065
065
"Geonmyeon!!"
The head of the Tang Clan, Dang O-dok, threw open the door to his son's room. A sickly young man with dark shadows under his eyes flinched in surprise and hurriedly shut the book he had been reading.
"Wha- What is it?"
"What are you doing here?!"
"......Excuse me?"
".......??"
Father and son stared at each other for a long moment, tilting their heads in confusion.
"Didn't you go to the secret vault?"
"Wh- wha- what do you mean?"
"I'm asking if you went to the secret vault today—just like when you found that treasure map before!!"
At the clan head's roar, Dang Geon-myeon waved his hands frantically and picked up the book he had been reading.
"Absolutely not! Uncle ordered me to stay put, how would I dare disobey him...! I-I was reading this!!"
"'Yu Deok-hyeon, the King of Hanzhong'? Th-this...! You're not doing the poison arts training I ordered!"
In frustration, the clan head pounded his own chest with his raised fist.
"How can the successor of the Tang Clan read books meant for lowlifes and thugs!!"
"Th-that's nonsense! It's a classic novel about the hero Yu Deok-hyeon conquering the world with his two sworn brothers using the power of the Heavenly Dragon Emperor Twin High Sword..."
"Shut your mouth! Damn it, so you're telling me you haven't been to the secret vault today?!"
"Th-that's right."
Dang O-dok tore at his hair and let out a heavy snort. He had rushed over the moment he heard the word "Young Master," but the sole young master of the family was enjoying his own hobbies instead of doing the research he was supposed to do.
"Haah. Geonmyeon. You are the future of the Tang Clan. You must become the Poison Dragon at the next Dragon-Phoenix Gathering. We still have four years, but this is no time to relax!"
"...Do I truly become stronger by training in poison arts?"
"You wretch! You're doubting again!"
"I'm not doubting. It's not poison arts... nor hidden weapon techniques honed to kill others... I just wish to..."
Bang!
"Shut your mouth! If you say one more word, I will truly discipline you with my own hands!"
After raging for a while, the clan head spoke with a servant who had come looking for him urgently and then hurriedly left. The direction his footsteps took him was towards the secret vault, where the Fire Bone Mountain Rain Formation was located.
"......Not poison that kills people... I just want to save them."
A deep disillusionment was etched in Dang Geon-myeon's eyes as he looked upon the martial arts of the Tang Clan.
* * *
In a duel where poison masters wield lethal strokes against each other, the outcome is decided by poison alone. What kind of venom can you administer to your opponent? How can you infect them?
In that sense, there is no poison master who can easily defeat the martial artists of the Sichuan Tang Clan. Using a half-baked poison against a Tang Clan warrior, who has built up resistance to all manner of poisons through spirit medicines and toxic herbs from a young age, is completely useless.
"So, I'm going to scatter a poison that even a Tang Clan master fears."
BOOOOM---!!
Fire bone acid surged up from below and engulfed Poison Ghost. Poison Ghost flung himself backward to dodge the acid and stretched both arms out towards me.
"Shoot!"
As soon as his sleeves fluttered, two snakes shot towards me like arrows. The snakes, swaying left and right, opened their mouths wide and tried to bite me the moment they got close.
"Where do you think you're going?"
I folded the iron whip and smacked the head of the red snake, the Red Three-headed Snake. Thanks to the heavy inner qi I infused into the strike, its neck snapped and it began to fall to the ground.
Kyeeek!
However, the blue venomous snake with the triangular head that had shot out from the other side, the Blue Three-headed Snake, managed to reach my black robe. As if sensing victory, it jerked its head back and sank its fangs into my chest.
*Crack.*
Its fangs pierced the cloth, penetrated my chest, but my skin didn't tear and I wasn't wounded. There was merely a hole in my black robe, and my body remained unscathed.
"No matter how sharp your venomous fangs are, they're useless if they can't pierce my Qi Barrier."
Kyiek?!
I grabbed the Blue Three-headed Snake by the neck. It panicked and tried to spray venom at me, but I glared at it and suppressed it with my All-Currents-Return-to-Source Divine Art, far denser than Poison Ghost's. The Blue Three-headed Snake gave up resisting and began gauging my reaction.
Ki, kyieeek...
"Y-you bastard!!"
As the Red Three-headed Snake died helplessly and the Blue Three-headed Snake was caught by me, Poison Ghost screamed and threw hidden weapons at me. As I dodged the randomly erupting fire bone acid and closed the distance, his projectiles—though seemingly thrown haphazardly—were all aimed at fatal points.
"Useless."
I unfolded the iron whip again and swung it widely to deflect the hidden weapons. I wasn't sure how many times I would have to repeat this process, but at least my plan to buy time was working effectively.
"How long are you going to keep pecking from over there?"
"Y-you bastard!! Don't hide like a coward and come out!"
"You coward! Don't just throw hidden weapons from afar and come closer!"
"You insolent punk!!"
Poison Ghost raged and struck the Fire Bone Mountain Rain Formation. Drops of the formation's acid had already splashed onto the hem of his robes, melting them in places, but undeterred, he continued hurling hidden weapons and venom.
"Hahaha! To see the ghost of the Tang Clan fleeing from his own Fire Bone Mountain Rain Formation! Have a taste of this!!"
I grabbed the Blue Three-headed Snake by the jaw and struck its body with the iron whip, sending it flying like a beam of light. It sank its fangs into Poison Ghost's thigh.
"Gahk!!"
Poison Ghost stopped in his tracks and shoved his hand into his thigh. He then pulled out an incredibly thick python from inside his pants.
"Oh."
"What 'oh'! You crazy bastard, how dare you kill four of my precious snakes!!"
"Four? Including that python just now... ah."
I remembered the snake that had served as an alarm for the Fire Bone Mountain Rain Formation. Calling them precious after stationing them in a place where they would die anyway, how ridiculous.
"So you protect yourself from poison with snakes wrapped around your body. Tch. What if I do this, then?"
I slightly twisted the mechanics of the Fire Bone Mountain Rain Formation. I deliberately reversed the flow of the fire bone acid, making it erupt right under Poison Ghost's feet. The acid surged towards him like a tidal wave.
"Hmph!"
But Poison Ghost was no ordinary figure. By kicking off the ground and retreating, only a negligible amount of the acid wave splashed him, failing even to melt his skin.
"As expected of Immunity to All Poisons! The fire bone acid can't even melt your skin!"
"Shut up, you bastard!"
Poison Ghost flung the hem of his robes high into the air. Hidden weapons concealed in its lining scattered into the sky, and he leaped up, kicking and flinging them all at me.
"Witness the Rain of Ten Thousand Flowers clearly!!"
"Oh my."
To think I would face the Rain of Ten Thousand Flowers, a signature technique of the Tang Clan's secret arts.
'I can't dodge it.'
The moment I dodge this spot, I'll be forced out of the center of the Fire Bone Mountain Rain Formation, and Poison Ghost will seize that opening to take control of the formation himself. That would buy him time to break through the formation, and more importantly, it would put the Little Princess down below in danger.
'I can't give up this spot.'
I had been waiting just for this moment. I pulled out the two small swords tucked inside the lining of my black robe. Both were short swords, about two feet long, but I could compensate for their lack of length.
"Do you think you can block my Rain of Ten Thousand Flowers with just two measly swords?!"
"Possible."
No need for many words. I just need to show it through action.
'It's a shame I can't show the Little Princess.'
Here I am, a top-class instructor who could teach three ways to block the Tang Clan's Rain of Ten Thousand Flowers. It's a pity, but I'll save it for the next opportunity as I gripped the twin swords tightly.
"Heavenly Dragon Emperor--!!"
"Wha- what?!"
"Witness the power of the Dragon Emperor Sword you've been so desperately searching for!"
I positioned the twin swords diagonally, so that the left sword wouldn't hinder the right, and the right wouldn't hinder the left. I swung the twin swords forward, precisely intercepting and deflecting each incoming hidden weapon based on their trajectories.
"Unmatched Chaotic Dance!"
Not a single hidden weapon remained, deflected by precisely timed sword swings.
"Witness the power of Sword Emperor Yu Yeong-geol!"
* * *
Heavenly Demon Spirit Eye.
It possesses the minor power to easily find lost objects, and in terms of martial arts, the ability to detect weaknesses in the opponent's technique.
-The Heavenly Demon Spirit Eye is the power to detect anomalies in the world.
The Little Princess followed the footprints she had discovered using the Heavenly Demon Spirit Eye. The footprints, which seemed to belong to someone who had been there relatively recently, wandered around the secret vault somewhat haphazardly.
'Footsteps that went this way and then turned back inward.'
Step, step.
The Little Princess cautiously followed the trail. The owner of the footprints, who seemed to have been searching for something while wandering between the library shelves, appeared to have been looking for documents.
'They weren't looking for a secret martial arts manual.'
They hadn't set foot anywhere near the location of the Tang Clan's supreme secret manuals. The owner of the footprints, this unidentified figure, had mainly been searching for content related to 'disease'.
'What kind of disease were they looking for?'
Step. The Little Princess's footsteps halted. The traces of the footprints had lingered in one spot for a long time, and it looked like whoever it was had been startled by something and collapsed. The Little Princess stood before the shelf, mimicking the trail's owner.
[Changcheonhwadu].
"......Ah, no way."
The Little Princess hoped her thoughts weren't true. She wished that her brilliant mind hadn't been warped by the Sky-Soaring Lust Demon's lecherous actions, leading her to an irrational conclusion.
But two characters stood out distinctly: 'Cheon' and 'Hwa'.
"That's, impossible..."
With trembling hands, the Little Princess opened the book.
"........"
After examining the book's contents for a long while, the Little Princess gritted her teeth and almost threw the book away. But her hand, raised high into the air, merely clutched the book with her nails, unable to bring herself to slam it onto the floor.
"Haah, haah."
Having learned such shocking information, the Little Princess had to lean against the wall and catch her breath. She couldn't even find it funny that the owner of the footprints had been startled into falling over.
"An artificial infectious disease..."
The source of a disease with a mortality rate of thirty to fifty percent was right before her eyes. What's more, it wasn't a naturally occurring disease, but one that could be deliberately created and spread by humans.
'So this is the Tang Clan?'
She was well aware of the Sichuan Tang Clan's double-sided nature. She knew that, as a family that handles poison arts, they occasionally committed acts that went against human morality.
But even so, to research plagues and leave behind a method to develop them? To actually spread it and conduct experiments on the populace?
'No. I can't yet conclude that this is the same disease as the Cheonhwa that was prevalent a year ago.'
Even if I've found out that the Tang Clan created an artificial Cheonhwa, I can't definitively link it to the actual Cheonhwa that swept through. The cause of the Cheonhwa plague in Hubei Province was that the Sword Demon, having contracted it elsewhere, went to Wudang to die.
'I don't think this was what I was meant to find.'
Discovering information about Cheonhwa was certainly a crucial matter, but right now, finding out how the secret map of the Twin Old Eagle Swords surfaced was more important.
'That's right. I'll confirm this later—'
Click.
The Little Princess, having unknowingly pressed a part of the wall behind her, spun around hastily. Fearing a trap might spring or an enemy might appear, she threw a punch with her Heavenly Demon Divine Fist, but her attack only sliced through shadows.
"......?"
A wooden panel had fallen off the wall. Wondering why a spot invisible even to the Heavenly Demon Spirit Eye would suddenly pop out, she saw a red trail flowing along the wall inside the hole, linked to the bookshelf where the book had been inserted.
'So it pops out when you lift the book.'
As the Little Princess, this was one of the mechanical formation methods she had often seen back at the Demonic Cult's main stronghold. Noticing the ominous aura seeping from inside the wooden panel, the Little Princess shifted her gaze inward.
'A treasure map vault?'
In a space barely the size of a small box, all sorts of treasure maps were piled up. And the Little Princess picked up a thin book written in a somewhat familiar, but much more rugged, handwriting.
"The Arrangement of Sichuan's Greatest Genius, Left for Geniuses Disillusioned with the Tang Clan."
Judging by the handwriting and the state of the book, it seemed to have been made relatively recently — within the last thirty years. Considering the rapid decay caused by the dense poison aura surrounding it, at least twenty years. The Little Princess grew curious as to who could have created a secret device in the secret vault that only the clan head could enter.
'Good heavens.'
Had the Sky-Soaring Lust Demon known about this, or had he heard about it from someone else? The Little Princess genuinely got goosebumps realizing that the Sky-Soaring Lust Demon had brazenly entered the secret vault with 'that' face.
"Bandit Demon."
[To my younger siblings, nephews, and descendants who will one day be deeply disappointed in and flee from this clan, I leave here the fortuitous encounters I have found. However, I don't know if they're real or not, so try them at your own risk. Mwahahahahaha. I leave this land to steal the absurdities of the world. - Former number one poison arts master of the Tang Clan, Heaven and Earth, I Alone Am the Poison Dragon, Dang I-jeong.]
"......."
The Little Princess covered her face with the letter.
* * *
"Damn, why did I suddenly get goosebumps?"
"Aw hell, look here, mister! The wheel just fell off, and what are you doing over there by yourself!"
"Fuck, shut up! Can't you see the old man's gone senile again?!"
"A snake, a snake! A snake that's good for the body!! Son, go catch it quickly! Snakes are good for virility!"
"I told you I'm not your son, old man!!"
"Excuse me... may I ask you something..."
"Huh? Mister, how did you get in here—"
They were diligently heading east.