Grandfather’s Switch Is Supposed to Hurt (3)
“No matter how I look at it, he seems insane.”
Baek Cheon’s assessment was perfectly reasonable.
“If you look at how Chung Myung normally behaves, then yes, he’s definitely insane.”
Yoon Jong’s conclusion also made sense.
“...Could he have gone mad from eating too much spicy Sichuan food?”
Jo Gul’s guess was a little odd, but it was enough to make the listeners think twice.
“Creeper.”
Yu I-seol’s verdict was blunt.
Baek Cheon stared at Chung Myung with a half-dead expression.
He was going to spar with one of the Tang Family elders?
If I think about it... no, if I really think it through, maybe that’s not quite as crazy as it sounds.
After all, that bastard had already once charged at a Wudang elder with a sword in the Sword Tomb. At a Wudang elder, for heaven’s sake...
Come to think of it, why is he still alive?
Given the things he did, he should’ve died a hundred times over by now.
“He must have some plan, right?”
“Probably.”
Baek Cheon flicked a sidelong glance at Tang Gun-ak, who stood nearby.
“Lord of the Tang Family.”
“Speak.”
“Did Chung Myung know about this in advance?”
Tang Gun-ak wore a gentle smile.
That smile made Baek Cheon nod eagerly.
“Ah, so he did know, then—”
“I’m hearing about this for the first time.”
“......”
“......”
Watching Baek Cheon go slack as if struck, Tang Gun-ak added, “What I discussed with the Mount Hua Divine Dragon was a different matter. I was not told he would personally step forward and spar with the elder council head.”
Baek Cheon broke into a satisfied smile.
Of course. That’s more like it.
That’s our Chung Myung.
Damn it!
“You’ve already sparred with Chung Myung yourself, so you should have a sense of his level. If Chung Myung and that elder council head fight, who do you think will win?”
“He’ll get crushed.”
“Chung Myung will?”
“No. The elder council head.”
“......”
Everyone’s eyes went wide.
“B-but Chung Myung even with Lord Tang—”
“Don’t misunderstand. The Mount Hua Divine Dragon is truly strong. For someone his age, his martial prowess is beyond reason.”
“That’s true.”
“But Tang Oe is strong as well.”
Tang Gun-ak shook his head.
“The Tang Family’s real strength comes out when poison and hidden weapons are combined. As you know, I did not use poison when I faced the Mount Hua Divine Dragon.”
“Ah...”
“If he were to face him using only hidden weapons, it might be a good match. The Mount Hua Divine Dragon is absurdly strong when it comes to moving his body and swinging his sword. But the elder council head specializes in poison techniques. If he has no countermeasure for that, then before ten moves pass he’ll be a corpse blackened from head to toe.”
No, don’t say something that terrifying with such a blank face!
And he was talking about the guy who was fighting right now because of him.
“But Chung Myung even against a Wudang elder...”
“The elder council head is a Great Elder of the Tang Family.”
“......”
“I’ve also heard that the Mount Hua Divine Dragon survived a fight with Wudang’s Heo Sanja. But Heo Sanja may be an elder of Wudang, yet he is not someone who can be compared to the elder council head. There are ranks even among elders. If Wudang were to send someone to face the elder council head, they’d need one of their retired Great Elders.”
Baek Cheon’s face hardened.
Yoon Jong, who had been gauging the mood while listening to the conversation, spoke in a slightly hurried voice.
“Then shouldn’t we stop them?”
Baek Cheon clenched his lips tightly.
“A martial artist started this fight by staking his honor on it. If we interfere and end it here, what will become of Chung Myung’s reputation?”
“Does that guy even care about reputation?”
“......”
Huh?
Come to think of it, no?
Just as Baek Cheon began to waver, Jo Gul hurriedly held him back.
“Come on, sahyung. Do you think that bastard would listen even if we told him to stop?”
“...Fair point.”
“What a damn bastard.”
In the end, all they could do was stare at Chung Myung with worried faces.
When Tang Gun-ak glanced at the Mount Hua disciples, he slowly clenched and unclenched his fist inside his sleeve.
Friend.
— Let’s just say it was a whim of mine.
The Mount Hua Divine Dragon had said that.
He wanted to be friends with the Tang Family because of a whim.
And yet...
Tang Gun-ak gave a soft snort of laughter.
Can someone gamble their life on a whim?
His fist tightened more firmly.
Friend. A friend, huh...
Perhaps his own thinking had been wrong after all.
The one who gives without asking for anything in return is a friend.
Tang Gun-ak’s hand closed around the throwing knife hidden in his sleeve.
I won’t let him die.
Even if it meant going to war with the elder council.
Tang Oe’s lips twitched.
“Dismantle the elder council?”
“Yes.”
“And crawl off into the back room?”
“It might be best if you left the Tang Family altogether.”
Tang Oe let out a short laugh.
“I thought you were clever, but you’re saying something very stupid. I already promised the Family Lord that if Tang Hak loses the spar, I will not interfere in Tang Family affairs. And do you really think I could lower my head and raise my voice after losing to a brat like you?”
“Yes.”
“...What?”
“I said, yes, I do think you could.”
“......”
Chung Myung shrugged.
“A person who knows shame couldn’t do that. But you...”
Then he tilted his head.
“Do you even know?”
“...Know what?”
“Do you know what shame is?”
“Y-you little—!”
Chung Myung gave a faint, amused smile.
“If you knew, you wouldn’t have dragged things this far in the first place. Same with this mess. You’ll just come up with every excuse under the sun and stick your nose back in, won’t you? Why? Because that’s all you’ve got left.”
Fury flared in Tang Oe’s eyes. At the same time, his teeth ground together.
Chung Myung slowly drew his sword.
“If you can’t let go of that little scrap in your hand...”
He pointed the blade at Tang Oe.
“I’ll cut it off for you. That hand of yours.”
There was a chill in his gaze as he glared at Tang Oe.
Being old doesn’t make you an adult.
Truthfully, Chung Myung had no hostility toward the older generation of a sect. If anything, he himself was, by any reasonable measure, an old bastard—and he had already experienced what it meant to stand as the sect’s greatest elder.
But people like this were not adults.
The elders of a sect were supposed to care for their juniors. The moment they used those juniors to bolster their own authority, the moment they trampled over the younger generation and rolled around in petty power struggles, they lost all right to be called elders.
If Tang Bo were here and saw those fools, he wouldn’t have gone at them as gently as Chung Myung was now. He would probably have shed blood tears and hacked the lot of them to pieces with his own hands.
Real adults weren’t people like that.
Hyeon Jong, the current sect leader of Mount Hua. Hyeon Sang, who supported him in silence. And Hyeon... Ah, let’s think a little harder about Elder Hyeon Young. Just a little harder.
And...
Sect Leader Elder Brother.
Now he understood.
How much they had thought of Mount Hua, cherished it, and loved it. To Chung Myung, he had only ever been a nuisance. What had he ever done for Mount Hua beyond living long enough to be a pain in the ass?
Now I understand what you meant.
Tang Bo had regretted that too.
He had lived his whole life loving the sound of his own greatness. But in the end, there was nothing left. The only thing he had left behind was a reputation worth nothing at all.
What was Chung Myung any different?
“Hah.”
He let out a short breath.
Still, it’s fine.
He’d been given a chance to correct his mistakes.
This life would be different from the past.
“All right. Then come at me.”
“...I haven’t agreed to that condition yet.”
“Then say it.”
Chung Myung’s gaze swept left and right.
“Tell me, in front of all these people, that you can’t make that promise because you’re scared of losing to me. Then I’ll just walk away. There’s no need to fight if we don’t have to.”
“Ha...”
Tang Oe stepped back one pace.
“Fine. I’ll give you what you want. But in return...”
Sharp malice poured from Tang Oe’s eyes.
“You will die in the most agonizing way in this world.”
“Oh, how scary.”
Chung Myung gave a little shiver, then grinned.
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you’re finished off without much pain.”
There was no need for words anymore.
Tang Oe’s expression vanished in an instant.
I let myself get dragged around by that bastard’s words.
Everyone here had heard the two of them speaking. From the eyes of the Tang Family members looking this way, he could feel denial and dissatisfaction.
Even if he managed to kill the Mount Hua Divine Dragon in one strike, he would never regain his former standing here again.
So that’s it.
At that point, victory and defeat no longer mattered. If the Mount Hua Divine Dragon could simply walk off the sparring stage alive, he would have achieved everything he wanted. It would not be a stain on that brat if he failed to beat an elder of the Tang Family.
Tang Oe had already lost.
However.
He should at least salvage what little face he could. Even the back room had its own rank.
You will die for certain!
Tang Oe shoved his hand deep into his sleeve. His fingers closed around the poison vials hidden in the inner lining.
Using poison like this in a sparring match might be excessive. But the one who had driven him this far was none other than that Mount Hua Divine Dragon.
This was the price he would pay.
A red poison vial appeared in Tang Oe’s hand. He slowly opened the stopper and scattered the contents over his own hand.
From now on, every hidden weapon he touched would be coated in poison.
Chung Myung’s expression shifted slightly.
Normally, masters of the Sichuan Tang Family wore specially made deerskin gloves when using poison. But Tang Oe was handling a virulent toxin barehanded.
That meant his mastery of poison arts was extraordinarily high.
Chung Myung licked his lips lightly.
“You ready?”
“I don’t need to steel myself to face someone like you.”
“...Arrogance without limit. You’ll learn that that little bit of fame you’ve got won’t protect you.”
“I heard you. Let’s just start already.”
Chung Myung lowered his sword slightly.
He was telling Tang Oe to make the first move.
Soon, energy began to seep slowly from Tang Oe’s body. What had begun as a mild aura quickly turned cold and vicious, then wrapped around him in a surging poisonous force.
“You must think I’ve been forced to endure all this time because I was weak. If I really put my mind to it, even the Family Lord would be no match for me.”
“Wow...”
His skin prickled.
That wasn’t the aura itself—it was the poison mixed into it, and it was that vicious.
Look.
The blue-gray stone beneath Tang Oe’s feet was slowly melting.
Poison strong enough to melt stone...
This was exactly the kind of moment people used the word terrifying for.
“Back off!”
“Back! Everyone, fall back!”
The Tang Family retainers who had been watching the confrontation jolted in alarm and scrambled away. Even those of the Tang Family, people who ate poison like meals, were frightened by that monstrous poisonous power.
If they lingered nearby carelessly, they could be caught in it and poisoned as well.
Watching the retainers retreat, Tang Oe’s eyes darkened to black.
“Die!”
Fwoooooosh!
Black force erupted from both of his hands.
Poison Palm.
A poisonous palm strike, forged by blending venom and internal energy, shot toward Chung Myung at a terrifying speed.
Whoosh.
Chung Myung dodged it with nothing more than a slight twist of his body. It was almost too easy.
“If it’s too easy, it’s no fun!”
As if he had predicted that much, Tang Oe lunged forward a few steps. Then he flicked both sleeves outward in one swift motion.
Swiiish!
Needles burst in every direction.
The tiny, nearly invisible needles were each laced with poison as they flew toward Chung Myung. The killing intent in them was far more vicious than the technique Tang Hak had shown in the earlier spar.
But the person Tang Oe was fighting wasn’t Yu I-seol.
It was Chung Myung.
“Heeeyaaaaaah!”
Chung Myung swung his sword violently from left to right.
The sword wind created by the blade pushed the incoming needles just a little off course.
Without wasting the opening, he followed with another slash. Having created a gap in the storm of needles, Chung Myung hurled himself forward without hesitation.
“That won’t be enough!”
Chung Myung charged ahead.
Yet Tang Oe’s lips curved into a thin, oily smile as he watched him.
“Rat bastard!”
BOOOOM!
With a sound like a massive explosive detonating, red dust blasted outward from all directions. In an instant, the entire sparring arena was engulfed.
Watching that scene, Tang Gun-ak screamed.
“Ghost King Token! Elder Council Head! Have you lost your mind, you damned lunatic!”
The Mount Hua disciples jerked their heads around and looked at Tang Gun-ak.
His face was twisted in shock.
Ghost King Token.
The Tang Family’s poisons were divided into two kinds. One kind had an antidote. The other was created with the sole purpose of killing an enemy, and either had no antidote or one that could not be made.
The Ghost King Token belonged to the latter.
Using the Ghost King Token in a spar was no different from using a killing strike. No, it was worse. One of the things the Tang Family had to uphold in order to remain an orthodox sect was that they did not use antidote-less poison against fellow orthodox practitioners.
And now the elder council head had broken that rule.
“Stop him! Damn it, drag that mad old man down!”
Tang Gun-ak shouted with bulging veins in his neck, but no one approached the sparring platform.
It was understandable. The Ghost King Token had no antidote. In other words, even Tang Family members couldn’t survive if they were poisoned by it.
“Tsk, tsk. What a fuss.”
Tang Oe clicked his tongue as he watched Tang Gun-ak’s reaction.
Logic was no longer going to win this fight. If that was the case, then all that remained was brute force.
I should have done this from the start.
If he had ruled through fear in the beginning, none of this would have happened. His mistake had been clinging to legitimacy and face.
“Boy. You were far too insolent.”
He withdrew a handful of sand from his sleeve.
“The Tang Family is not a family of poisons and hidden weapons. It is a family of poison. You were too quick to look down on us just because you saw only our hidden weapons.”
Shhhhhh—
The sand rained down over the sparring stage.
It was not the Soul-Severing Sand Tang Hak had used.
It was Seven Steps Pursuing Soul Sand, specially manufactured by Tang Oe. As the name implied, once you were poisoned by it, your soul would flee before you could even take seven steps—a horrifying poison dust.
“No matter how great a martial artist you are, you can’t dodge every speck of dust drifting through the air, and you can’t block every grain of sand that falls on you. You righteous sect fools all look down on the Tang Family. But that’s only because the Tang Family has been considering your circumstances. If we had truly used poison without restraint, the winner of the world would have been the Tang Family.”
Smirking, Tang Oe looked at the shadow of Chung Myung visible through the dust and gave a light laugh.
Chung Myung could be vaguely seen, kneeling on the floor.
He would die like that if left alone.
“That won’t be enough.”
Another poison vial appeared in Tang Oe’s hand.
The moment he opened the stopper, he launched it away with palm force without the slightest hesitation.
The burst of bright blue smoke mixed with Tang Oe’s palm force and slammed into Chung Myung’s body.
“This is my final gift to you. It’s called Joyful Smoke. You’ll suffer the pains of hell until the very moment you die.”
It was named for the way a person, writhing in agony and thrashing about, looked as though they were dancing in delight.
Having finished punishing Chung Myung, Tang Oe turned his head slightly and looked at Tang Gun-ak.
“Well? Family Lord?”
Tang Gun-ak’s eyes were bloodshot.