Chapter 177
“Aaaaaaahhh!!”
It was less a human scream and more like the howl of a beast.
Rough and menacing, without the slightest hint of restraint.
As if to prove it, the overwhelming killing intent that engulfed the entire floor surged, and thick, blood-red sword flame erupted violently.
It looked like the entire pavilion had caught fire. But where real flames would burn flesh, this sinister black-red flame cut through human bodies.
Ssskuk.
In an instant, the warriors of the Heavenly Poison Sect were slashed down and sent rolling across the floor.
All of them were masters who had reached the Peak Stage, and yet, despite deploying advanced formation techniques, they were unable to stop a single intruder and fell one by one.
“Why… why would such a monster appear now…?! The Sect Leader is so close to completing the Grand Method!”
Grinding his teeth, one of the elders of the Heavenly Poison Sect stood and watched instead of aiding his subordinates. More accurately, he had to watch—because the position he stood in was the only place where there was even a sliver of a chance to stop this lawless invader.
The massive structure of the Heavenly Poison Sect’s main building served both as a show of strength to outsiders and to establish the authority of the long-serving inner circle that supported the Sect Leader.
The first floor was shared by all. But above that, each level belonged to a different master.
This second floor belonged to the First Elder, who had played a major role in rallying the remnants of the Five Poisons Sect under the Heavenly Poison Sect’s banner.
And for a martial artist—especially one who practices poison arts—having a hidden trump card within their own territory was common sense.
The subordinates now dying on this floor had stepped up merely to buy time for their master to prepare.
They didn’t last long.
Now the entire second floor was drenched in blood. Furniture and bodies had been slashed down, leaving nothing taller than waist-high.
At last, the First Elder came face to face with the cause of it all.
A swordsman, drenched in blood, staggering like a drunk. Behind him, corpses marked every step of his advance.
He radiated such intense killing intent that even a Sub-Perfection master like the First Elder struggled to breathe.
His face looked young—surprisingly so—but the elder paid no mind to such trivial details.
His eyes.
Eyes swirling with the bloodlight of qi deviation—red like madness and killing intent, sharp as blades and burning as if to incinerate the world.
Eyes that clearly belonged to a salgwi—a living killing ghost.
Yet oddly, to the First Elder, the redness didn’t feel like blood or flame.
It looked rusted.
The sharpness in his gaze was dulled by corrosion, and the ferocity resembled not fresh flames but the faint heat lingering in ashes.
Even after living long as a martial artist, witnessing his sect’s fall and reconstruction, the First Elder found this strangely unfamiliar.
“So intense… Your methods are so brutal—do you have some grudge against the Heavenly Poison Sect?”
“But this is where it ends. You've crossed too many lines. How dare you run wild here—here of all places?!”
But the First Elder faltered when faced with Cheon Hwi’s silent advance.
He had planned to buy time by talking, but hadn’t expected the man to not react at all.
Still, he couldn’t back down now.
He had to appease the spirits of the dead under his command, protect the Heavenly Poison Sect from suffering the same fate as the Five Poisons Sect… and, above all, he couldn’t allow the Sect Leader’s Grand Method to be disrupted.
There was a reason the upper floors were given to elders, instead of simply granting them lavish homes elsewhere.
It was part of a long-term setup for the Sect Leader’s Grand Method—one that would use a Poison Spirit Vessel to ascend.
Someone who had mastered poison arts to such an extent was already no different from a venomous creature.
Just as formations required artifacts, the elders and protectors who remained on each floor could support the Sect Leader’s ritual merely by being present—and leaving their floor during the ritual would doom it to failure.
“I am old and have lived long enough. If I die, let it be here. If I survive, it shall also be here.”
Even if the First Elder perished, the poison steeped into his body would continue to assist in the ritual.
“No one will ever again ignore the Heavenly Poison Sect—or the Five Poisons Sect!”
Shouting his lifelong conviction, the First Elder stomped the ground and spread his arms wide.
From his sleeves, his collar, and even his open mouth—countless poisonous insects spewed out.
And that wasn’t all. The wall behind him cracked open, releasing even more venomous creatures, several times the number already released.
A grotesque sight—but not surprising in Yunnan Province, where poisonous insects and snakes were plentiful.
If the Tang Clan applied poison to weapons and projectiles, the Five Poisons Sect evolved to control living venomous creatures as weapons.
The First Elder was a renowned master of poison arts since the Five Poisons Sect’s heyday.
“You must’ve ingested some powerful anti-venom to survive this long! Let’s see if you can endure this!”
The Five Poisons Sect’s martial arts straddled the line between sorcery and combat—unorthodox but clearly limited in raw power.
Even now, as the Heavenly Poison Sect rebuilt from the Five Poisons Sect’s ashes, the First Elder still took pride in that heritage.
These were poison beasts he had raised and bred himself. While time was short and he couldn’t gather them all, what he unleashed was enough to drown a man.
Flying insects filled the air, and ground creatures swarmed so densely there was no space to step.
No matter how strong a martial artist, evading or cutting down everything was impossible.
Of course, even the First Elder wasn’t naïve enough to believe this alone could kill Cheon Hwi, considering the overwhelming force he had shown so far.
But if he could land a hit, that was enough. Poison, once inside, would steadily erode the enemy.
Even if he fell, the next floor—or the one after that—could finish off the beast.
But that hope shattered almost immediately.
Ffwoosh!
The killing aura around Cheon Hwi surged violently.
To be precise, the previously chaotic aura now honed itself into a singular, instinctual focus—to annihilate the obstacles in front of him.
The killing intent, strong enough to shake even Sub-Perfection masters, converged into a single, concentrated force.
No matter how grotesque and refined the poison beasts were, they were still creatures—there was no way they could endure Cheon Hwi’s full killing intent.
Plop. Plop.
One by one, the insects dropped.
Those crawling on the ground buried their heads into the floor, while those further back were forced forward by command, only to meet the same fate.
He hadn’t even drawn his sword. Just with a glare—just by focusing his killing aura—everything the First Elder had cultivated his whole life was obliterated.
“W-What is this…”
The First Elder trembled as he refused to believe what he saw.
But it wasn’t an illusion. His prized creatures had died before even reaching Cheon Hwi’s body.
Cheon Hwi stepped forward without pause.
Desperate now, the elder swung his hand.
The Five Poisons Sect’s true secret wasn’t in raising poison beasts. The most deadly poison... was the practitioner themselves.
The First Elder charged his sharp nails with internal energy and unleashed his technique.
A strike infused with poison, cloaked in violet energy, cutting through the air.
Unlike wild, beastly martial arts, his movement was precise—like a snake’s fang, or the sting of a venomous insect.
It wasn’t meant for drawn-out fights, but for that one perfect strike.
If he could just land it, he would win.
Aiming for Cheon Hwi’s neck, he struck—
Shaaak!
Cheon Hwi tilted slightly, taking the strike to his chest instead.
His clothes and skin were torn open by the swirling energy.
The wound wasn’t deep, but the poison had clearly entered his body.
A smile spread across the First Elder’s lips.
“Got y—”
It became his dying words.
As his vision spun midair, he finally realized—
His neck had been cut.
Cheon Hwi hadn’t dodged or blocked the strike.
He had simply allowed it, and swung his sword at the same time.
‘You’ll die soon anyway.’
That was the thought that remained in the First Elder’s fading consciousness as his head fell to the ground.
No matter how strong the antidote, surely Cheon Hwi couldn’t withstand a poison infused with an entire lifetime of cultivation.
Maybe it wouldn’t kill him now—but it would corrode him over time. Perhaps on the next floor, or the one after that.
That’s what he had believed.
But Cheon Hwi walked past the freshly fallen corpse, staggering and rust-eyed as ever.
And as he drew close, the First Elder saw it.
A stream of dark violet poison flowing from the torn flesh… but not entering Cheon Hwi’s body—forced back out, as though it had been rejected.
And then he saw something else.
Amid the blood-soaked garments, the familiar green robe of the Tang Clan.
Only then did the First Elder realize who this invader was—and why he was rampaging so madly.
But it was already far too late.
His head had already hit the ground.
Plop. Roll.
In the fading edges of his consciousness, he heard a faint mutter.
“Three more floors…”
The meaning wasn’t lost on the First Elder’s severed head.
‘Sect Leader... perhaps we were too greedy…’
And with that, a once-notorious master of Yunnan passed away.
***
The third and fourth floors fared no better—if anything, they fared worse.
They belonged to the Left and Right Guardians of the Heavenly Poison Sect, both of whom had mastered Tang Clan martial arts, not the Five Poisons Sect’s.
But to Cheon Hwi, such techniques—hidden weapons, poison arts—were all too familiar.
The Left Guardian of the third floor was defeated in under fifteen minutes, his heart pierced after all his techniques failed.
The Right Guardian, terrified by Cheon Hwi’s onslaught, didn’t even get to unleash his trump card—he jumped out of the fourth-floor window.
His subordinates, their will broken, followed in retreat. Only a few remained to fight to the death in loyalty to the sect.
And thus, Cheon Hwi—alone—drove the Heavenly Poison Sect to the brink of annihilation.
He opened the final door.
The fifth floor.
There stood the Poison Demon, face twisted in a deep scowl.
And atop a platform, unconscious, lay Tang Sowol.
“Ah…”
The bloodlight in Cheon Hwi’s eyes wavered—and a trace of reason returned.
For him, Tang Sowol… was that kind of person.