Chapter 41

The warrior cowered at Jin Ja-gang’s cold gaze and the poker he was holding.

“P-please spare me. At home, I have a s-sick elderly mother… no, children… I have children. A sick wife…”

When Jin Ja-gang still wouldn’t lower the poker, the warrior squeezed out these words:

“Hundred Flower Valley! There are survivors from Hundred Flower Valley! Kuk kuk kuk.”

“What?”

Jin Ja-gang lowered the poker and questioned the warrior urgently.

“Where are they! Where are the survivors of our sect!”

“I don’t know. But, but the Martial Arts Alliance knows.”

The Martial Arts Alliance!

“I only know they were sent to some mine in Nanhua… kuk kuk. Beyond that…”

Jin Ja-gang lowered the poker.

Hope flickered in the warrior’s eyes.

“P-please give me the antidote. Have mercy on me…”

Mercy.

At the word ‘mercy’, Jin Ja-gang thought for a moment, then said:

“Open your mouth.”

“Uh… huh?”

“I said open your mouth.”

“Ah, ah…”

The warrior opened his mouth, foam still coating his lips.

Jin Ja-gang placed his little finger over the warrior’s mouth. A transparent droplet formed, mixed with blood, and fell.

Gulp.

After the warrior swallowed the fluid, Jin Ja-gang turned away without hesitation.

“Kuk!”

It was a deeper, more desperate groan than before.

“Urrrgh! Uaaargh!”

A sound like someone wringing out their entire body echoed behind Jin Ja-gang.

Jin Ja-gang paid the warrior no further attention.

He still had work to do.

Seo Gil-pung, the Petition Supervisor, and Baek Li-jung, the Magistrate of the Martial Arts Alliance’s Yunnan Branch.

The corrupt martial artists who had colluded with the Extreme Poison Sect to socially bury Hundred Flower Valley.

They needed to be dealt with.

Jin Ja-gang was neither a righteous person nor a heroic warrior. He didn’t have the ability to enforce justice.

But he couldn’t just leave those who were accomplices and collaborators with the Extreme Poison Sect.

And he needed to find the few surviving members of Hundred Flower Valley.

He had one more reason to live.

“Hoo…”

Jin Ja-gang let out a heavy sigh.

He touched his abdomen.

The poisonous mass that had settled in his dantian had now noticeably shrunk.

Would he have enough poison left to kill them too?

Until he tried… it was still impossible to know.

With pain like his entire body’s bones were shattered, a split and bleeding sole, and a leg that limped uselessly… Jin Ja-gang began to leave the Extreme Poison Sect, walking among the corpses.

* * *

“Urgh…”

Suddenly, a body that had been lying face down began to move.

“Urrgh! Kuluk kuluk!”

Mang-ryo coughed out ashes that filled his mouth and struggled to breathe.

“Urrrk! Urrrgh!”

His airways and nose were so swollen that he could barely breathe, but somehow the swelling had subsided enough to allow him to breathe again.

“Kuhak, hak.”

Hiss, hisssss.

The charcoal on the floor still emitted heat and smoke, but Mang-ryo first registered the fact that he was alive.

‘The antidote worked!’

The antidotes he had prepared for arsenic and taken immediately after being stabbed with the poker seemed to have helped.

But he was far from safe.

His stomach churned wildly, and his head felt like it was about to split. His limbs felt numb, as if they didn’t belong to him.

His airways, which had briefly subsided, were beginning to swell again, making breathing difficult. It was truly an incredibly potent poison.

‘I’ll die at this rate!’

He needed to remove the poison that even the antidote couldn’t eliminate.

Mang-ryo spat out the remaining ashes in his mouth and desperately moved his head to look around the room for anything useful.

He spotted charcoal next to the bed in the corner. It was fresh charcoal that had been brought in to replenish the brazier’s fire.

‘Charcoal!’

Mang-ryo suddenly had an idea.

Charcoal has the property of absorbing toxins. If he swallowed it, the toxins would be attracted to it and expelled. Perhaps he could use it to expel the remaining poison.

There was plenty of charcoal and ash right in front of him, but he couldn’t eat that. The charcoal in the brazier had been covered with Jin Ja-gang’s poison.

Mang-ryo crawled across the room with all his might. He had no time to worry about the burns on his chest and stomach that were oozing fluid.

His breathing was becoming obstructed again.

With his face horribly red and blistered, skin peeling, Mang-ryo crawled across the floor.

Sizzle, sizzle.

Holding his breath, he dragged himself to the corner of the room. Even amid the terrible pain enveloping his entire body, he didn’t give up.

He stretched his barely responsive arm and grabbed the charcoal. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, he began to chew it.

Crunch!

If this charcoal didn’t absorb the toxins in Mang-ryo’s mouth and body, he would die.

No, even if the charcoal absorbed the toxins but wasn’t properly expelled from his body, he would still die.

The charcoal he was eating was bamboo charcoal, not meant for consumption. The broken pieces had sharp edges that could pierce his stomach and create holes in his abdominal cavity, causing bleeding.

But he had no choice.

Mang-ryo, with a face like a demon, chewed and swallowed the charcoal.

Crunch, crunch!

‘I’ll live. I will live! I swear I’ll live and cut your throat!’… 

***

“You may enter.”

“Thank you for your hard work.”

A man dressed in scholar’s attire exchanged greetings with the gatekeeper as he left the Yunnan Branch of the Martial Arts Alliance.

It was Petition Supervisor Seo Gil-pung.

As Seo Gil-pung came out to leave work, two warriors from the Martial Arts Alliance followed him as escorts.

“Shall we go to your home?”

“Of course.”

Seo Gil-pung’s expression was deeply furrowed, and his voice was low.

Anyone could see he was in a terrible mood. Recently, his plans had gone awry and become a complete mess.

And among those issues, the one that annoyed Seo Gil-pung the most was none other than the Extreme Poison Sect.

“It’s truly troubling.”

It was because of the message delivered a month ago by a strange man in rags who suddenly appeared.

The Extreme Poison Sect had been annihilated.

That brief message had kept him busy.

As it turned out, that strange man was none other than Mang-ryo, who had been an elder of the Extreme Poison Sect.

His appearance was pitiful.

His face and body were covered with burns, and one eye was blind.

His left foot had been amputated, and his right foot was paralyzed, forcing him to use crutches under both arms to walk.

The Yunnan Branch immediately dispatched an investigation team.

The actual bloodbath had occurred more than three months earlier, according to reports. Mang-ryo had been delayed in coming due to his physical condition.

Therefore, by the time the investigation team arrived, it was almost four months after the massacre, and most of the bodies were already severely decomposed.

Miao Ligoujao, the sect leader, was found as a charred corpse with an iron hook embedded in his skull, and most of the sect’s masters and over two hundred disciples were also discovered as rotting corpses.

Though there were reportedly some survivors, they had taken anything of value and fled, leaving no witnesses to provide testimony.

It was a complete annihilation.

The Extreme Poison Sect had been silently erased.

Mang-ryo claimed that all of this had been caused by a single boy named Jin Ja-gang.

He said the boy had escaped, killing the sect’s masters, annihilated the pursuit team, and finally returned to exterminate the Extreme Poison Sect.

But Seo Gil-pung didn’t believe Mang-ryo’s words.

In his view, Mang-ryo was already half-insane.

‘That child named Jin Ja-gang…’

It had been nearly a year since that incident.

The boy who had stared at him during the trial. He truly had an uncomfortable gaze.

Of course, Seo Gil-pung had forgotten about him afterward. What could a mere child do to him?

But how, by what means could a boy of about ten years have reduced the Extreme Poison Sect to such a state?

It was nonsensical.

Therefore, Seo Gil-pung ignored Mang-ryo’s claims.

‘What force was involved in the annihilation of the Extreme Poison Sect?’

Seo Gil-pung believed another power had been involved. That was the most reasonable suspicion he could have at the moment.

To be honest, the annihilation of the Extreme Poison Sect itself wasn’t a major issue. The Extreme Poison Sect was part of the poison sect faction and difficult for other sects to confront, but in reality, it was merely a third-rate sect.

However, even such a sect was about to formally join the Martial Arts Alliance. The fact that someone had annihilated the Extreme Poison Sect meant there was a fearless group that didn’t care about the Martial Arts Alliance.

‘Who could they be?’

There were many suspects.

Poison sects traditionally stood between the righteous and evil factions. There had been significant opposition from existing sects about the policy to admit poison sects.

‘It seems the opposition faction has made a move…’

Even from Baek Li-jung, a letter had arrived urging caution in approaching this matter.

It was not an issue that could be taken lightly.

‘What a nuisance.’

Seo Gil-pung clicked his tongue and quickened his pace home.

Perhaps because he was leaving work later than usual, it was already dark.

* * *

Just as Seo Gil-pung turned into an alley.

He spotted a boy holding a small lantern on a short stick standing ahead.

‘Why is he blocking the way?’

Standing in the middle of the narrow path, he was indeed blocking it.

One of the escort warriors stepped forward and barked at the boy.

“Move aside.”

The boy with the lantern stared up at the escort warrior.

“Hey, you! I said move!”

There was something strange about the boy’s attitude.

‘Is he slow-witted?’

Seo Gil-pung craned his neck to examine the boy’s face. Since he was holding the lantern at an angle, shadows fell across his face, making it difficult to see clearly. From his appearance, his clothes were tattered and worn like a beggar’s, but his hair was cut short.

‘Huh?’

While Seo Gil-pung was wondering, he made eye contact with the boy. Just as he thought the eyes looked familiar, the boy lowered his head and stepped aside.

“Let’s go.”

The escort warrior went ahead past the boy, and Seo Gil-pung and the other warrior were about to do the same.

Swish.

The boy who had been standing with his head lowered shook the lantern. The lamp inside swayed, causing the light to flicker. Whitish smoke flowed out and drifted with the wind.

The escort warrior who had just passed the boy suddenly staggered.

“Urgh!”

The escort warrior clawed at his face, then grabbed his throat and painfully crashed against the side wall.

Thud, thud!

“Urrrgh!”

The escort warrior’s eyes bulged as he fell to his knees. Then, gradually, his body toppled sideways.

“Hey!”

The other escort warrior rushed to his fallen comrade in shock. It was natural to help when a colleague suddenly collapsed.

Seo Gil-pung, looking at the boy who stood quietly holding the lantern beside the fallen warrior, suddenly felt uneasy.

‘Wait? About ten years old?’