Chapter 178
"Ah"
My body is hot. It didn’t take long for me to realize that it was because I had been drenched in blood.
After wiping away the blood splattered on my face, the red-tinted world returned to its original color.
Like the distorted outlines of a badly drawn painting coming back into focus, the mixed-up past and present returned to their proper places.
Rationality, which I thought I had completely lost, came back to me, and the fire of my qi deviation calmed down, if only slightly.
All of it was for one person—to hold her in my sight.
Tang Sowol.
She lay unconscious atop a platform that looked like both an altar and a stage.
Though she appeared to be unconscious, she otherwise seemed unharmed. Judging by the swirling and tangled aura around her, it looked like she had tried to do something but was interrupted.
Even now, my internal energy surged violently, as if it would tear through my meridians, and murderous intent erupted at random—causing the Raging Wave Death-Stealing Art to spiral out of control. But it would not cloud my reason.
At least, not as long as Tang Sowol was present.
As I silently sighed in relief at her safety, a man suddenly stepped in front of me.
He wore purple robes, but his hair and eyes were dyed green.
The Poison Demon frowned fiercely, exuding a sinister aura as he opened his mouth.
“How dare you! How dare you interfere with the Grand Work!”
“So it means nothing to you that most of Thousand Poison Gate was slaughtered by my hand?”
“Of course, their deaths are regrettable, but they do not take precedence over the Grand Work.”
The Poison Demon’s voice carried not vengeance, but the annoyance and fury of being obstructed in his work.
“The Grand Work, huh. Don’t tell me you think you can make the Poison Spirit Physique your own.”
In Murim, there are many special constitutions. Some pity them, others envy and covet them. Naturally, there have been various studies on whether such constitutions can be stolen or replicated, but none have ever succeeded.
There’s no way the Poison Demon doesn’t know that. He scoffed and gathered his poisonous qi.
“Claim the Poison Spirit Physique as my own? Why would I chase after something so uncertain? I’ve already reached the threshold of the Sub-Perfection master stage. The poisons I hold surpass that level.”
As he spoke, the Poison Demon emitted a faint aura from his entire body as if to resist the killing intent I directed at him.
He looked like a toad soaked in venom, but it was far too threatening to simply laugh off. I must not let it touch me. My instincts, sharpened as much as my blurred reason, blared a warning.
“One more wall to climb, and I’ll reach the realm of True Poison Masters. While I find the difference between those born with the Poison Physique and those who acquire it fascinating, it’s not worth giving up the chance.”
“Then why did you kidnap Tang Sowol?”
“Obviously, to climb that final wall.”
A vivid purple aura shimmered above the Poison Demon’s hand.
His poisoned strike was so vicious that even a single clean hit had been enough to knock me down instantly before. But now, he seemed even more dangerous than back then.
Around Tang Sowol, the chaotic auras began to twist and wrap around the Poison Demon’s hand.
“The Poison Spirit Physique stores poison within the body and allows its user to draw it out at will. If that body has matured enough to house multiple kinds of poison, and if I could squeeze it all into a single drop...And if I make that drop mine, it would surely become a stepping stone to reach the realm of a True Poison Master.”
“What the…”
“Don’t worry. I won’t kill her. I never expected to reach my goal in one try anyway.”
Only then did I understand the identity of the aura coiling around the Poison Demon’s hand.
Unlike his usual purple qi, this was a faint green glow. Tang Sowol’s internal energy... no, part of the poisonous qi she held.
Just as he had explained, he hadn’t fully extracted or condensed it, but he had successfully begun the process. He was in the middle of extracting her poisonous qi.
“After squeezing her dry once, her vessel will be empty. Then I can feed her the poisons I want and combine them. The second drop will serve as an even higher pedestal.”
“You lunatic.”
“Heh. I don’t know how you’re still sane enough to speak like that, but anyone can see who the real madman here is. It’s you, you Soul Reaper bastard.”
The Poison Demon growled and took a stance. Now I understood his goal. Like shearing sheep periodically, he intended to use Tang Sowol’s body as a vessel to mix and condense poisons, harvesting them again and again.
There’s no way Tang Sowol could remain unharmed through such a process. She would suffer agonizing pain each time, as if her dantian were being shattered. Even if her actual dantian were destroyed, her Poison Spirit Physique would remain intact, so the Poison Demon’s experiment would continue.
In the meantime, her body and mind would slowly fall apart.
Maybe not right away, but in the end, she would die.
That was something I could never allow.
The heart that had found solace in her safety now tightened painfully, then began pounding loud enough to drown out all else.
Thump! Thump!
“I’ve heard enough. Now, let me tell you my plan.”
Was the pounding of my heart a kind of signal?
The rage that had briefly calmed upon seeing Tang Sowol surged back with renewed force. My internal energy, which had already felt like it couldn’t get more intense, began to flow even faster.
Rather than resisting the qi deviation, I surrendered myself to it and continued.
“You die here today. That’s my plan.”
The blazing flame of my murderous intent focused on the man before me—No, it concentrated into the sword meant to cut him down.
And then, the footwork that followed.
Kkwaang!
The Thunderclap Steps lived up to its name, thundering as it pushed my body forward. Adding the subtleties of Ghost Shadow Steps created a footwork where each step varied in speed, making it impossible to predict.
A martial art ingrained deeply enough to perform even in the midst of qi deviation. But there was one difference now.
My rampaging internal energy burst outward in all directions, uncontrollably overflowing.
Like trudging through a pool of blood, each footfall lit the ground with a dark crimson glow.
It was the very definition of wasteful use of energy, which I had always deemed foolish…but there was no reason to conserve energy anymore.
I poured all the internal energy remaining in my dantian into my sword.
Ffwoosh.
My sword, infused with killing intent, ignited with crimson qi and slashed toward the Poison Demon’s poison strike.
“Aaaaahhh!”
A battle cry burst from my mouth. My overwhelming internal energy inflated the sword’s flame, splitting the very air in two.
“You reckless fool...!”
The Poison Demon hastily pulled his hand back, but the aura he had extended surged forward anyway.
His poison strike, a mix of purple and green, flew at me in the shape of a palm and clashed with my blade.
Chaaak!
Internal energy clashed against internal energy. Murderous intent consumed and burned away the poisonous qi.
But even so, the leftover poison didn’t disperse. Instead, it clung to my body.
It wasn’t like internal energy—it felt more like a thick liquid.
It was like being wrapped in the damp fog of early morning,
but the Poison Demon’s poison was far more malevolent.
The noxious energy seeped in through my nose and mouth,
invaded through my pores.
Perhaps he thought that compound poisons like the Seven-Treasure Poison Soul Powder wouldn’t work on me anymore—he unleashed a direct, potent poison from the start.
I didn’t know what kind of poison it was. Even though I had heard stories from Tang Sowol before regression and had lived in the Tang Family for nearly four years afterward, I had no knowledge of this poison.
But even its residue was enough to melt a person.
My lungs and skin stung in pain. The poison that had entered my body would begin corroding it, slowly eating away at me.
Before, that would have been fatal.
Ptuh!
I spat out a dark violet liquid. It wasn’t blood. It was the poison that had infiltrated me, expelled by the flow of my internal energy.
But it wasn’t perfect. Perhaps I had been slightly poisoned—my lungs still ached with every breath.
Lesser poisons had no effect, but it seemed even this potent poison worked its way in, little by little.
I wouldn’t fall in one strike, but unlike with other Thousand Poison Gate martial artists, I couldn’t afford to just take the hit and keep fighting.
But then again, I’d only used the tactic of sacrificing flesh once or twice even before. No matter how strong the poison,
it wasn’t enough to bring me down so easily anymore.
That was enough.
“I was wondering how you made it here. So you used your qi deviation like that. You won’t last long...”
“I’ll cut you down before that.”
“Such bravado from a brat who hasn’t even lived half his life.
Perhaps I should’ve killed you back there, even if it was risky.”
Maybe he thought launching poison from afar was pointless,
because the Poison Demon clicked his tongue and swung another poisoned strike directly.
I swung my sword to counter it, and the air between us twisted as our auras clashed.
Boom! Crash! Kkraaang!
My blade, wreathed in dark crimson qi and blazing with killing intent, slashed toward the Poison Demon—but was blocked.
It wasn’t just energy he had thrown—the poison he had coated on his hand disrupted my internal energy upon contact and shattered my sword flame head-on.
Though my strikes had more power, my energy dispersed like it was infected by the poison. In the end, it was an even fight.
All that remained in my strikes was killing intent. And killing intent alone couldn’t kill the Poison Demon, even if it made him flinch.
Thus began our close-range clash.
Sometimes my blade cut into the Poison Demon’s skin, sometimes his palm grazed my clothes.
Wounds accumulated on both of us, but neither could land a decisive blow.
Perhaps because my sword technique was slightly sharper,
I was gaining a faint, gradual upper hand. But— the problem was that I would collapse before long.
My meridians, torn apart by qi deviation. The Poison Demon’s qi that could corrode flesh on contact.
It wouldn’t be strange if I collapsed mid-fight.
I couldn’t let that happen. While I still had strength left,
I had to risk it and bet everything on one decisive move.
Even if his poison could scatter my internal energy, if it couldn’t suppress my killing intent, then I needed even more killing intent.
I tried once again to pull the thorn from my heart, to peer into the well within it.
But...
There was no more killing intent to draw out. I was already as enraged as I could be, already pouring every bit of it into my sword.
My killing intent is not infinite.
I’m not Heaven-Slaughter Star.
Still, I swung my sword. With only the will to cut.
“Ah.”
In the chaos of past and present overlapping from the qi deviation, I suddenly realized something.
The reason I swung my sword was not to kill someone.