Episode 209

"This… this crazy man! How could you do this!"

Tang Gunak tucked his hands into his sleeves. His hands shook as he held onto the daggers within his sleeves. He was quickly losing control.

But Tang Woe was looking at him and smiling.

"You are supposed to act moderately in a spar."

"And you think that means you can use poison?! That too, one without an antidote!"

Tang Gunak bit his lip.

He was too late.

Even if he jumped onto the stage now, he wouldn't be able to save Chung Myung. Moreover, he would also get affected by the poison as well.

Tang Gunak, who was turning red with rage, pointed at Tang Woe and spoke in a terribly angry voice.

"Can you show yourself as an Elder of the Tang family after this after doing such a thing!? Going against a child of a sect who pursued the truth of the sword… and to use a poison that our family doesn't even have an antidote for… What is the difference between you and the sects in the Forces of Evil?"

He didn't call the man an Elder anymore. Those who did such things didn't have the right to be addressed with such flashy titles.

How could he respect a person who abandoned the rules of the family, which should be upheld whatever the cost?

However, despite his words, Tang Woe laughed.

"Hahaha, the Forces of Evil, was it?"

"Yes!"

"Lord! Calm down! This is why the Tang family couldn't control the world!"

He drew poison qi into both his hands.

"What is the Tang family's current situation? Even with our powerful poison and daggers, we are being criticized by the world constantly and is stuck in the corner of Sichuan, claiming to be kings of this bloody region. How long do we have to be bound by this outdated law!"

Tang Woe's eyes twinkled in a crazy manner.

"Emei? Qingcheng? That isn't even the matter! If we decide to turn them into our enemies, it won't even take a day for the entire place to turn into a bloodbath! But what about us? We are surrounded by this place, and we do nothing! Is this the future that the Tang family wants?"

"So? You will start throwing poison at anyone? If you do that, it will only turn us into tyrants who want the world under them!"

"But we will have the world. Am I wrong?"

Blood rushed up Tang Gunak's face. His anger began to rise so much that he was losing his control.

Tang Gunak grunted through his teeth.

"What are you doing?! Catch that sinner right now and put him in the cell!"

"Sinner? Who is the sinner?"

Tang Woe pointed to Tang Gunak and began to yell.

"The sinner has to be the Lord who has weakened the Tang family so much! How much do you have to be ignorant to go and join hands with Mount Hua of all!"

"You…"

Tang Woe chuckled and said.

"Lord. The reason we elders have stepped back isn't because we are weak. Don't forget that if you start to persecute the elders, we can also change our methods."

Tang Gunak's nails dug into his palm.

He couldn't control his trembling fist. No matter how horrendous Tang Woe was right now, he was an adult of the family. As such, he couldn't attack him in front of everyone.

And…

Tang Gunak clenched his hand and turned around.

He didn't want to show it openly, but he knew that there were people sympathizing with the words of Tang Woe.

And Tang Gunak began to regret it.

'It is all my fault.'

It was a mistake on his part to openly indulge in this conversation with Tang Woe, not realizing that the man had such ambitions hiding inside him. Above all, he should've never let Mount Hua's Divine Dragon fight him.

He should have stopped it.

He should have interfered right away. In fact, he shouldn't even have let it start in the first place.

A moment's hesitation and his unreasonable belief in someone led to this terrible result… a child had died.

"This…"

When Tang Gunak was about to pull out a dagger from his sleeve…

"U-Uh! There!"

A cold wind was blowing from somewhere, and the poison was moving away from the stage. Those who saw that moved further back.

"Umm."

Tang Wei used a martial art and pushed the poison up to the sky. If someone else got affected by this poison, then the tables would turn on him.

And looking at the poison which had been lifted, his face broke into a smile. He was going to send his condolences to Chung Myung, who was now just a flesh…

"W-what?"

Tang Woe doubted his eyes. What he saw wasn't a corpse that was rotting.

It was just Chung Myung, alive and healthy.

"How…"

Although his clothes were stained by poison, the parts of his body that was exposed didn't seem to be suffering from any ailment. And the man was checking his body condition as he pushed his body up from the floor.

'Uh.'

"Woahhhh!"

Chung Myung kept grunting.

It was funny to see it, but Tang Woe couldn't laugh.

"Ack! Ackkkkkk!"

Chung Myung puked a bit and then wiped his lips as he got up.

It was difficult for Tang Woe to understand it.

"The poison?"

"Ah, did I eat too much?"

Chung Myung shook his head.

"The food of Sichuan is hurting my body."

"…"

Tang Woe looked at Chung Myung as if he couldn't trust his eyes.

'Cooking?'

'Not because of the poison?'

"…how?"

How is he not affected? Tang Woe couldn't understand it.

'Hadn't everyone here seen him get hit? He was engulfed in the Ghost King's Order and then as hit by the Chasing Soul in 7 Steps…'

No man can handle so much poison.

'Of course, if it had been a master at his peak, they would be able to endure it to some extent or maybe suppress it. But how could this child be at that level?'

Spit!

Chung Myung spat a couple times to clear his throat.

"I have a few things to correct you on."

"…"

"First. The reason the Tang family cannot make a name in the world isn't because it doesn't use its poison. It is because the poison doesn't work."

"…what did you say?"

Chung Myung smiled. Seeing Tang Woe's reaction made him want to laugh.

'Reminds me of the past.'

-But, why don't you use the poisons of the Tang family?

-Oh, Hyung, have you ever heard of someone from the Tang family being the Best in the World?

-Nope.

-See… In the past, weren't we a family that was on par with the Southern Island Sect? It was said that the people that the Southern Island Sect and the Peng family produced were higher than those who come from the Tang family.

-Because of the poison?

-Yes. The poison isn't that great. Of course, at the right level, it is the shortcut to many answers we seek. But just throwing a drop of water in the tea, or rubbing something on the needle before poking someone, is there any need to fear that?

-But?

-If we win so easily, would we ever be able to hone our skills? We aren't invincible after all. If we only use the poison of the Tang family… if we do that, our personal skills will never improve. Then, when we meet a Hyung like you in our lives, everything will fall apart for us. Those people back home won't understand it despite us constantly telling them.

Poison is poisonous to normal people. But it won't work on those who were strong… truly strong.

Conquer the world with poison?

'If that was possible, there is no way that the Tang Family would have fallen to Heavenly Demon.'

Not just the Heavenly Demon. In the end, the Tang family fled because it simply didn't have enough people who could handle the people from the Demonic Sect.

If warriors could be defeated using poison, then why did the Demonic Sect make them run in fear?

A poison with no cure?

Just because there was no cure, that didn't mean that the poison couldn't be removed.

There would always be a way to deal with it. This was one of the two things that Chung Myung was sure of.

"H-How are you not poisoned? Even if you held your breath, it should have entered through the skin. All the poisons should have worked!"

Tang Woe was losing it.

If internal qi was channeled to block the pores in one's body, and if he surrounded his body with qi, then nothing could enter. As long as he didn't inhale the poison and didn't let it touch his skin, he wouldn't be poisoned.

However, using this method when it came to needles was tough. As soon as one single needle touched the skin, the poison would flow deep into the body.

The method that was used by most experts would be to purify the poison that had entered the body with internal qi. Masters who reached the peak would move the qi in the body to dispel it.

There was no need for any external antidote or cure.

An antidote was just a drug that was made to neutralize the poison in the body for those who had ingested it.

But what good was an antidote for people who could survive despite being poisoned?

This was why the Tang family could never become such an influential place in the world despite using such fatal poison.

'Tang Bo knew this from the start.'

Tang Bo was almost treated as an outsider because of his decision, and he had gone through numerous situations and experiences to realize this. Thanks to that, he realized that a true warrior wouldn't lean on poison to make a name for himself. As such, he put everything he had into daggers.

That was the birth of the 12th dagger… the inception of the Soul Chasing Dagger.

"Well, you won't understand it even if I explain. Let's just say that it is because I have a unique build."

"A self-curing body?"

"That is too far-fetched."

Chung Myung waved his hand.

"And the second one!"

Chung Myung frowned and said.

"The Tang family didn't form an alliance with Mount Hua. Mount Hua formed an alliance with the Tang family. This is a very important one, so remember it."

The moment Tang Woe was about to speak in a puzzled way, Chung Myung spoke first.

"And finally, the third one."

"…"

"The Tang family Lord saw through this kind of thing from the beginning and tried to work with Mount Hua, but you didn't see it till the very end. It must be difficult for the poor Lord of the Tang family to deal with your lot. People like you are the ones who need to be spoon-fed right into your mouths."

"Y-You!"

Chung Myung held the sword.

"Okay. Let's continue. Feel free to use as much poison as you want."

"W-wait! Yo-you cannot have internal qi in your body, right? You're already…"

Tang Woe, who was speaking, went silent with a flinch. He almost said something he shouldn't have.

"Ah, that thing?"

Chung Myung smiled.

"Do you know what the most special trait of a stupid man is?"

"…"

"He thinks he is the only smart one around. I expected something like this to happen before I even met you. What people like you do is clearly known to all."

"So, you already took the cure for it?"

"Ah, you keep saying stupid stuff. Your poisons don't work on me."

Chung Myung smirked.

"Do it again if you don't believe me."

"I was going to even if you didn't say it."

With that, he used the Ghost King's Order again. Once again, smoke rose around Chung Myung. Instead of a wide area, it was concentrated on Chung Myung alone.

"I told you it is useless."

Chung Myung swung the sword, and the smoke disappeared. And he walked to Tang Woe slowly.

Tang Woe still couldn't understand it.

He had clearly seen the poison enter the nose and eyes of Chung Myung. But then he should have been affected. His body should have started melting down. But the man didn't seem affected by any means.

"I am sorry, I am not even young, but I have to keep telling you 'I told you so' again and again. Stupid people."

It sounded absurd, but it was true.

Chung Myung's body possessed the purest qi in the world. Moreover, the qi of Tao was specialized in healing and purification. And no Taoist could compare to Chung Myung when it came to pure qi.

It was a qi he was able to gather because he had the chance to start over. Poison was no problem for such a qi.

'It is good that I ate the Soul Vitality Pill.'

He cured the poison much better than he thought he would. He felt good as he thought about his impressive actions.

Well… considering how much hard work he put into creating this pure qi, it had to be this effective!

Chung Myung smiled and said.

"Now, what will you do?"

The expression of Tang Woe changed. His face, which was flustered, was now calm.

"Hahaha. You don't even know your own condition properly. Look at your hands before you talk."

Chung Myung looked at it.

"Uh? What is this?"

His fingertips were dyed black, which was a sign of being affected by the poison.

"I knew you were great. But it seems like you cannot drive out the poison after all."

"Wah… was it this kind?"

Imagine how strong it had to be for this to happen. Tang Woe had a happy face.

"When you go to hell and meet the King of Hell, tell him that you were sent there because you underestimated the poison of the Sichuan Tang family!"

"You have a very kiddish personality."

"…what?"

Chung Myung smiled.

"It seems like there is a limit on what goes through your head. What can I do?"

"The poison cannot be…"

It was then.

Swish!

There was a sound of something burning, and then flames rose from both the hands of Chung Myung.

At the same time, a strong smoke also rose from his fingers.

"…"

Chung Myung held out his hand.

"If I can't push it out, I'll burn it!"

Seeing the flame, Tang Woe mumbled as he stepped back.

"Burying Hatred Flame?"

'How?'

'Does this mean that this child is capable of something that only the best Masters in the world can do?'

The moment Tang Woe was in shock and was unable to speak…

Baek Cheon, who was watching it, sighed.

"…he burns alcohol with fire and then burns the poison with fire."

'Just don't burn Mount Hua…'

'Please.'