Chapter 833: A Moment to Savor (8)

No matter how she thought about it, there was no reason she should’ve been exposed.

In the first place, someone who had survived after facing Elder Bandit Lotus... wasn’t it basically just a case of letting a couple of them live on that mountain pass?

And even then, the only one she’d bothered to put on anything resembling a “conversation” with was the one man who’d had his eyes, ears, and mouth—plus both hands—destroyed, leaving him completely cut off from the outside world.

As for the rest, it was nothing more than a handful of Blood Cult small fry she’d spared—couriers she’d sent out because it would be a waste if the horrific “life” she’d crafted for them just starved to death, and because she wanted to sow confusion by having them spread the name the rice-eater.

So what kind of connection was there between the Heavenly Flower Sword and the Supreme Thief Overlord, the rice-eater?

In truth, Qing hadn’t made a single mistake.

An enemy of the Blood Cult had appeared, so Poison Demon simply sold out the Five Poison Sect’s grudge—using the Five Poison Sect, who were expendable, instead of sacrificing his own subordinates, who weren’t.

That was all.

So she was the victim of a completely baseless, ridiculous, forced fit that happened to land.

Which made Qing feel wronged.

Made her start blaming herself—Did I mess something up somewhere?

And then her heart dropped into her gut—Don’t tell me they knew I’d take Dochae Mountain and were already standing watch here? But if they’re at the point where even my route up the mountain gets exposed, then scouting or anything like that doesn’t matter—either the Blood Cult has already bolted, or they’ve already finished setting up some kind of countermeasure...

Inside her, all kinds of suspicion-demons spun in circles.

“Ghk...!”

While Qing was thinking, the Five Poison Sect disciple whose airway she’d been sealing kept thrashing.

The frantic shove of lungs desperate to force open a breath hammered against her palm—violent, like a fish battering bait—

and only then did Qing finally make her decision.

For now—retreat.

Whether it was “know the enemy and never be endangered” or “know the enemy and win every fight,” the law was the same: you had to know the enemy first.

Besides, she hadn’t come here to run wild.

The goal was, until the very end, scouting the Blood Cult—

That was when it happened.

RUSTLE! The sound of bushes grinding together.

And then, out of nowhere, an old man popped out, raising a wine bottle high as he spoke.

“Disciples! You holding the line well? Want another drink?”

“Ah.”

“There’s a bit left—hup.”

The Five Poison Sect elder who’d come to hand out liquor to his disciples sucked in a startled breath.

Since there was still wine left, he’d come all the way back out to this far outer ambush position to pour them another round—(with the first-generation disciples wiped out in a mass death, the elders had been forced to take over instruction for the second generation).

He could see it in his mind: those brats rushing in with bright smiles, thrilled.

His heart was warm and his steps were light.

Not even realizing how ridiculous he looked, he’d crept up and—ta-da—appeared.

And what his eyes met was—

a disciple’s corpse split clean in half, and another disciple lifted up by the throat, his eyes rolling back in real time as he slipped toward death.

“Heavenly Flower Sword...!”

The elder groaned—and immediately launched himself away.

Back through the brush he’d come from, using what was basically a “reverse countercharge rear rush.”

It wasn’t even a retreat with a moment of hesitation.

CRACK. The sound of a neck snapping.

Qing simply broke the disciple’s neck one-handed and kicked off the ground in a rush.

No, what the hell!?

No, what—at least swear at me or something, instead of the second you see a person you spin around and run like you just saw something you weren’t supposed to see. You popped out all “disciples!”—shouldn’t you at least pretend to get mad once?

Qing was deeply, thoroughly wronged.

And this time I didn’t even say anything!

She had a bamboo hat pulled low, caked mud messily over the visible lower half of her face, and she’d even reinforced and pressed down her chest with metal.

So why do you recognize me at a glance!?

It’s not like I’m wearing a sign that says Heavenly Flower Sword, and—wait—does something say it somewhere? Like, Heavenly Flower Sword Seomun Cheong?

Either way, there couldn’t be a witness.

Kill him or capture him—either way, the fact that she was here could not reach the Blood Cult’s ears.

Trees on both sides streaked backward through Qing’s vision.

Her eyes moved busily, senses dragged up to the limit as she read the terrain—left, right, sometimes leaping clean over, sometimes ducking low to skim beneath branches that stretched out close to the ground.

Even in this tropical rainforest, a heaven-gifted maze packed tight with obstacles, her Lightness Art unfolded without a hitch—peerless under heaven.

But that elder had been roaming inside the Ten-Sided Ambush formation for over half a month already.

He was used to the terrain; his movement was ingrained, his escape stripped of all waste.

By contrast, Qing was on a completely unfamiliar path.

Worse—this jungle floor was irregular, and the ground itself couldn’t be read under brush and fallen leaves.

And yet, despite that, the distance between Qing and the elder kept shrinking.

Because a poison-arts martial artist was objectively weaker in pure realm—strip the elder of poison, and his raw skill was embarrassing.

Qing’s right hand brushed past the back of her head.

A long, slender spike was already in her grip—the Priestess Order’s special combat hairpin.

Her right arm rose high, swinging in a huge arc as if throwing a massive spear—

WHOOSH—

But it missed!

At almost the same instant it was thrown, the hairpin’s tip suddenly jutted up from the middle of the elder’s thigh.

She’d meant to hit the hollow behind his knee and stop him, but either the ground abruptly dipped into a water-worn groove, or her aim slipped—so it buried itself higher than intended.

Even so, it was a frighteningly violent hidden-weapon throw, like it had skipped the entire process of flying through the air.

Of course, a true hidden-weapons master might say, That’s not technique—you just threw it with brute force.

And in the first place, hitting a running opponent’s knee was never easy.

The torso might be stable, but the lower body was always moving—

Even with the hairpin driven so deep that only the head remained visible in his thigh, the elder didn’t scream once.

He just kept running, limping.

Was he that desperate to live?

Or was it that addictive surge of substances people said erupted in the brain at the boundary between life and death?

If it weren’t a moment where she had to seize and beat him down in a hurry, she could’ve tried coaxing him with words—provoking him.

You shameless old bastard. You’ve lived long enough, but you still want to live ugly like this, turning your back and running from your disciples’ enemy?

Thanks to the hairpin, the distance between them started shrinking fast.

A bowshot became fifteen steps.

Then ten steps—half a bowshot.

Then five steps—now, if she extended her blade, could she barely, barely reach him?

In that instant, Heavenly Demon True Energy kicked open the door and burst out from Qing’s lower abdomen.

A hatred that had festered for ages—now compressed into pure obsession, so thick it had forgotten its original purpose—an energy that was the most sorrowful under heaven and earth.

Its jagged flow scraped through the channels in her legs in a stinging ache, rushing down—

to the Bubbling Spring Point in her soles.

And then—

BOOM! A footstep that wasn’t like the others.

Qing’s body stretched long, like a thick stroke of a brush dragged across the page.

The enemy’s back, suddenly close.

The tip of her sword touched his back—and, as if it were only natural, slid in smoothly.

“Khk.”

Qing swung the blade roughly.

The steel that had driven into the center of his back burst out through his side.

Blood sprayed in a hard SPLAAASH through the brush.

THUD-CRASH—he tumbled to the ground, and Qing, a beat late, stepped—step, step—onto the earth.

Then she bent at the waist, reaching a hand for the old man’s twitching shoulder—

That was the moment.

WHEEEE!! WHEEEEE!! WHEEEE!!!

Whether it was the dying old man’s last struggle or not, a roaring whistle-blast burst out.

Qing slashed the elder’s throat in a hurry, and his head rolled half a turn, eyes spinning as it stared at her.

Right before death, the Five Poison Sect elder burned Qing into his eyes—the face of his disciples’ enemy.

Disciples he’d buried in his chest.

An elder who’d grown old without a wife or children—his disciples had been his children in all but blood.

So what kind of loss had it been?

You half-grown thing—how dare you pretend you can measure the grief of losing a child? When the disciples who went to Sichuan came back as heads pickled in salt, I was already not alive even if I lived. The ones you killed weren’t only my disciples—same for me. So why would I fear death? I wish I could’ve dragged you deeper in, but this is enough. It’s already plenty. Now, in the blade-furnace prepared for you, struggle until you die. I’ll go to hell first and wait.

If Qing could’ve read minds, she would’ve been left not just dumbfounded—speechless.

No—your disciples didn’t die doing anything righteous.

They died because they tried to spread poison in someone else’s land and slaughter innocent people in droves, and got caught.

If it were me, after raising disciples like that, I wouldn’t be able to lift my head out of shame—forget children.

But the old man didn’t bother speaking any of it out loud.

He just died.

Only—

a twitch.

The elder’s head, lips curled around the whistle, forced itself into a twisted grin.

A deep furrow slammed into Qing’s forehead.

He’s... smiling?

What is this?

He was the one who ran without even looking back—and now suddenly this grim, poisonous resolve, grinning like got you—

like she’d been lured.

Ah.

So he didn’t run to save himself.

He ran to make her chase him no matter what.

Bait.

—WHEEE, WHK, WHEEEEE.

—WHK! WHEEEE! WHK-WHK-WHK!

—WHK-WHK, WHK! WHEEEE! WHK-WHK-WHK!

As if answering him, whistles began moving busily from every direction at once.

And then—

WHEEEEE... KA-BOOM.

Fireworks bursting above the roof the trees made overhead.

Huuuh—Qing drew in a deep breath.

This time, she really was going to stay quiet—really just scout and wait.

But these poison-obsessed bastards—

with poison that doesn’t even work on her—

want to have a go with her, is that it?

*****

It was an evening like that—exhausting ambush work, and though it wasn’t cold, still, a cup of clear liquor warmed the insides, making the body lazy.

But—

WHEEEE, WHEEEE, WHEEEE...!

A violent sound tore that drowsiness apart.

Hu Cheonchi, Leader of the Five Poison Sect, shot to his feet.

They hadn’t set a separate whistle signal for when the enemy was found—when that gnawing, damned enemy was found.

Because no matter who it was, if someone blew a whistle hard, that itself meant the enemy had come.

That hateful Heavenly Flower Sword had come.

They’d assumed nothing except hunting down the Heavenly Flower Sword.

So there was no need to “decide” a discovery signal.

When there was only one thing in existence, you didn’t need to number it or classify it.

The first whistle that rang out—that alone was enough.

The whistles spread.

This time, they had rhythm.

Confirmed: Squad Forty acknowledges enemy-appearance signal. Preparing.

Confirmed: Squad Forty-One acknowledges enemy-appearance signal. Preparing.

Confirmed: Squad Thirty-Eight...

Confirmed...

The whistles spread faster and faster.

Just from the sound, Hu Cheonchi could picture it: the Ten-Sided Ambush formation opening, filling in from left and right across a vast circular domain.

Then—

WHEEEE, KA-BOOM...! KA-BOOM...! KA-BOOM...!

Fireworks—the signal that the formation’s core had been set.

Hu Cheonchi counted them.

One, two, three... six, seven.

Eight!

The Heaven-Net Sixty-Four-Gate Sealing Formation.

Eight directions divided again into eight—sixty-four gates total.

Only one Life Gate, and even that kept shifting and moving.

Despite its grand name, all it really did was twist directions, imprisoning the enemy so they couldn’t get out.

But simple was best.

Without the extreme distortions of infamous formations—no hallucinations that warped what you saw, heard, smelled, and touched—

it concentrated every function on one thing: making the target wander.

But add every trap mixed with all sorts of deadly poisons.

Then combine it with a large force that had mastered the formation’s shifts and the movement routes they created—

The Heavenly Flower Sword was only a young upstart of the peak rank.

Even if—by that absurd achievement—she’d somehow reached the Transformation Realm, it didn’t change anything.

No, even if she reached the Manifest Realm, it was the same.

In a trap like this, even a Manifest Realm master could be killed.

If a master of the Manifest Realm took poison, at best they could seize the poison and delay it—then later spend time detoxifying.

So if you kept pouring poison in until it crossed the limit, then no matter how profound a realm a master had reached, they couldn’t come out unscathed.

Of course, to catch a Manifest Realm master, you had to be prepared to lose almost all your sect members as the price.

And the Five Poison Sect had already prepared itself to lose most of its members.

Once they’d taken the Blood Cult’s hand, whether far or near, the sect’s downfall was all but decided.

But if they didn’t avenge their own—if they didn’t avenge their sect brothers—then what reason did a sect even have to exist?

Hu Cheonchi’s expression twisted.

As if he were crying, as if he were furious—yet holding those feelings, he smiled in a pale, gleaming shape.

So the Heavenly Flower Sword—that bitch—dies today.

What is she, even—

some lofty realm that only shows up in the nonsense stories idle mouths tell—

Yeah. Unless it’s the realm of Myriad-Poison Immunity, then—