Chain Claws and a Single Wish
When people thought of the Dang Clan, poison arts were usually the first thing that came to mind.
Yet even though the family was famous for its poisons, it possessed the deep foundations of a true prestigious house, and so it held countless other martial arts beyond poison techniques alone.
The Dang Clan was hardly unique in this. Even the Namgung Clan, renowned for its swordsmanship, and the Mount Hua Sect maintained fist techniques, palm arts, finger arts, and leg arts for close-quarters combat.
Dang Seol-yeong chose a martial art that could safely be known to outsiders and that she herself could teach with relative ease.
"From now on, the martial art you will learn is the Chain Claws…"
Ordinarily a student would begin by tempering the body, but this was a short, intensive course; she had decided to pour knowledge into him first.
He has to learn how to use the inner energy already inside his body.
What Kaisent needed right now was not physical conditioning, but the method of circulating and applying inner energy.
Therefore she resolved to teach him both the martial forms and the way of using qi at the same time.
"It is a claw art of raising the hand-blade to stab and rake in rapid succession… First I will show you the opening form, the Sixfold Burst…"
Dang Seol-yeong selected a tree of suitable thickness, removed her gloves, and settled into stance.
Beneath the gloves, ominous green veins stood out sharply against skin that had gone deathly pale from long years without sunlight.
She raised thumb, index, and middle fingers like a bird’s talons and swept both hands toward the solid trunk in a blur.
Centered on her own body, she struck six directions with ferocious speed.
The Chain Claws was a technique meant to coat the nails with poison and inflict only light wounds; that was its original purpose.
Yet in the hands of Dang Seol-yeong—both a poison master and a true expert—its power was something else entirely.
"The essence of the Chain Claws is to feint as though you mean to seize the bone while actually slicing the flesh. In a crisis every person instinctively guards their vital points; you induce that instinct and then exploit it…"
Pakakakakak!
Each time her nails flashed, thick bark and wood tore free from the trunk.
Even so she was deliberately slowing her movements so Kaisent could follow them; the force on display was nowhere near her full strength.
She stopped at a careful point so the tree would not topple, withdrew her hands, and slipped the gloves back on.
"For now, simply remember the movements I just showed…"
She turned her head to tell him to memorize what he had seen—and the words died in her throat.
"Yaat!"
Kaisent, who had positioned himself for the clearest view of her hands, was already performing the Sixfold Burst.
Kwajajajajak!
With a soft, unbroken boy’s voice he reproduced every motion of the Chain Claws she had demonstrated, and he did so with perfect fidelity.
Amazingly, she had shown him only the external form; she had not taught him the flow of inner energy at all. Yet the technique he unleashed already carried true qi—and a far more ferocious surge of it than her own.
"Is this how you do it?"
He had clawed the tree just enough that it swayed but did not fall, then looked up at her with the mild curiosity of someone who found the power he had just displayed completely uninteresting.
"…How did you copy the movement of the inner energy…?"
"By watching you, Noona."
He tilted his head as though the question itself were odd.
Dang Seol-yeong’s mind went blank; she needed a long moment before she could even form the next sentence.
"Every form requires a matching circulation of inner energy… If the two are even slightly misaligned, the meridians twist…"
"Mm… But the qi movement that fits the motions you showed is already fixed, isn’t it?"
He still looked puzzled that she would ask something so obvious.
To him the muscle paths, the distribution of force, and the flow of true qi were simply calculations that followed from the answer she had just demonstrated.
No—before that, how can untrained fingers produce such force… and what is that…?
Even when inner energy reinforced the body, a foundation was still required.
Yet Kaisent’s fingers had already transformed: no longer human, they had become something else, tipped with thick, awl-like claws.
"Your… fingers…?"
"Ah, these? Mother is of the dragon race, so if I concentrate I can change certain parts of my body into dragon form. Unlike my older sisters and brothers, I inherited Father’s blood more strongly, so fingers and toes are about the limit for me."
"……"
Every new fact she learned about him only spawned several more questions; her head spun.
Adding the secrets of his birth would make the range of inquiry impossibly wide, so she decided to accept that part without further probing and keep her questions focused solely on martial arts.
"Can you copy this as well…?"
This time she executed the Dang Clan’s Chasing Thunder Body Art, gliding between the trees like flowing water while linking the Chain Claws, leaving wounds on every trunk before she returned.
The Chasing Thunder Body Art was a superior footwork designed for poison and hidden-weapon combat: swift enough for rapid distance control, yet durable enough for long pursuits.
After watching every step, Kaisent drew a deep breath and plunged among the trees.
Performing footwork and claw techniques simultaneously was unexpectedly difficult; without rich combat experience most people simply floundered and failed.
"Eeyap! Yat!"
Yet Kaisent—never taught the footwork, never shown how to link it with the claw art—moved nimbly from trunk to trunk, raking them with the Chain Claws, and came back.
"Hoo-haa~"
He returned to her side, exhaled a long breath, and shook the tension from his shoulders.
"Noona, I did well, right?"
"……"
"Noona?"
"Uh… yes? Y-you did well…"
"…Noona, your face is scary…"
He shrank back, looking as though he might cry at any moment, frightened by the expression she wore.
"I’m sorry. I was only startled because you did far better than I expected…"
"Really? Hehe."
Once she apologized and cleared the misunderstanding, his face bloomed into a bright, adorable smile again.
It was a smile cute enough to send a jolt through her chest, yet this time she could not simply enjoy it.
Impossible. He copied the Chasing Thunder Body Art after seeing it only once?
The technique was a superior art excelling in rapid distance control, pursuit, and endurance.
Even within the Dang Clan, only those whose skill and loyalty had been proven were permitted to learn it.
To master such a method without prior knowledge, after a single demonstration, was a freak occurrence that had never once appeared in the entire history of the murim.
A genius… no. Calling him a genius is closer to an insult…
He was a being for whom the word “genius” was inadequate.
A genius was someone granted talent by heaven; Kaisent was closer to heaven itself.
If this child were ever controlled by another…
Or if he ever turned malice upon the world…
She would have to guide him onto the right path.
That was what Dang Seol-yeong thought—until she discovered her worry had been unnecessary.
"Huh? Sparring…?"
"Yes… Forms are only the foundational core… In real combat you must adapt them to the situation, so we build experience through sparring… It is called sparring, but it is really application training…"
"I… I don’t want to."
"Huh? Why…?"
"It’s scary! I absolutely can’t do something like that!"
In that moment she understood why heaven was fair.
The owner of a talent that could not even be described as genius was a coward who feared sparring itself.
She had known he disliked fighting people, yet she had never imagined he would hate it this intensely.
She promised she would not counterattack and told him to strike freely, but Kaisent was terrified of the very act of closing in and fighting someone at close range.
Should I just leave it? No. There’s no telling what might happen in this forest. That creature called Mingming also seems to need to eat something before it can use its power.
Having decided to protect him, she could not simply ignore the problem.
Of course every person had a temperament; fearing combat was only natural.
No. I vowed to protect this child.
She could not stay at his side forever. For the sake of his own survival he needed at least the ability to struggle.
The first priority was to thin his fear of fighting, even if only once.
Then he needs a reason that will give him courage.
The trouble was that in an empty, remote forest she had very little she could offer as such a reason.
After long, careful thought, the conclusion she reached was a blank check.
"If you spar with me and manage to catch hold of my clothes, I will grant you one wish…"
"Huh?"
"Of course, only a wish of the sort I am able to grant right now…"
"Th-then… I’ll try!"
"……"
The effect was dramatic.
He accepted with such excitement that she began to worry about what wish he might actually make.
Had Kaisent been merely a talented boy, her “reward” would have held little interest for him.
But Kaisent, who had inherited his parents’—especially his father’s—blood so strongly, found that the temporary promise of her reward was enough to let him overcome his fear.
Once the atmosphere had settled, the two faced each other at a suitable distance.
There were only two rules.
He could use only the martial arts she had taught him.
The match would continue until he successfully landed an attack on her, or until he gave up.
"Then… begin…"
"I-I’m going!"
Kaisent approached with frightened eyes.
She looked down at the boy and remained perfectly still until he attacked.
The purpose of this bout was not a simple comparison of skill or ordinary training; it was to train him so that he would no longer fear striking an enemy.
"U… ut…"
He reached striking range, yet hesitated and could not properly extend his arms.
She sensed that clumsy encouragement would only crush him under excessive expectation, so she stayed silent, giving him room to find his own courage.
Sc-scary…! But Noona said she’ll grant a wish…!
Normally he would have surrendered at once, yet the wish she had offered had completely hooked him; he wavered between terror and desire.
In the end the gene-power he had inherited so thickly from his father succeeded in pressing the fear down by the narrowest margin.
"Iyaaat!"
For the first time since the day he had confessed to his father that he hated fighting, Kaisent wrung every drop of courage from himself and launched the Chain Claws at Dang Seol-yeong.
Honest.
Naturally, this being the first time he had ever directed the technique at a living person, his attack was pure, straightforward honesty.
She simply stepped back a few light paces, swayed her upper body, and easily slipped past his fingers.
Even though she wore a loose, one-piece coat, he could not so much as brush the fabric, let alone seize it.
"Yaap!"
Having attacked once, the revulsion thinned; this time he drove deeper and unleashed the Chain Claws again.
The second attempt was already far better than the first; a little more and it seemed he might just barely touch her.
That is the trap.
When even an onlooker would think “just a little more,” how much more would the attacker himself feel it?
She deliberately kept the margin razor-thin, drawing him into ever more aggressive attacks so that impatience would burn the fear away.
With fingers raised like a beast’s claws he swung his arms in rapid arcs from every angle, yet again and again he failed to graze even a single thread of cloth by a margin of a single millimeter.
Whenever a particularly sharp strike came, she answered with the same Chain Claws, catching or knocking his fingers aside and nullifying the attack.
Just as everything was about to unfold exactly according to her plan, an unforeseen situation arose.
More precisely, she had still underestimated his talent.
She had already rated him so highly that she considered the word “genius” an insult, yet somewhere inside she had still been thinking in terms of common sense.
Common sense said that no matter how extraordinary the talent, a complete lack of real combat experience would leave him immature.
No. Still. Just a little more!
While executing the Chain Claws, Kaisent watched her wrist and poured every scrap of attention onto the hand that was flying to knock his attack aside.
Worried about injuring him, she was not using her nails; she was swinging her fingers like sticks to bat his hands away.
He timed that exact moment and drove his fingers straight toward her hand.
A shallow trick.
Naturally she read his intent and prepared to counter his fingers—
Now!
The boy who had been attacking six directions suddenly charged, thrusting a hand straight at her abdomen.
She had anticipated even this and moved to deflect his wrist—only for another set of fingers to lance toward the very wrist she was using to deflect.
The situation was unexpected, yet as an expert she calmly brought both hands into play to dismantle his assault.
That was when the true anomaly began.
Kaisent’s level of attack suddenly leapt upward; he began to wield the Chain Claws with the same refined technique she herself employed.
I’m being pushed back!?
As a high-level expert she had deliberately restrained her inner energy so the match would not be unfair; now she was thrown into confusion.
Moments earlier she had held the clear advantage; in the blink of an eye she found herself desperately on the defensive.
Hwaak!
"!!"
The instant she tried to pull her arms back to reorganize, Kaisent’s fingertips snagged the edge of her glove and tore it free.
"No!"
She had been circulating inner energy, so her poison qi was already spreading naturally; without the glove, a single breath would release enough toxin to kill several people.
"Don’t breathe!"
"Huh?"
She had never imagined that a beginner who had learned martial arts only that day could strip her glove; she shouted the warning, yet Kaisent—still locked in the spar—reacted as though startled by her sudden cry.
When she saw his chest rise once, confirming he had drawn breath, tears sprang unbidden to her eyes.
Now she would have no choice but to watch the boy die, blood pouring from every orifice…
"Noona, what’s wrong?"
"…Are you… all right…?"
"Ah, right—the poison qi! But other than a sort of unique smell, I don’t feel any particular problem?"
…It should have been fatal, yet Kaisent was breathing normally even while the poison qi swirled around him.
She could clearly sense her own toxin saturating the air; she asked his permission and once more took his pulse.
How is this possible!?
Amazingly, the poison that had entered his body was already being broken down.
The inner energy of the heart method he claimed to have learned from his father was casually dismantling the toxins of the Dang Clan’s greatest poison master.
Absolute Poison Immunity…!
To complete absolute immunity to all poisons through the effect of a heart method alone?
Many cultivation methods in the murim raised resistance to toxins, yet none had ever granted true all-poison immunity.
If such a thing were possible, the Dang Clan would long ago have fallen to the status of a third-rate sect.
But in that moment Dang Seol-yeong felt only pure relief that Kaisent had not died from her poison.
If I had been forced to watch this child die in agony because of me, my heart might have broken…
Until now, as a poison master following the Dang Clan’s orders, she had assassinated countless people with toxin.
Among them had been talented boys of the unorthodox factions, killed on clan command; yet for some reason she herself had never noticed that she could not treat Kaisent with her usual detachment.