Poison Forest (6)

“There was a place like this inside the Poison Marsh? Remarkable.”

Blood-Seeking Demon General Ji Gwang-ok stepped onto a firm, island-like patch deep within the marsh and looked around.

Except for the narrow entry path and the inner yard with a small hut, everything around was swamp.

Although there was no wall, snakes and insects swarming outside did not enter. It seemed the entire area had been dusted with incense that venom-beasts disliked.

“Work of someone who knows venoms and herbs.”

From what the Soul-Seized Miao boy had babbled, Ji Gwang-ok felt he knew who the half-paralyzed old man was.

He bared a feral smile.

“At last, we meet again, Elder Seok.”

But when the hut’s door opened, the ones who stepped out were a young man and woman he had not expected.

The man cupped his fist first.

“I am Seol Pung, captain of Flying Dragon Thirteenth Unit, Platoon Seven. May I ask where Senior hails from?”

“Oh? Flying Dragon, is it?”

A vicious grin curled Ji Gwang-ok’s lips.

Behind him, his men already made a racket at the sight of Hae Cheong-yeon standing by Seol Pung.

“A woman! A young one!”

“Heh-heh-heh! That figure!”

“Bet the face is killer—why’s it covered?”

“What’s to worry? We’ll uncover it for her, heh-heh-heh!”

Ji Gwang-ok answered Seol Pung at last.

“I am Ji Gwang-ok of the Blood Demon Cult. I came to see the old man here. Will you try to stop me?”

Seol Pung cupped his fist again, polite.

“So you are the Blood-Seeking Demon General, Senior Ji Gwang-ok. Your name is well known. I wouldn’t presume to bar your way, but this is a safehouse Flying Dragon members sometimes use. Unless you mean to flout the non-aggression pact personally forged by the Alliance Lord and the Blood Demon, might I ask you to withdraw?”

At the Blood Demon’s name, Ji Gwang-ok’s eyes twitched.

Famed for his loyalty, he could not simply ignore that name.

Just as Seol Pung intended.

Ji Gwang-ok’s smile faded; he growled.

“This, a Flying Dragon safehouse? I don’t think so.”

Seol Pung spoke quickly.

“It is! Look—our insignia is posted there!”

“Mm?”

The instant Ji Gwang-ok turned to look where Seol Pung pointed, Seol Pung’s body flashed toward him like a dart of light.

Whip!

A fight was inevitable anyway.

Thinking so, Seol Pung had feigned utmost deference and a trace of fear to lure his guard down.

Believing this first strike might be the only one, he drew even his hidden trump.

Between his tightly shut lids, a red gleam wavered.

He smashed a full-power Tiger Claw at the back of Ji Gwang-ok’s head.

It was the true secret “Beast Fist” he had concealed under the public face of “Savage Leopard Fist.”

Boom!

“Nrgh!”

Seol Pung clenched his teeth.

In the last split-second Ji Gwang-ok had turned back and raised an arm to block.

But reeling from the shock he couldn’t quite disperse, Ji Gwang-ok staggered—and Seol Pung stormed him with a barrage.

He hammered with both arms like a beast, spun like a whirlwind, and drove in hurricane kicks—an all-out assault.

At most, Seol Pung could maintain this peak state for around 8 minutes. He had to force a result within that time.

At the same moment Seol Pung sprang, Hae Cheong-yeon also moved—exactly as planned—straight at the subordinates behind Ji Gwang-ok.

Her silhouette, glued to Seol Pung’s back, suddenly bloomed in the cultists’ sight.

“Haaa!”

Swiish!

An ultra-fast thrust burst from her sword tip.

It was the absolute thrust her father insisted was the equal of Diancang’s Four-One Sword—“Meteor Pierces the Dark.”

Like a comet slashing night, the point punched through a cultist’s chest in an eye-blink.

Thunk!

“Gukh!”

Four left.

Hae Cheong-yeon’s gaze swept the rest, cool and quick.

But the startled cultists had already leapt back into guard. The surprise was over.

From here on, she would have to beat four top first-rate fighters roughly on her own level.

They lunged, enraged.

“This wench!”

“Pile on!”

“Don’t kill her—gotta eat her with all limbs intact!”

“Don’t mar the face either—I like licking them pretty!”

Any ordinary martial woman would have trembled with fury at such taunts.

Hae Cheong-yeon smiled instead.

“All limbs intact. Face, too.”

With that mindset, they were doing her a favor.

While she found her foes “helpful,” Seol Pung’s side was turning grim.

Ji Gwang-ok, who had been driven back at first, steadily recovered—maintaining a cool defensive line as he regained his body. A veteran of a hundred battles.

Having weathered the crisis, Ji Gwang-ok sighed inwardly in relief.

He had paid dearly for his carelessness.

A lad who looked barely in his twenties—whom he’d initially gauged at, at best, eighty years of inner power—had revealed a near Super-Pinnacle display. Astonishing.

It likely had something to do with those closed eyes.

But with the ambush blunted, it was only astonishing.

The boy had missed his first and last real chance. Ji Gwang-ok—true Super-Pinnacle—now had room to work.

Smiling like a hunting cat, he shifted from defense to offense.

Krr-boom!

With a thunderclap, Ji Gwang-ok’s palm smashed in—“Thunderclap Blood Palm,” a Blood Cult killing art.

Thud!

“Kh…!”

Seol Pung crossed his arms and caught it, but the sheer force blasted him back.

He barely landed upright—only to see Ji Gwang-ok swooping like a tiger.

“Khahahaha!”

Twin palms wreathed in crimson energy crashed down like boulders.

Whump!

“Oh?”

Expecting that to end it, Ji Gwang-ok let slip a brief sound of surprise.

Seol Pung’s response was extraordinary.

Hunched small, he spun violently; the rotational slip shaved the worst off Ji Gwang-ok’s strike.

A beast’s body-craft indeed.

Riding the spin, Seol Pung’s sweeping kick whipped at Ji Gwang-ok’s head.

Shrrrip!

Both men slid back and paused.

Blood trickled from a tear in Ji Gwang-ok’s cheek—brushed by Seol Pung’s blade-like leg.

Ji Gwang-ok wiped it with his fingers and licked them, chuckling low.

“Heh-heh-heh-heh. Impressive. A cub like this among Flying Dragon’s brats? Good thing I can kill you before you grow.”

He sprang again like a pouncing tiger.

“Khahahaha!”

Facing the gigantic “beast” crashing down on him, Seol Pung ground his teeth.

Inside the hut, Seok Gyeongdal had not fled yet. He thrust his research notebooks into Dakam’s hands and barked,

“Take your siblings to that place and hide. You know it—do not come out for at least six months.”

Tearful, Dakam asked,

“Tokno! You have to come too!”

The old man smiled gently and shook his head.

“I will die soon anyway. Better to spend a doomed life on something of use.”

He shoved Dakam and the children into the secret passage and rose.

For the first time in years, the limb he could not move tingled with life.

His hemiplegia had been self-inflicted—his own demonic art sealed—so he wouldn’t lose his mind.

As his friend Jeon Mu-gwang’s spirit was eaten by demonic qi, he had taken measures to prevent the same.

Only by continually strengthening his control could he keep the Blood Cult’s mad art—from within—off his mind.

Now, demonic energy surged through him, stoking his heart to a savage blaze.

It meant the magic had begun to gnaw his brain. For a short while, that was fine.

He did not intend to use it long.

Grinning wild, he moved to dash out—

A hand clamped his shoulder.

Face knotting, he snapped, looking back,

“Dakam! You brat—still here…?!”

Hae Cheong-yeon still held out, ringed by four top first-rates.

That she lasted owed more to the cultists’ choices than to her.

“Oh, nice!”

“Kihahaha! Those thighs—so creamy!”

“Next, the chest!”

“Oho, that’s a higher difficulty!”

They were only nicking her clothes—upper arm, thigh, calf—peeking at bare skin and hooting.

Any orthodox woman might have been shaking with humiliation. Hae Cheong-yeon, in truth, was letting it ride.

Right beside her, Seol Pung’s state against Ji Gwang-ok was dire.

Ji Gwang-ok’s overwhelming onslaught drove him, relentlessly. The fact he hadn’t fallen yet was praise-worthy.

In this situation, Cheong-yeon judged it pointless to exhaust herself. She could not beat all four alone; if she overextended and got taken, the captain was finished.

So she let them “lead,” baiting their guard down.

Then—Cheong-yeon’s ears pricked.

Beneath hair that fell to her nose, her lips drew a faint curve.

“My turn this time!”

One excited cultist, grinning greedily, rushed her.

As his saber brushed for her chest, her sword suddenly quickened.

Shaa—!

Pale sword-light fanned out like a Milky Way in a heartbeat—“Star-Cloud Pouring Heaven,” a decisive form of the Star-Net Sword Art.

“W-what?!”

He tried to guard—far too late.

Clink-clink-clink! Shhhk-shh-shh!

“Aaaargh!”

A skein of intersecting lights threaded through his defense—spider-web cracks split his skin.

A heartbeat later, blood geysered from his whole body.

Fwoosh!

“Gyaaa!”

Only then did the others realize she had been sandbagging them.

Their eyes turned rabid.

“This bitch!”

“All at once!”

“An arm or two—fine! Take her down first!”

All three rushed together.

For Cheong-yeon, three earnest top first-rates were a handful.

Yet she still smiled—because two streaking shadows flashed out behind her.

“Good work, Lady!”

“Die, you bastards!”

At last—Seonu Jin and Bi Sayoung had risen from circulation.

Power boiled through me.

For the first time, my senses matched those of my past life.

My inner force had reached near thirty years.

On half a pill, gaining over thirty years of power—calling it “on the level of a Lesser Restoration” had been overly modest.

With thirty years of qi behind it, my speed was stunning.

A startled cultist’s face swelled toward me.

“Haaa!”

Shiiing!

From the eleventh form onward, the Seonu Thirteen Swords demanded inner power above first-rate.

So I had never used them—unknown in my past life; underpowered in this one.

My first time with Form Eleven, “Great Roc Spans Ten Thousand Li”—resplendent wings of light unfurled, covering him.

He screamed and flailed his saber, hypnotized by the ghostly wings.

“Uaaaa!”

But the wings were an illusion.

A single lance of light from their heart kissed his neck—his body froze.

Fwoosh!

Blood fountained from a half-severed throat as I was already upon the one dueling Cheong-yeon.

She had chosen not to force it—receiving his saber, as if she knew I’d finish quickly.

The man’s eyes bulged as I stooped on him like a hawk.

The instant he looked my way, Cheong-yeon’s edge traced a razor line—as if she had never been on the back foot.

Sssht!

Our blades skimmed past him together.

His chest and throat split wide. He toppled in a jet of red.

Grinning, I asked her,

“Hope I didn’t, ah, interrupt?”

She smiled—rare for her.

“A good interruption.”

The glimpse of those small coral lips beneath her bangs was as lovely as ever.

Then Bi Sayoung screamed,

“What are you doing?! Help me!”

He was flagging against the last cultist.

He now carried nearly forty years of inner power, but hadn’t fully stepped into first-rate; a top first-rate opponent still overmatched him.

But though matching him was hard, Sayoung wasn’t in true danger—his sect’s Sky-Wind Footwork, at full pitch, let him slip attacks like air.

I vaulted in, laughing.

“Don’t whine when you’re not in danger!”

“Not in—!”

With thirty years behind it, my body-art was a blur.

My blade split to five streams and crashed in.

“Urgh!”

Clang-clang-clang-clang!

He clenched his teeth and warded—clearly the toughest of the bunch.

Even a heavy chop through his muddled guard, fuzzed by my phantom cuts, he somehow met.

“Ha!”

Chang!

Not bad at all.

I wanted to see how long he could last—but time was short.

The instant he parried, I grinned—and simply let go of my sword.

Thrown off by the vanished pressure, he blurted,

“W-what?!”

I stepped inside and smashed my forehead into his face.

Crunch!

“Gyaaa!”

Thanks to all that external training, my skull could stand comparison to a rock.

So his face—struck by a flying “stone”—simply caved.

My hand reclaimed the falling sword; a quick draw slit his neck.

Shaa!

By the time his blood sprayed, I had already leapt back.

A thrill sang through every nerve.

At last, I had nearly caught up to my former self.

Sweeping back hair mussed by the headbutt, I murmured,

“Hmph. Not even close.”

Bi Sayoung, staring at the headbutt with a horrified face, yelled,

“Quit posing, you knuckle-headed brute!”

Mm. He didn’t seem to realize his head was built like mine.

I glanced aside—the fight between Ji Gwang-ok and Seok Gyeongdal had just entered a new phase.