No.88 Gathering of Evildoers (6)
The Bisan Twin Demons stared at us with grotesque expressions. It was hardly surprising—men who had worn expressions of utmost gravity mere moments ago were now all grinning like fools.
"……Have these wretches been possessed by drunken madness all at once?"
"Let's begin. Time is too precious to waste on more chatter."
I deliberately cut the conversation short. With Amplification lasting only five minutes, I couldn't afford to squander a second of it.
The Twin Demons hardened their faces once more, but they seemed to agree that time was indeed too precious to waste.
The two of them raised their momentum in unison and scattered toxic energy in all directions.
- Papapapat!
'A textbook approach.'
Their intent was to blanket the area with poison, seize control of the space, and slowly poison everyone within it. And within that, there was also the intent to identify the most vulnerable targets and pile poison onto them specifically.
But what they hadn't counted on was this:
'My poison resistance is S-rank.'
Wrapping myself in Wind Barrier, I charged straight at Bima.
A few blasts of toxic energy tore the barrier away and the venomous aura began creeping into my body, but I ignored it and closed the distance.
"This fool……?"
Bima's eyes bulged in bewilderment. In all his long life, he would never have encountered an opponent so recklessly foolhardy.
But his surprise lasted only a moment before he swung both palms at me.
I dodged Bima's arm by a hair's breadth while simultaneously jabbing with Hyneum Jade Demon Finger.
- Thunk,
'One hit in, for starters.'
Then I pulled back to regroup, but—
"You wretch!"
Bima gave chase, clearly with no intention of letting me go.
When a palm came flying at my head, I tilted my neck slightly to evade it, and a jab aimed at my stomach I casually deflected with a light step. The demon, about to press his attack, faltered and retreated—
- Swish-swish-swish!
—as shadow blades sliced through the space where he'd stood. Dang Gyu-young had intervened. Shadow surged up from beneath her feet, placing daggers in her hand, which she hurled again and again in rapid succession.
Taking advantage of the opening, I glanced over at Sanma's side—Go Hyeon-woo, Jang Mu-geuk, and Chae Da-bin had him covered.
'Good.'
The Bisan Twin Demons were twins who had honed their coordination over long years, and they were far trickier to handle when fighting side by side. But now the situation had naturally split them apart, so I could focus entirely on Bima.
- Swishaaaaah!
"Annoying."
Bima scowled as he evaded the flying shadow daggers, then showered Dang Gyu-young with toxic energy.
- Papapapat!
Not a single blast landed thanks to her agile movements, but wherever the toxic energy fell, reeking poison flowers bloomed into the air.
Watching this, Bima curled his lips into a sinister smile.
He was a master of poison arts. Even missed shots weren't a loss, since they could gradually blanket an entire region in poisonous mist. No matter how nimble an opponent, they were still human—they would inhale a little of that vapor with every breath, and by his calculations, it was only a matter of time before Dang Gyu-young succumbed to paralysis and collapsed.
'That would be true, if she had no poison resistance.'
For at least the five minutes my resistance stayed at S-rank, we could stand right on top of those poison flowers without a problem.
Deciding it was about time to press the attack again, I tossed a word to Dang Gyu-young.
"Cover me."
"Got it."
I wrapped myself in Wind Barrier and kicked off the ground.
- Pat!
The distance to Bima closed rapidly.
He must have recalled being jabbed by the Jade Demon Finger moments ago, because he kept his distance and continued pouring out toxic energy.
I didn't overextend myself, simply replenishing Wind Barrier as I pursued him. And as I did, shadow butterflies began drifting toward Bima one by one, multiplying into a dozen or more in the blink of an eye.
[Shadow Butterfly's Dream]
Then, all at once, their forms collapsed and they clung to Bima's body like sticky liquid.
"Hmph!"
Bima instantly raised his Protective Astral Qi to shake them off, but in that very instant I slipped inside and drove the Jade Demon Finger in.
- Thunk,
Only then did Bima seem to realize something, his face freezing solid.
The chill spreading through his blood vessels, and my frozen-ice fingertip.
"……Hyneum Jade Demon Finger!"
"So you recognize it."
"A master of the Demonic Cult, was it? Impressive martial arts for one so young."
"Oh, thank you. This is something I learned recently, too—would you care to try it?"
The perfect situation to test a newly learned skill. I extended one hand toward Bima, and a wind carrying deep chill blew toward him.
[Chillwind]
[Twister]
- Whiiiir—
"What the——!"
A sense of foreboding must have flashed through him, because he immediately flung himself aside—but his speed was somehow, inexplicably sluggish. He'd avoided being caught in the Twister, but he hadn't fully escaped Chillwind's radius, and so was suffering its slowing effect.
And on top of that, Chillwind had a second effect: amplification of frost damage. The chill I'd injected with the Jade Demon Finger would be spreading through him faster and faster now.
- Whiiiir—
I kept Chillwind moving, making Bima chase and be chased, and whether from the cold assaulting him inside and out, he gradually began trembling like an aspen leaf.
"You damn vermin……!"
Even so, he raised his momentum and hurled poison palms. Having been steadily accumulating poison in us this whole time, he seemed to expect that one of the two of us would drop any moment now.
- Whiiiir—
Chill-laden wind and paralysis-laden toxic energy crossed back and forth again and again. And with every exchange, disbelief rose higher on Bima's face.
"You damn vermin, what in the——?"
By this point, even the slightest symptoms of poisoning should have appeared, yet the two of us were moving about in perfect health. No wonder he was baffled.
"Have you wretches attained Ten Thousand Poisons Immunity or what?"
"Something like that."
Actually, a little short of Ten Thousand Poisons Immunity.
In the end, it was Bima who ran out of time first. His feet, which had kept moving and hurling toxic energy even while hounded by Chillwind, stopped dead in place.
He'd taken the Jade Demon Finger twice and had the chill multiplied by Chillwind, so in the end his whole body had frozen solid. Then the ground beneath his feet turned pitch black, and countless long shadow spikes shot up, impaling him through.
- Squelch-squelch-squelch!
"……!"
Bima couldn't even manage a scream, only glaring at me with bloodshot eyes. Then, pierced through by the shadow spikes, he crumpled.
"Aghhh!"
Sanma, witnessing the scene, let out a scream of anguish. Then he trembled all over with rage.
"You sons of bitches……!"
With that, he raised his momentum even higher than before and scattered toxic energy in all directions.
- Papapapat!
A desperate resolve—even if he fell here, he would drag one or two of us down with him. Go Hyeon-woo barely deflected the blasts as he stumbled back a step or two.
"Ugh……!"
Until now, he had been pressing Sanma hard with Jang Mu-geuk's combined attacks, Chae Da-bin's drones, and his poison resistance—but the moment the demon threw himself into a mutual-destruction gambit, Go Hyeon-woo began being pushed back helplessly. Merely holding his ground was a struggle for him, so actually taking the man down would take considerable time.
00:02:08
Another problem: less than half of Amplification's duration remained. Dragging out the fight served no purpose.
'We end this fast and clean.'
I shot Dang Gyu-young a glance. She promptly slipped down into her own shadow, and I too moved into Sanma's blind spot with as much stealth as I could muster. Then I took a step forward.
[Ghost Without Shadow]
Much like during the entrance exam, it felt as though invisible footprints were being stamped into the ground between Sanma and me. Walking on those footprints, my body slid forward as smoothly as if I'd become a ghost. Sanma's back was soon within reach, and I drove the Jade Demon Finger straight in.
- Thunk,
"……!"
Only then did Sanma whirl around to face me. His eyes were wide enough to split—because until I'd closed in on him and struck the vital point, he hadn't sensed me at all.
Perhaps from the shock of it, he lingered distracted far too long. It was more than enough time for Dang Gyu-young to burst out of the Shadow Leap and ensnare him, and for Go Hyeon-woo to deliver a diagonal slash with his enchanted sword.
- Srrk!
Then Jang Mu-geuk's voice followed.
"Well done."
- Puhwak!
A needle-thin, elongated blade punched clean through Sanma's upper body. True to his assassin's calling, he had watched for the opening and delivered the final blow.
Withdrawing his sword from Sanma's collapsing body, Jang Mu-geuk looked at me.
"So that's Ghost Without Shadow. The speed is remarkable, but its concealment is extraordinary. I was watching you the whole time and still lost track of you for a moment. The rumors don't do it justice."
"To think you'd obtained such a rare art. My expectations only grow, I must say."
Go Hyeon-woo added his own comment. He had, after all, entered this dungeon on the strength of seeing Ghost Without Shadow—and now he'd watched a live demonstration of its performance right before his eyes, so his excitement was bound to explode.
But it seemed best to shelve the Ghost Without Shadow talk for later.
"Good work, everyone. Let's deal with the poison first."
All of us had quietly accumulated poison. Go Hyeon-woo and I possessed Thousand Poisons Immunity, but it couldn't hold back the absolute toxins wielded by a mid-boss-tier B-rank poison user. Moreover, Poison Resistance only reduced the damage suffered while poisoned—it couldn't prevent poisoning itself. Even at S-rank, the trait had clear limits.
00:01:02
Worse, Amplification would end soon, dropping poison resistance from S to B—at which point the damage would start pouring in fast. And if Bestow expired on top of that, someone might collapse vomiting blood. We had to handle the poison before then.
I asked Dang Gyu-young.
"Got any antidotes? Or else we use this."
In my hand was the Lesser Elixir I'd received from Kim Gap-du. If nothing suitable turned up, I planned to split it among us.
But Dang Gyu-young immediately stopped me.
"Why would you use that? What a waste."
With that, she pulled several antidotes from her inventory and handed them around.
"Knew you'd have some."
"Of course. I was a direct descendant, after all."
She hadn't learned the Tang Clan's secret arts, but having once been a direct descendant, she was deeply knowledgeable about poisons and always carried antidotes, she said. She'd even used that knowledge to poison a dimensional crow once.
Once the poison was fully dealt with, I turned my head—and there, where the twins had fallen, sat two small boxes.
◈ Obtained via Boss Rush participation
We'd reaped the rewards of a boss rush without ever intending to join one. We'd divide these up later.
Dang Gyu-young gazed off into the distance and spoke, half worried and half doubtful.
"By the way, I guess Paeng Mi-ryeong's team held them back after all? I mean, we lost track of them."
"Looks like it. They should contact us before long."
Right on cue, a little while later, the transceiver rang with uncanny timing. Dang Gyu-young exchanged a quick glance with me, then answered it feigning total ignorance.
"Oh, what's up?"
- We've got a bit of a problem.
"Hmm? Did one of them break through or something?"
- ……Yeah. Team 2.
Paeng Mi-ryeong's voice was low and heavy, weighed down with complicated emotions. Apparently, the team that had faced the Bisan Twin Demons before us had been Team 2. Judging by the call, the damage must have been considerable, too.
'Well, we already took them down, though.'
Needless to say, there was no reason to reveal that fact just yet. The hilt had to stay in our hands.