Hi @Everyone, Membership is now available for this novel! Please check it out here @ patreon.com/SaberToothTL
Full novel available here @ patreon.com/SaberToothTL
CLS-Chapter 259
by SaberToothChapter 259
It was faster than the black light.
This wasn’t just a figure of speech. Before Wei Yan-ho’s sword could even emit its light for recognition, Tang Cheon-gun had to deflect the blade flying toward him.
Kwaaaang!
Hand and sword collided, creating a thunderous explosion.
‘This is impossible!’
What is the greatest aspect of the Tang Family’s martial arts?
Those unfamiliar with the Tang Family would say poison, and those who know the Tang Family well would say hidden weapons.
No matter how potent a poison might be, it’s meaningless if it doesn’t reach the opponent’s body. If poison is the Tang Family’s publicly known martial art, then hidden weapon techniques are the essence of martial arts that the Tang Family takes pride in.
But for a member of the Tang Family, the answer would be different.
The most important thing in Tang Family martial arts is neither hidden weapons nor poison. It’s the hand techniques that allow them to deploy both.
They are people who must handle hidden weapons imbued with poisons so deadly that even an ox would be reduced to a handful of blood in a single day. No matter how much resistance they might have, if they were injured every time, they would accumulate too much poison to overcome and would have to head to the underworld.
That’s why the hands of Tang Family members are harder than anything else. Their hands can tear steel apart with bare fingers without leaving even a scratch.
But now Tang Cheon-gun had no choice but to look down at his hands several times.
His hands had no sensation.
It would have been less bewildering if they had hurt as if they were being torn apart. He had blocked just one sword strike, yet his hands had lost all sensation as if they had disappeared.
But there was no time to be shocked.
Paaaang!
The sword tore through the air.
A simple thrust.
But a thrust filled with power and speed could not be considered merely a simple thrust.
Tang Cheon-gun desperately leaned back. The sword’s shadow cut his bangs. Watching his hair flutter upward, Tang Cheon-gun gritted his teeth.
‘Strong.’
He had known it wasn’t at the level of a Late-stage Master. But each sword strike Wei Yan-ho was showing now was comparable to the level of the current era’s strongest masters, not just Late-stage Masters.
He couldn’t understand how someone of that age could display such prowess. It was still hard to believe.
But such thoughts were happening in his mind, while Wei Yan-ho’s martial prowess before his eyes was real.
When he could see and feel it, how could he refuse to believe it by forcing logic?
“Kuk!”
With his waist bent back, both his hands swept out. Feathered needles and leaf-shaped coins shot from his sleeves, beginning to rain down on Wei Yan-ho from all directions.
Some fast, some slow.
Covering front, back, left, right, and above, a rain of hidden weapons fell.
“Ho?”
Wei Yan-ho looked at the scene as if it were fascinating, then raised his sword.
‘What was I supposed to do in situations like this?’
His master had supposedly taught him how to deal with everything he might encounter in the martial world. So if he searched his mind thoroughly, there should be a way to handle this…
“There isn’t any!”
That damn fraud!
Wei Yan-ho’s sword was raised above his head.
If a thousand hidden weapons were falling, he just had to block them with a thousand sword strikes.
Wei Yan-ho’s sword began to tremble. The sword that trembled increasingly violently soon created dozens, hundreds, thousands of afterimages, covering his entire body.
“Sw-Sword Membrane?”
“No! It’s Sword Wall!”
‘What are they talking about?’
Someone seemed to be trying to define his swordsmanship, but Wei Yan-ho snorted.
The levels of swordsmanship that the martial world and martial artists had arbitrarily divided meant nothing to him. Baek Mu-han had told him not to be trapped by boundaries. The artificial boundaries of swordsmanship that humans had created for convenience meant nothing to Wei Yan-ho, so he just needed to follow the path his sword wanted to take.
‘But the path the sword wants to take is also ultimately a definition, Master.’
His master was someone who defined things while telling him not to define them. Wei Yan-ho had even broken free from the path his master had set. His sword simply followed his will.
When he thought to block, his sword moved naturally.
Like a body that moves when will reaches it, Wei Yan-ho’s sword moved as naturally as his fingertips, deflecting all the incoming hidden weapons.
“L-look!”
Watching the hidden weapons scatter in all directions, Cheong Yeong-ja broke out in cold sweat. Hidden weapons were pouring toward him as well. Although most had lost their power after being deflected once, blocking hidden weapons that could kill with just a graze was nerve-wracking even for him.
‘If I’m feeling this way…’
Just blocking some of the deflected weapons felt like his mental strength was wearing away, so how much pressure must Wei Yan-ho feel at the center of that attack?
If he had been in that position, could he have blocked the Poison King’s attack? Cheong Yeong-ja shook his head.
‘It’s meaningless.’
Even if he could somehow block it, he didn’t have the confidence to block it so easily. He had to admit it even if he didn’t want to. Wei Yan-ho was clearly stronger than him.
At this point, discussing the winner had become meaningless.
“He blocked it!”
“He blocked it! He actually blocked that!”
“Was that just now Ten Thousand Flowers Rain?”
“Ten Thousand Flowers Rain my ass! There’s no way that would appear already.”
“…Then you’re saying a regular attack has that kind of power? Good heavens.”
Both the attacker and the defender were beyond imagination.
These were people who had been watching Late-stage Masters’ all-out battles until recently. They came to understand why Late-stage Masters are Late-stage Masters.
No matter how strong Late-stage Masters might be, their light inevitably fades before the skills of the strongest masters representing this era. And Wei Yan-ho was matching hands with such masters.
“Why isn’t he getting poisoned! Why!”
The Poison King clenched his fists tightly.
It was surprising that the hidden weapons he had thrown with all his might had been rendered useless. But what was truly shocking was that Wei Yan-ho’s face showed no signs of poisoning.
He had already released poison at Wei Yan-ho.
Moreover, no matter how much he had deflected all the hidden weapons, the Soul-Chasing Smoke coating those weapons should have flowed out when the weapons clashed with Wei Yan-ho’s sword and seeped into Wei Yan-ho’s respiratory system.
Even those with considerable resistance should be collapsing on the ground vomiting blood right now after inhaling that much poison, but Wei Yan-ho showed no change in complexion despite inhaling that amount of poison. Occasionally grabbing his stomach as if it hurt was all Wei Yan-ho did.
“Ah, damn! This hurts like hell.”
Wei Yan-ho grabbed his stomach and grimaced.
‘That shouldn’t just hurt and be done with…’
The Soul-Chasing Smoke he used was a poison known as the Poison King’s—that is, Tang Cheon-gun’s—signature technique. In the Tang Family, what poison someone uses directly represents how strong their poison skills are.
No matter how much Tang Family blood flows in someone, unless antidote flows in their blood, poisoning is unavoidable, and the poison one uses means the poison one can handle.
It might be different when carefully and secretly administering poison, but poison used during such intense combat requires being prepared for self-poisoning.
Currently, Tang Cheon-gun was the only one in the Tang Family who could use Soul-Chasing Smoke during battle.
Yet despite drinking that much of such poison, Wei Yan-ho showed no signs of poisoning at all.
“Ugh, ew, bleh!”
Wei Yan-ho, who had been trying to say something, suddenly grabbed his throat and started retching. Then he grimaced deeply and spat on the ground.
Seeing something dark red come from Wei Yan-ho’s mouth, Tang Cheon-gun’s eyes nearly popped out as he shouted in shock.
“I-Immunity to Ten Thousand Poisons?”
“What are you talking about.”
Wei Yan-ho answered bluntly, but Tang Cheon-gun couldn’t take his eyes off the dark red liquid Wei Yan-ho had spat out.
‘W-why is that coming out?’
To someone who didn’t know, it might just look like poisoned blood, but Tang Cheon-gun could clearly see what it was.
That wasn’t blood but the original liquid of Soul-Chasing Smoke. The liquid that had been in the bottle originally.
It was undoubtedly a mixture of Soul-Chasing Smoke before he had turned it into vapor with his poison skills and the poison he had initially released at Wei Yan-ho.
How could a person refine poison absorbed through the respiratory system and spit it out through the mouth! What is he, a human filter?
“Ugh, the damn thing’s acting up.”
Wei Yan-ho tapped where his stomach was. From the moment he thought he was poisoned, Baek Mu-han’s internal core in his belly had been churning.
He didn’t know exactly what it was doing, but it kept emitting energy and then retracting it, so if he wasn’t careful, he might suffer Qi Deviation.
At first, hadn’t he mistaken the internal core’s convulsions for becoming a walking corpse?
As the internal core kept throbbing, Wei Yan-ho pressed his stomach firmly with his hand.
“Damn, I’m not in good shape. Not good at all.”
As anxiety crept in, anger surged even more. Wei Yan-ho spat on the ground and glared at Tang Cheon-gun. Tang Cheon-gun stood with his mouth agape, half out of his mind.
“I-Immunity to Ten Thousand Poisons!”
“I told you it’s not that! What are you babbling about! Master said there’s no such thing as Immunity to Ten Thousand Poisons!”
“…No, but I’m seeing it with my own eyes right now.”
“Good grief, this fellow. Are you a pseudo-believer or something?”
Wei Yan-ho, who had dismissed the opinion of the world’s foremost poison expert—someone no one could disagree with regarding poison skills—raised his sword.
“It hurts, so I’m even more pissed off. Grit your teeth. I’m ending this.”
“Y-you bastard!”
Flustered, Tang Cheon-gun shouted and spread both hands.
The poison wasn’t working.
Whether it was Immunity to Ten Thousand Poisons or not, to catch that bastard with poison, he’d need to bring legendary Formless Poison. So he had to give up on dealing with Wei Yan-ho using poison.
In that case…
“The Tang Family isn’t all about poison!”
His hands spread wide, and light streaks began shooting from his sleeves.
The hidden weapons being launched stretched out long, making them look like white threads shooting out.
But that was only for a moment.
The hidden weapons that had soared into the sky began to take on a bright red glow, then started falling while completely covering Wei Yan-ho.
Everyone watching stared blankly at the scene as if entranced.
The red hidden weapons covering the world fell at different speeds—some fast, some slow—dropping straight down, swaying, and fluttering.
Just like flower petals scattered by spring wind.
Anyone who saw the red petals dancing chaotically across the sky and falling but didn’t know what this meant had no right to be here.
Someone’s voice, like a moan, spread out.
“Ten Thousand Flowers Rain…”
Literally, a rain of flowers was falling. The most famous technique in the world that made the Tang Family what it is had been deployed.
“Wow!”
Wei Yan-ho stood quietly in the middle of the sparring stage where flower rain was falling and looked up.
“Pretty.”
The beauty couldn’t be denied. But he could also clearly sense how vicious the technique hidden within that beauty was.
In times like this, he should rely on his master’s…
“Master.”
“What?”
“What is strength?”
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
“I don’t really understand what it is.”
“Get your ass kicked and you’ll find out—the strength of this master!”
“…No, seriously.”
“Huh? This isn’t it…”
Having failed to recall any helpful thoughts, Wei Yan-ho raised his sword.
What a useless fellow anyway.
— You don’t need to know such things.
“Huh?”
He had given up, but something else began to surface.
Why don’t I need to know?
— Your body will remember strength, not your head. And your body will complete it. You just need to swing your sword. And you need to wield your sword. Then the people of the world will tell you.
“That I am strong.”
Wei Yan-ho’s sword began to emit pure white light.
0 Comments