Chapter 200

A tremendous explosion and stone dust flew everywhere. Moon Pyeong threw his body at that moment and ran toward the exit. His back was split open and one leg was torn off from the thigh.

He had been hit in the back while deploying Five Elements Steps and had his leg torn off while using Blunt Foot Steps.

What he thought were all shadows had actually been real! It was a moment that revealed the profundity of Mount Hua’s divine techniques.

However, Tang Qing, who had seen through all those divine techniques and broken Moon Pyeong’s attacks, was even more remarkable.

Indeed, the King of Hell!

When Moon Pyeong realized he was no match, he ran with all his might on one foot. Since he still had internal energy, his body flew one zhang with each step.

“Hmph.”

Tang Qing watched this quietly, then plucked several white hairs from his mane-like hair. When he injected internal energy into the already stiff hair, it stood up straight like needles.

Tang Qing gripped the hair and threw it.

Swish!

The barely visible hair became hidden weapons flying through the air.

Moon Pyeong was fleeing with all his might when he felt a chill from behind and twisted his body. He leaped into the air and spun his body to try to deflect the hidden weapons.

However, the hair didn’t bounce away from the air currents Moon Pyeong created but got caught in the flow and spun together. When Moon Pyeong stopped rotating, it was sucked in and embedded in Moon Pyeong’s pressure points.

“Urgh!”

Moon Pyeong’s limbs contorted and his body stiffened.

Tang Qing slowly approached Moon Pyeong. Moon Pyeong, whose body had stiffened with his limbs broken like a scarecrow in a strange posture, glared at Tang Qing.

Tang Qing paid no mind and took out a pill from his bosom.

“It’s poison. If you don’t want to die, try raising Purple Mist Divine Technique Moon to block it.”

Tang Qing pressed Moon Pyeong’s jaw to force his mouth open, then put the pill inside. Moon Pyeong tried not to swallow it, but the moment it entered his mouth, the pill melted like water and went down his throat.

Tang Qing struck Moon Pyeong’s back hard to release the pressure point sealing. As soon as Moon Pyeong could move his body, he kicked the ground and rolled to the side.

He drew up his internal energy to the extreme to fight against the poison energy. He knew what he had consumed was definitely poison.

But blood vessels burst in Moon Pyeong’s eyes and his eyes were stained with blood. Blood formed at his nose. He was clearly raising his internal energy, yet he couldn’t fight against the poison energy?

Thud.

Kneeling on one knee, Moon Pyeong spat black blood from his mouth.

“Kugh.”

Drip drip.

Blood also flowed from his eyes and nose.

Moon Pyeong collapsed just like that.

Thump.

His body convulsed as he continuously vomited dead blood.

Gurgle, gurgle.

His eyes rolled back, he foamed at the mouth, and his body trembled continuously like an aspen tree.

Watching this with his small eyes, Tang Qing laughed.

“Hehe! I told you I didn’t have time, didn’t I? The time remaining for you!”

Tang Qing’s eyes flashed.

With his bizarre face torn to his ears, he shouted loudly.

“The day to conquer Purple Mist Divine Technique is not far off!”

* * *

Jin Ja-gang devoted himself madly to training.

He immersed himself not only in internal energy cultivation but also in weapon techniques. All day long he swung sickles and threw hidden weapons.

After a day passed, his entire body would be soaked in blood, making him look completely like a monster that had risen from hell. It had become even worse than before meeting Tang Ha-ran.

It was a sight that made even the observers feel disturbed.

Bian Bu and Woon-jeong stayed far away and didn’t even go near Jin Ja-gang.

“Ugh, look at that mad killing intent. It seems like you’d get cut just by touching him.”

“Primordial Heavenly Venerable. It’s severe. Very severe. I dare not even go near. I’m even afraid my pure mind might be stained by that killing intent.”

“There are so many good things in the world, I don’t know why he lives like that. As if he’d die tomorrow if he doesn’t train today.”

“I’m somewhat envious on one hand.”

“Why would Taoist Woon-jeong be?”

“I played hooky so much that I got scolded by Master every day. If Poison Dragon benefactor had been Master’s disciple instead of me, Master would have cherished him.”

Bian Bu clicked his tongue “tsk tsk.”

“Really? He’d cherish someone like that? Taoist Bok-cheon would like that fellow’s personality?”

After thinking for a moment, Woon-jeong grinned.

“Actually, no matter how much he’s my master, he probably wouldn’t have cherished Poison Dragon benefactor either.”

“Right, right. That’s what I’m saying. Someone who acts so single-mindedly like that, you’d just leave him alone to do his own thing…”

Bian Bu enticed Woon-jeong.

“Let’s continue learning that dice game from before, wasn’t it fun?”

“But is it okay for a Taoist to keep doing such things?”

“Ah, it’s fine. You need to know so you won’t get fooled. There’s a saying that you should learn drinking from adults too.”

“Hehe… it was fun though.”

“Then no using internal energy.”

Bian Bu and Woon-jeong crouched in the shade of a tree in the courtyard and played dice.

Dan Ryeong-gyeong sat under the eaves watching them but said nothing.

Tang Ha-ran sat facing her and said while drinking tea.

“I’m sorry.”

“Is there something you should be sorry for?”

“Because I brought the wrong antidote.”

“That can’t be called your fault. Living in the world, there are all kinds of things that happen.”

“But…”

In the eyes of Dan Ryeong-gyeong and Tang Ha-ran, they could see Soso’s back as she left the house with quick steps.

She was taking food for Jin Ja-gang and frequently bringing it to Jin Ja-gang’s training location. When Jin Ja-gang missed meals while absorbed in training and the food got cold, she would replace it with warm food and bring back the cold food.

As a result, she often went back and forth more than five or six times a day.

Watching such Soso made Tang Ha-ran feel strange.

The look in Soso’s eyes when she had been watching her before kept lingering in her heart.

Tang Ha-ran unconsciously felt her chest tighten.

* * *

Mang Ryo visited Emei Sect.

Mount Emei was in Sichuan territory. Mang Ryo couldn’t enter all the way to the grounds of Golden Summit Peak where Emei Sect’s main mountain was located.

Instead, he met Nun In-eun, the sect leader of Emei Sect, at a small reception hall that Emei Sect had prepared outside the mountain gate.

Mang Ryo put down his crutch and respectfully put his palms together to greet Nun In-eun.

“Namo Amitabha Guanyin Bodhisattva. I greet the Divine Nun of Emei, Sect Leader In-eun.”

Nun In-eun, wearing a monk’s hat, also put her hands together in greeting.

“Amitabha. May you attain Buddhahood.”

Nun In-eun, called Divine Nun in the martial world, was surprisingly in her mid-forties.

Thanks to her profound martial arts, her appearance was like a maiden in her twenties, and her beauty was inappropriately lovely for a nun.

On the surface, she seemed shy and quiet, making it hard to think she was the sect leader of a faction that shouldered one pillar of Buddhism in the martial world.

However, despite her young age, her rise to the position of sect leader was certainly not only because of her high martial arts. Having become sect leader through the previous generation’s exceptional promotion, there must be something more.

Nun In-eun introduced the nun beside her to Mang Ryo.

“This is Nun Myowol, my senior sister. Thanks to the medicine sent by the Tang family, she was able to recover quickly.”

“You’re too kind.”

Mang Ryo even smiled lightly while exchanging greetings and looked at Myowol beside her.

Myowol had an angry face inappropriate for a nun, and was a gaunt-looking old nun. Like Mang Ryo, she wore an eyepatch over her left eye and her right index finger was missing one joint.

Though Myowol had escaped from poisoning, she seemed unable to escape from mental shock as her face was still haggard.

When Mang Ryo stared at her intently, a flame lit in Myowol’s one eye.

“What… are you… looking at…”

Myowol spoke as if she would devour Mang Ryo.

Nun In-eun scolded Myowol as if asking what kind of behavior this was toward a guest.

“Sister Myowol, you mustn’t do that. Thanks to this person, we were able to treat your condition quickly.”

Myowol closed her mouth at Nun In-eun’s words, but her one eye still glared at Mang Ryo. Mang Ryo stepped close enough to almost face her and looked at Myowol’s injured eye from close range.

Myowol’s face turned red with anger. She looked like she thought she was being humiliated by Mang Ryo.

Myowol’s hand gripping the Non-Killing Sword trembled.

However, the words Mang Ryo threw at Myowol were completely unexpected.

“Did it hurt?”

Myowol’s eyes widened. The Non-Killing Sword seemed about to be drawn at any moment.

“Sister!”

At Nun In-eun’s cry, she seemed to barely hold onto the edge of patience.

But Mang Ryo continued speaking.

“I was in great pain. It hurt so unbearably that I couldn’t stand it.”

Mang Ryo pointed in turn to his eye, his right foot cut off below the knee, and his left foot amputated above the knee. He struck the ground with his prosthetic leg making tapping sounds.

“Even one eye hurt that much, but I lost both feet. One after another. And to the same b*st*rd.”

Pause.

Only then did Myowol’s expression soften.

“It must have… hurt a lot.”

“That’s right. But what’s more frustrating is…”

Mang Ryo gestured as if it was absurd and shook his head.

“Even though I want revenge, I can’t do it.”

“Why… is that?”

“I want to kill that b*st*rd, I even know where he is, but I can’t. I could kill him immediately if I saw him.”

Mang Ryo clenched his fist and ground his teeth.

Myowol asked puzzledly.

“Where is that b*st*rd that you can’t…”

“Qingcheng Sect is protecting him.”

“What a strange connection. I heard the b*st*rd who made my eye like this is also being protected by Qingcheng Sect…”

Mang Ryo met Myowol’s eyes and nodded.

“That’s right. We were both harmed by the same b*st*rd.”

Mang Ryo spoke each word slowly.

“Poison. Dragon.”

At that moment, Myowol’s face contorted like a demon. She shouted as if she would run to Qingcheng Sect immediately.

“Zhang! Wu! Yun!”

Nun In-eun sighed with a troubled face.

“Oh my, really. If you incite our Sister Myowol like that…”

Myowol ranted, even spitting.

“Send this foolish sister! I must go immediately, beat down the Taoists of Qingcheng Sect, and make that b*st*rd called Poison Dragon meet a violent death! Otherwise, otherwise I can never dissolve this resentment!”

Myowol’s face flushed. Perhaps from exerting too much force in venting her anger, a thick stream of blood flowed from her eyepatch.

“Uuuugh!”

Pain and resentment seemed to penetrate to her bones.

“Amitabha. This is an order as sect leader. Sister, the conversation isn’t finished yet, so please calm down.”

Myowol ground her teeth while breathing heavily.

Nun In-eun shook her head and asked Mang Ryo.

“Sigh. It seems it won’t pass quietly. What do you wish to say?”

“I’ll speak directly. I’m thinking of devouring Qingcheng Sect…”

Hearing this, Myowol became greatly excited.

However, Nun In-eun showed no change in expression. Indeed, In-eun hadn’t become Emei Sect’s leader for nothing.

Mang Ryo had no idea she was such a person.

Then there was no need to beat around the bush further.

Finally, Mang Ryo openly revealed his true colors.

“Will Emei Sect also participate?”

But even hearing this amazing proposal, Nun In-eun had the same face as before. Rather, she asked back with a calm face.

“Did you come as a representative of the Tang family?”

Mang Ryo showed the King of Hell Plaque that Tang Qing had given him.

“With the qualification of being second only to one person.”

“If the King of Hell permitted it, we can consider it the Tang family’s will.”

“That’s right.”

Still, Nun In-eun answered without any particular change in expression.

“Then shall we do that?”