Father is here?
The Poison King, the one who played the most important role in Father’s unification of the murim.
Father had come one step ahead of me to meet him.
Even so, what I felt was not worry, but a pleasant tension.
It felt different from before. If until now Father had been testing me, this time I could sense that he meant to have a contest with me. It must mean he acknowledged me to that extent.
Then I should enjoy this match against Father.
All of this process was a memory with Father, and it was my life. As I always resolved, I would not live a life meant only for revenge. One such life was enough. In this life, I would enjoy myself. Even a contest like this with Father.
I spoke loudly so my voice would carry inside the building.
“Father, your son is here! Please let me in as well.”
The Chief Steward looked flustered. After all, I was probably the only person in the world who would shout like this at the Heavenly Demon. I was looking at his expression—truly, the Young Cult Leader is impossible—when Father’s voice came from within.
“Come in.”
It was a strange situation.
Originally, the Poison King should have spoken. This was a situation where he should have conveyed Father’s will and said, “Escort the Young Cult Leader inside.” Yet Father himself was telling me to come in?
When I opened the door and entered, an unexpected sight unfolded before me. Seeing it, I understood why Father had answered in the Poison King’s place.
The Poison King was manufacturing poison, and Father was helping him. It was such an unimaginable scene that I stood there blankly, watching.
Before the Poison King was the vat he used when making poison. Around it floated a dozen or so bottles.
The one keeping those bottles suspended in midair was none other than Father. From a spot far beyond the poison’s range, Father was assisting the poison-making with object manipulation through empty air. He was as far away as the entrance where I stood.
“Black, a little more, please!”
Drip, drip, drip.
“Green, stop!”
At his command, liquid poured from the bottle marked with black paper, floating in the air, while the bottle marked with green paper stopped pouring its contents.
“This time, pour Blue, Red, and Purple at the same time.”
Then the blue, red, and purple bottles floating in the air tilted at once and poured out the liquid inside.
Hissss.
Smoke rose from the mixed poison liquid.
Even as he spoke, the Poison King’s hands moved busily. In the rising poisonous fumes, he was stirring the poison liquid with a wooden rod while adding other poisonous substances.
It was truly a magnificent sight. At a glance, it might not have seemed like much, but both Father and the Poison King were displaying the highest level of skill and concentration.
“Blue, stop for a moment! Brown instead.”
Once again, at the Poison King’s command, the blue bottle stopped and the brown bottle moved.
The level at which Father handled objects through empty air was exquisitely precise and accurate. It felt as though he had granted the bottles life and will.
The Poison King watched the falling liquid intently and mixed in powder to match it.
The only person who could withstand the poison generated during this process was the Poison King. That was why he had originally done this work alone.
Pouring this in, mixing that in. A truly dangerous and complicated process was underway when—
“Stop everything!”
At the Poison King’s shout, the bottles floating in the air all stopped at once.
A single drop that should not have entered splashed and fell inward.
The next moment.
That single drop stopped in midair.
Father had blocked that one drop with object manipulation through empty air.
Silence descended.
With that one drop of liquid hanging in the air, it felt as though time itself had stopped.
Then it flew back through the air and returned to the bottle it had come from.
Only then did the Poison King’s poison-making finally come to an end.
The Poison King’s face was flushed. He had not even realized I had entered. He had been focused solely on the poison.
Rather than the fact that he was making poison together with Father, what came first for him was his desire to complete the poison. I knew very well that he had never once had any thought like, “Out of courtesy, because I am with the Cult Leader.”
The Poison King took out the compounded poison, smelled it, and performed several tests.
Was the Poison King in his own world right now, or in reality? I could always roughly guess where the Poison King was standing, but right now, I felt I could not tell.
After completing several checks, the Poison King’s expression brightened radiantly, and he spoke with a face full of joy.
“It is a success.”
The Poison King was genuinely delighted.
“This time, it was compounded properly. I kept failing when I did it alone, but thanks to the Cult Leader’s assistance, I succeeded.”
This, I thought, was one of the Poison King’s greatest strengths. For the sake of poison, he readily accepted help from others. Whether it was asking the Demon Buddha to gather poisonous herbs, or receiving Father’s help today.
If someone was prone to falling into a world of his own, one might expect him to put forward needless pride and stubbornness. Yet unexpectedly, he had no such obstinacy.
That was why I thought the Poison King was frightening. Because he was a man who could not be defined.
“Huh? When did you get here?”
Only belatedly did the Poison King notice me. He was not pretending not to have known. He truly had been focused on manufacturing poison to a frightening degree.
“I came a little while ago.”
“I succeeded in making Mansajeoldok (萬死絶毒).”
“Congratulations.”
Mansajeoldok was a new poison the Poison King had created, one he had failed to manufacture dozens of times until now. The Chief Steward had helped as well, but as I had just seen, the process of compounding the poison was extremely delicate and difficult, so it had not been easy to make. And now he had succeeded together with Father.
“What a shame! It should have succeeded because I helped you.”
“Then it would have failed again today.”
This was the Poison King’s way of expressing his thanks to Father.
I belatedly greeted Father.
“It seemed you were doing something important, so my greeting was late.”
I must not forget. The one who had allowed me to enter this place was Father. Father had meant to show me himself and the Poison King compounding poison together.
“I did not know you were here.”
“I stopped by while passing.”
Father, do you know that every time you “stop by” like that, everyone’s fate changes dramatically? Whatever you do, please do not say you should stop by the Martial Alliance!
I imagined myself standing with Father atop a huge go board.
In the situation with the Poison King, the move Father had played this time was the move of poison-making.
Just what conversation had Father and the Poison King had before I arrived? Had he asked him to take care of me again? Or had he tried to firmly nail down at least the Poison King as one of his people?
“I returned safely from the North Sea.”
“Is that so?”
Even to my greeting, the Poison King answered perfunctorily. He was gazing in wonder at the poison he had completed. He was intoxicated by the poison. It was only because Father was present that he answered and even asked a question.
“Did you obtain the poisonous herbs that grow only in the North Sea?”
“I did try, but…”
In truth, on the way back, I had looked for poisonous herbs whenever I had time. But I had not found any poisonous herb worth bringing as a gift.
“Whenever they see me, the poisonous herbs must all get shy and hide. This is all Father’s fault. I take after Father, so I’m far too handsome.”
A sneer formed at the corners of Father’s mouth. Seeing that sneer for the first time in a while made me happy. Father, please laugh like that more often. For now, please give me tests rather than contests.
“Father, next time, go have an outing with the Poison King and gather poisonous herbs together. Surely he would not dare use even you as a gatherer.”
I had said it intending to continue with a joke about how he had turned the Demon Buddha into a gatherer through a bet, but Father asked the Poison King an unexpected question.
“When was it?”
At the sudden question, the Poison King thought back for a moment.
“Four years and seven months ago.”
“Has it already been that long?”
With a no-way feeling, I looked back and forth between the two of them and asked,
“Surely that ‘four years and seven months ago’ is not the day the two of you gathered poisonous herbs together?”
From the expressions of the two as they faced each other, I could tell. That “surely not” was the truth.
Father often surprised me, but this time, I was truly astonished. No matter how much I tried to picture it, I could not easily imagine Father and the Poison King gathering poisonous herbs together.
Moreover, the Poison King remembered that last day with exact precision.
It meant it had been that precious a moment for him as well. It was also the moment I realized that making the Poison King my ally would not be easy at all.
Suddenly, I remembered what the Extreme Evil Young Demon had said.
—The Cult Leader will be just as difficult to persuade.
For some reason, I think it will be harder for me.
At that moment, Father took his leave.
“I shall be going now.”
Then the Poison King bowed with proper courtesy. He did not again say thank you for helping him compound the poison.
But I had the thought that someday, if Father asked, “When was that again?” the Poison King might remember this very moment with exact precision and answer.
Before leaving, Father looked at me. His eyes were saying this.
My move is over, so now it is your turn.
I could feel Father’s confidence.
From Father’s own method, which involved neither restraint nor coercion, I realized once again that composure came from strength.
As soon as Father left the residence, I asked the Poison King,
“Did you ask him first to help you manufacture poison? Is that why Father came?”
“How could I dare do that? I was just about to make poison when the Cult Leader came without notice. I was going to postpone the process, but he said he would help.”
He surely had not displayed the kind of concentration from earlier right from the start. During the preparation process, they must have exchanged this and that.
“May I ask what you spoke about with Father today?”
Then an astonishing answer flowed out.
“He said nothing.”
“Surely you do not mean he did not say a single word?”
The Poison King nodded. Father had come, helped with the poison-making, and then left just like that.
I could feel that it was a blow far stronger than persuading the Poison King with every possible word.
You do all that and then just leave? How am I supposed to win?
If I tried to say anything to the Poison King now that went against Father’s will, it would only backfire.
After all, my hundred words of flattery could not defeat this heavy blow from Father, who had helped make poison without saying a single word and left.
“I will take my leave today as well. I am in the middle of a tactical retreat.”
Still, I could not simply leave, so I let slip that the reason I had come today had not been merely to greet him.
It must have been a somewhat sudden remark, but the Poison King did not ask what I meant. Father had come, and I had come. He must have sensed that something was definitely happening. For some reason, the Poison King stopped me.
“Since you came all this way, help me with my work before you go.”
“Just tell me what to do.”
“Let us bottle this poison first.”
The Poison King brought over a box. Inside were a dozen or so bottles, and the box was structured to store the bottles without them breaking.
These specially made bottles had been crafted so they could be perfectly sealed, preventing the poison from leaking out.
“I will bottle it. Please rest.”
The Poison King sat perched on a desk a little ways away and silently watched me.
I divided the Mansajeoldok into the bottles. The poison filled exactly ten bottles. I could tell that from the start, he had manufactured precisely one box’s worth of poison. If the poison-making had not succeeded, it would have come up short or overflowed.
How many people could be killed with this poison? Hundreds? Thousands?
“Take that and follow me.”
I put the poison-filled bottles back into the box. Carrying it, I followed the Poison King out.
The Poison King headed deep into the Thousand Poison Forest.
There had been a time when I searched for poisonous herbs with him here. But the place he brought me today was somewhere I had never been before.
The Poison King pushed through the forest, creating a path where there was none, and went deep inside.
Was there such a place in the Thousand Poison Forest?
As if we had entered a new district within the Thousand Poison Forest, all kinds of poisonous creatures and substances were there, each possessing poison more vicious and dangerous than what lay outside.
Moreover, the area we were walking through now was a swamp. It was not an ordinary swamp. It was a swamp of death from which a person who fell in could never escape.
Even the mist spread over the swamp like clouds had poison mixed into it.
Truly, this was a place that needed no guards and no formations.
A place no one could enter unless they possessed invulnerability to all poisons or were the Poison King.
I stepped on the stones and branches the Poison King stepped on as we crossed the swamp.
Tsssss!
Strange sounds came from all directions, and as we continued, the Poison King would sometimes stop to examine the condition of the poisonous creatures. With a boyish face, he explained to me what each poisonous creature was and what state it was in. That one was angry because it had failed to mate, or that one was sick somewhere. He could see things an ordinary person could never recognize.
Past the swamp, there was a cave.
The cave, too, was filled with poisonous creatures. If not for the two of us, even an ordinary master would not have been able to take a single step inside this cave.
At the end of the cave stood a heavy iron door. The Poison King unlocked the door and entered, and beyond it was a huge storehouse.
The moment I stepped inside, I was overwhelmed by the sight spread out before me.
That vast space was filled with bottles. There were hundreds of display shelves, and bottles were placed upon them. I could tell. Everything contained in these bottles was poison. An enormous quantity, numbering in the thousands.
“All of our cult’s poisons are stored here.”
This was the secret storehouse where the extreme poisons of the Thousand Poison Forest were kept. If war broke out, these were the poisons that would be released into the world.
Why had the Poison King brought me here?
“Put the poison you brought over there at the end.”
I lined up the Mansajeoldok in the place the Poison King indicated and stored it there. The Poison King wrote the name of the poison on the bottles. The bottles standing beside them each had names written on them as well.
Snake Poison (蛇毒), Madness Poison (狂毒), Blood Poison (血毒), Gut-Severing Poison (斷腸毒), Severing Poison (斬毒), Soul-Severing Poison (斷魂毒), Annihilation Poison (滅毒), Yin-Yang Poison (陰陽毒), Shadowless Poison (無影毒), Corpse Poison (屍毒), Gu Poison (蠱毒), Lost-Soul Poison (失魂毒)…
There were truly all kinds of poisons, too many to count. Every terrifying poison that existed in the world was here.
Strangely, the arrangement of the poisons was completely different from what I had imagined. I had thought the more powerful poisons would be placed farther inside, but the bottles containing formless poison were displayed right by the entrance. It was an arrangement that gave the impression that the stronger something was, the sooner it should be taken out and used.
“What happens if all the poisons here are released into the world?”
The Poison King answered from behind me.
“Everyone dies.”
It was not merely an exaggeration.
I was curious about what the Poison King thought. So before questioning whether he was on Father’s side or mine, I asked this first. It was a question I had never asked since meeting him.
“Poison King, why do you make poison?”
Absolute Regression, Chapter 440