Everything was new.
The birth of a Poisoned One, witnessing a Poisoned One’s abilities, and even facing off against a Poisoned One—all of it was a first for the black-clad warriors. That unfamiliarity forced them to act cautiously.
As long as they didn’t get caught, they’d be fine. She was just another wandering martial artist using dangerous poison techniques. If they approached her like one would herd a wild beast, they could hunt her without sustaining serious damage.
Just when the black-clad warriors were beginning to feel confident in their strategy against Tang Hwa-rin, the Poisoned One unfurled her wings.
“Wings?”
Poison dust surged out from Tang Hwa-rin’s entire body, but the most potent concentration ca from her back.
Humans were never ant to have wings, and yet Tang Hwa-rin looked exactly like a butterfly erging from its cocoon, slowly spreading its wings for the first ti.
The poison powder billowed outward from her, filling the battlefield.
At a glance, the powder didn’t even seem threatening. It resembled the first sleet of early winter, or the fog of dawn, or perhaps the scattered light of a rainbow at daybreak.
The black-clad warriors instinctively stepped back. For a brief mont, they stood transfixed by the strange and fearso sight.
At least until Tang Hwa-rin announced the na of the technique.
“Poisoned Killing Zone?”
“Poisoned Killing Zone, she said?”
“Has the Sichuan Tang Clan ever had a technique called ‘Poisoned Killing Zone’?”
Sure, martial techniques often included words like "kill" or "death", but those were typically favored by demonic sects or heretics.
Orthodox factions preferred taphorical nas. But "Poisoned Killing Zone"?
As Tang Hwa-rin boldly declared the na of her martial art, the black-clad warriors exchanged glances to see if anyone recognized it. None of them did—they were simply baffled.
“Ugh—seriously!”
Tang Hwa-rin, visibly excited, gestured toward the air with her hand.
“Aaargh!”
“Guhhh!”
“Blood from... the seven apertures?!”
With a single gesture, the poison powder swept past the warriors’ ankles, seizing control of the area.
“When did it reach our ankles?! Everyone fall back!”
“Adjust your masks and retreat!”
Fortunately, the poison dust wasn’t like the kind she used before that burned the body on contact. It was likely an inhalation-type toxin. The black-clad warriors wore special masks that could filter out most poisons, even if not as strong as those used against peak venom.
They pressed their hands to their masks, sealing them over their mouths and noses. But ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) if that was enough to stop it, Tang Hwa-rin wouldn’t have nad this martial art.
“You really think that’ll be enough?”
Tang Hwa-rin sneered at them and gestured again.
“S—suffocating!”
“Keugh!”
Just one breath.
Those who trusted their masks and inhaled deeply sucked in the poison powder clinging to their faces—and collapsed.
Tang Hwa-rin watched their crumpling bodies with an unreadable expression.
---------
“A third of them died in an instant.”
A black-clad warrior stared at the others who had collapsed before they could even escape the Poisoned One’s zone. The sheer power was overwhelming. No wonder the Sect had chosen to support her despite the risks and casualties.
If one Poisoned One had this much power, then mass-producing them would undoubtedly be a massive boost to the Sect’s grand plans.
“Rush in all at once! Subdue her!”
They had to capture the Poisoned One alive. The black-clad warrior stared at her with eyes full of greed and fury.
“Hold your breath! Just one cut from each of us will be enough to bring her down!”
“Yes, sir!”
They had identified the Poisoned One’s weakness. If the poison was inhaled, then they just had to stop breathing. Rush in, slash, retreat. Simple.
The black-clad warriors reford their formation and charged Tang Hwa-rin all at once.
With two-thirds of their numbers remaining, they had more than enough to bring her down. Even if so died, there was no way she could kill them all.
As they all lunged forward with the sa strategy, one warrior at the very front noticed sothing off.
‘She’s... smiling?’
Sothing wasn’t right. She wasn’t dodging. She wasn’t moving. Despite being rushed by so many at once, she stood there calmly.
Like a fisherman.
Ignoring the little tugs on the line. Waiting—like a veteran angler—until the fish swallowed the hook completely before pulling.
“R-run!”
Just as one warrior realized sothing had gone terribly wrong and spun around—
The fisherman...
“You really thought that was all it took?”
—raised her rod.
---------
“Aaaagh! I’m burning alive!”
“It’s hot! No—cold!”
Half of those who charged burned black in an instant.
“Blood?! Why—?!”
Half of them collapsed, blood gushing from their seven apertures.
Those who still drew breath stared at Tang Hwa-rin all at once. Why were they dying? What had they done wrong?
Tang Hwa-rin opened her mouth to explain—so they wouldn’t die wondering when they reached the afterlife.
“Breathing holes aren’t the only holes, you know.”
Like a fisherman who’d just caught a trophy fish, she grinned at the black-clad warriors.
Holes? What did she an? One of the still-standing warriors suddenly felt a strange sting on the back of his hand. From the earlier fight with the Vice Pavilion Head?
A wound?
“Wounds! The poison’s entering through wounds! It’s a trap! Retreat!”
The realization ca far too late.
The very assumption that the poison only affected those who inhaled it had been Tang Hwa-rin’s trap.
What they had just done was the equivalent of plunging wounded bodies into a vat of lethal poison. From the mont they re-entered her space, their fate had been sealed.
“Aaaaagh!”
Whether they realized it or not, everyone inside this zone died equally.
They had jumped into a sea of poison.
Drawn in by irresistible bait, the fish had all swum into the trap—and none could escape.
“So this is the Poisoned One’s secret art...”
The last remaining black-clad warrior—the man who had slain the most mbers of the Vice Pavilion—stood outside her reach and stared at her.
“It’s not the Poisoned One’s secret art. It’s my secret art.”
Tang Hwa-rin pointed proudly to her chest as she answered, full of confidence.
“You called it ‘Poisoned Killing Zone,’ didn’t you? I don’t think there could be a more fitting na.”
Tang Hwa-rin’s face twisted in a strange expression at his acknowledgnt. Her brow furrowed, but the corners of her lips twitched slightly.
Was she pleased? Or displeased?
If Kang Yun-ho had seen it, he would have thought it was the sa complex expression he made when soone left a shocked complint on one of his cringeworthy early stories. But the black-clad warrior couldn’t read her face.
‘Is... is that a weakness I just saw?’
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
Even though he had just praised an extraordinary martial art, her strange reaction might be a sign of weakness.
Was her stamina running low? Or was it a technique that consud too much internal energy? Perhaps she had used too much of the venom within her body.
‘No clear weakness.’
In the end, it was all speculation. The black-clad warrior watched the Poisoned One’s technique and felt a suffocating sense of helplessness in the face of sothing he couldn’t surpass.
Breathe—and you die.
Have a wound—and you die.
Attack and get caught—and you die.
If this were the formation techniques of the Jegal Clan, there might be a Life Gate sowhere. But stepping into her domain only revealed gates of death.
Should he escape and report this to the Sect? The black-clad warrior hesitated for a mont.
‘If we let her live, it could ruin the Sect’s grand design.’
She was simply too dangerous. If they let her go now, they might never get another chance. No—she could grow even stronger and stand in the Sect’s way.
‘I’ll bet my life on this.’
Perhaps they had just created the greatest enemy of their Sect. If so, how would history rember them?
He refused to be rembered as the idiot who ruined the Sect’s future with his own hands.
“I admit it—you’re stronger than any martial artist I’ve ever faced.”
The black-clad warrior struck his pressure points, then looked straight at Tang Hwa-rin.
“What is with you?”
“But! You weren’t the only strong opponent I’ve ever faced!”
Malignant energy surged from the black-clad man. He was burning his internal energy, his vitality—everything—like a fire that flared up before vanishing.
“Wh-What the hell?!”
“If I can’t take you alive, I’ll at least take your blood essence!”
He couldn’t endure her space for long. But if he just stood there, even after she'd seized control of the zone, he wouldn’t still be alive. The black-clad warrior had always survived by doing one thing:
Piercing through others’ domains and carving a path.
‘I’ll aim for the shortest route.’
A mutual destruction strike that abandoned defense entirely. He threw himself at Tang Hwa-rin from afar, delivering a full-power thrust aid at her heart.
“Tch!”
Dodging was impossible in ti. Tang Hwa-rin, forced to react, hurled a throwing dagger from her hand—the signature weapon of the Tang Clan.
‘Even grazing it ans death.’
Indeed, true to the Tang Clan’s art, the dagger was imbued with a deadly force. A single nick would be fatal.
His own malignant energy collided with the invading venom, devouring both his own life force and the incoming poison.
If he dodged the dagger, his attack would fail. And with his energy already ignited, he wouldn’t get another chance. He would die before he could strike again.
‘I’ll deflect it!’
He focused his malignant energy and swatted the dagger aside. Even that alone sent a painful sting through his wrist from the force it carried.
Now—only the Poisoned One remained. He shifted his gaze back toward her—
Or tried to.
“What the—?”
What t his eyes was the palm of the Poisoned One.
“It’s over.”
Tang Hwa-rin declared it coldly as she slamd his head into the ground.
---------
The poison mist began to fade.
All the venom that had filled the battlefield was drawn back in—into one woman, in the blink of an eye.
“C-Cough!”
The black-clad man was still alive—barely. The malignant energy in his body fought back against the venom trying to consu him. But whether the venom won or the energy did, his death was already sealed.
“So... it has so use after all...”
As if she already knew how it would end, Tang Hwa-rin didn’t bother with him. Instead, she picked up the throwing dagger that had fallen, her voice bitter and faintly dissatisfied.
“T-The na... that technique... what was it?”
The black-clad warrior wanted to know the na of the move that had killed him. Not the Poisoned Killing Zone, but the final, finishing strike. That had clearly been sothing different.
“Daa... Actually, no. It’s just a trick. That’s all.”
“Heh. A trick, you say? You think I look like soone who would fall to just a trick?”
“I-I told you... it doesn’t even have a na!”
Strictly speaking, what she’d used wasn’t what he thought it was. So yes, it was a different technique. Tang Hwa-rin told herself this was fine—though her uneasy expression betrayed a hint of guilt.
“Then let na the move that killed . Darkness so deep it devours even death... Let it be called... Midnight Requi—gurgh!”
“Shut up and just diiie already!”
Tang Hwa-rin, unable to withstand the embarrassnt, shouted in frustration.
---------
The battlefield fell silent.
“Why do n love giving nas like that? Seriously...”
Standing among the corpses of countless black-clad warriors, the woman who had caused it all looked slightly flustered, her face tinged with color.
One man, watching her cautiously, tried to quietly slip away—cradling his scorched, blackened arm.
But she wasn’t the type to overlook such things.
“Ghh!”
The throwing dagger she tossed embedded itself in his burnt arm.
The final act of it all.
“Tang Geo-ho. I suppose... you and I need to end this ourselves, don’t we?”
With grief and fury in her steps, Tang Hwa-rin walked slowly—toward the man who had ruined her life.
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