal realized at once who he was dealing with. When you fought the Tang Clan, the thing to fear most of all was getting wounded. So much as grazing against a projectile or a hidden weapon spelled danger.
“You coward… poisoned by something like this—”
Every weapon in the Tang Clan's arsenal came coated in poison as a matter of course.
Tapatap!
Watching Il Sal seal his own pressure points to hold back the spreading venom, Sanlong fiddled with his flying dagger and smiled.
“Cowardly? We're just getting started.”
Sanlong opened his assault in earnest from long range—doggedly, relentlessly, targeting only the arm already paralyzed by the numbing venom.
“Damn it!”
Thud! Thud!
Guarding one side inevitably left openings elsewhere. Sanlong drew Il Sal's eyes with blatant, obvious attacks, then hurled stealthy projectiles into the gaps.
“Kgh… huk!”
Even with its potency reduced by the Poison-Repelling Pills, the venom was strong enough that Il Sal's movements grew slower and slower. Before the poison of the Black Corpse Bee and the thirty-year Yingxuesa, those pills were nothing more than a dam full of holes.
“Stop your cowardly attacks and fight with honor—”
“Bullshit.”
Smack!
For a man who had just attacked defenseless civilians to prattle on about fair play—Sanlong charged in without hesitation and slammed the iron wire into his face. Face, torso, legs—he beat him indiscriminately, showing no mercy to anything.
“Huk!”
“Hrah!”
Slam!
As if the beating weren't enough, Sanlong circled behind Il Sal, seized him by the waist, hoisted him up, and drove him spine-first into the ground.
“Kkhkk… huk……”
“Now, what should I do with you?”
Sanlong regarded him quietly, and Il Sal struggled up from the ground and slowly sank to his knees.
“Spare me… Please… I'll turn over a new leaf… khkk! Huk! So give me the antidote… khkk!”
His face was the picture of sincere repentance. But his heart told a different story. This was exactly how he had lulled the Qingcheng disciples into complacency before striking them down. No one knew better than he did the trick that worked best on the hypocrites of the orthodox sects—he had lived that way, and that was why he had survived.
If I get the antidote and live… then I will absolutely—
However fervently he vowed vengeance inside, on the outside Il Sal was the most penitent sinner the world had ever seen. Any bystander might have been moved. But on Sanlong's lips there was only a smile of sheer disbelief.
“Turn over a new leaf, you say? If I spare you?”
“Yes… the truth is, I…”
He poured out his sob story piece by piece, and it differed not one whit from the villain backstories Sanlong had seen churned out by the media in his past life. No—in fact it was more tiresome. The more he listened, the angrier it made him.
Sanlong listened Il Sal out at length, then suddenly glanced around.
“I think this is best. Yes—I'm so moved by your story that I'll give you the antidote.”
At those words, Il Sal's face lit up with triumph as he shouted:
“I thank you for the mercy of a great hero!”
“No! You mustn't spare that creature!”
“Please!”
“Great hero! Avenge us!”
Watching the people of Seoksu Village beg and plead, Il Sal wanted nothing more than to cut them down where they stood—but the poison had robbed his body of movement, and glaring was all he could manage.
Sanlong walked slowly toward him.
“Here. Your antidote.”
“...What?”
What he pressed into Il Sal's hands was, by all appearances, an ordinary pebble you'd find rolling along any roadside. Is this what a Tang Clan antidote looks like? As Il Sal gaped in confusion—it was nothing like what he knew—Sanlong smiled wickedly.
“It's a special antidote—one that will purge that rotting mind of yours.”
“Great hero… huk!”
CRUNCH!
Sanlong shoved the pebble straight into Il Sal's mouth. His teeth shattered, his lips split, and in an instant the pebble was dyed red.
“You laid a hand on the Tang Clan and the people under our protection, and now you speak of turning over a new leaf and beg for your life?”
Sanlong tightened his grip on the iron wire.
“For vermin like you, this is the antidote.”
“Ughaaagh! Uraah!”
Smack! Smack! Smack!
Sanlong began beating Il Sal like a dog on its killing day. Bones cracked and splintered across his entire body—yet with the pebble clenched in his mouth, he couldn't even scream freely.
“This is for Instructor Tang Chil-ju! This is for the innocent people of Seoksu Village!”
Crack! Crack!
Every time the iron wire moved, came the sound of breaking bone.
“Kh… ugh… aaah……”
Drool, blood—it was impossible to tell which—dripped from Il Sal's mouth as his four limbs bent at grotesque angles.
“You reaped the lives of others, so now I shall reap your martial arts.”
“Agh! Agh!”
BOOM!
Il Sal somehow tried to crawl away, dragging his shattered body behind him. Sanlong approached and, without hesitation, shattered his dantian.
“U…gh… ah……”
To the man sprawled on the ground, Sanlong spoke with chilling calm.
“You're going to live now—and be carried back to the Tang Clan. And then you're going to confess everything about the mastermind who commissioned this. What it truly means to be alive but not living—our Tang Clan will teach you, thoroughly.”
Main branch or cadet branch, it made no difference: the moment Il Sal had touched the Tang Clan, they would never allow him a gentle death.
“Hkk-hkk… Father……”
“Waaah! Mother!”
The survivors of Seoksu Village finally let their grief pour out. At the sight, Sanlong bowed his head, his expression taut with pain.
“Hoo… Ki Chaeyun. Are you all right?”
“S… Sanlong, sir……”
“Haah… Good. You held on well.”
He was bruised all over and one arm was broken, but his life seemed to be in no danger, and Sanlong let out a breath of relief.
“Thank you… for avenging us……”
Tears spilled from Ki Chaeyun's eyes—helplessness and relief and a dozen tangled feelings crossing his face all at once. Sanlong patted him on the shoulder.
“It isn't over yet. I'm going to teach that creature, down to the marrow, exactly what the Tang Clan is.”
Sanlong drove hidden projectiles into Il Sal's body—just enough to keep him alive. He would sleep not a wink on the journey back to the Tang Clan, feeling every moment of that agony with perfect clarity. It would teach him that death would have been a mercy.
The Tang Clan was in an uproar. Of the Squad 7 Danggidae members who had set out on a routine mission, only three had returned alive. And those three survivors had dragged back the monster responsible for it all.
An emergency council was convened ahead of the clan lord's succession dispute, and Tang Woo, Commander of the Inryong Squad, hurriedly dressed for work.
“To dare lay a hand on the Tang Clan.”
However much he despised Sanlong, however neglected Squad 7 had been within the Danggidae, they were still all people of the Tang Clan.
“Quite right. You must make your stance known forcefully this time and leave a strong impression on the cadet branch.”
Screech.
Just as Tang Woo's second wife was steadying his resolve at his side, the door burst open.
“Who dares open my door without leave!”
Despite his roar, one person strode boldly inside.
“...Wife?”
Eon Jungmi glared at the second wife for a long moment, her face venomous, before approaching Tang Woo.
“You must bury this matter.”
“What? Did I mishear you just now—or did you misspeak?”
“You heard me perfectly. You must bury this matter.”
Watching Eon Jungmi hold her head high, something flickered through Tang Woo's mind. Simple as he was, there was no way he could miss what her words meant.
“Everyone, out!”
At once the servants and the second wife filed out, and only the two of them remained.
“Don't tell me… you! Were you trying to kill Third Young Master? Did you hire the Ghost Blade Three Killers?”
When Eon Jungmi offered no answer, Tang Woo's hands moved savagely.
“Do you have any idea what madness you've committed?!”
Slap! Slap! Slap!
Her neat, composed appearance was reduced to ruin in a few blows. Even so, she could offer no rebuttal. One misstep here truly could put Tang Woo, herself, and the entire Jinju Eon Clan in mortal danger.
“Whatever madness seized you, to pull off something this brazen?!”
“I wasn't trying to kill the Third Young Master!”
Eon Jungmi had her own grievances. She had simply ordered the recovery of a lost spirit elixir—and then Squad 7 and the Ghost Blade Three Killers had tangled together, and everything had snowballed out of control.
“Instead of flying into a rage, you should be thinking of countermeasures.”
“How in the world am I supposed to bury this?!”
“Bury it we may not—but contain it, we must!”
If Il Sal spoke of the Geumo Merchant Guild, then the Guild's head would, in turn, speak Eon Jungmi's name.
“Damn it all!”
“Commander… one of the two—Il Sal or the Geumo Guild master—must be eliminated. Cut off the tail!”
“What? You dare say that to me?”
The ones guarding Il Sal right now were the Tang Clan's very finest. Eon Jungmi was demanding the impossible—yet it was also something they absolutely had to accomplish to survive.
“If you don't, every one of us dies.”
“Because of your mess, I have to do that?!”
“It was all for Gihyo! Things merely went wrong!”
“Then we simply say you did it and be done with it!”
“Hah! The clan lord won't punish you alone and be finished with it! He'll take this opportunity to dispose of you and your entire line as well! Do you still not know the clan lord?!”
Her reasoning was airtight enough that Tang Woo couldn't easily open his mouth. Watching him, Eon Jungmi steadied her breath and spoke calmly.
“First, we pull in Qingcheng to buy time. Killing Il Sal is realistically out of reach, so at the very least the Geumo Guild master must be removed. He has almost certainly fled, which means we need time to catch him. Il Sal won't hold out long before confessing about the Guild master—we must move before that happens.”
“Qingcheng?”
“Yes. Word is that a second-generation disciple of Qingcheng was killed by one of the Ghost Blade Three Killers. We need only let them know that we have the culprit in custody. Beyond that, they couldn't kill an Emei disciple, but they did injure one—bring both sects in, and we can buy the minimum time we need.”
While Qingcheng and Emei kicked up a storm within the Tang Clan, the Geumo Guild master had to be dealt with.
“You can hardly step forward yourself. So you must drag the council out into stalemate for as long as possible. And the matter of the Guild master, you entrust to someone dependable.”
“You're telling me to confess to the clan lord? Say we were at fault?”
That sharp-eyed clan lord could not possibly miss Tang Woo's intentions—he'd grasp the connection at once.
“Not openly, obviously! You must stall by bringing up Qingcheng and Emei!”
“You think the clan lord won't see through that?”
“Suspicion without proof means nothing! Without evidence, even the clan lord cannot move rashly! You must shape public opinion—even if it means pouring out every coin you've stockpiled, you must!”
And just how much would he have to give up, to surrender, to make that happen?! Tang Woo wanted nothing more than to beat the woman before him to death right then and there.
“Because of you, I—I have to—”
“It! Was! For! Gihyo! And I never ordered any Danggidae members killed—things simply went wrong! And what does it matter that a handful of worthless Squad 7 dregs died?! A hundred of those wretches! A thousand! One Gihyo matters more than all of them! Our son!”
“You're saying that now?!”
Crack! Crack!
Tang Woo's rage finally detonated. Only when Eon Jungmi's face was drenched in blood did his hands stop.
“Have you no shame at all—this is the Tang Clan! These are Tang Clan people!”
Watching him, Eon Jungmi's expression didn't shift by a hair. Wiping the blood away with her handkerchief, she said:
“A man who claims the Tang Clan means so much to him finds it easier than anyone to raise his hand against his own wife.”
“Better than the way you lay into the servants at the slightest provocation, no?”
Eon Jungmi didn't flinch from his furious glare. Once more, she spoke with perfect calm.
“If you're done venting, then move. If you want to live.”
“RRAAAGH!”
CRASH! CLATTER!
Tang Woo's fury began smashing the furniture of the Inryong Hall to pieces.