Italian Connection (5)

The finest gentleman sets out on his chivalrous path with the most shabby weapon.
He completes chivalry through chivalrous spirit and the power of Kung-Fu, not through the weapon.
-Samuel Smiles, -

Ever since Pietro Venucci first struck out while swinging the Morning Star, I had been feeling a persistent sense of incongruity.

In general, a trick that displays mysterious motion transcending Kung-Fu principles with a weapon requires profound enlightenment to support it, and Essence formed by Intent.

The Royal Prime Number Swordsmanship I learned not long ago was no exception.

One who cannot handle that golden Essence, whose nature changed due to the Intent of Succession and whose name I still do not know, cannot realize its true power even if he understands the sword seal of the Royal Prime Number Swordsmanship.

The relationship between Essence and tricks is the same as that between fuel and a machine.

Thus, watching Venucci strike out with a Morning Star far heavier than Irene Adler’s Meteor Hammer and with its center of mass tilted, ignoring gravity and inertia at angles and speeds difficult to predict, I could not help but question it.

I was not dismissing the Camorra’s Kung-Fu, with its fairly long history, merely because they were underworld men, but at the very least, Venucci’s realm was lower than Irene Adler’s.

For someone like that to display such absurd Kung-Fu prowess, there were at most two possibilities.

Either he was shaving away Innate Essence and hastening his death to use power not permitted to him in the present.

Or he possessed a precious Ghost Weapon or masterpiece that did not suit his station.

One of the two.

‘Those are not the eyes of someone staking his life.’

Of course, I did not think a cowardly underworld man would draw upon Innate Essence merely because he was surrounded by police, so I judged there had to be some secret hidden in the Morning Star he was wielding.

-Ts-ts-ts!

On a dockside soaked in moisture, spreading Indra Net was not difficult.

The moisture in the air combined with the minute Essence bursting from my minor meridians and condensed, forming transparent lenses under the command of my Intent.

The countless lenses reflected the movement of muscle and bone, and the trajectory of the Morning Star as its extension.

And one more thing.

-Hwaaak!

The flow of Essence running through the weapon, inside and out.

That Qi carried a deeper blue than the internal energy Venucci was emitting.

That was not all.

Distinguishing the color of Essence and using it as a clue to grasp its nature was a feat any first-rate Kung-Fuist could manage.

But my eyes, receiving the information caught by the innumerable lenses hanging in midair, were capturing in detail not only the Qi’s color, but the direction and speed of its flow as well.

It was not that my attainment with Indra Net had risen.

It was the result of my eye technique realm itself advancing by one step.

For Kung-Fuists who enter transcendance, or begin to set foot toward it, there are three new realms of eye technique.

Seeing Color, which sees the color and flow of Essence.

Observing Intent, which grasps Intent that moves ahead of Essence.

Seeing Nature, which pierces the essence of the mind, the source that emits Intent.

My two eyes, having reached Seeing Color, caught the presence of an alien Qi within the Morning Star, repeating a pattern of stopping and moving.

It was constantly being affected by Venucci’s internal energy, but what sustained the power of the fierce moves he deployed with the Morning Star was an entirely separate Qi.

At times it clustered in one spot, hard as stone, and at times it flowed smoothly like water, shifting its position.

If the nature of that Qi had been human cultivated power, there would have been nothing strange about it, but what was inside the weapon was something entirely different.

“Hoh…….”

My eyes, awakened to Seeing Color, were capturing without omission the traces left by the Qi flowing inside the weapon.

A bluish afterimage imprinted on my retina. Its shape undoubtedly resembled human arteries and capillaries.

“You carry a precious item that does not suit your station.”

-Seureung!

Having finally completed the hypothesis that explained the Morning Star’s bizarre motion, I didn’t hesitate to draw my sword.

No matter that the Morning Star traced trajectories that ignored Kung-Fu principles, the one wielding it was an underling whose realm was lower than mine.

Pietro Venucci, having trained under a master not entirely poor, seemed to have learned properly, at least, the methods for muddling an opponent’s eyes and taking lives.

It was certainly true that, perhaps favored in his faction to the point of acquiring new divine weapons, he was displaying martial prowess at a level where it would not be strange for him to press an opponent one or two moves above and kill them.

If I had been forced to fight Venucci in a life-and-death duel on the very day I first crossed into London Murim, I could not have guaranteed victory.

At the time, a considerable portion of my cultivated power had been sealed.

But regrettably for him, the present me had already reached a domain he could not touch even if he stretched out his arms.

“Die with tomato sauce splattered from your head, Englishman!”

With that curse, Venucci’s weapon, which had barely missed, sharply changed direction in midair and flew toward my temple.

Again, the Morning Star displayed bizarre movement that ignored inertia, but I had already taken the Warming Up of the Royal Prime Number Swordsmanship.

Preparation and strike.

The moment after I deployed the Royal Prime Number Swordsmanship, where every trick is composed of only two motions.

-Kwadeuk!

“Huh?”

A foolish sound leaked from Venucci’s mouth.

Both arms, which had been swinging the Morning Star, had frozen in midair.

It was only natural.

Because the blade of the Heavenly Demon Cane had pierced both his right arm and left arm at once.

-Koong.

The long spiked mace fell to the warehouse floor with a heavy sound.

“I severed both muscle and bone, and nerves. If you do not wish to live the rest of your life unable to hold a fork, it would be best to stay still.”

For a while Venucci stared at the blade piercing through his arms, wearing a face that couldn’t believe it.

The sharp Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron blade shattered the staff technique he had been deploying with a Unique Weapon in a single exchange, and neutralized him.

The secret essence of the Royal Prime Number Swordsmanship, which leaves no process to speak of, only results.

It may not have been faster than the Quick Sword techniques renowned in the martial world, but this supreme art, whose trajectory few could read, was enough to shock everyone watching the outcome.

“…….”

Along with the sunset light pouring through the open entrance, a vicious silence settled over the warehouse.

While the long-cast shadows of detective and killer stood still, the underworld men packed inside could not utter a single word, no, not even a breath.

-Teong!
-Seogeok!

I kicked the Morning Star away with my foot, moving it to a place Venucci’s hands could not reach, then pulled the blade embedded in his arms free.

“Aaak……!”

Venucci tried to stumble backward, writhing in pain, but I stepped hard on the top of his foot first.

-Hoo.

I took out my pipe, brought its bowl to his airways, then leisurely blew my breath in.

“Kough!”

White powder spilled out of the bowl.

What was packed into the pipe’s bowl was Pursuit Powder.

Thanks to the White Worm’s antidote pill, Pursuit Powder no longer worked on my body, so there was no problem using it like this.

“I will pray you adapt to British food.”
“You bastard—”

The poison absorbed through the mucous membranes of his nose and mouth made it impossible for Venucci to gather his power.

As he failed to gather his senses, I sealed his points, and his sturdy body collapsed limply to the floor.

“…Next.”

With the heart of someone watching children waiting for rations at the poorhouse, I looked over the Camorrista who were leveling their weapons.

Sending Venucci to prison alone, a man who could not properly speak even Cockney, let alone Dragonic Pronunciation, was not something a human being should do.

With food, who you eat with is far more important than what you eat.

Rather than eating British cooking that did not suit his palate alone and lonely in a far foreign land, it would be far happier to dine with hometown friends while making conversation.

Above all, if they remained here, they would only bully London’s decent commoners and immigrants.

Though the living conditions might be a little harsh, would it not be the great cause to send them to prison, where they would be fed on time so as not to starve to death.

“S-senior brother went down……!”
“Damn it, I trusted him because they said he was a special-grade killer.”
“Wasn’t he a candidate for the next Red Baton?”
“He even brought a precious item from the home base, so I thought it would work out—”

Perhaps it was truly shocking that a special-grade killer treated fairly highly in Naples had gone down without even getting a hand in, because the Camorristi were whispering among themselves.

After a few seconds, as if they had finished a brief conference, they each gripped their weapons and began to rush toward me.

“Hm. It seems they intend to keep the Vendetta tradition properly, at least.”

That was what I thought, but.

It was a mistake.

“You bastard, just you wait!”

Leaving plenty of distance, the Italian underworld men turned ninety degrees and sprinted at full speed toward the warehouse wall.

Then they smashed through the wall and escaped outside.

“…Cockroach-like bastards.”

For a moment, I regretted having held Italian underworld men’s spirit in high esteem at all.

“However, just because they leave the warehouse, that doesn’t mean they can escape safely…….”

Using Poltergeist, I retrieved the Morning Star and tucked it between my arm, then grabbed Pietro Venucci by the collar and strolled out through the warehouse entrance.

I was in an excellent mood at the thought of hurrying back to the boarding house, dismantling the Morning Star, and retrieving ‘that elixir’ inside.

-Tatang!

The first sound that reached us was the piercing sound of loaded Fingertips being fired.

“It seems they’ve begun.”

When I turned my head, I saw Watson, waiting outside, bracing her cane and striking out one trick after another at the fleeing underworld men.

Those who charged at her after seeing her small frame took Fingertips to the belly and went down, and underworld men who fled without even looking back were struck in succession in thigh and knee, crawling along the ground.

Excellent skill, no matter when I saw it.

Though extreme-range sniping like the Jezail Sword Technique was impossible, Fingertips flying true at mid-range was undoubtedly the most effective method for quickly subduing Kung-Fu criminals.

Moreover, Watson was not an ordinary army officer, but a former army doctor.

Kung-Fu used by doctors was often looked down upon because it specialized more in saving people than killing them, but their delicate skill in circulation was beyond the reach of other professions.

With a doctor’s precision in circulation combined with Fingertips, it was only natural for accuracy to rise to an astonishing degree.

And since Watson, by profession, knew every vital point on the human body, she had a Meissen Bespoke aptitude for neutralizing underworld men easily without committing killing.

“It ended far faster than I expected.”

-Chijik!!

The one who put on the finale was Sir Fawcett.

Standing far off as if deliberately yielding the credit to Watson, he looked at the four or five Camorristi she had missed and clapped his hands.

-Kwareung!

The moment his hands, wrapped in Brain Stopper, came together, rippling air blasted forward before Sir Fawcett with a thunderous roar.

With the Kunlun Cathedral’s sound skill that strikes the enemy by carrying thunder into the air as the finishing move, the Camorristi hiding on the Isle of Dogs were all swept away.

“Ah. Right.”

And as I looked at the Camorra remnants falling like grass swept by a gale.

“I nearly forgot the most important thing.”

Only then did I recall that Beppo was still in the corner of the warehouse.