The days of sparring to my heart's content while staying at the Namgung Clan were brief.
Today, as I was heading to the training ground, Tang So-wol suddenly grabbed my hand.
"Young hero Cheon. I have something important to discuss. Could you spare a moment?"
"What is it?"
When I paused, Tang So-wol silently dragged me away from the training ground. Then, having caught me just as I was about to leave the room, she cornered me against the wall and pressed her hand against it with enough force to produce a dull thud.
Thud!
It was a fairly imposing posture… but since Tang So-wol was now shorter than me, it was simply adorable.
Her next words, however, were not what I expected.
"Young hero Cheon. I am disappointed."
"…I'm not sure what you mean, all of a sudden."
"To think you would treat me so coldly, when I followed my betrothed all the way to this distant land."
"Coldly? If you were feeling neglected, didn't I spend the whole night with you yesterday?"
I flinched inwardly, wondering if the dreaded question—'Young hero Cheon, do you prefer me, or do you prefer sparring matches?'—was about to make a reappearance just a day later.
But then Tang So-wol smiled, her eyes curving into crescent moons, and continued.
"That was all resolved yesterday, so it's fine. But don't you think you've been sparring with young hero Geomryong a little too much? Every now and then, you should exchange a few moves with me as well."
"Ah, if that's all, then by all means. Thanks to you, Tang So-wol, my internal energy has grown considerably. How about trying a different poison instead of the Paralysis Poison? Though, if the poisoning symptoms fully set in, I won't count it as my loss."
"Of course. A young hero Cheon of your current caliber could handle a slightly stronger poison. And if worst comes to worst, I can simply absorb the poison energy back out. …Ah, speaking of which, do have today's Crane Spirit Grass."
Still bracing one hand against the wall, she raised the other.
Perhaps it came from handling hidden weapons. The fingers of Tang Clan martial artists were slender and elongated, elegant regardless of gender. Tang So-wol was no exception.
She brought her index finger—one that suited the phrase "fair as jade"—right up to my lips.
"Lick it."
"Are you being serious?"
Having it mixed into water or tea, I'd grown accustomed to that. But consuming it directly through her finger like this felt a bit much.
As if she had anticipated I'd react this way, Tang So-wol grumbled in a sulky voice.
"Oh my? I would rush over and lick the wound clean if young hero Cheon were hurt… Is it really that embarrassing for you?"
"…Fine. If that's how it is, I'll do it."
When she put it that way, I had nothing to say.
Besides, even if it lacked the effect of boosting internal energy, it was still a precious thing worthy of being called a Spiritual Medicine—Crane Spirit Grass essence at just the right concentration.
Making all sorts of excuses in my head, I cautiously opened my mouth.
"Ugh."
Then, as if she had been waiting for that, her finger slipped into my mouth.
A soft sensation on my lips. Then, as if urging me on, a fingernail tickling my tongue.
I cautiously touched the fingertip with my tongue, and before long, a sharp yet bitter poison began to seep out.
"Heh heh."
…For some reason, Tang So-wol's smile looked more sinister than usual today, but it was surely just my imagination.
Only after directly receiving today's dose of Crane Spirit Grass essence did I spit her finger out.
"Are we done now?"
"Yep. Then let's head to the training ground."
As if her mood had improved, Tang So-wol hummed a light tune and pressed her wet fingers firmly against my clothes to wipe them clean.
There was much I wanted to say, but instead of voicing it, I let out a sigh.
"Haa… Fine. Let's go."
And so, with the grinning Tang So-wol at my side, we were on our way to the training ground.
KWAANG!
A loud noise rang out from a short distance away—not too far, but not too close either.
Exchanging a wordless glance, Tang So-wol and I nodded at each other and kicked off the ground.
At first, the servants we passed wore bewildered expressions, but as we drew closer to the source of the sound, fear began to creep into their faces.
"What, what's going on?!"
"Just run, now!"
"Call the martial artists! Someone fetch the martial artists!"
I grabbed one of them by the arm and asked.
"What in the world is happening right now?"
"Oh no! You're the young head's guests, aren't you! You mustn't go that way! You have to flee at once!"
"That's what I'm asking — why do we have to flee?"
"Hwangbo Gwang! That madman has gone insane, and he's brought his men to slaughter people left and right!"
"What…?"
This had never happened before my regression. If the young head of the Hwangbo Clan—of all people—was causing chaos at the Namgung Clan, word was bound to spread no matter how much they tried to keep it quiet.
I couldn't tell what exactly had gone so wrong to lead to this, but if what he said was true, I needed to subdue him right now.
There was also the reason that I had to stop the servants who hadn't learned martial arts and the warriors with relatively lacking martial levels from being killed.
Hwangbo Gwang—the Hwangbo Clan—was one of the rotten parts of the Orthodox Sects' martial world.
A justification to cut them out had appeared, and an opportunity had arisen. I couldn't let it slip away.
"I'll go ahead. Tang So-wol, you tell the others—"
"I will follow behind you. I may not be able to match young hero Cheon's speed, but I should be able to arrive without being too late."
"…Fine. With a commotion this big, there will be more than enough people to spread the word anyway."
Was it because the distance had grown short? Between the sounds of things breaking, I could faintly make out screams mixed in.
It was qualitatively different from moments before. I let out a deep breath and unleashed my Lightness Skill at full power.
As the scenery blurred past, I began to see, here and there, the wounded—people with limbs torn off—and before long, an open clearing appeared.
No, I should say a clearing that had been newly created by someone smashing the Namgung Clan's main gate and the surrounding buildings to pieces.
The grand gate and the wall. The scene that had once been filled with stalwart warriors now bore only their traces, stained red.
I had run over the moment I heard the sound, but even that hadn't been enough, judging by the considerable number of corpses strewn across the ground.
By a rough count, nearly twenty Martial Artists stationed at the main gate had died, and a similar number of servants passing by lay among them.
Including the wounded, close to fifty people had been harmed in this short span of time.
"Hmm."
No matter how accustomed one grows to corpses, one never becomes so numb that the sight of the dead leaves one unaffected.
As I swallowed a groan and drew my sword, the sound seemed to catch the attention of the figures scattered about—the ones who had been beating down the remaining Namgung Clan Martial Artists. Their gazes turned toward me.
"…It really is Hwangbo Gwang."
It was Hwangbo Gwang and his guards, the same ones I had seen when I first arrived at the Namgung Clan. Their bearing was a little different from back then, though.
Killing intent naturally radiated from them, since they were killing people… but more than that, the phrase "out of their minds" suited them better.
Bloodshot eyes. Skin dead and blackened. Foam continuously dripped from their mouths as if they had contracted rabies, and the Aura they gave off was so unstable that it would have been strange if they hadn't exploded at any moment.
Qi Deviation? No, it was a little different.
At least I couldn't sense any Demonic Qi, so he hadn't taken the Mapokdan. But aside from the Demonic Cult, who else could drive their potential into such a frenzy?
…Well, I could worry about the cause later. Right now, what I needed to do was stop Hwangbo Gwang and his underlings, who were even more insane than I'd expected.
KWA-RUNG!
The energy I burst from the soles of my feet launched my body far backward.
Hwangbo Gwang closed the distance and entered my sword's reach in just three steps. I swung my blade toward his wrist. And then—
KADUK!
Instead of severing the tendons of his wrist, I only managed to leave a deep gash on his forearm.
"Huh?"
It wasn't that I was going easy on him. I had wrapped myself in Sword Flame and poured in everything I had, intending to subdue him in a single strike and interrogate him.
But Hwangbo Gwang reacted to it. He couldn't dodge completely, so his forearm was left shredded, but it wasn't enough to stop him from moving.
Even the sensation of my sword cutting through his forearm was far tougher than I had expected.
The current Hwangbo Gwang must have barely reached the Peak Realm thanks to his excellent family martial arts, his natural physique, and the internal energy from the Spiritual Medicines he had been devouring like meals.
A while later, at the time when the Demonic Cult would invade, that guy would only have half a foot into the Transcendent Peak at best…
"So you've picked up something decent to eat, have you?"
The original Hwangbo Gwang should not have been able to block that. No, his body should have frozen from killing intent, and he shouldn't have even been able to react.
But somehow, Hwangbo Gwang remained unaffected by my killing intent, and his movements had become far sharper than before.
Of course, that didn't mean he posed a threat to me in my current state.
The moment I retrieved my sword, I spun my body and charged in.
Swoosh!
He managed to react roughly this time as well, but Hwangbo Gwang couldn't dodge properly, and his flank was torn open.
"Kuaaaah!!"
Hwangbo Gwang let out a terrible scream. However, the pain he felt wasn't beyond what he could endure — it hadn't turned into a scream of agony.
If anything, it was closer to a battle cry.
The blood gushing from the wound suddenly weakened, and then it completely closed up.
It wasn't a wound severe enough to spill his guts, but neither was it the kind of injury that would stop bleeding so easily.
It was only after I focused my Qi Sense on Hwangbo Gwang, pushing through the faint killing intent spread around us, that I could understand what was happening.
"What is this now?"
Hwangbo Gwang's wound hadn't closed. Rather, the muscles, swollen to their limit, were forcibly plugging the gash.
Looking closer, the wound I'd made on his forearm was being staunched the same way.
I'd heard that martial artists who reached the pinnacle of External Arts could do something similar, but… no matter how I thought about it, Hwangbo Gwang wasn't at that level.
This, too, must be a function of whatever had driven him into a frenzy.
In the brief moment I hesitated, his guards charged at me from both sides.
He was clearly a martial artist on par with Hwangbo Gwang, or perhaps slightly stronger, but was there a difference between individuals in this frenzy?
He was half a beat slower than Hwangbo Gwang, whom I had been facing just moments ago.
Swick.
Enough to send an entire arm flying.
"Ah, uuaaah!!"
"Krrrk!"
Even with one arm severed, the guard charged again with a bestial roar, without a moment's hesitation.
He looked more like a beast than a man.
This time, even Hwangbo Gwang joined in, swinging his fist at me.
"Stop being a nuisance and just get cut down."
I calmly began cutting down the nearest ones first.
Arms, torsos, thighs, fingers, ankles—everything.
A sword that butchered everything around me in an instant. It was an application of the Chamjeok Sword's mystery—in simple terms, swinging the fastest possible sword as many times as possible.
In the blink of an eye, the guards rolled on the ground, their limbs drenched in blood, and even Hwangbo Gwang, who had held on the longest, staggered.
Whether he felt no pain or not, even in this state he tried to rise and throw a limp punch.
"Young hero Cheon!"
The Soul-Chasing Flying Butterfly that Tang So-wol had thrown, arriving a moment late, fluttered down and scattered its poison powder.
Unlike killing intent, poison seemed to work on him. The guard who had been trying to rise slumped back down, and Hwangbo Gwang's movements, which had only grown fiercer with each wound, began to slow.
Seizing the opening, I slipped into his embrace and swung my sword.
"Hup!"
Thunk!
This time, I finally managed to properly sever Hwangbo Gwang's wrist.
…Perhaps I had overdone it—rather than just the tendons, the entire wrist went flying, but this was fine.
To interrogate Hwangbo Gwang and hold the Hwangbo Clan accountable, he didn't need a wrist anyway.
All I needed was to keep him alive.
Hwangbo Gwang collapsed, blood pouring from where his entire hand had been severed—there was nothing he could do about that.
I sealed the wound on his wrist with Acupoint Sealing, then immediately struck his Dantian.
"Kuh-uhk!"
The bloodlust in Hwangbo Gwang's eyes faded as he spat out a bowlful of blood.
"D-did you kill him?"
…From behind me, Tang So-wol muttered something ominous, but fortunately, Hwangbo Gwang didn't suddenly come back to life.
"F-father… why…"
He did spout a bit of nonsense, though.