Chapter 193

Chapter 193: Cannot See the Tree Before One's Eyes (3)

"Guh!"

The entire quarantined group of villagers was showing symptoms of poisoning. Most lay rolling on the ground, their faces the color of earth. Their breathing was ragged, and thick veins bulged grotesquely across their bodies. Their bloodshot eyes looked as though they might burst at any moment.

"How is this possible?"

Jong Ri-yeon's pupils trembled.

Despite their strict precautions and all efforts to contain the poison, the entire village had been poisoned. Among the afflicted were the Im Yi-cheong family, who had so graciously given them shelter.

Jong Ri-yeon was tormented by the feeling that it was all her fault. The Im Yi-cheong family's poisoning, in particular, dealt her a devastating blow.

"Can they be saved?"

"They must be saved."

"But…"

Yu Jin-mun trailed off.

If even martial artists with internal energy had not lasted long, it was impossible to imagine that ordinary people without such training could survive.

Yu Jin-mun gazed at the fallen villagers. The shadow of death already hung over them. No one could wrest them from the Reaper's grasp.

'They are beyond saving. I must give them up.'

He was the Captain of the Golden Guard.

He had to preserve those who still remained unharmed and return to the Martial Alliance.

Jong Ri-yeon was desperately searching for the correct formula for the antidote. But if she could not even save the Golden Guard martial artists who had been poisoned first, saving the vast number of villagers was even more impossible.

Yu Jin-mun quietly stepped outside and gathered the martial artists who had not yet been poisoned.

"You all understand the gravity of the situation?"

The martial artists nodded silently.

"We must make a decision. Whether to remain in this village any longer…"

"Or to withdraw?"

"Precisely."

Yu Jin-mun nodded at his subordinate's question.

He was the one who bore the responsibility.

For the greater good, he was willing to sacrifice the few. If it was necessary, then so be it.

More had died in the interim. Barely a dozen remained. Three were receiving treatment from Jong Ri-yeon, but they did not appear likely to survive.

"I sent Il-mong, but there is no guarantee he reached the Martial Alliance alive. If the one who poisoned this entire area without our knowledge is capable of that, they would certainly have detected Il-mong's movements."

"Are you saying Il-mong may be dead?"

"Yes! Now we must make our decision."

"……"

Everyone fell silent.

They understood what Yu Jin-mun was about to say.

"We abandon this place and fight our way out on our own."

Again, no one answered. It was a tacit agreement.

Then, someone asked cautiously.

"What about the Fist Demon…?"

"The Fist Demon?"

"Will he allow us to leave?"

"He will."

"On what basis?"

"He is a man who lives alone in this world. Do you think he would care whether we leave or not? Besides, we will be gone before he even notices."

"Still, fleeing in the dead of night…"

"Call it a strategic withdrawal. As long as we survive, the Martial Alliance can formulate countermeasures. Our justification is more than sufficient."

Yu Jin-mun's words carried persuasiveness. The Golden Guard martial artists, already gripped by fear, were swayed.

Yu Jin-mun asked a nearby subordinate.

"Where is the Fist Demon now?"

"In his quarters."

"Then there will be no obstacle to our escape."

"That is correct."

"Good. We leave the village now."

"Immediately?"

"Yes. Right now."

Yu Jin-mun moved without hesitation. The Golden Guard martial artists followed behind him.

They cut through the darkness and made their way beyond the village.

"This is all that is left."

Jong Ri-yeon's gaze was fixed upon the herbs laid out upon the table. They bore a faint crimson hue unlike any ordinary medicinal plant.

Madness Blood Grass.

It was a rare herb seldom seen in the wild.

At first glance it resembled the ancient grass of similar name, but its properties were entirely different. Even a small dose of Madness Blood Grass could drive a person to insanity. For this reason, it was primarily used in the preparation of poisons.

"Fighting poison with poison."

Jong Ri-yeon bit her lip.

For the past three days, she had fought tirelessly against the poison that held the village in its grip.

'The master of this poison is a madman. He does not want people to die quickly. He wants them to suffer as much pain as possible before dying. He has combined numerous toxins to make the antidote impossible to derive. But there is a single component that binds all of them together. I must destroy it. Once I do, every individual toxin can be countered one by one.'

Jong Ri-yeon saw the possibility in the Madness Blood Grass.

The problem was whom to administer it to first.

Jong Ri-yeon's gaze fell upon the surviving Golden Guard martial artists. All their comrades had perished; only two remained.

They lay unconscious, unaware that their companions had abandoned them.

If she was to test the Madness Blood Grass, they were the ideal candidates.

Jong Ri-yeon was about to seek out Yu Jin-mun and ask permission to use the Madness Blood Grass when—

"Do as you please."

Dam Ho appeared from somewhere and spoke those words.

"But how can I…"

"Do as I say."

Jong Ri-yeon looked at Dam Ho for a moment. But reading his thoughts from his expression was an impossible task.

"Very well. If you say so…"

"Begin."

"What about you?"

Dam Ho's gaze turned to the Im Yi-cheong family, lying on the ground.

The family who had given him shelter for the night was on the verge of death. If they could not be saved, they too would perish like all the others.

"I need to find the ones who did this."

"But how? We have not seen a shadow of them. You yourself barely left the house because of the Golden Guard."

"Just because I was inside the house does not mean I was idle."

"Then…?"

Jong Ri-yeon stared at Dam Ho intently.

Even her questioning gaze could not draw a response from him.

Rather than engage in lengthy explanation, he chose to act.

***

A pleasantly cool wind was blowing.

Atop a tall tree, a smile appeared on So Gwang's face.

For those who wielded poison, the wind was the ultimate tool. There were some clumsy ones who approached directly and inflicted poison through contact, but that was something only the unskilled would do.

So Gwang looked toward a tree across from him. There, one of his companions stood. Beyond that one, several more were stationed.

All of them had been taught the Poison Channeling Technique by Sa Woo-yeon. Though they had mastered this technique to a proficient level, they were not true poison humans in the complete sense.

Sa Woo-yeon had elevated poison cultivation to the realm of art. He himself was an unparalleled genius who had mastered everything, but So Gwang and the others did not possess that level of talent. They had therefore received instruction only in the Poison Channeling Technique, a mere fraction of the whole.

The only complete poison human was Sa Woo-yeon himself. And so they could not become his disciples, serving instead as loyal retainers.

Each individual's poison technique was not particularly impressive. But when they deployed the Poison Channeling Technique together, the situation changed entirely.

Sa Woo-yeon had taught each of them a different poison. Each was a fearsome toxin in its own right, but what was truly terrifying was the effect when two or more were combined.

Different poisons merged and were reborn as an entirely new toxin. Deciphering an antidote for such a combination was virtually impossible.

Over the past several days, So Gwang and his companions had used the wind to scatter their poisons. Some days, two of them released entirely different toxins; other days, three.

Today, all five had gathered to release their poisons simultaneously. If five different toxins were released at once, no living being in the village would survive.

—Let us begin.

At So Gwang's signal transmission, his companions drew out the pouches containing their poisons.

Their eyes gleamed with madness.

The poison in So Gwang's pouch was Blood-Transforming Toxin, extracted from a rare and venomous toad deep in the southern jungles.

He was about to release it into the wind when—

BOOM!

Without warning, the tree he stood upon shuddered violently, as though struck by a cannonball, and began to topple backward.

"Wh-What?!"

So Gwang leaped in terror, launching himself toward another tree.

CRASH!

The instant he landed, a thunderous crash rang out again, and the second tree fell.

So Gwang had no choice but to leap to yet another tree. But the moment he touched down, that tree too collapsed.

Every tree he set foot on crumbled with a deafening sound. In the end, So Gwang was forced to descend to the ground.

This could not happen of its own accord. Someone had deliberately felled every tree he stood upon.

"Who goes there?!"

So Gwang roared and flung Blood-Transforming Toxin in every direction. It was an instinctive act of self-preservation in the face of danger.

The Blood-Transforming Toxin scattered in all directions.

To anyone other than a poison human of Sa Woo-yeon's caliber, the toxin posed a threat. Even So Gwang himself was not immune. Holding his breath, he retreated.

Thud!

"Urgh!"

In that instant, a powerful hand seized his throat.

So Gwang felt his airway cut off and gasped.

Then, a massive fist struck his mouth.

CRUNCH!

The fist shattered every tooth in his mouth and drove deep into his oral cavity. So Gwang could not even scream; his body simply convulsed.

In the next instant, his body was hoisted into the air and driven into the ground.

BOOM!

The earth shook.

So Gwang's spine was crushed, and his limbs twisted grotesquely. Blood spurted from his mouth.

His vision blurred. Someone was gripping his throat and beating him savagely, yet he could not even make out their face.

'Who are you? Why?'

He screamed in his mind, but no sound escaped. His voice remained trapped inside his skull.

His assailant answered not with words but with relentless brutality.

CRACK!

His collarbone shattered, both knees pulverized. The agony was excruciating, and the fact that he could not even scream drove So Gwang to the brink of madness.

The assailant remained silent throughout.

So Gwang, who had used poison to plunge the Golden Guard and the villagers into a crucible of terror, now understood their anguish in the depths of his bones.

'Who are you?! Why?!'

Even his silent screams went unanswered. Instead, the pouch containing Blood-Transforming Toxin was emptied entirely into his mouth.

'No—don't!'

The alien sensation flooding his mouth made So Gwang shake his head desperately, but it was futile.

The unknown figure emptied the Blood-Transforming Toxin into his mouth, then took a single step back. Only then could So Gwang make out his features.

A man in black, disheveled black hair framing wild, beast-like eyes.

It was Dam Ho.

Dam Ho had used the Destroying Wind Strike to shatter every tree So Gwang stood upon. Then he had waited for the poison user to land and subjected him to merciless violence.

Bubble! Bubble!

Blood-Transforming Toxin was boiling up from So Gwang's mouth.

Blood foam bubbled forth, and So Gwang convulsed violently. He had been forced to swallow enough toxin to kill a hundred people at once. Even with his natural resistance to poison, it was only natural that he could not endure it.

"AAARGH!"

So Gwang let out one final, agonized scream, and his breath ceased. The horrifying potency of the Blood-Transforming Toxin caused his eyes and throat to dissolve first. His body melted away in an instant, leaving only bone behind—a sight so terrible it would haunt nightmares. But Dam Ho watched the entire spectacle without so much as a single blink.

While Yu Jin-mun and the Golden Guard patrolled to guard against the unseen enemy, Dam Ho had been studying their method of poisoning.

It was virtually impossible to poison people without being detected by Dam Ho's perceptive senses. And yet, the poisoned continued to appear.

Dam Ho's conclusion was that they were scattering poison without approaching directly. The only ways to do so were to poison the village well or to use the wind.

The well had been checked. That left only the wind.

Dam Ho had traced the wind's direction and followed it upstream. There, he found So Gwang.

In the darkness, Dam Ho's eyes glinted savagely.

Having recognized So Gwang's death, his companions were fleeing in every direction.

A hunting dog that has been turned upon by its prey returns to its master.

Dam Ho quietly followed in their wake.

The wind had not yet ceased.