Cheongpyeong realized his internal energy had reached its limit.

It was hanging by a thread.

Wudang’s Taiji Fist specialized in upright, face-to-face combat.

The Kill Veil’s Soul-Slaying Sword specialized in ambush and surprise attack.

The only reason the balance had held at all was because their strengths and weaknesses happened to lock against each other.

It was never because his skill had truly risen high enough to reach the Dark Emperor.

“So this is that Taiji Divine Fist or whatever it’s called?”

And yet the Dark Emperor looked not merely relaxed, but downright leisurely.

Cheongpyeong could not even spare breath for an answer as he drove his fist forward.

But the other man was speaking while sneering at him.

That alone said enough.

Then, in that instant, the Dark Emperor moved his left hand.

A throwing knife spun around his fingertips.

The same kind that had lodged in Soyak’s leg.

Cheongpyeong sucked in a sharp breath.

But it was already too late to evade.

The Dark Emperor released the knife he had been turning at his fingertips—

and it shot straight toward the top of his foot.

A deadlock with no good answer.

He could not simply pull back now.

All martial arts began from one’s step.

If he drew his left foot back, his stance would collapse, and the form would lose its power.

“HUP—!”

Cheongpyeong made a decision.

He found the one method that would wreck the form the least.

Advance.

“Huh?”

The Dark Emperor’s brow twitched at the sudden swell of internal pressure surging along the tip of Cheongpyeong’s attack.

He had never imagined Cheongpyeong would choose to press forward in a moment like this.

But because of that, the Dark Emperor was forced back.

And Cheongpyeong was able to knock the falling throwing knife aside with his knee.

TING! THUNK!

The poisoned throwing knife split into the cave floor as though the stone were tofu and bored straight in.

An absurd cutting force.

And though the distance had been very short, it had been thrown with Sword Force poured into it.

But that was all Cheongpyeong had been allowed.

“It broke, didn’t it?”

A stance would falter, even if only by a hair.

And the man before him was an absolute master who had reached the middle stage of the Transformation Realm.

There was no way he would miss that opening.

The form of the Soul-Slaying Sword twisted grotesquely.

Endless killing intent streamed out in branching waves.

Cheongpyeong, face gone pale, tried to gather his internal energy again and restore his stance—

but he was too late.

BOOM—!

This was not Zhuge Won’s incomplete force, nor Cheongpyeong’s incomplete force.

This was full Sword Force, belonging to someone who had reached the middle of the Transformation Realm—a realm so polished one could call it fully mature.

A brutally cold blue radiance wrapped around the Dark Emperor’s short sword, then punched straight through the exact center of the Taiji formed by Cheongpyeong’s fist.

“...Kgh!”

He twisted his body in desperate haste, but his right arm was cut deeply.

Blood burst free and ran down.

Cheongpyeong immediately drove out his left fist again, but—

the Dark Emperor was already kicking toward his chest.

KWA-BOOOOM!!!!

A detonation so violent it was hard to believe it had come from one human body crashing into another.

Soyak saw Cheongpyeong’s body fly backward and slam down like a handkerchief tied to an arrow.

Cheongpyeong could no longer move.

Blood was running down from his head.

He was completely incapacitated.

“S-Sir...?”

Jang Yul stared at the fallen Cheongpyeong with disbelief in his eyes.

But no amount of hopeless wishing could make a collapsed man rise again.

Cheongpyeong did not so much as twitch.

And before him, the Dark Emperor was standing there.

“Move.”

Perhaps he simply could not be bothered to create another corpse that would have to be cleared away if he cut him down.

The Dark Emperor struck Jang Yul with the flat of the sword in his hand.

Jang Yul tried somehow to block it with the sword he still held, but it was impossible.

KIIING—! BOOM!!!

The sound of a blade breaking.

Then the sound of Jang Yul’s body smashing into the cave wall.

At the chain of thunderous impacts, Soyak swallowed against a dry throat.

Now there was nothing left between her and the Dark Emperor.

But there was one thing the Dark Emperor did not know.

Soyak could still get to her feet.

*****

One shichen before Soyak entered the closed-door training cave,

Zhuge Won had taken something out for her from the back of a cabinet hidden deep inside the Family Head’s office.

It was an object sealed inside a sturdy box, thickly wrapped in layers of pasted paper.

“Take this with you.”

“...What is it?”

“Open it first.”

Zhuge Won chuckled under his breath.

Zhuge Yeon knew what was inside, and her face drained white before the color slowly returned.

There probably were not even a hundred such things in all the Central Plains.

Soyak worked her small hands over the box and peeled away the yellowed paper.

Each layer she tore free released a faint salty scent.

But it was not an unpleasant smell.

Something cool. Clear. Bracing.

“...I don’t know what this smell is.”

Soyak tilted her head as she paused halfway through unwrapping it.

Eunsong and Zhuge Won both knew.

“Do you know what the sea is?”

“I do. I have heard it is a vast body of salt water to the south and east.”

“That’s right. It’s the smell of the sea.”

They had both been to the Hainan Sect before.

The reason and the time had differed, of course.

Just as Eunsong had once wandered the world during his days of Roaming Pillar Journey, Zhuge Won too had once lived through a season of traveling the world.

This was a gift he had received from the Hainan Sect long ago.

At last Soyak stripped away all the wrapping, and a brown wooden box appeared.

When she opened it slowly, something inside was revealed that looked almost like milk drawn from a cow and hardened into a solid mass.

But its radiance was nothing like that.

It glowed with a soft light and gave off a restrained elegance.

A pearl.

And not an ordinary pearl.

A spiritual treasure imbued with the essence of extreme yin, said to grant its bearer the power to repel demons and resist poison.

The Thousand-Year Purple Shell.

“Have you ever heard of the Thousand-Year Purple Shell?”

“I’ve heard of it, but...”

Some of the color drained from Soyak’s cheeks.

It was because she could not quite accept that this was being given to her.

“...Are you truly certain you can give something this precious to me?”

“You will need it.”

“But... I don’t really understand why I would.”

Zhuge Won grinned.

Then he pointed his chin at Eunsong.

Ask him, that meant.

Eunsong stared blankly at Zhuge Won for abruptly tossing the explanation onto him, then let out a long sigh.

It seemed Zhuge Won had judged that she would only accept it if her own master told her to.

“The Thousand-Year Purple Shell has the effect of neutralizing poison, Soyak.”

“...I know.”

“And the Dark Emperor is one of the Kill Veil. No matter how profound his martial arts may be, how can anyone guarantee there is no poison on his sword and daggers?”

“Ah...”

Soyak’s eyes widened in a perfect circle, and she nodded.

This was purely lack of experience.

She had never once faced an enemy who used poison.

That was why poison itself had not even occurred to her as one of the threat methods she needed to consider.

But even now that she understood the danger poison posed, this object was far too precious.

Soyak bit her lip.

It weighed on her.

But Eunsong knew why Zhuge Won had shoved the explanation onto him.

“Take it, Soyak.”

“But...”

“This is no time to hide behind modesty. We don’t know when the Dark Emperor may try to harm you. We cannot afford to go without even the most basic precautions.”

“...Understood.”

Soyak stared back and forth several times between the Thousand-Year Purple Shell and Zhuge Won, then bent deeply at the waist.

“...Thank you.”

“Use it well. Take it with you.”

“Are you really certain that’s all right?”

This time, it was Eunsong who asked.

The Thousand-Year Purple Shell was not a consumable.

So long as it was not broken or worn away, its effect would last forever.

And yet Zhuge Won was simply handing that treasure over to Soyak.

“Do you think this will be the last time? From the look of how things are turning, she’s going to keep running into the ugliest parts of this world from now on. At the very least, I do not want to hear that she died for nothing because of poison.”

“...Understood.”

Eunsong nodded, then placed the brown wooden box containing the Thousand-Year Purple Shell directly into Soyak’s hands.

Then he warned her firmly.

“Never let it leave your body. Do you understand?”

“I understand... I think. If I have this, then I won’t be poisoned?”

“Not that you will never be poisoned at all.”

“Then...?”

“Even if you are poisoned, it will cleanse it quickly. I’ve heard Demonic Energy cannot even draw near it.”

Soyak nodded slowly.

How useful would it really be?

In the end, one clean hit was still enough to incapacitate her.

It did not seem likely that the Dark Emperor would politely wait for the poison spreading through her body to be cleansed by the Thousand-Year Purple Shell’s effect.

“In that case, doesn’t it seem difficult to expect very much from it?”

Soyak asked quietly.

But Eunsong only smiled.

So did Zhuge Won.

Even Elder Cheongpyeong, who had been watching all this from behind them.

Zhuge Won glanced sidelong at Elder Cheongpyeong and asked casually,

“What happened to the disciple you brought with you? Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him for a while.”

“I sent him back to Wudang.”

“...I see.”

That was disappointing to Zhuge Won.

Jonggwon, the Wudang Fist Adept, was a Transcendent Apex martial artist in the middle stage.

At a time like this, every master mattered.

But Cheongpyeong’s judgment had been correct.

The Zhuge Household was not preparing for a war.

Adding one more sacrifice to die at the Dark Emperor’s hands would serve no purpose at all.

“Master, no matter how I think about it, I...”

Soyak was still trying somehow to put down the object, too precious to accept so easily into her own hands.

But by then, Eunsong already knew.

He knew that Elder Cheongpyeong and Zhuge Won would both throw themselves in to buy time if anything happened to Soyak.

“Keep it.”

Chapter 112

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