Chapter 173
Chapter 173
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 173
Chapter Title: Misjudgment (1)
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Sobinta realized something was wrong just shy of half an incense stick's time after the battle fully erupted.
He had acknowledged the unexpected variable that intervened and its surprising strength. Yet he trusted in himself and the prowess of the Thunderclap Temple.
That confidence crumbled disastrously due to several oversights on his part.
First, the Sword Empress and Dang Cheonha were in far better condition than he had anticipated, despite the exhaustion they should have suffered from the duel. Moreover, breaking with the tradition that the Sword Empress's residence had no dedicated guards since the previous one's death, the White Sword Corps mobilized to protect Neung Sohwa.
Even though they hadn't fully subdued the Sword Empress's residence, such an extraordinary measure was taken because Neung Sohwa had become the Pavilion Lord of the Sword Pavilion.
The White Sword Corps, composed of thirty-six members, were the finest swordmasters nurtured by the Sword Pavilion. Their individual skills were in no way inferior to the disciples of the Thunderclap Temple. Failing to account for their presence was undoubtedly a grave mistake.
Second, the arrival of Sima Geon and his group.
An utterly unforeseen variable—and the most formidable one at that.
Their strength far exceeded Sobinta's expectations.
Ban Takga, an elder of the Thunderclap Temple and Sobinta's fellow priest, had confidently challenged Sima Geon only to be utterly crushed.
Not just Ban Takga—many of the key leaders who had come to the Dang family with Sobinta to lead the Temple's forces lost their lives one after another to Sima Geon and Cheol Woo. Their deaths directly sapped the disciples' morale and weakened the overall fighting strength.
Third, he had severely underestimated the Dang family's hidden reserves.
It was true that the family's elites had left their posts. By sheer numbers, the remaining forces at the main house amounted to only about a third of the usual strength. However, the Dang main house possessed items capable of bridging that gap—perhaps even surpassing it.
What defined the Dang family were poisons and hidden weapons.
Poisons couldn't be used freely with allies and enemies tangled together, but hidden weapons had no such restriction.
The Dang family possessed many commonly known hidden weapons, but even more that were kept secret from the world. In particular, their Ten Great Hidden Weapons were renowned for their unmatched power, hard to find equals for.
Before the battle fully commenced, at the family head's command, the retainers rushed to the Divine Technique Hall and retrieved every one of the Ten Great Hidden Weapons slumbering quietly in the vault. Those weapons inflicted massive damage on the Thunderclap Temple, fully proving their legendary reputation.
'Where the hell did it all go wrong?'
Sobinta gazed despairingly at his crumbling formation.
"S-Senior Brother!"
He whipped his head around at the urgent cry.
Ripada was stumbling backward, his face a bloody mess.
His left arm hung limply, its joints shattered like some soft-bodied creature wriggling bonelessly, and the staff in his hand was gone without a trace, leaving only the grip behind.
"How much further do you plan to run?"
Cheol Woo laughed as he roughly tore off his tattered upper garment.
Numerous wounds marred his massive torso, but none seemed serious.
"Oh ho, looks like the boss man finally showed up. Hey, you—I'll let you live, so get lost right now."
Cheol Woo waved Ripada off like a pesky fly, then turned killing intent toward Sobinta.
Judging the fight unavoidable, Sobinta straightened his stone staff and assumed a stance.
"Stand aside. He's mine."
Dang Cheonha blocked Cheol Woo, who was about to charge in.
"No can do. I was first in line..."
He started grumbling but fell silent upon seeing the icy glare Dang Cheonha shot at him while staring down Sobinta.
Cheol Woo turned away without regret, like a predator denied its prey. There were still plenty of targets left.
"I remember you boasting you'd erase the main house from the martial world. So what the hell is this?"
Sobinta remained silent in the face of Dang Cheonha's mocking words.
"Pathetic. You've shrunk back like a mangy cur."
"Shut your mouth! If not for the Sword Empress and those monsters' help, a mere Dang family..."
Dang Cheonha slowly nodded at Sobinta's excuse-like shout.
"You're right. But even without their aid, I'll prove it won't go as you claim."
Dang Cheonha casually flicked his hand.
"Ridiculous."
Sobinta swung his stone staff disdainfully.
Most of the hidden weapons Dang Cheonha scattered failed to pierce the whirling staff spinning like a windmill.
The few that did were swept away by the sleeves Sobinta whipped around, scattering in all directions.
"Not bad."
Dang Cheonha showed no disturbance despite the attack being easily blocked. Instead, he calmly gripped his whip.
Tchirit!
With a light flick of his wrist, a sharp sound rang out as the whip, dragging along the ground, shot up with ferocious speed.
Sobinta frowned and thrust his stone staff forward.
The whip coiled around the staff like a snake raising its head, continuing to extend, so he reached to grab it.
The moment Sobinta's hand shot out to seize the whip, its tip abruptly changed direction and lunged for his nape.
Startled, Sobinta twisted the staff's grip and launched his body backward.
Dang Cheonha drew the sword hidden within his stone staff and hurled the whip-entwined staff at Sobinta, who was righting his stance.
As Sobinta snapped the staff in two, Dang Cheonha's whip lashed out once more.
Its speed and erratic movements, with dazzling changes, made it nearly impossible to track with the eyes.
Sobinta swung his sword to sever the whip, but whether due to its superior material or the internal energy Dang Cheonha infused, not a single nick appeared.
Tchirit!
A sharp sound accompanied a spray of blood from his throat. A split-second slower, and his neck would have been pierced.
The whip grazed his shoulder.
It left non-trivial wounds on his side and both thighs as well.
Unable to keep up with the whip's movements, Sobinta finally took a fatal blow.
The whip shot straight like a spear, piercing his left shoulder.
Horrific pain spread from his shoulder throughout his body, but Sobinta didn't so much as groan.
As the whip impaled his shoulder, he spun his body to lock its motion. Closing the distance, Sobinta's sword flew toward Dang Cheonha's heart, the latter showing a hint of alarm.
A lightning-fast counterattack, swift as a flash of flint.
Dang Cheonha instinctively released the whip and twisted away.
Sobinta's sword grazed his armpit. But the crisis didn't end there.
With the resolve of Gol Cham Yuk Dan—yielding flesh to sever bone—after sacrificing his shoulder, Sobinta seized the hard-won opportunity. He wouldn't let go of what might be his last chance, pouring every ounce of his strength into the pursuit.
With the whip still skewering his shoulder, he doggedly chased Dang Cheonha, who was retreating farther away.
Dang Cheonha unleashed the Ink Moon Staff Technique to turn the tables, but unable to reverse the situation, he drew an item from his bosom.
An ink-black butterfly, chillingly cold to the eye.
"You'll regret forcing me to use this."
Sensing ominous dread from Dang Cheonha's absolute confidence and the eerie hidden weapon, Sobinta halted his assault and tried to retreat.
"Too late."
With a sinister smile, the ink butterfly in Dang Cheonha's hand sliced through the air.
It moved at a speed Sobinta could scarcely evade, yet its up-and-down wavers were tremendous.
Judging the butterfly's changes unpredictable, Sobinta deemed knocking it away preferable to dodging.
The erratic shifts made it hard to strike properly, but Sobinta was desperate too.
The instant his sword succeeded in batting the ink butterfly aside—
The single butterfly suddenly split into eight, scattering to target his entire body.
He twisted desperately, swinging his sword to fend them off, but three pierced through his defenses, embedding deep in his flesh.
Right below the whip's wound, in his thigh, and his left side.
The moment the ink butterflies lodged in him, Sobinta knew the fight was over.
The pain was one thing, but a foreign sensation invaded his body.
Something unknown rapidly gnawed at him from within.
It needed no explanation: this was the Dang family's famed poison.
"This is one of the main house's Ten Great Hidden Weapons, called the Black Rope. It's named so because suffering its effects is no different from the torments of the Black Rope Hell—being bound with hot iron chains and sawn apart by a massive saw."
As he explained, Sobinta's body began convulsing wildly.
"Oh, and the poison now invading your body is Soul-Severing Poison. Its toxicity is so vicious it corrodes most metals in half a day. Only the Black Rope, forged from meteor iron and embedded in you, can withstand it. But here's the fun part—do you know what?"
Dang Cheonha leaned close to Sobinta's face as he writhed, spewing blood from all seven orifices.
"It won't let you die easily. A poison that eats metal in half a day strangely can't quite sever a human lifeline. But don't be too scared. It'll only last about an incense stick's time, after all."
His body felt torn asunder, every nerve burning like fire—a agony so excruciating it would haunt him beyond death. Amid it all, Sobinta didn't miss the words "an incense stick's time." Thrashing ceaselessly in unrelenting torment, that duration etched itself into the depths of his soul.
Having felled Sobinta, Dang Cheonha turned his gaze elsewhere.
Thanks to the Sword Empress and her White Sword Corps' exploits, Sima Geon and his group's rampage, and the devastation from the Ten Great Hidden Weapons, the battle was effectively over.
"That's terrifying."
Sima Geon, who had paused fighting and approached, grimaced at Sobinta writhing in agony.
His limbs twisted grotesquely, blood and pus oozing from his orifices. His mouth gaped as if to scream, but no sound emerged.
Dang Cheonha retrieved the ink butterflies Sobinta had knocked away and said,
"What makes this hidden weapon fearsome isn't its power alone, but the poison coating it. Soul-Severing Poison is the most vicious and gruesome among the many our main house has developed, and its use is strictly forbidden—except for him."
The five butterflies had already merged back into one.
Sima Geon marveled at the paper-thin thickness of the ink butterfly, unable to hide his admiration for the Dang family's craftsmanship.
"Of course, the weapon itself is an excellent armament. Meteor iron excels at shattering protective auras."
Before Dang Cheonha finished speaking, Cheol Woo sidled up to Sima Geon with curious eyes.
"Heh heh heh! Makes me wanna test it out."
"Go ahead if you're confident you can handle Soul-Severing Poison. Just don't expect me to take responsibility if you die."
"Why say it like that? You're scaring me."
Cheol Woo pouted and backed off slyly.
"In any case, thank you. Thanks to you all, we overcame this crisis with minimal losses."
Dang Cheonha expressed his sincere gratitude to Sima Geon and Cheol Woo.
Even without them, the Dang family wouldn't have been exterminated as Sobinta boasted, but the casualties would have been immense. And if the Thunderclap Temple's reinforcements en route to the Dang branch had joined the assault intact, the damage would have been unimaginable.
"We got lucky. We were heading back home when Surin insisted on seeing you, Elder."
"I see."
Sima Geon and Dang Cheonha's eyes turned to So Surin, still unleashing her fury. True to her long-standing hatred for the Demon Buddha Temple, corpses of its disciples littered around her.
"By the way, couldn't Surin handle Soul-Severing Poison too?"
Cheol Woo asked curiously. Of course, he received no answer.