A Twist of Fate
Originally, the Thousand-Year Great Python would have fled in sheer panic.
But after taking that fierce opening strike head-on and fixing its gaze forward, it realized something impossible.
It was a martial beast that had learned the ways of the jianghu, yes, but its opponent was still just a human. Worse, he was only a boy, his face still soft with downy youth. And that human had dared to lay a hand on it.
As if the blood it had already spilled before dawn, after being ganged up on by several humans, had not been humiliation enough, now even a mere child was looking down on it. That set its temper boiling.
Whoosh!
Seok Geum-ryong’s judgment in pursuing the Thousand-Year Great Python alone had been exactly right.
The enraged beast, as if it had been waiting for this very moment, drew out its tail and swung it like a revolving mace.
It was a primitive, simple attack, but was there anything more directly destructive than that?
It was only called a tail swing, but from the perspective of a human so small compared to the Thousand-Year Great Python, it was even more terrifying than a giant whip.
Flash!
At the utterly unpredictable movement, so unlike anything a normal warrior would ever produce, Seok Geum-ryong was badly startled and leaped upward.
A sly smile spread across the Thousand-Year Great Python’s face.
This was, in fact, the same method it had used countless times to kill martial experts who came for its inner core.
It would deliberately swing its tail a fraction too slowly, lifting the enemy into the air.
Then, as if it had been waiting all along, it would open its maw and blast out scalding breath mixed with the vicious poison that filled both its body and its organs.
Martial experts suspended in midair had never once survived that attack cleanly; their entire bodies would be poisoned and melted down.
So this really isn’t something to take lightly.
But Golden Prince Seok Geum-ryong was different.
He had expected the move to some degree, and once he was lifted into the air, he had another asset no one else could match.
Shadowless Movement Technique.
He possessed exceptional lightness skill, something no ordinary martial artist could ever hope to use.
Especially now, after reaching the Peak Realm, not only his martial skill but even his movement technique had improved dramatically.
Flash!
Thanks to that, Seok Geum-ryong astonishingly sprung his body once more even in midair and avoided the Thousand-Year Great Python’s insidious poison mist.
And that was not all.
Heaven-Returning Golden Needle Technique!
Realizing that it was time to bring his full strength to bear, Seok Geum-ryong drew out every weapon he had.
With a sharp throwing technique that used golden needles, he scattered them straight toward the Thousand-Year Great Python’s eyes, which gleamed with ferocious savagery at midrange.
Kiieeek!
As expected, the beast screamed in agony.
Its massive pupils and the flesh around them were struck by stinging golden needles imbued with the inner power of a Peak expert. The Thousand-Year Great Python thrashed violently in pain.
Crash, bang, smash!
Even that agony-ridden motion was so powerful that the hidden rocks around it were ground to powder.
This is nothing like fighting a human.
Seok Geum-ryong had experienced a great deal, from his former life to this one, and had earned the right to call himself a veteran who had weathered every storm.
Yet this was the first time across both lives that he had ever fought a spirit beast.
Normal martial artists did not swing tails or spew poison mist from their breath, after all.
Its attack patterns were completely different, and its enormous body was giving him some trouble.
“Huuu.”
But only for a moment.
After facing it for roughly the time it took to drink a cup of tea, Seok Geum-ryong began to adapt.
The Thousand-Year Great Python is certainly dangerous and threatening, but its range of actions isn’t very wide.
In other words, its attacks were simple.
Aside from blowing out poison mist through its breath, swinging its tail, and biting, it was hard for it to deal with an active human fighter, given the limitations of its species.
And Seok Geum-ryong already possessed stamina and internal energy beyond that of an ordinary Peak expert. Unless the python had been before it fell into decadence through meat-eating, it would have been a different matter.
As things stood now, it was growing steadily exhausted in the struggle against him.
“How tragic. A being that once dreamed of becoming a dragon and longed to ascend.”
Seok Geum-ryong understood that well, and as the minutes passed, he could not help feeling pity at the sight of the Thousand-Year Great Python’s life force and armor drying out before his eyes.
By nature, the Thousand-Year Great Python had been born a predator and an animal.
It had abandoned meat and accumulated merit for a thousand years, but in the end it could not overcome that nature, and all of it had come to nothing.
And now it had been reduced to a state where it must be hunted by a mere human, a mere martial artist. It was hard not to feel a little sorry for it.
No. In a battle where life and death are on the line, pity is a luxury and an insult.
Seok Geum-ryong shook his head hard.
People kill livestock to survive.
In the same way, it was only natural for him, as a martial artist, to hunt a spirit beast in pursuit of greater strength and a grander ambition.
This was not killing for fun or hunting out of boredom. It was a desperate struggle for survival and necessity. There was no reason for either side to blame or pity the other.
“Haaah!”
Golden Prince Seok Geum-ryong sensed that the duel had reached its end.
From this point on, if he failed to bring the Thousand-Year Great Python down completely and merely wounded it awkwardly, the beast would have no choice but to escape.
Whoosh!
So he focused all his energy and inner power into one sword, the Silver Echo Sword.
Seok Geum-ryong sought to kill in order to become stronger.
The Thousand-Year Great Python struggled desperately to live.
Heaven-Shattering Seven Stars Sword Technique: Third Form, Preserving Wealth!
At last, the moment came to put an end to the life-and-death struggle between the two beings.
Whoooosh!
After reaching the Peak Realm, this was the third form of the Heaven-Shattering Seven Stars Sword Technique that Seok Geum-ryong had only barely managed to comprehend, and the strongest form he presently possessed.
With the sword qi of Preserving Wealth unfurled, he gave it everything he had.
Its gentle, warm sword qi seemed almost ill-suited to a battle so savage, but only for an instant.
What followed was a sight beyond belief.
The moment the radiant sword qi of Seok Geum-ryong and the form of Preserving Wealth met the Thousand-Year Great Python’s thick armor, scales, and proud defenses!
Riiip!
The Thousand-Year Great Python, which had failed to become a dragon and instead fallen into corruption through meat-eating, finally reached its end.
With all its strength spent and everything it had exhausted, its defenses dropped to nothing.
Slash!
By contrast, Seok Geum-ryong’s Silver Echo Sword, driven by every last ounce of force, displayed sword qi sharper than ever before. In the end, it cut through the python’s armor and scales and succeeded in inflicting a fatal wound. Victory in the struggle belonged to the Golden Prince Seok Geum-ryong.
Kiiiik, kiiieeek!
Struck by that terrifying form, the Thousand-Year Great Python let out a scream while still holding its upper body rigidly upright.
That was its last cry. Its final death scream.
And so the Thousand-Year Great Python died in that grotesque posture, half collapsed and half still standing.
“Huff, haaaah, huufff!”
Meanwhile, Seok Geum-ryong, who had fought with all his might for a long time in order to defeat the Thousand-Year Great Python, felt as though he might suffocate from sheer exhaustion.
Had he ever fought a battle like this since reaching the Peak Realm?
In addition, this life-and-death struggle with a giant spirit beast, not a human, gave Seok Geum-ryong a particularly rare experience.
I won. I actually won!
At first, he had wondered if he was overreaching.
He had even thought that coming here alone might have been arrogance.
But in the end, Seok Geum-ryong had succeeded in claiming victory through a battle to the death.
Drip, drip.
He wanted nothing more than to savor the triumph, but the situation did not allow it.
Because after his fatal strike pierced the Thousand-Year Great Python’s armor and scales, the beast’s blood began to seep out from the wound.
Bubble, bubble.
Its extreme poison soon spread through the area, melting away trees and grass, and even the hardest rocks, in an instant.
Thus, there was no exaggeration in calling this place a poison zone.
And naturally, Seok Geum-ryong had been poisoned as well.
At this rate, I’ll die.
What could be more idiotic than dying together with a mere spirit beast, when it was not even the killer of his parents or some sworn enemy?
And if he ended up dying without even taking the beast’s inner core or other spoils, only to leave the spoils behind for someone else, he would be gnashing his teeth in regret even after death.
Rustle.
Of course, Seok Geum-ryong was not that foolish.
Far from it, he remembered his personal creed: Prepare for the worst before it happens, and immediately took the detoxifying pill he always carried.
It had been made for him by Yeo Gwang-rae, the Golden Needle Venerable, the peerless physician. Since the jianghu was so terrifying and anything could happen, Yeo Gwang-rae had given him the antidote as a personal gift.
From the moment he decided to face the Thousand-Year Great Python, Seok Geum-ryong had resolved to use that antidote.
Slip.
As soon as he took the pill, the Thousand-Year Great Python’s poison, which had been paralyzing his entire body and dragging him toward death at frightening speed, began to quiet down at last.
That doesn’t mean I’m cured, or that I’ve completely subdued the toxin!
However effective the antidote might be, it was still only an emergency measure.
So what was he to do now?
Tremble, tremble.
With shaking hands, Seok Geum-ryong tore into the Thousand-Year Great Python’s body and pushed his way inside.
Its armor and scales were still hard, and its whole body was little more than a sack of poison spilling blood, but he paid that no mind.
If I take the Thousand-Year Great Python’s inner core and then refine its poison afterward...
I’ll develop resistance to the Thousand-Year Great Python’s extreme poison.
The Thousand-Year Great Python’s venom was counted among the most extreme poisons in the world.
And if he gained resistance to that poison, what would that mean?
It would mean perfect resistance to dozens, hundreds, even thousands of poisons in this world.
“In other words, any martial artist would dream of achieving a state where no poison can affect them.”
Seok Geum-ryong muttered in a voice full of conviction.
With that vicious yet wondrous poison, and with the inner core he would soon uncover, it was possible.
It sounded like a dream, but it was no dream.
Shhk, shhk.
Though he had never before harvested a spirit beast’s inner core, as a martial artist he had plenty of experience butchering livestock for food.
So, without difficulty, he used the Silver Echo Sword, now suffused with sword qi, and expertly dismantled the Thousand-Year Great Python’s body.
The outside of the beast was hard, but the inside was soft, and taking it apart from the inside out was not particularly difficult.
How much time passed like that?
The moment it seemed as if the Thousand-Year Great Python’s poison was once again beginning to spread, slowly, once more!
“Found it!”
At last, Seok Geum-ryong was able to extract something massive from inside the beast’s body.
It was like the relics of a great monk who had accumulated merit over many years, except that this was the inner core containing the essence of the Thousand-Year Great Python.
The Thousand-Year Great Python’s inner core looked almost like a beast’s heart, and it even gave off a faint, fishy smell.
Fitting the huge body of the beast, the core was no ordinary size.
“Huu.”
Seok Geum-ryong let out a measured breath and looked around.
He had been wary of uninvited guests or enemies appearing while he took the inner core, but fortunately this part of Mount Bukseok belonged to him, the lord of Seokma-gwan.
Drip-drip.
Seok Geum-ryong casually took the still-warm inner core of the Thousand-Year Great Python, and once again, he foreshadowed a storm to come.