Chapter 120
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 120
Chapter Title: Poison King (2)
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Objectively, and judging coldly.
My current level of martial arts was still insufficient to suppress that old codger.
It was only natural.
Unlike back when I was a third-rate, peak-level preschool scrub.
Now that I had reached the super peak realm, the path ahead was crystal clear.
If I were to compare it to a restaurant.
It was no different from having just learned to use chopsticks and placed my first shaky order in a trembling voice.
The path of martial arts stretched out infinitely.
I would need to continue refining myself steadily until I achieved true harmony.
But so what?
Until now, there had been almost no fights I charged into thinking I could win.
"Let's have a go, you old freak."
Fights weren't originally about trying to beat the opponent.
They were about royally pissing them off.
And.
"......This little punk keeps crawling higher because I've been too lenient."
Seeing Dang Se-ak shed his feigned leisure and phony benevolence to reveal his true fiendish demonic form.
He seemed properly scratched.
That was lesson one.
You know shit sucks too.
And from here was the crucial point.
"It would be fine to clash like ordinary martial artists, but today, I won't use my sword."
I calculated the trajectory precisely and tossed my bow-sword behind me.
A clattering sound, followed by a clean thunk as it embedded into the ground.
The stirred breaths from those around me, and the low murmurs of admiration.
Good.
Style points secured.
"Everything I've received from the Tang Family up to now, including this scar on my face...... was nothing but poison. So, I'll face you with poison arts alone."
I raised poison qi from my hand, laying the groundwork.
"Ha, haha, hahaha......!"
Seeing the Poison King suddenly burst into mad laughter.
It overlapped with my university days, when I told my advisor, "This interpretation seems wrong."
I shouldn't have said that......
Well, it was still the most fitting technique to scratch a specialist.
"Fine, you whelp. I'll play your game. But today, you won't leave the Tang Family alive."
The Tang Family University's Professor of Poison Studies gave exactly the reaction I wanted.
From the meeting hall to the training grounds.
Not only the Tang Family retainers who had attended the meeting, including the Jade Face Young Master and the Poison King, but everyone who hadn't yet gone to sleep gathered.
The contents of the bizarre letter scattered in the meeting hall earlier began to spread by word of mouth.
But Dang Se-ak paid it no mind.
Once he crushed this impudent whelp's arrogance and Dang Heon dealt with Dang Uryang.
It would be as if nothing had happened.
He had more than enough power and prestige to make it so.
Seeing it as the perfect opportunity to even humble his worthless son Dang Woo-jun, who picked fights over every little thing.
Dang Se-ak gazed at the man before him, the Jade Face Young Master.
At first, he had suspected he might be the same person as Geum Sihyeon, but now it was irrelevant.
If he was the same, it meant he had eliminated an Azure Heaven Society assassination target; if not, he was surely a pawn of the Ten Thousand Gold Treasury Fortress.
Either way, it would strengthen his position within the Azure Heaven Society.
'Make the martial world great, but the Sichuan Tang Family even greater.'
If he could suppress Dang Uryang and Dang So-rin and bend things to his will.
The Tang Family's name surpassing even the Nine Great Sects would be possible in his generation.
"Surely the Poison King won't yield the first move to a martial world dropout like me."
"Kekeke, you called me an old freak when you challenged me, and now you're scared? Go on, show me your tricks."
He had no idea where this confidence came from.
But since it wasn't an exaggeration to say he had embodied nearly every poison in existence, Dang Se-ak readily yielded the first move.
And.
The moment their palms met.
"......!"
Dang Se-ak involuntarily pulled his form back from an unprecedented poison qi he had never felt before.
A poison more insidious, more dangerous, and on an entirely different level than any he had encountered.
"Impressive. So you do have something to rely on."
"Heh."
Dang Se-ak completely set aside his underestimation of the young man before him.
To produce poison qi of that magnitude, his poison heart harbored within must be overwhelming, as must his talent for poisons.
Judging purely by the vessel, it was far superior to Dang So-rin's.
"Kneel and beg forgiveness even now, and I'll take you as my disciple. What do you say?"
Dang Se-ak attempted enticement as if entranced, but all he got in return was the Jade Face Young Master's sneer and an incomprehensible middle finger.
"Cut the crap, old freak. I already have plenty of masters."
"Insolent fool. I'll rip out your poison core myself and savor it."
No more words were needed.
One exchange.
And another.
All manner of poisons poured from Dang Se-ak's body.
The Jade Face Young Master responded calmly, sometimes dispersing the poison qi or absorbing it.
Before long, Dang Se-ak's body was dyed purple.
"True Blood Poison Man......"
A sigh escaped Dang Na-rin's lips as she watched the poisons clash without even blinking.
The realm her grandfather, the Poison King, had forced her to reach.
The ultimate pinnacle of poison arts, where after embodying every kind of poison, even the true qi flowing through his meridians was sublimated into poison qi.
Witnessing it directly with her own eyes.
Dang Na-rin felt paradoxical emotions.
Even if he had never once given her an affectionate glance.
From childhood, her entire world had belonged to her grandfather──Dang Se-ak.
A small hope that, however grueling and exhausting, her world wouldn't crumble.
And even greater.
A wish for Dang Se-ak to reveal his limits.
For everything she had endured to prove meaningless in hindsight, for a better path to have existed──
She had been hoping for it, bit by bit.
Before long, Dang Na-rin's gaze shifted from Dang Se-ak to the Jade Face Young Master.
She had no idea what life he had lived.
But to possess an understanding of poison that far transcended even hers, it surely hadn't been smooth.
What lay within it was perhaps...... respect for her...... biological father......
Watching the hearty smile that didn't fade from his lips even as he was gradually pushed back.
"......If you win......"
She squeezed out a tiny voice no one else could hear.
Please win.
Destroy her world.
And show her that a better world existed.
But ironically.
"Hidden techniques are Tang Family martial arts as well. Can you endure this?"
The moment Dang Na-rin's lips twitched, Dang Se-ak's low voice filled the arena.
And.
Easily dodging Geum Sihyeon's poison palm, Dang Se-ak reached into his bosom.
What emerged in his hand once more.
An amount of hidden weapons too vast to describe as merely "numerous."
"N-No way......!"
"Even the Elder Patriarch......?"
Amid the retainers' gasps of awe.
Dang Se-ak extended his arm toward the sky.
Brilliant starlight, poison qi.
It infused the bouquet of flowers blooming between his fingers with a rainbow of colors.
"All Heaven Flower Rain."
The essence of Tang Family martial arts unfolded from Dang Se-ak's hand.
The sky filled with Dang Se-ak's hidden weapons.
And gazing at the poison qi and qi energy gleaming at their tips.
The Jade Face Young Master, Geum Sihyeon, drew in a deep breath.
In that instant.
A silence as if time had stopped flooded his mind.
No matter how faint the possibility, it could never be the same, and thoroughly analyzing it to pour the form of his own martial arts into his vessel──that was the Small No-Phase Art.
In the gap in time crafted by the Small No-Phase Art.
The Clear Mirror Still Water mind met the Divine Mountain Ghost Vessel's wisdom.
Geum Sihyeon's ego began to fragment, one piece at a time.
But today.
Rather than debating how to handle matters related to the woman.
All moved as one for a single purpose.
From abstract formlessness to concrete image manifestation.
Geum Sihyeon recalled the most powerful and devastating poison art he had ever witnessed.
From the forced poison man realm created by seizing Mi-nae's, the Dark Heaven Calamity Tears that Dang Uryang had displayed.
The unformed shape was engraved as a single image and poured into the vessel that was Geum Sihyeon.
Fierce poison qi surged from the poison core slumbering beside his dantian, racing through his meridians all at once to gather at his fingertips.
One drop.
And another drop.
Drops gathered into a tiny stream, and again into a waterfall.
Normally, it would be impossible to infuse qi into every bit of true qi.
But his countless egos acted as if independent entities, infusing intent and true qi into drop after drop.
Slowly, slowly, they began to adorn the sky.
This was.
A dedication and elegy to the man who had lost his wife and had even his daughter taken, enduring endless ages in torment.
Though it didn't fill the sky.
It dyed the sky with his heart.
Though it didn't pour like a downpour.
They were tears that had pooled, gathered, and now flowed.
"Dark Heaven Calamity Tears."
The moment his layered, endlessly accelerating thoughts finally unified as one.
Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of water droplets infused with poison qi erupted from Geum Sihyeon's hand, soaring into the sky and falling as rain.
At the same moment.
The petals that had seemed to blanket the entire sky began to be washed away, one by one, by the poison tears.
"Urk, urgh......!"
The Poison King, voicing dismay for the first time, desperately thrust out his palm.
But how could one block the sky with a mere palm?
Dang Uryang's years and sins imbued within.
Mi-nae's trials and sorrow imbued within.
The essence of poison swept through the arena in an instant.
Witnessing that magnificent, almost majestic scene with their own eyes.
"Everyone, fall back!"
Dang Woo-jun swiftly erected a qi barrier over the grounds and shouted toward the retainers.
But.
Geum Sihyeon's control was so precise and meticulous that not a single drop struck Dang Woo-jun's barrier.
Dazedly watching the Jade Face Young Master perfectly distinguish between inside and outside the arena, directing the rain of poison solely at Dang Se-ak.
All the Tang Family warriors intuited it.
This was the realm reachable when poison arts were pushed to their absolute limit.
It was like a single masterpiece of art.
Though Dang Se-ak's mastery of hidden weapons wasn't as profound as Dang Woo-jun's, one of the most effective ways to use poison was to coat it onto projectiles.
Thus, the All Heaven Flower Rain from his hand was truly worthy of being called a Tang Family ultimate technique.
But.
How could he use poison itself as hidden weapons, and manipulate that countless rain of poison with such precision?
If they hadn't felt that thrill in their very bodies.
If they hadn't seen it with their own wide-open eyes, they never would have believed such a realm existed.
He had even reached a height the Poison King himself hadn't shown.
"The true...... Poison King......"
A voice, heavily suppressed as it murmured, flowed through the thick silence, breaking it.
At the same time.
The view within the arena, shrouded in thick poison mist from the clash of ultimate techniques, began to clear bit by bit.
A faint shadow visible through the fog.
The conclusion of the ultimate clash.
"El-Elder Patriarch......"
"The Elder Patriarch...... lost......?"
"Is this...... really happening......?"
Without launching any follow-up attack, simply standing with hands behind his back, gazing at the sky──the figure of the Jade Face Young Master.
And on one knee, vomiting black blood──the figure of Dang Se-ak.
Both appeared before the eyes of the retainers.
Through the mask, beneath the clear moonlight.
A single tear traced down the Jade Face Young Master's cheek.
Finally, his mouth opened softly.
"The Poison King is already poisoned. Do you need an antidote?"
Those words.
Pierced his chest like an awl.
Completely denying the life Dang Se-ak had devoted to poison arts.
A life where he hadn't hesitated to sacrifice even his own flesh and blood.