Inevitability - 3
Not a single abnormal symptom unique to a Poison Human is showing.
Dang Geoho stared at Dang Hwarin, who was gazing back at him with unshaken confidence.
Even a body tempered for more than a decade to withstand the most extreme yang poison qi would find it difficult to endure the venom of a thousand-year-old centipede. Every test subject who had reached Hwarin’s stage had developed side effects without exception. Yet this time, no matter how carefully he looked, there was nothing.
She’s completely controlling the poison qi.
No trace of fever. No skin blistering or dissolving under the toxins. It was proof that she had formed a poison core within her body and was suppressing the qi with absolute precision.
This cannot be a failure. I’ve created a more perfect Poison Human than I ever expected.
Dang Geoho was seized by pure rapture.
She must have claimed failure simply to provoke him. Hwarin still harbored hostility toward them, but he could not allow a fight to break out now. The perfect Poison Human had to be taken away in perfect condition. Neither he nor the faction supporting him wanted any further damage.
“Come with me, my child.”
Dang Geoho spoke again in that same affectionate, fatherly tone.
“Aren’t you sick of saying the same damn thing over and over?”
Hwarin answered in a voice thick with irritation.
“I have traveled back and forth between Sichuan and Hubei just to see you. What is so tiresome about repeating a few words?”
“Shameless bastard. Fine. You did come often when I was little. Then do you remember what you told me back then?”
“I do not know what words you mean.”
Perhaps the appeal to childhood memories had worked. Dang Geoho looked at her with the expression of a loving father asking his daughter for clarification.
“You said never to associate with Demonic Cultists, and never to trust them.”
Contrary to his expectation, the nostalgia failed completely. Hwarin stared at him with open disgust.
“It is merely a cooperative relationship.”
“Bullshit. I seem to remember you saying that a traitor is even worse.”
“What does the distinction between orthodox, unorthodox, and demonic matter? What matters is that on the day the Cult reveals itself to the world, the Sichuan Dang Clan will become the greatest under heaven. And on that day, I will be the clan head of the greatest under heaven.”
When his acting no longer worked, Dang Geoho simply revealed his true colors.
“Bullshit. Keep that dog’s dream for when you’re asleep.”
“When that day comes I will give you every luxury and glory under the sky. What do you need? Money? Power? I will give you everything. You will stand at my side as the second of the greatest clan under heaven.”
“I don’t need it.”
Hwarin rejected him without the slightest hesitation, as if none of it held any interest for her at all.
“Haha. True. Thinking about it, you always wanted something else. Do you need friends? The children of the clan will flock to you of their own accord, desperate to please you. Do you want a man? Raise your hand and I will make any man you desire enter your chambers.”
“I said I don’t need it.”
“No human is without desire. Tell me what you want. I will give you anything!”
“You can’t give me what I want.”
Hwarin slowly shook her head, laughing at the angry man before her.
“What?”
No matter what he offered, it would never satisfy her. What Dang Hwarin desired was something Dang Geoho could never provide.
Feeling the cold energy radiating from the poison core now formed inside her body, Hwarin spoke.
“Only one person can give me what I want.”
Because the only thing she needed was that one person.
There was nothing left to say to an enemy.
Dang Hwarin began circulating the internal energy and poison qi within her body.
If she had been Yunho, she would have made them weep with a single sentence and turned them into allies—or at the very least, left them utterly speechless. But she did not know how to do that.
She locked her gaze on a black-robed man who was still relaxed in the distance, then stamped the ground.
“What the—?”
Before the black-robed man could finish a single blink, Hwarin stood right in front of him.
Poison at close range, hidden weapons from afar—the supreme principle of Sichuan Dang Clan martial arts, given form as the clan’s premier movement technique, ranking among the swiftest in all of Murim.
She seized the wrist of the man who had allowed her to close the distance and poured poison qi into him. A single short scream, and the martial artist’s life was over.
“You bitch!”
Another black-robed man rushed in frantically and swung his blade, but the blade could not cut a woman who chased thunder.
“You called?”
“Ghk—!”
The fate of a man who failed his one chance was the same as the last.
I can do this.
She had known the principle of the Thunder Chase Body Technique yet could never use it because of the enormous internal energy cost. Now that she had swallowed the poison core and absorbed its power, she could employ it freely.
As long as she could poison them, she needed no grand martial arts. Approach and withdraw. If she could keep doing only that, she could handle every last one of them.
“Dodge!”
“Aaaaagh!”
“Run!”
Hwarin roamed freely with the Thunder Chase Body Technique, cutting down the black lightning bolts one after another with ease.
“You little—!”
Thunder Chase Body Technique against Thunder Chase Body Technique. As the casualties mounted, Dang Geoho finally hurled himself at Hwarin and unleashed the Nine-Section Myriad Poison Hands.
Hwarin seized his wrist and poured poison qi into him, but it had no effect.
As expected. The Nine-Section Myriad Poison Hands was a technique performed with hands steeped in countless toxins—a mere graze would turn a person into a handful of poison water. Even if she could not poison him, her own martial arts should still be enough to subdue a Poison Human.
Dang Geoho had miscalculated.
“What?!”
Hwarin seized his wrist again. This time she took control of the poison qi already inside his hand and drove it straight toward his heart.
“You bitch! How dare you manipulate another’s poison qi at will!”
To freely control the poison qi within another’s body was like reversing the flight of a loosed arrow by will alone. He had never imagined a Poison Human could do such a thing.
Dang Geoho recoiled in shock, trying to open distance.
“Where do you think you’re going?!”
A strange energy shot from Hwarin’s hand as she reached for the fleeing man.
“Palm wind?”
Unavoidable, yet not powerful. He could cut through it. In the crisis he hurriedly swung his other hand.
“Idiot. It’s not just palm wind—it’s a Poison Palm.”
“Gaaaah!”
The arm that had tried to cut through the Poison Palm began to burn and melt. Hwarin did not miss the opening and closed in on Dang Geoho.
But one of the black-robed men swung a blade charged with ferocious energy, blocking her path.
“Fall back! You still have work to do for the Cult!”
“Ah—understood.”
“Tch!”
Hwarin could only watch as Dang Geoho clutched his burning arm and fled in an ugly scramble.
In hide-and-seek, the seeker always tires first. When the game is for one’s life, that truth becomes absolute.
“You vicious bitch!”
“Yeah. My poison is pretty vicious.”
Hwarin stared at the black-robed men tightening their encirclement and gasped for breath.
They’re starting to adapt.
Close in with Thunder Chase Body Technique, seize with joint-locking hands, pour in poison qi. If that failed, fire a Poison Palm. Even a graze was fatal—yet far too many here were confident they would never be grazed.
At first many had fallen for it. Now they had found counters and it no longer worked.
“Keep your distance and surround her slowly! If she charges one of us, the others take her back!”
The moment they realized she was tiring, the black-robed men began narrowing the net.
I need a moment to catch my breath.
Hwarin glanced toward Kang Yunho lying collapsed far away.
Was he waiting for an opening? Had the bleeding made him lose consciousness? Or was there some injury she had failed to notice?
Whatever his condition, if she fell here she could not protect him.
She looked again at the black-robed men closing the distance step by step. At this rate she would simply be overwhelmed. No clear solution came to mind.
If it had been Yunho… if Yunho had been the Poison Human, what would he have done?
Yunho…
“You’re going to close the distance for me? Fine by me. Come on, then! I’ll show you the true terror of a Poison Human.”
Hwarin dropped her guarded stance and instead beckoned them with an almost leisurely air—exactly like a certain black-haired storyteller speaking boldly from a stage.
The moment their eyes fixed on her hands, she coated them in dense poison qi, making it clear she could kill anyone who came near.
The black-robed men halted for an instant. This was their first encounter with a true Poison Human. She might still have a hidden trump card. Her calm demeanor sparked a brief flicker of fear.
“Who’s going first? You? Or you? Whoever comes first, I guarantee I’ll kill them for sure.”
No one here was eager to step forward and die first. Some among the black-robed men were Demonic Cultists, but others were only hired blades; they had no desire to die like dogs for a cause that was not their own.
Her performance created a strange stalemate.
The acting worked.
Even in crisis, Hwarin allowed herself a small smile inside. The answer really was Yunho. The acting she had learned from him had succeeded.
She exhaled in relief—yet her greatest problem remained unsolved.
I have no more techniques left to use.
She knew how to become a Poison Human, but she did not know what a Poison Human could do.
At best she had the Poison Palm that had come to her naturally, and the Thunder Chase Body Technique she had known but never properly used. The Poison Palm drained her energy far too quickly.
She had gained the body of a tiger, yet all she knew was how to swing her claws on instinct. A clumsy tiger was about to be driven into a corner by a pack of hunters.
The bluff would be exposed soon. Despair began to creep up from a corner of her heart.
No. If I give up, Yunho dies.
How many times had Yunho stepped forward for her sake? Now, when her turn had finally come just once, she could not protect him? She would never allow it.
With thoughts of one man she drove the rising despair back down.
She had to find a way out, the way Yunho always did.
Yet even after reviewing every martial art she had learned, no clear method of breaking the situation appeared.
What would Yunho do?
He always found a breakthrough no matter how desperate the crisis. If it had been Yunho, would he have found a new path even here?
Hwarin snorted at herself in silent self-mockery.
Yunho was not of the Dang Clan—how could he know a method? Relying on him too much was a bad habit. It was not as if he could teach her Dang Clan martial arts.
The Dang Clan martial arts Yunho taught me?
In a flash, a conversation from one day in the attic rose in her mind.
— You’re not even of the Dang Clan. How can you portray Sichuan Dang Clan martial arts so well?
— I’ve watched Dang Clan techniques for a long time. I know the principle behind them. Once you understand that, you can use Dang Clan martial arts.
— What are you talking about?
— Think of ordinary martial arts. You start with the simplest killing move—a thrust. You’re learning a point.
— A point?
— Yeah. Point, line, surface—the point. As skill grows you learn to cut. That’s mastering the line. Once you’ve truly opened the way of the blade, the very surface of your swing becomes yours. You learn to dominate the plane. Ordinary martial arts develop slowly from the point outward. But the Sichuan Dang Clan is different.
— Different?
— From poison arts all the way to the Rain of a Thousand Flowers—Sichuan Dang Clan martial arts aim to control space itself from the very beginning. The trajectory is fundamentally different.
— N-now that you say it, that does sound right.
— If you simply understand the principle of Sichuan Dang Clan martial arts, you can use them whenever you want.
The principle of Sichuan Dang Clan martial arts spoken by one man sank into Hwarin’s mind like a blade along her spine.
Once again the answer had been with Yunho.
Yes. She did not need to learn new techniques to subdue them.
The essence of the Sichuan Dang Clan already lived inside her—why search for martial arts anywhere else?
When Hwarin closed her eyes, a strange powder began to pour from her body.
“What in the world is that?”
“Poison—poison powder! If you breathe it in you’ll be poisoned! Get back!”
A lonely, pitiful caterpillar.
Powerless, tormented, loved by no one.
Perhaps her fate had been simply to be crushed underfoot and die.
But a man had approached that unloved caterpillar.
With his words, his writing, his attention—he had raised the tiny creature he could easily have ignored.
Through one man’s care the caterpillar endured years of hardship and finally emerged from its chrysalis.
“Unleash sword winds! Drive the poison powder away!”
Despite the black-robed men’s efforts, the poison powder gathered around her again as if it possessed a will of its own.
“Fall back! You bitch! What have you done?!”
A single butterfly at last spread her beautiful wings.
She opened the eyes she had closed and looked upon the wings she had unfurled.
They were not wings created by her power alone.
They were the martial art she and he had created together.
A little embarrassing, yet a name she could be proud of.
Poison Butterfly Dang Hwarin stood before them and introduced the name of that technique.
“Welcome to my Poison Killing Space.”