Chapter 859: The Way of the Sail Swordsman (6)

Soon, two of the Poison Blood Guard—who had been standing to either side of the deputy Great Lord like corpses, not even twitching—moved and set the pellets containing the gu poison down in front of Qing and Gilun.

Qing’s body was, by default, built beyond human limits.

Her sense of smell—sharp like her other senses, just as honed as her strength—caught the faint spicy tang leaking from the Poison Blood Guard’s breath.

Mm. When someone’s breath is mixed with poison energy, most people don’t call that a person.

Blood Cult bastards really did make everything, didn’t they.

Of course, the Blood Cult could feel wronged.

If the weak wanted to face the strong, they couldn’t win by the same methods.

If a swordsman wanted to beat a swordsman far superior to him, there was no answer in simply throwing himself harder into swordsmanship. He needed other means.

And so the Central Plains called those other means heretical arts.

A method that made a swordsman who had trained thirty years lose to a swordsman who had trained ten.

In a righteous and fair world, a ten-year swordsman should never defeat a thirty-year swordsman.

(Assuming equal effort and talent.)

Because that would be unfair and unjust.

So it was called heretical arts—crooked, unjust means.

The Blood Cult was always weak, and so they used heretical arts.

Monsters, too, were heretical arts.

Poison Blood Guard and their failed prototypes, Poison Brutes. Blood-Energy Demons and their cultivated stock, Blood Hungry Ghosts, and the failures that came out along the way...

Still, weakness didn’t guarantee goodness.

A lot of people made that mistake without even realizing it.

Anyway, Qing didn’t know, and what was there to know.

She didn’t particularly want to know, and there was nothing shameful about not knowing something you never wanted to learn.

Qing popped the antidote into her mouth.

The moment it hit her tongue, it melted—bitter at first, then a clean medicinal scent, cool and minty, blooming in her mouth.

How to put it...

It tasted exactly like mint chocolate.

Mm. Not bad.

If someone who knew Qing heard her, they might ask whether anything that went into that mouth ever tasted bad.

At the sight, the deputy Great Lord’s lips twisted off to one side.

Martial artists—especially masters—always had that baseless confidence that they’d somehow claw their way out of the gu poison mire.

But the pain Blood-Gu poison inflicted was not a kind of pain a human could endure.

How many times had he watched upright righteous-sect knight-errants sob like children and beg for mercy in humiliation before the agony gu poison bestowed?

And how exhilarating that scene was.

Come to think of it, he hadn’t indulged in that kind of entertainment in a long, long time.

Not since the Second-Line Blood Cult Unit had been wiped out.

How long had it been?

And wasn’t the Heavenly Flower Sword the very enemy of that Second-Line Blood Cult Unit?

He could torment her for the fallen comrades’ share as well, grind her down into misery—

And especially for a woman, there were plenty of methods to turn her into a living hell worse than death.

Qing’s eyebrow twitched.

That bastard’s making a dirty face.

Well. Thoughts were free, and if you didn’t say them out loud, it wasn’t like you could put someone on trial for them.

Still.

Is this really an antidote? Is it not?

Qing couldn’t sense poison moving inside her, so she had no way of knowing whether the medicine was working.

But it did carry a bit of natural energy.

Because in this primal, ancient Central Plains, the plants called medicinal herbs contained cosmic mystery—energy.

Mm. Free spiritual medicine. Nice.

Calling it spiritual medicine was a stretch since the energy in it was pretty thin, but... maybe “spiritual herb aroma, lightly added”? Still. Nice.

And if the liquor bottle in her pouch could think, it would probably be shouting nice as well.

It was prodding at its own kind—one of its kin curled up and still in a half-dead state—nudging and poking like it was telling it to wake up already, licking its metaphorical lips.

Anyway, not knowing whether she’d been detoxified or not, Qing checked Gilun’s complexion.

If he really was detoxifying, he’d look more relaxed.

Ah. So it was an antidote after all.

It wasn’t just his expression, either.

“Mmm. The effect is unmistakable. But since the poison doesn’t withdraw completely, this isn’t an antidote so much as a suppressant. Is this your scheme? In addition to the gu poison, if you don’t want the poison to erupt, you must come back periodically to receive suppressants?”

“Kk-khk. For a Central Plains bastard, you’ve got some understanding of poison. Sure. If we’re going to use slaves whose throats we’ve leashed with gu poison, we need to be able to face them and issue orders. Kh-heh-heh. Of course, you’ll come out on your own, carefully, without arousing suspicion. Why—disappointed?”

The deputy Great Lord sounded pleased, but—

Gilun sounded pleased too.

“I didn’t have any expectations of a Blood Cult human vermin to begin with. If you don’t expect, there’s nothing to be disappointed about. That said—Blood Cult bastard. When were you planning to ask who this elder is?”

“Even if you pretend to be calm—”

“Of course, the Heavenly Flower Sword is a proud junior of mine, but if you focus only on her, it starts to feel like you’re treating me like some old man in the back room. Sure, the truly old seniors are lounging around, but I’m still in my prime. I’m an active master.”

By “truly old seniors,” Gilun meant the topmost seniors of the Martial Alliance’s highest generation rank—people like the great martial monks, Jo Hyeollyang, and Ximen Surin.

Compared to them, Gilun was of a sect leader’s generation rank.

He was still being ground down by real administrative work. “In his prime” wasn’t exaggeration. It was simply true.

And calling those seniors “old” was... well.

They really were old.

Still a statement that could get you cursed and punched.

Qing was starting to get confused.

Master Gilun... was it possible that up until now, he hadn’t been scratching at the enemy at all, but was just the type who was born to earn a beating the moment he opened his mouth?

No. Come on.

Surely not.

“Ha. Let’s see how long you keep acting lofty—kh-heh-heh. No, you’ve earned your beating, so don’t blame me.”

The deputy Great Lord glared at Gilun on purpose.

His face was lit with a bright smile, and he wasn’t even trying to hide the glittering anticipation in his eyes.

But only for a moment.

Then confusion seeped into the deputy Great Lord’s face.

“...?”

“...?”

Out of the three of them, Qing was the one who understood what was happening.

Because the liquor bottle was convulsing like an epileptic and spewing out hot, spicy energy.

A gu poison seizure.

It hit more than once with brief rests between, like someone was repeatedly trying, over and over, to see why it wasn’t working.

“W-what did you do? Why—how?”

“Late as it is, I’ll introduce myself. This elder is Gilun of the Diancang Sect, you Blood Cult human vermin.”

The deputy Great Lord’s expression changed in sequence.

First, confusion.

Gilun? That Gilun? Flash Sword? Ranked in the upper eight among the Ten Great Masters Under Heaven those Central Plains bastards babbled about? Why would Flash Sword be—

Then understanding.

Ah. A Manifest Realm master. So gu poison doesn’t work.

And then—

Horror.

Watching his eyes bulge like they were about to pop out, Qing felt like she could completely understand why protagonists hid their strength.

Gilun’s arm moved.

He struck one Poison Blood Guard behind the ear with his fist—

Then opened his hand, and a chopstick was sticking straight up from that spot.

Central Plains chopsticks were about three times longer than the ones in Qing’s homeland.

The Poison Blood Guard collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, flopping down half over the wrecked table.

Then Gilun stretched his hand out.

One chopstick that had been lying among the scattered dishes lifted by itself and flew neatly into Gilun’s hand.

Moving objects without touching them.

An astounding art, and it looked extremely convenient.

“Kill him!”

The deputy Great Lord shouted—

And immediately turned his body to flee.

You could call it the spirit of a scholar, knowing his limits and retreating—

But in that instant, a vast single stroke unfurled.

A chopstick drew a character across the world.

A single line: 一.

To Qing, that was all it looked like.

Qing’s eyesight—bolstered by the Transformation Realm and her baseline physical specs—had already reached a level where comparing it to ordinary humans was meaningless.

And even to her, all that existed was a finished stroke.

The writing process had been omitted.

Like sunbeams pouring through clouds—

By the time you saw it, it had already arrived and become.

Sun-Shooting Sword Art, First Form: Sunlight Already Fallen.

Sunlight—after you notice it—is already something that has already happened.

There wasn’t even Gilun’s shape within it.

Because he had reached unity with the sword.

Or more precisely—

Unity with the chopstick.

The one who witnessed it felt instinctive fear, and their gaze was stolen by the chopstick itself. They could no longer spare attention for the one holding it. So in their eyes, only that existed.

“KRAAAH!”

Only after the deputy Great Lord fell, screaming, did Gilun finally enter the line of sight.

Qing’s heart went cold.

She was sure her master had once explained principle to her—when it came to speed, Diancang was the best under heaven.

“KRAAAH!!”

If you wrote it down, it might look similar, but this was a completely different kind of beast-like howl.

The remaining three Poison Blood Guard were roaring.

Ah. Right.

She’d gotten so distracted watching something incredible that she’d forgotten for a second.

The moment Qing drew her sword—

“No swords! The monster must not bleed! And hold your breath! Don’t inhale their breath!”

It was Gilun’s stern voice.

Ah. So that was why he was using chopsticks.

It wasn’t to show off that he could kill you with a prop.

But still—

Killing a bad guy with something like a pencil was, honestly, cool.

Of course, Qing was strong even without a sword.

She stretched both hands toward a Poison Blood Guard.

They can’t bleed?

Then she just had to make it so it could look behind itself.

CRACK—along with the loud, satisfying sound of a massage, the Poison Blood Guard’s neck twisted and it slumped down.

And even then, Qing’s eyes stayed fixed on Gilun.

When would she ever get a chance to watch a Manifest Realm master strike without any worry?

Even watching her own master was always during sparring—there was no “watching.” She had to dodge and block if she didn’t want to get hit.

A single horizontal stroke was drawn two more times.

When it was over, what remained in the room was the unnamed Blood Cult human vermin screaming—

And what had once been four Poison Blood Guard.

Qing stepped on the deputy Great Lord’s ankle.

CRUNCH.

The bliss traveling up through her sole—the joy of flesh grinding and bone collapsing—how was she supposed to describe it?

But the deputy Great Lord didn’t scream.

Because the chopstick embedded in the back of his neck had pierced his spine.

Total paralysis.

Gilun tilted his head slightly.

“Don’t vent your anger pointlessly. Hatred left behind over a finished connection stays in the body and stabs you from within. If you’ve won, shake it off and forget it. When a hunt ends, you loosen the bowstring. If you leave it taut, it’ll bend... or snap.”

“Oh. That just now was a real Daoist line.”

“Hm? I am a Daoist. Though I do have a rather... clean and refined look for one.”

That wasn’t usually something you said about yourself.

Qing smiled, a grin that wasn’t unpleasant.

“Ah. Right. Elder, your mouth is extremely sharp. That’s not exactly a Daoist virtue, you know? You really can’t resist scratching at people, can you? Honestly, it’s not a good habit, but... I couldn’t let it go.”

Gilun looked genuinely confused.

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“Huh? You weren’t scratching at him with your mouth? You weren’t using a goad-the-general stratagem?”

“A goad-the-general stratagem? I only tried to have a polite conversation. If reform were possible, I intended to attempt it. But as expected of Blood Cult human vermin, he has an abundance of anger. Tsk. This is why they say you must kill every Blood Cult bastard.”

...He wasn’t trying to scratch at him?

Polite conversation? Reform?

Qing’s eyes narrowed.

Was that sincere? Or was he joking with a smooth face?

Unfortunately, it was the former.

An astonishing fact.

“Elder. Have you ever had experiences where the person you’re talking to gets furious, or suddenly clamps their mouth shut and storms off?”

“More than once or twice. The world is full of angry people. Even Daoists who stand in temples are like that, aren’t they. Truly unfortunate. Like I said, when a hunt ends, you loosen the bowstring—but there are so many fools who keep pulling it tighter instead. Honestly.”

Mm. Well.

Normally, if that kept happening, wouldn’t you reflect on whether something was wrong with how you spoke?

But this was infinite self-assurance—bold, self-centered worldview where the problem was never him. Or—

Maybe that was exactly why he’d reached the Manifest Realm.

No. That was probably it.

While that was happening, Gilun looked down at the fallen Blood Cult men—more precisely, at the Five Poison Sect martial robes they were wearing—and let out a deep sigh.

“Still... you were right. Five Poison Sect really has become a Blood Cult den.”