A Poison That Devours Poison
He clenched his fist.
Fwoooom!
Kimeries's face had gone deathly pale. In a single heartbeat he exploded into blistering speed, hurtling toward the Rabbit Door hovering above his head.
Why… why is the Absolute Being here?! I heard he died fighting the Demon God!
Whoooosh!
He poured on so much speed that a sonic boom cracked the air. The moment he reached the entrance, a thin smile touched his lips.
The second he got through, he would collapse the spell. An Absolute Being could leave without a door, of course—but even a few stolen seconds would help. If he could just vanish into a crowded marketplace, the throngs of humans would keep Baek Do-ha from striking freely.
The entrance rippled. His head slid through—and only then did Kimeries break into a radiant grin.
He shoved the rest of the way out.
"Hahahaha! You stupid Baek Do-ha. You got careless, and now look at you—"
"Look at me what?"
Kimeries emerged from the entrance—and found Baek Do-ha standing right in front of him. His mouth fell open.
Wh…
What?
Why was he back underground?
He had gone through the entrance. He was sure of it.
"Why come back? That eager to die?"
"Th-this can't be…?!"
"Something go wrong?"
Do-ha looked down at him with a dry little smile. With only his head poking out, Kimeries looked like he was begging to be stepped on.
"Canteas, look at his face. Doesn't seem like things went according to plan."
"Guess not. Ah~ must be because I swapped the entrance coordinates!"
"You… you?!"
Only then did Kimeries notice Canteas standing beside Baek Do-ha, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. The shock of meeting the Absolute Being had completely blinded him to the fact that the Lord of the Underworld was right there.
"The… the Lord of the Underworld as well…"
"Wow. Haven't heard that one in a while."
Lord of the Underworld.
It was the epithet that had clung to the lich Canteas—an arrogant title, but back then he had truly been strong and overwhelming enough to earn it.
"Funny thing is, I don't know you at all. So how do you know me? Hey, Do-ha!"
Canteas gave Do-ha's arm a light smack.
"See that? Even a bottom-feeder demon knows who I am. Behold my majesty! Khehehehehe."
"Yeah, good for you."
Kimeries's fists tightened. He wasn't a Demon King, but he was still a baron—and this skeleton was calling him a bottom-feeder. He couldn't argue, though. From the Lord of the Underworld's perspective, he really was nothing but miserable small fry.
"You've been fidgeting this whole time, you know."
Do-ha turned, seized a fistful of Kimeries's hair, and hauled him out.
While he and Canteas had been talking, the demon had been frantically trying to rewrite the coordinates.
Canteas is weak right now. Give him time and he'll bolt.
Do-ha himself was one thing—but Canteas could not handle Kimeries. The demon was only cowed by old glory. In a real fight, Canteas would be ground to powder.
"Gah! W-wait—!"
A low hum built in the air.
Baekbo-singwon — Hundred-Step Divine Fist
BOOM!
"Guh—!"
The blow to his gut made Kimeries vomit blood. One strike—and his ribs shattered, the broken bone spearing his organs.
"Gaaaaah!"
A detonation bloomed. Smoke and debris sprayed outward.
"Hey. You tore your own head off."
Do-ha waved the smoke aside and eyed Kimeries, who had been blasted far away. Sensing the danger, the demon had detonated an explosive spell on himself to escape.
"Hah… hah… This goddamn… How did it come to this…"
He was in real trouble. There was nowhere left to run. The sealed space that should have protected him had become pure poison.
Damn it… I didn't want to do this…
Flesh tore. Blood dripped, drop by drop.
"Do-ha, that guy's hurting himself."
"Why bother cutting yourself open? Sit still and I'll rip you apart for free."
A thin smile.
"Huh? He's smiling?"
Had he lost his mind?
Kimeries had carved a long gash down his own arm, and the faint smile on his face drew a disbelieving snort from Do-ha.
Then—
Shwaaaaaaaa!
The blood that had hit the floor began to vaporize into violet smoke.
"I didn't want to use a technique that burns my own life force… but I don't have a choice."
The rising smoke accelerated, swelling and spreading. It was a lethal demon poison—even a single breath meant instant death. Kimeries didn't expect it to kill Baek Do-ha. It only needed to slow him down.
The poison will make him just a little slower.
A little was enough. Among powerhouses who traded hundreds of blows in the blink of an eye, the tiniest opening was fatal.
What happened next, however, went in a direction Kimeries never saw coming.
"Hey, thanks. I was just thinking I could use some poison."
"…What?"
"I only learned this at the end, so I've never used it in a real fight, but…"
Do-ha circulated his energy. The smoke filling the chamber began to pour into him, soaking into his body with a soft hiss.
"Do-ha—your eyes…"
Canteas, watching from the side, went wide-eyed. As the smoke vanished into him, Do-ha's irises deepened into a rich, dark green.
Yeokcheon-mudok-ma-gong — First Form: Formless Lesser Flame
Fwoooooom!
The absorbed poison erupted outward in every direction, generating a crushing blast of pressure.
It seared the air.
"Gah?!"
The moment the poison touched him, Kimeries recoiled in shock. What in the world was that? Was he… using poison? Baek Do-ha had never had an ability like this. Back in the Demon Realm, Kimeries had watched him fight the Demon King. He knew most of the Absolute Being's arsenal—and poison had never been part of it.
"Thanks. Because of you, I can use my poison arts now."
"You crazy bastard!"
Kimeries spat the curse and thrust out his hand. His own poison surged forward in a violent rush.
"Eat."
At Do-ha's command, the writhing mass of his poison lunged and began to swallow Kimeries's toxin whole.
"Good gods…"
Even Canteas's jaw dropped. A poison that ate other poisons—and obeyed orders as if it possessed a will of its own.
It crunched. It ground.
Like a man chewing gristle off a bone, Do-ha's Yeokcheon-mudok-ma-gong chewed through the demon's poison and devoured it.
Blood trickled.
"Do-ha! You're bleeding—"
Blood ran from Do-ha's nose. Canteas stepped closer. Had the poison wounded him internally?
"Don't make a fuss. I'm fine."
Still facing forward, Do-ha circulated his energy lightly and mended the internal damage. To properly use Yeokcheon-mudok-ma-gong, one needed to accumulate extreme-grade poison in the body beforehand—pure poison, at that. Pure poison was nearly impossible to obtain, and even if found, building it to the extreme grade took an enormous amount of time. So he had used Kimeries's instead: absorbing the demon toxin and simultaneously circulating that energy to unleash the poison art.
"I was nervous the second a guy with no poison in his body started using Yeokcheon-mudok-ma-gong."
It was the highest of poison arts—an ancient martial technique even the clan head of the Sichuan Tang Family could not master. Records claimed that a martial artist who perfected it in the distant past had melted several dragons in a single instant.
"Relax. This is all part of the meridian-circulation process."
"You're not a monster. You are a monster."
What kind of lunatic performed meridian circulation mid-battle? With extreme poison, no less?
Kimeries bounced around the chamber like a flea—then saw the smoke chasing him all the way to his toes and screamed.
"N-no—!"
Then came the crunch. The sizzle.
"Gaaaaaaaaah!"
Still airborne, the entire right half of Kimeries's body was eaten by the Yeokcheon-mudok-ma-gong and melted away on the spot.
He hit the ground hard.
"Cough…"
Kimeries spat blood. Half his body was gone; he was barely breathing. If the left side—where his heart sat—had melted instead, he would already be dead.
"Heh… heheheh… To go down this pitifully…"
He laughed with a hollow face. He hadn't even landed a single proper attack.
"Just kill me…"
"Can't do that."
"So you're going to torture me, is that it…"
That would explain melting only half of him. But the poison had already numbed his senses—torture would be pointless.
Do-ha raised a hand and poured energy into him.
"???"
Kimeries's expression twisted. What was he doing? Why was he flooding him with demonic energy?
"It's martial-world demonic energy, not the kind you demons use—but it should restore some of your stamina."
"What kind of scheme is this?"
"Summon it."
"What?"
"That corpse pile. You gathered it to summon a Demon Lazarus. So summon it."
"H-how do you know that…"
Kimeries went pale with shock.
Demon Lazarus—a Demon Realm monstrosity summoned by stacking corpses until resentment, grief, and death-qi condensed into a single being. Its power rivaled a Demon King's, and once called forth, a Demon Lazarus would not stop destroying until everything in sight was annihilated.
"What are you plotting…"
"I'm giving you a chance to live. You don't want it? Prefer to just die?"
"Hmph."
Kimeries launched himself into the air. The demonic energy Do-ha had forced into him had restored enough strength to move.
An incantation rose.
"You sure about this? You're not ready to face a Demon Lazarus yet."
As Kimeries began the chant, Canteas looked over at Do-ha. He already knew why Do-ha had chosen this.
"No choice. This place is already drowning in every kind of emotion and death-qi."
As he'd said before, a Rabbit Door amplified negative emotion. In a space like that, the resentment and grief of thousands of people—plus the death-qi of the dead—had packed the chamber solid. If they simply dismissed the Rabbit Door now, every ordinary person living nearby would drop dead of heart failure. Evacuating people might help, but the buildings themselves would corrode; high-rises would collapse. Better to just summon the Demon Lazarus and deal with it.
The ground began to tremble.
"Hahahaha! You stupid Absolute Being. You're going to regret this choice!"
Above the laughing Kimeries, a magic circle of overwhelming size took shape.
A colossal body began to drag itself free of the magic circle.
"Canteas. Put a shield around the corpse pile."
"Got it. But don't release any power near me! I can't take your output."
"Don't worry."
Do-ha gave Canteas's shoulder a single pat and walked forward.
"Hahahahahaha!"
"Demon Lazarus… been a while. Not many of these even in the Demon Realm."
Do-ha studied the Lazarus, summoned only up to the knees. As Canteas had said, he couldn't face a complete Demon Lazarus—its power was on par with a Demon King.
"When it's complete, that is."
A cold smile cut across Do-ha's face as he launched himself at the magic circle.
"If you mean to stop me, you're too late! Even I can't dismiss this circle anymore!"
"I know, you dumbass."
Do-ha stretched out his hand. Dozens of blue-glowing chains shot from him and latched onto the magic circle.
"What are you doing?"
Kimeries tilted his head at the unfamiliar move. As if answering the question, Do-ha acted at once.
"Before you die, I'll show you something interesting."
He smiled, gripped the chains, and put power into his arms.
A bizarre sight unfolded.
The magic circle began to slide sideways.
It hadn't been destroyed. The entrance itself was moving—like a door bolted to a wall, being dragged along the surface.
"Watch closely. Apply it like this, and you get…"
Do-ha seized the chain at one end and yanked hard. The magic circle spun like a circular saw, shrieking as it accelerated.
"An incomplete Demon Lazarus isn't worth worrying about."
"No—!!"
The magic circle, whirling with saw-blade fury, swept sideways—and sheared clean through both legs of the half-summoned Demon Lazarus.