Chapter 824: Let’s Commit Slaughter (4)

That was a look Qing truly loved.

The exact look you got when a bad bastard finally realized his fate had been well and truly fucked.

Yeah. This is slaughter. Yup.

It wasn’t some grand justice, or some noble work “for the world.”

When you see murderers, scammers—trash like that—living fat and happy, slapping their bellies, doesn’t rage boil up inside you, like your insides are bursting into flame?

In your head, killing them a hundred times, a thousand times still wouldn’t be enough—so when you hear later that the bastard met a miserable end?

Without even meaning to, a smile creeps up, your mood lifts, and something in you finally feels cleared out, doesn’t it.

But not as “news.”

With your own hands—when you personally wreck them—what does that feel like?

This is so good. Seriously, the best. There’s no way to explain it......

Thanks, Central Plains. Always.

A world that worships private punishment as chivalry itself—praised by all under heaven, loved as “knight-errants.”

What a blessing. No—this is the greatest.

Qing spoke in a strangely buoyant voice.

“Guys. Arms.”

At that, Peng Daesan and Jegal Ihyeon—who had been pinning Jeong Ryujang to the floor—lifted the bastard’s arms high in unison.

A posture that clearly exceeded the shoulder joint’s limit.

RIIIP—tendons attached to bone tore rough and ugly, and the shoulder the torso had been holding onto slipped free.

“GAAAH!! Ugh—aaagh......”

“Wow, Lord of Jeong Family Manor! Your shoulders—your shoulders got broader! They were so narrow it was painful to look at, so I widened them for you. Be grateful for the rest of your life.”

The dislocated shoulder popped out with a dull thunk—front-to-back balance was shot, but left-to-right, it sure as hell got wider.

“KRAAAAGH, I’LL KILL YOU—! I’LL KILL YOU ALL! You dog bastards—every last one of you! You fucking dogs!!”

The veins bulging on his forehead said it all—he was in insane pain.

Honestly, if you’ve ever had your shoulder pop out, you know. It hurts like you’ve gone mad.

“Dog—fuck— I’ll kill you— I’ll kill you all— AAAAAH— do you know who I am— I’ll kill you— hhk......”

Nothing like the “gentleman” act he’d shown until now—curse after curse poured out without pause.

But an enemy’s curses are basically praise to me.

All it is, is a confession: Teacher, you made me feel so fucking filthy.

“Yeah, yeah. Wow. So scary. But what can you do, exactly? You can kill people just by wanting to—wow! Heart Sword!”

“KRAAAAGH!!!”

“What? Are you getting mad right now? Lord of Jeong Family Manor! This is not the time to get mad, but you’re swearing your head off—wow. I’m hurt.”

Qing grinned and stepped back into the office again.

“I’m so, so hurt that—Lord—when I get hurt, I have this habit of getting cruel. Ah, I’m hurt. I feel like my wounds will heal if I yank out that nasty tongue.”

Only then did Jeong Ryujang’s face go paper-white.

“W-wait......!”

“But before that—yap.”

Qing snapped her index finger straight out, ambushing him.

A long finger driving in between what was left of his pupils.

A scream burst out.

Driving my body into an enemy’s body—(a weapon is just an extension of the body)—and the prognosis that comes back, transmitted directly through contact.

Muscle trembling, slackening, tensing.

Bone compressing.

Tendons shifting.

Stiffening—yet also those violent, fluttering convulsions, like the “bite” of a massive fish thrashing at the end of a line......

All those signs of pain—really—like lava hot enough to scorch your spine, spreading an unbearable tremor through every muscle in your body.

Of course, she didn’t show it on the surface.

Controlling your body is the most basic qualification of a martial artist—and besides, it’s embarrassing to show people.

“GAAAAAAH!!”

But Jeong Ryujang—crushed under two martial artists—couldn’t run.

He couldn’t see anything, so fear he couldn’t resist rose up in the world that lost its light in an instant, and all he could do was scream until his throat tore.

In front of him, Qing spread her arms wide.

Then she clapped hard—

SMACK!

With a villain’s skull wedged between her palms.

For Jeong Ryujang, the only sound left was a high, thin—

EEEEEEEE—

a gigantic tinnitus that felt like a roar.

And so his screams—the screams of the bastard who had made countless plague victims, who had killed their families to manufacture corpse poison—degenerated into something rough and mournful, like an animal.

Bright red blood trickled from both earholes, slowly drawing a crooked zigzag line down his cheeks.

“AAAH! AAAAH! Ngh! Auh! Uhh—uhhh!”

A hard hand clamped his cheeks so he couldn’t close the mouth he’d opened to scream.

He couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear. Everything that touched him was pure terror—reason had flown away long ago.

He tried to force his mouth shut, not even noticing the pain, chewing down on his own cheek again and again until bright red blood smeared and shone on his white teeth.

Qing shoved her fingers straight into the Blood Cult’s lowest trash’s mouth.

She spread her index and middle fingers, bent them, and caught the root of his tongue between them—yanking, tightening—

Right. From now on, this tongue is mine.

Qing tossed the tongue she’d finally gotten into her hand onto the office floor with a dull plop.

It’s only worth cutting off when it’s still attached to the enemy’s body—once it’s off, it’s not even edible. Just unburning trash.

“Nanna. Give me some Staunching Powder. If a bastard like this bleeds out and dies comfortably, that’s a waste.”

“Huh? Name.”

“There aren’t any ears listening in here anymore.”

Now Jeong Ryujang had lost three of his five senses.

Sight, hearing, taste.

Touch... well, you could peel all the skin off... but then he’d die too fast.

And smell—you can’t erase that, can you?

Wait. Five senses are sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, right? Then what’s pain? A sixth sense?

No. The sixth sense is supposed to be psychic powers......

For a moment, useless knowledge from home surfaced—but Qing already knew: no matter how hard she thought, she couldn’t find the answer now.

Unless it was one of those thoughts that hit you when you lay down to sleep someday—forcing it was pointless when there was no way to verify it anymore.

“Ah. Right. Wow, it’s so frustrating—here, Qing.”

After sprinkling the powder carefully inside the mouth, the trio was complete: mute, blind, and deaf!

And on top of that—

CRUNCH.

Peng Daesan and Jegal Ihyeon twisted the arm they were holding about half a turn, then let go.

Normally, those two might’ve made uneasy faces at Qing’s cruel handiwork, might’ve tried to rein her in for going too far.

But they were furious, too.

Because the Blood Cult’s work was the Blood Cult’s work.

Spreading disease to create countless victims—then slaughtering innocent people who came out trying to save their families through “medicine.”

How could you not be enraged?

If anything, their expressions even carried a kind of cathartic relief.

Those who stay close to ink turn black.

That’s what it meant.

This was why adults nagged you to make the right friends.

*****

What the Blood Cult martial artists of Jeong Family Manor rushed out to see was the coal mine entrance—belching out pitch-black smoke.

They’d come out to stop the disaster of fire spreading into the mine, no matter what.

But if the thing they arrived to see was a mine already burning?

All they could do at first was stand there in a daze.

Stunned—and once you actually see a burning mine, you don’t even know what to do.

“C-captain, the mine......!”

The man called captain snapped back to his senses.

“T-those bastards—forget guarding the mine, what fire is this— Poison Demon gave special orders to manage it! We—we have to block the entrance right now! You—take three men and fill sandbags. You—pick up rocks. Move, now!”

If a coal mine caught fire, there was only one way to put it out.

Pile rocks and earth at the entrance and seal it tight.

People of the Central Plains in this era might not know the exact principle—but they did know this much: if air can’t get in, the fire goes out.

If Qing had been here to see it, she would’ve snorted and said, Of course you’d do that.

Because what they were worried about, seeing this fire, wasn’t the safety of the miners camped at the mouth of the mine—the “countrymen” they claimed.

It was Poison Demon’s special order.

The corpse-poison workshop.

And even then, it wasn’t that the workshop mattered so much—they were terrified of the backlash from Poison Demon.

So the martial artists grabbed shovels and sackcloth bags and rushed into frantic work.

Martial arts training helps even with labor—stronger digging force, more flexible bodies, bigger movements—

and even as they approached the mine entrance pouring out choking smoke, they could hold their breath and keep their breathing under control.

The best workers imaginable.

Back in Qing’s homeland, military logistics officers would’ve stared with sparkling eyes at talent like this.

And so obstacles began piling up at the mine entrance.

More martial artists arrived and joined in, speeding up the work.

*****

Meanwhile—just inside the mine entrance, in the shallow area.

A suspicious sack lay tossed on the floor, plain as day.

A thin rope stuck out of it and ran deeper inside.

And if you followed that rope in?

Under the choking smoke, you’d see a tiny flame crawling along the rope, burning it as it slowly headed outward.

The flame kept creeping, and then, after it finished consuming the rope, it dove straight into the sack.

In that instant—

TATATANG!

The crack of exploding powder—

WHOOSH!

A decent burst of fire flared up.

Then thick smoke billowed up from the sack, tunneling into the mine’s already-black smoke.

*****

A Blood Cult martial artist stacking sandbags hacked out a rough cough.

“Ngh—COUGH! KHK—why is it so spicy.......”

“Cush wharrk, yorgi marhi ji mangger.”

“Kuh—COUGH! KHK! Hhk—ghh—ugh.”

Maybe he’d already inhaled too much to help it—he staggered, then collapsed, coughing nonstop.

Another Blood Cult martial artist clicked his tongue, hooked an arm under his comrade’s armpit, and dragged him out of the smoke.

“Hey. What’s wrong with him?”

“Looks like he inhaled too much smoke.”

“Tch. When we’re short-handed. Give him water and lay him down farther away. A ‘martial artist’ who can’t even manage his breathing.”

The captain clicked his tongue—

Then froze.

“What—why is he like that?”

“Huh? W-wait—”

The Blood Cult martial artist looked down at the collapsed man—

Saw foam bubbling up around his mouth—

And recoiled in shock.

That was the moment.

The martial artists blocking the mine entrance began to wobble and drop, one after another.

“Damn it, what are you doing! Get the men out first!”

The captain rushed in, grabbing their arms one by one and dragging them out in his panic.

But every one of them was foaming, their eyes rolling back until only whites showed.

The captain’s face turned blue.

Classic poisoning symptoms.

No—don’t tell me—did a fire break out in the corpse-poison workshop? If the smoke is mixed with corpse poison—

“Poison smoke—poison smoke! Everyone, back off! Get out! All of you, back off—cover your mouths and noses!”

He made what he thought was the best choice.

If poison smoke was already pouring out of the corpse-poison workshop, then their objective had already failed.

Rather than increasing pointless sacrifices, it was better to let the mine collapse naturally.

Poison Demon’s wrath was terrifying—but if a fire broke out underground in the corpse-poison workshop, that was most likely a mistake by the Blood Cult poison-crafters making corpse poison down there, wasn’t it?

Of course, inside the corpse-poison workshop, the Blood Cult’s lowest trash were still alive and breathing.

All that had happened was that Nanna had planted a standard poison.

Just in case the fire got put out too quickly, she’d mixed in poison smoke to delay suppression.

It was a long-burning poison, and not that lethal.

In truth, if you got some fresh air, regained consciousness, and recovered, it was the kind of poison you’d get over.

But from the Blood Cult martial artists’ perspective, not knowing that, their judgment wasn’t avoidable.

So as thick black smoke continued to billow madly out of the mine—

At last—

RUUUUMBLE—!

GUGUNG......!

A heavy sound you heard less with your ears and more with the soles of your feet.

The tunnel inside collapsed.

It was the moment thousands of pounds of coal-mixed earth and boulders crashed down onto the steel plate covering the vertical passage leading to the corpse-poison workshop.