Chapter 515 - Just This Once.
A small park located behind the Tang Clan.
A space that the head two generations prior, the Poison Monarch, had gone so far as to spend a fortune to decorate.
It was so beautiful that it felt out of place to call it a park of the Tang Clan.
Not a single poisonous herb existed within it; designed so that beautiful flowers and water flowed in every season, it was quite literally a place of rest.
Toward that place, the Poison King walked with his brow deeply furrowed.
As the Poison King brushed past the flower-lined paths, countless martial artists followed behind him.
Contrary to the beautiful scenery, their expressions were exceedingly dark.
The expression of the Poison King at the very front was no different.
-It's done. Come.
When he had been in his residence, that voice reached the Poison King's ears.
At those simple words, the Poison King immediately rose.
His back was drenched in sweat.
'It's been barely a day.'
It had been merely a day since Gu Cheolun arrived.
Having heard the circumstances, Gu Cheolun said he would hear the rest after finishing the matter.
And so, one day had passed.
The Poison King had been in a situation where he couldn't fathom what to do.
Did this mean he had finished all of that in barely a day?
'It makes no sense.'
How on earth had he done it?
Though he himself had called for this, the Poison King couldn't understand how it had been possible.
Thinking thus, the Poison King raised his head and gazed at the sky.
In the center of the night sky, a blue light spread across the heavens.
A brightly shining sphere floated there, as though it had created it.
It was truly overwhelming. Merely looking at it made cold sweat flow.
'Truly fearsome....'
It was a power fearsome enough to strike terror into the Poison King, the head of one of the Four Great Families.
And that wasn't all.
The martial artists already inside the Tang Clan were watching that bizarre phenomenon, crushed by fear.
A situation created by barely one person. Nevertheless, one could fairly say the entire Tang Clan was being crushed.
Having confirmed this, the Poison King burst into laughter unwittingly.
"Haha...."
"My lord...?"
As a martial artist behind him reacted with worry at the Poison King's laughter, the Poison King gestured.
"It's nothing. Just a brief amusing thought came to mind...."
Yes, an amusing thought.
How could it not be amusing?
Before being a clan head, the Poison King was a martial artist.
It was something he couldn't possibly not know, yet he had forgotten it for a moment.
That this place was none other than the Central Plains.
'A world where martial might is everything.'
A world filled with those who worshipped the martial and honed themselves.
If he were to recall what was different between Gu Cheolun and himself, it was by no means a difficult matter.
Far too simple an answer.
'...He is stronger than me.'
One cannot solve everything through martial might. Such was the way of the world.
However.
Most things could indeed be solved by it, and the reason one couldn't solve them in the vast majority of cases:
'Was a lack of martial might.'
A case of lacking the strength to handle the matter.
Only then do people seek power beyond martial might.
He had been the same.
Purely that and nothing more.
Because his martial might had been insufficient, he had called for one stronger than him.
Because that man's martial might was stronger than his own, he could finish the matter with ease.
Strength enough to overturn a clan and still bear the consequences.
That alone was what that man possessed.
'I do not have such strength....'
Only that difference.
It was truly bitter and scorching.
Like a wound cauterized by fire, it burned sharply.
Never in his life had he thought himself incompetent, but having reached this moment, he could only blank out.
In such a state, the Poison King bit down, trying desperately to come to his senses.
He had to come to his senses.
If he collapsed here, the Tang Clan would collapse.
That damned reality was forcibly making the Poison King stand.
'Damn it.'
He simply walked.
Now was a time to endure. As always, that was what a clan head was.
Gu Cheolun had sent only a telepathic message telling him to come, so he might not know the location. But finding the destination wasn't so difficult.
'It's hot.'
The more he walked, the more an unusually hot aura he felt.
From the moment he left his residence, the Poison King had known this aura belonged to Gu Cheolun.
He was showing him the way.
Telling him to come here, even kindly so.
Though it was a park inside the Tang Clan, the distance was considerable; sending a telepathic message from there to here wasn't enough—he was even releasing his aura to mark the path.
Now it was simply absurd.
'As time passes, you are ever more astonishing.'
While everyone else had stopped.
Only Gu Cheolun changed.
Always.
Even in his younger days when the Poison King had been called the Poison Dragon.
Gu Cheolun was a being who lived in a different world all alone.
One could not even look up to him. Nor could one dare feel inferior.
It was not so simple a distance that one could feel petty jealousy.
It was only because Gu Cheolun no longer showed himself that he had managed to forget that fact.
Bound by emotion, he moved his increasingly heavy feet.
Flowers and trees grew thick, but before he knew it, they no longer entered his sight.
After walking like that for a while longer.
Hwooook-!
"...Haa...."
The Poison King exhaled the breath he had been holding.
He could feel the heat that had begun to suffocate him disappearing.
His gradually blurring senses were reactivated.
As his vision cleared, the Poison King carefully surveyed his surroundings.
...!
He looked around and widened his eyes.
"This is...?"
Different.
It wasn't the scenery of the park he had been walking through until just now.
The beauty of lined-up flowers and trees had vanished, and only thoroughly dried land and rotting grass filled the place.
The Poison King could tell immediately.
This land was terrain deformed by poison.
The withering and rotting were likely the reason.
'There was a place like this in the Tang Clan?'
Being a clan that handled poison, he had thought they managed things thoroughly for the sake of outward appearance, at least.
To think such a place had been hidden within his own clan.
With a frowning face, the Poison King looked around here and there.
"A formation...?"
He felt a faint energy.
Traces of a high-level formation installed to hide this terrain.
Feeling that, he tightly clenched his fist.
"...Just what were you doing?"
Poison Monarch.
Just what had his great-grandfather been doing?
This was a part of that ugly corruption.
The Poison King, looking around thus, stopped his gaze at a certain point.
It was the entrance through which they had come to get here.
"That is...?"
He had wondered how one could penetrate such a thick formation.
The reason was seeping in at the entrance they had come through.
The entrance had been torn open.
A gap made to sever connection with the outside world. Someone had forcibly torn it apart, damaging the formation.
Formations, by nature, were not to be touched carelessly.
If one tried to forcefully break through, one had to bear the full backlash contained within the formation.
Because martial artists knew this, they bothered with painstakingly dismantling the formation's structure.
He tore this out crudely?
"Hah."
There was no need to wonder who had done such a thing.
After all....
"You're late."
The culprit was already waiting here.
At the voice from behind, the Poison King turned his gaze.
There stood the one the Poison King feared.
"...Lord Gu."
Gu Cheolun, his hair dyed red.
Seeing Gu Cheolun standing far away looking at him, the Poison King flinched.
He couldn't feel anything at all.
Though he bore such a mighty appearance, he felt even shallower than when he had grabbed his own neck last night.
That chilling sensation made the Poison King's hair stand on end.
The Poison King was no fool.
He properly knew what it meant to feel nothing at all like this.
'So the gap in our levels is this great.'
When there was a rank difference with an opponent, this phenomenon often manifested.
When the Poison King looked at a martial artist who had just reached the apex, or when facing first-rate martial artists, he would feel this way.
But if the opposite were the case, how could one explain this?
The Poison King forced himself to swallow the words that came to mind.
"...Is that... what you found?"
As if changing the subject, he pointed to what was behind Gu Cheolun.
It appeared to be an entrance leading underground.
To think there was such a space and such an entrance in the Tang Clan; he had had no idea at all.
The Poison King slowly approached the entrance and cautiously expressed his gratitude to Gu Cheolun.
"...Truly, thank you, Lord Gu."
Right after taking a light fist-and-palm salute, he tried to go down underground at once.
Kkwak-!
...!
Gu Cheolun grabbed the Poison King's arm, stopping his step.
At the overwhelming pressure felt in his arm, the Poison King gulped.
"...Lord Gu?"
-This is the last time, Tang Tianji.
...
-The fact that you called me to clean up your clan's karma, I will let this pass. But know it clearly.
The energy within the telepathic message resonating in his head infiltrated the Poison King's body and rang in every direction.
He was on the verge of collapsing and vomiting immediately.
-I showed you respect and did this because, compared to others, you lived somewhat like a human.
Gu Cheolun's red eyes turned toward the Poison King.
-If you try to use my child as an excuse to handle matters one more time.
At the killing intent contained in the voice, the Poison King felt his legs might give out at any moment.
But they didn't give out.
Gu Cheolun was suppressing even that.
Without his permission, he couldn't even collapse.
This was a demonstration toward him.
-There won't be a next time.
"...I... understand. I will keep it engraved...."
As the Poison King barely spat out the words, Gu Cheolun released the strength in his hand.
Then the pressure that had been constricting his entire body like a ghost vanished.
Stagger.
As the Poison King swayed and moved, the martial artists behind immediately placed their hands on their sword sheaths.
"...Stop!"
Seeing that, the Poison King roared.
"Remove your hands from your swords at once. This man is a precious guest of the Tang Clan."
He shouted with everything on the line, and the martial artists finally straightened up carefully.
The Poison King knew.
That Gu Cheolun had deliberately warned him via telepathic message was, in the end, out of consideration for the Poison King's honor before the many martial artists.
Furthermore, he was certain that even if they rushed in with suicidal resolve, they couldn't defeat Gu Cheolun.
Even just looking at the pressure from moments ago made that clear.
"I am sorry...."
"Let us go."
At the Poison King's apology, Gu Cheolun slightly nodded and moved his steps underground first.
And so the Poison King followed him as well.
******************
Looking at the underground they had descended to, the Poison King couldn't say a word.
What he had confirmed while descending was that it seemed connected to the Tang Clan's torture chamber.
But even that was mixed with arcane techniques, formations, and mechanisms, managed in complete secrecy.
It was a delicate combination that must have cost an unimaginable amount of money.
To the point that even the clan head of the Tang Clan hadn't known....
"...How can this be...."
The time taken to descend underground was longer than the time taken to go from his residence to the park.
That meant it was absurdly deep.
The sight he saw after descending for so long.
"...An Asura realm."
It wouldn't be insufficient to call it hell.
The blood felt from the middle of the stairs and the stench of blood piercing his nose.
Even the poisonous aura covering the air.
This was mostly the blood of demonic beasts.
After coming all the way down, it was visible.
The corpses of demonic beasts piled up here and there.
Green grade and Blue grade were piled up indiscriminately.
Checking them, they were all demonic beasts known to use poison.
Whether they had been disassembled, their skins and entrails were separated.
Bones had been collected too.
Or traces of only blood being drawn out were visible as well.
What had they been trying to do with this?
The Poison King had to tightly shut his eyes.
Toward such a Poison King, Gu Cheolun asked.
"Are you afraid?"
Are you afraid? At this, the Poison King nodded.
"...Very much so."
How could he not be?
He had tried so hard to sweep away all karma to be included among the names of the Righteous Faction.
He hadn't cleared away even a little.
Rather, hadn't it grown much thicker?
The Poison King was afraid of that.
To this, Gu Cheolun simply said plainly.
"Then endure it."
There would be no other way.
"If you are shaken by merely this much, I wouldn't look at all."
...
If one is shaken by the corpses of demonic beasts, one will be unable to endure.
At Gu Cheolun's words, the Poison King bit his lip.
He knew too. Within the horribly spread pools of demonic beasts' blood,
there wasn't only the blood of 'demonic beasts'.
Human blood was clearly mixed in too. And quite a large amount.
It didn't end with demonic beasts; a considerable number of humans had met their deaths here as well. That was what it meant.
And all while he, the clan head, had known nothing.
"Curious."
Gu Cheolun spoke, gazing at the scene.
"Even so, are you lot still the Righteous Faction?"
...
He truly felt nothing but simple curiosity.
Could they still be the Righteous Faction after committing such acts?
It was neither a sneering tone nor a mocking tone.
Because it was clearly a question asked purely out of curiosity, it hurt all the more.
The space didn't end.
They had barely reached the entrance.
The Poison King soothed his tiring mind and body and continued walking.
The moment he walked a few more steps and arrived at the center that now looked spacious.
"Have you come?"
There was someone inside. The Poison King widened his eyes upon seeing him.
"...Young Lord Gu?"
A face that looked like Gu Cheolun's yet fell short.
A young man with a small build for a male martial artist and a fierce face.
Gu Yangcheon had been waiting for the Poison King.
"How are you..."
The moment the Poison King questioned how that young one was here too,
he saw someone in front of Gu Yangcheon.
Someone was lying prostrate, trembling.
The Poison King could guess who he was from his clothes and atmosphere.
Could that be....
"...First Elder...?"
Kung-!
As the Poison King tried to call out to him, the old man suddenly began banging his head on the floor.
And then.
"I'm sorry.... I'm sorr...y. I am... trash of the world.... I'm sorry. Please forgive me.... I'm sorr...."
...
Kung-! Kung-!
He began expressing his guilt violently.
What in the world was going on?
The Poison King and the martial artists behind, of course.
...
Even Gu Cheolun was watching the situation with an uncomfortable look.
"Ah, about that...."
Gu Yangcheon in front made a slightly awkward expression and spoke.
"I got bored waiting.... so I thought I'd extract a confession out of him...."
He spoke while looking elsewhere.
"The process seems to have been a bit extreme. Haha...! Funny, isn't it?"
Gu Yangcheon tried his best to express laughter, but.
Naturally, there was no one who laughed along.