Chapter 148
Gal Seo-ryeong returned to the secret room.
Now, only Tang Jin-ryong remained there.
He was still fiddling with his wine cup, waiting for the Peng Clan brothers to return.
"Elder Peng, where have the brothers gone? Is the alliance leader's correspondence that long?"
Tang Jin-ryong asked with a puzzled expression.
"They said it would take some time to write a reply to the alliance leader. The contents are just that important."
Gal Seo-ryeong answered calmly as she sat down opposite Tang Jin-ryong.
Her voice still carried Peng Mugeuk's deep baritone.
"I see..."
Just as Tang Jin-ryong was about to nod, his nose twitched subtly.
As the young head of the Sichuan Tang Clan and a master of poisons, he was sensitive to even the faintest smells that ordinary people would never notice.
It could be the scent of a poisonous herb, or the stench of a decaying corpse.
But what brushed past his nose now was a smell more familiar and ominous than anything else.
"... But, elder Peng. There's a smell of blood on you..."
Tang Jin-ryong's gaze turned to Gal Seo-ryeong's sleeve.
At the very tip of the black martial robes, there was a single, tiny drop of blood.
No matter how careful she had been, after cutting down three people consecutively, she had failed to catch a trace of splattered blood.
Tang Jin-ryong's face instantly turned pale and stiff.
Warning bells sounded in his head.
There was no reason for Peng Mugeuk to return with blood on him.
Furthermore, the Peng Clan brothers had yet to return.
He quickly drew a poisoned needle from his robe.
Between his fingers protruded needles glowing faintly blue.
"... You, who are you!"
Tang Jin-ryong's voice rang out sharply.
His gaze already regarded Gal Seo-ryeong as an enemy.
Gal Seo-ryeong decided there was no longer a need to hide.
She slowly raised her hand and grabbed the edge of the face-skin mask attached to her face.
Riiip—
Peng Mugeuk's facial skin peeled away, revealing beneath it the cold, beautiful face of a woman.
Chilly, slanted eyes and tightly pressed lips.
Hao Sect's Right Protector, Gal Seo-ryeong.
"I am Gal Seo-ryeong, Right Protector of Hao Sect."
"...!"
Tang Jin-ryong's eyes opened wide as if they were about to rip apart.
A Hao Sect expert had been impersonating Peng Mugeuk.
That meant...
"H-Hao Sect...? Then the Peng Clan brothers...!"
"I killed them all."
Gal Seo-ryeong answered coldly, drawing her sword of unknown type from her belt.
The blade undulated flexibly like a snake, emitting a silver flash.
"Now, it's your turn."
"...!"
Like a wolf confronted by a tiger, Tang Jin-ryong instinctively fired poisoned needles in a burst.
Pishushuk! Pishushuk!
Dozens of poisoned needles rained down on Gal Seo-ryeong.
At the same moment, Tang Jin-ryong pulled a red pouch from his robe and threw it to the ground.
Pong! Pushushushuk!
The pouch burst, and a violet poisonous mist filled the secret room.
A stinging, nauseating smell assaulted the nose.
"That's the Sichuan Tang Clan's Purple Crimson Poison Mist! Just breathing it in will rot your vital organs!"
Tang Jin-ryong shouted with a voice full of malice.
But Gal Seo-ryeong remained calm.
She immediately sealed her breath using internal energy and used lightness skill to dodge the poisoned needles.
Tadak! Tadak! Tadak!
Her body left afterimages as she moved along the walls and ceiling.
The poisoned needles quivered where they struck the walls and table at her former positions.
"Impressive! But how will you block this?"
Tang Jin-ryong swung both hands.
From between his ten fingers, dozens of fine dark weapons spread out in a fan shape.
Deadly murderous intent lurked within the dazzling spectacle, as if flower petals were raining down from the sky.
Sky-Filling Flower Rain!
It was the Sichuan Tang Clan's secret technique, a full-surrounding dark weapon technique that filled every direction.
In such a cramped secret room, there was nowhere to dodge.
Yet Gal Seo-ryeong did not evade.
She calmly swung her sword of unknown type.
Chang!
Her sword aura flashed in a fan shape, deflecting every incoming dark weapon at once.
As if they had struck an invisible wall, the dark weapons fell powerlessly to the floor.
"What?!"
Tang Jin-ryong was aghast.
There were barely any in the martial world who could block his Sky-Filling Flower Rain, which had reached the peak realm, so easily.
And to do so head-on, no less.
Gal Seo-ryeong did not miss the opening.
Her body closed in on Tang Jin-ryong like a bolt of lightning.
"Keurk!"
Tang Jin-ryong urgently unleashed a poisoned palm blast.
A violet colored force burst from his palm.
Papapak!
The blast flew toward Gal Seo-ryeong, but she did not stop.
She raised her sword vertically and parted the blast.
Chang!
Sword force and palm blast collided, sending up sparks.
But Gal Seo-ryeong's sword aura was stronger and sharper.
The blast split in two, and her sword darted for Tang Jin-ryong's chest.
Tang Jin-ryong twisted his body desperately to evade.
But he was already too late.
Gal Seo-ryeong's blade curved like a snake and slipped past his guard.
Pushuk!
Her sword pierced Tang Jin-ryong's heart.
"Kuaaaagh!"
Tang Jin-ryong coughed up blood and staggered backward.
With trembling hands, he tried to grasp the sword embedded in his chest, but his strength failed and his hand dropped limply.
"The young head...of the Sichuan Tang Clan...goes out this...absurdly..."
Thunk.
Tang Jin-ryong collapsed to the floor.
His eyes still held an expression of disbelief as he stared into empty air.
Even the pride of being the heir to the Five Great Clans, and his ambitions for the future, were meaningless before death.
Collecting her sword, Gal Seo-ryeong muttered coldly.
"Four. Now I've utterly wiped out the Peng Clan and Tang Clan lines."
Just then—
"What was that?!"
"There was fighting from the secret room!"
Urgent shouts sounded from outside the secret room.
Having heard the sounds of battle, the Iron Wall Squad was converging.
Dozens of footsteps echoed beyond the door.
Gal Seo-ryeong calmly used lightness skill and slipped out of the secret room.
Iron Wall Squad martial artists spotted her moving like an afterimage and shouted quickly.
'Now it's for real.'
Gal Seo-ryeong stood facing the secret room door, her sword drawn.
Her eyes were calm and unwavering.
The Iron Wall Squad's presence drew close, right outside the door.
KWAANG!
The door burst open and Iron Wall Squad members poured inside.
They were elite martial artists, fully armed.
"Who are you?!"
The squad members gasped at the body sprawled on the floor.
The young head of the Sichuan Tang Clan, Tang Jin-ryong, lay dead.
A precious guest of the Tang Clan had become a wretched corpse.
"An assassin!"
"Catch her! She must not be allowed to escape!"
All the squad members drew their weapons and radiated murderous intent at once.
Their numbers swelled to nearly a hundred, filling the secret room.
And as elites from the Hebei Peng Clan—one of the Five Great Clans—almost all of them exuded a 1st-rate force/intent.
Nearly a hundred 1st-rate experts.
Anyone would find it nearly impossible to escape.
Despite this, Gal Seo-ryeong raised her sword and smiled coldly.
"Unless the Peng Clan head comes, nothing will stop me here."
In addition to the sword of unknown type in her right hand, Gal Seo-ryeong drew another sword with her left.
As the successor to the former Emei and the supreme expert known as the Black Forest Sword Empress in the martial world, it was the moment her true ability was revealed.
* * *
At that moment.
Jaseong's group was waiting near the Soul-Bewildering Powder manufacturing cave belonging to the Hebei Peng Clan.
"I hear countless sword sounds. The Right Protector must have clashed with the Iron Wall Squad."
Gu Janghu said.
Jaseong nodded quietly and glanced at his companions.
"Let's go, and help the Right Protector escape."
Jaseong leapt to the front.
Lee Rin and Gu Janghu followed behind.
Shuak! Shuak! Shuak!
All three displayed their lightness skills to the utmost.
Having mastered the Shadowless Body Technique, their movements were faster than the wind.
Dokgo Yeon wanted to join them too, but her lightness skill was slower than the other three's.
So she waited at another stronghold for the party.
Tadadak! Tadadak! Tadadak!
Jaseong's group dashed along tree branches, vaulted over walls, and skimmed across rooftops, infiltrating deep into the main base of the Hebei Peng Clan.
The guards on watch couldn't even glimpse their shadows.
[Great hero. Over there.]
Lee Rin pointed in a direction.
From there, the sounds of fierce combat could already be heard.
The Iron Wall Squad was forming layered circles to encircle and attack Gal Seo-ryeong in the center.
She was already fighting dozens of squad members.
Her sword technique was fast and precise.
For every swing, one opponent fell.
But the squad wasn't easy prey either.
All were 1st-rate or better, and their numbers kept growing.
Several cuts had appeared on Gal Seo-ryeong's robe, and her breathing was gradually becoming rough.
[First, attack both flanks and open a path.]
Jaseong drew his Wicked Flame Sword and used telepathy.
He had to cut down the squad members and open a retreat as fast as possible, so he stirred up innate true ki in his middle dantian to awaken the Wicked Flame Sword.
Whoomph!
Black flames began to blaze from Jaseong's sword.
'Heaven Evading Flash Sword, triple cut—Hundred Descending Calamities.'
Jaseong drew the fastest consecutive slash from the Heaven Evading Flash Sword.
At that instant,
Chuak! Chuak! Chuak! Chuak! Chuak! Chuak! Chuak! Chuak! Chuak! Chuak!
"Kuak!"
"Kkek?!"
"Kkuuak!"
In an instant, the Iron Wall Squad members vanished.
Black flames from the Wicked Flame Sword surged from their wounds.
Gu Janghu also drew his throwing blade on the other side, moving like a shadow.
Sseuk! Sseuk!
His blade silently targeted the vital points of his enemies.
"Keurk!"
Squad members at the rear clutched their throats and collapsed.
Lee Rin was formidable as well.
Chaaaa!
Icy cold exploded from her sword.
Thanks to her internal power, which had reached nearly two sixty-year cycles through steady cultivation, a massive pillar of ice soared up and blocked the squad's sword path in an instant.
"What, what is this!"
"Ice...!"
The squad fell into confusion.
Jaseong seized the chance and linked up with Gal Seo-ryeong.
[Right Protector!]
Jaseong swung the Wicked Flame Sword, sending squad members flying with overwhelming cultivated power and clearing a breach in their encirclement.
KWAAAAANG!!!!
"Keurgh!!"
"Kkuak!?"
With a thunderous roar, the swords of over a dozen squad members shattered, and a hole appeared in the encirclement.
[Well done.]
Gal Seo-ryeong gave a bloodstained smile and replied via telepathy.
True to her status as a supreme expert, her eyes still shimmered with composure.
[What happened to the Peng Clan brothers and the Tang Clan young head?]
[Handled them all.]
It was astonishing prowess.
She had accomplished her objective while facing over a hundred squad members.
As expected of the Right Protector of the Hao Sect.
[Talk later. First, we need to get out of here.]
Gal Seo-ryeong felled another squad member with a sword swing.
Jaseong nodded and sent a telepathic message to Gu Janghu and Lee Rin.
[From now, we cut an escape route at full power. Direction: the rear.]
[Understood, great hero!]
[The hall lord will lead.]
Thus, Jaseong's group carved a retreat and escaped the Hebei Peng Clan's secret hall with Right Protector Gal Seo-ryeong.
At that moment—
Uuuuuuuung—
The air grew oppressively heavy.
An overwhelming sense of pressure, as if a massive mountain was bearing down, suffused everywhere.
It was such murderous intent it was hard to even breathe.
A chill ran down Jaseong's spine.
He instinctively looked toward the origin of the energy.
'This murderous intent...?'
About five hundred zhang away.
A single man appeared, tiny in the distance.
From his body, an incredible force was billowing up.
At the sight of that man, Gal Seo-ryeong's previous composure vanished, her expression stiffening.
"The one I feared has arrived."
One of the Ten Great Experts of the orthodox faction, clan head of the Hebei Peng Clan, Peng Yun-ho—
He had arrived.
---