Chapter 49
I went back to where those men had stood and searched the ground. There, I found wooden casks.
After recovering all five of them, I called Dang Hye over as she hurried around busily and handed them to her.
“What’s this?”
“Looks like poison.”
“Did you catch them all?”
“Not all of them, no.”
This was a plan to wipe out the warriors of Mount Hwa and Jongnam. There was no way this was the end of it. After hearing me, Dang Hye moved to a corner and started inspecting the wooden casks.
“All five of them were made to scatter poison.”
“Can you tell what kind?”
“I can tell what kind. But each one contains a different poison.”
“So all the poisons they prepared were different.”
“Exactly.”
This was a headache. Could I really catch them all before the martial duel banquet ended?
“I don’t know what you’re worrying about, but stop being arrogant enough to think you can save everyone.”
“What?”
“That’s the look on your face right now. I have my own preparations, too.”
Dang Hye was right. What I needed to focus on wasn’t catching every last one of them. It was minimizing the damage.
That was what mattered.
“But what are you preparing? You seemed busy even earlier.”
“Secret.”
Dang Hye touched a finger to her nose.
“Are you copying me?”
“No.”
“You are.”
I snorted and followed after Dang Hye, but she still didn’t tell me what she was preparing.
“Let’s see how far things have gone.”
By then, the demonstration by the sect leaders had ended, and the banquet was already in full swing.
The Mount Hwa warrior standing on the dueling platform wore an armband marked with a three. The Jongnam warrior’s arm had one marked with a four.
“Their skill is about equal... but Mount Hwa will win.”
The moment the words left my mouth, the sword in the Jongnam warrior’s hand was knocked away, and the Mount Hwa warrior claimed victory.
Then Yi Baekun, wearing a five on his armband, stepped onto the platform. Confidence practically radiated from his face. No, it was more than confidence. There was even contempt in the way he looked at his fellow disciples.
“What the hell are you losers doing, getting beaten by Mount Hwa?”
Whether his taunt worked or not, the Mount Hwa warrior’s aura turned fierce. But he still couldn’t last through three exchanges before he lost.
“Tch. How pathetic to lose to someone that weak.”
Yi Baekun’s manner was rough for a righteous sect warrior. But his skill wasn’t bad. No, by ordinary standards, he was close to a genius.
Using Jongnam’s heavy-sword principles as his foundation, he displayed near-perfect defense. The fourth Mount Hwa warrior who came after him had every attack shut down and was defeated as well.
“So he wasn’t just all talk. He won’t be easy for Mount Hwa to break through.”
Then the fifth Mount Hwa warrior climbed onto the platform.
“Cheong Jinun.”
A familiar face. Back when I’d been at Mount Hwa, he’d been my senior disciple and had a vicious temper. Well, the fact that I had no memory of him afterward meant he probably never grew into anything especially remarkable.
The two of them began their bout. But I didn’t watch closely. In truth, it didn’t matter to me who won.
What I needed to do first was get the noncombatants out of the dueling grounds.
And the method I had in mind was...
Strike first.
I took a smoke pellet from my sleeve and threw it onto the floor.
The moment thick, acrid smoke began to rise, I shouted at the top of my lungs.
“Someone’s collapsed! It’s poison smoke! Get out! Get out now!”
At first, everyone hesitated, unsure what was happening. But before long, the people closest to the smoke started retreating one by one in panic.
Some looked back in disbelief, but others covered their mouths with their sleeves and hurried down the steps with tears in their eyes.
Fear spread like a contagion.
No matter how brave a person was, nobody wanted to gamble with their life.
The crowd poured out of the dueling grounds like an ebbing tide.
“W-what the hell?”
Yi Baekun, who had just subdued Cheong Jinun, looked around in confusion.
Then.
Clap, clap, clap, clap.
I applauded and slowly climbed onto the dueling platform. Yi Baekun shot me a sharp glare.
“This is your doing?”
“My doing?”
Yi Baekun pointed at the now-empty seats and shouted, “Those people!”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“They should have seen it! They should have seen who the victor of this martial duel banquet was!”
“It’s not that important to me.”
His grip on the sword tightened. Unable to hold back his anger any longer, he rushed me and swung.
“Hey. This is a duel.”
“Shut up!”
His sword came at me again and again. I dodged left and right, then lightly kicked his leg. Yi Baekun’s left knee slammed into the floor, but he quickly corrected his stance and charged again.
“You’re practically a boar.”
As I evaded his attack, I looked over at Hyeonil Jin-in. He gave a small nod.
I told you already. I wanted to teach you a lesson.
“I’ll tear that mouth of yours apart.”
His attacks poured down on me like madness. But to me, his sword looked far too slow. I slipped past the blade and drew my own sword.
Then I slid it through an opening in his guard and hammered his side with the back of my blade.
Crack.
I heard the sound of bone breaking in his ribs.
“You’re pretty stupid, aren’t you? What kind of Jongnam swordsman comes at someone that recklessly?”
I rested my sword on my shoulder and looked down at Yi Baekun.
“Don’t look down on me!”
Even with his ribs broken, he didn’t stop attacking. But would that sword ever reach me?
As Yi Baekun’s sword kept coming, I heard more bones cracking in his body.
And little by little, his sword slowed, until finally it stopped.
“I’ll give you a little lesson. Yi Baekun. What you just swung wasn’t Jongnam’s sword. That’s why your blade never even had a chance to touch me.”
“What the hell do you know about Jongnam’s sword, you bastard!”
Yi Baekun couldn’t move, but rage filled his eyes. I stepped closer and lowered myself slightly.
“That’s right. I don’t know Jongnam’s sword very well. What I do know is that you’re ridiculously weak.”
I smiled brightly. I didn’t know how I looked in his eyes, but what could I do? The defeated always see things in the most miserable light.
When I straightened up, no one said a word. I could feel every warrior in the audience staring at me.
Step.
“You’re making quite a scene without knowing your place.”
“Didn’t I tell you? I wanted to give him a lesson. But as expected, if this is the reputation of the Nine Great Sects, they’re still lacking.”
“Is that so? Then you should understand when I say I’m going to teach you a lesson as well.”
I saw Hyeonil Jin-in walking toward me. He seemed calm. But that calmness only made his anger all the greater.
I understood. His sect’s disciple had been beaten down and humiliated like a child in front of the winner of the martial duel banquet.
“It would be an honor to receive instruction from the sect leader. How will you be teaching me?”
“I’ll take that as agreement.”
Hyeonil Jin-in raised his sword as soon as he finished speaking. The qi surging through him was like a great mountain.
But that sword would never touch me.
The moment he began driving up his qi.
Cough.
Black blood spilled from Hyeonil Jin-in’s mouth.
“...?”
Everyone who saw it was stunned. Everyone except me, of course.
Why else would I have provoked Yi Baekun like that in the first place? It was to make Hyeonil Jin-in lose his temper and come to me.
His knees struck the floor. Looking at the blood dripping from his mouth, he muttered hoarsely, “Poison?”
Even he couldn’t make sense of it. How could a warrior who had reached the early stage of Hyeon-gyeong not even realize he’d been poisoned?
“Sect Leader!”
The Jongnam warriors rushed toward their leader.
“Don’t move.”
I said it quietly. But no one would have missed the meaning. The killing intent I was releasing was real.
“Y-you bastard, what did you do to the sect leader?”
“It’s formless poison.”
“Formless poison?!”
Panic and desperation flickered across Hyeonil Jin-in’s face.
“The Dang Family...?”
Cough.
The moment Hyeonil Jin-in’s fury spiked, the formless poison devouring his body grew stronger.
“For now, calm your breathing and use your inner energy to protect your dantian as much as possible.”
“Understood...”
Hyeonil Jin-in closed his eyes and began circulating his energy on the spot. Even that seemed painful, because his face kept twisting with strain.
“Listen carefully. It’ll probably be written in the Martial Alliance leader’s letter, but there are infiltrators among the righteous sects. The reason the sect leader was poisoned is likely the same.”
Hyeonil Jin-in kept trying to center himself, but there was no sign of improvement. Then Cheonghyeon Jin-in’s voice rang out.
They were targeting me and Hyeonil.
Yes.
Then they must have poisoned me as well.
That’s likely.
...
“The sect leader you were all so wary of has been poisoned. Why don’t you come out now?”
“...”
No answer came. But one sound spread across the entire dueling grounds.
Click.
The moment that sound rang out, green poison mist began pouring from the audience seats.
“Po-poison mist! Cover your mouths and noses with your clothes!”
Hiss!
As the green mist filled the dueling grounds, the warriors inside it scrambled to move. But they couldn’t.
“Paralytic poison.”
I could feel it seeping into my own body too. The green mist was only a cover. They had already been poisoned long before this. The instant the paralytic poison fully settled into the body, I sensed a presence on the platform.
“Baek Mugeuk... who are you to dare interfere with our plan? Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”
That voice was unpleasant. No, unpleasant wasn’t enough to describe it.
How should I put it? Yes. It was a thin, serpentine voice. The man walked to the center of the platform.
“What should I do with you? Tear your limbs off? Or rip out your tongue? Hmm...”
He seemed to be pondering how to kill me. But soon, like a child losing interest, he said in a tired voice, “You’ll die writhing in poison anyway. Is there any need to think this hard? Everyone here will, after all. Hehehehe.”
He took one more step and stood before me. Then, as the mist parted around him, I finally saw his face.
He wore a snake mask.
“I’ll make sure you die as painfully as possible.”
The snake mask grabbed my mouth and forced it open. Then he pushed a poison pellet inside and covered my nose. Before I could react, I swallowed it.
“Do you know what poison that is? It’s called Hwasasa. It’s made by gathering the venom of a hundred pit vipers. I’ve never eaten it myself, so I wouldn’t know for sure, but...”
Because he wore a mask, I couldn’t see his expression. But one thing was clear: he was smiling.
The mask was trembling violently.
“They say it feels like your insides are burning. No, that’s not right. They really do burn. How is it? How does it feel? What does it taste like? It’s the taste of your insides burning alive, really.”
The moment he said that, I could truly feel a burning heat searing through my gut. As I tightened my expression, he shuddered with delight.
“Make a more miserable face. It really gets me going.”
I lowered my head.
“Don’t be proud. Lift your head and show me that face.”
“What kind of pervert are you talking to like that?”
“...How dare you speak—”
I raised my fist and drove it into his jaw. A clean, satisfying crack echoed across the entire dueling grounds.
“Got it, you bastard.”