Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 172 - Combined Assault
Chapter 172 – Combined Assault
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Edited by Celestial Knight
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Ju-seong injected an appropriate amount of poison into the Green Forest King’s dantian. The Human-Faced Spider’s water poison.
It was an amount that the Green Forest King could sufficiently control himself by operating his cultivation.
In other words, Ju-seong had provided him a weapon. So that he could drive out the fire poison lurking throughout his meridians.
Ju-seong gently tapped the chest of the silently lying Green Forest King as he spoke.
“Elder, I’ve done what needs doing. Slowly circulate the poison I injected along your meridians to drive out the fire poison.”
In truth, for an ordinary martial artist, this would be unthinkable. You put two opposing poisons in one body, and just mixing them well will make everything fine?
People couldn’t be healed as easily as adjusting seasoning in soup.
‘Normally, this would be impossible. That’s just wishful thinking.’
The standard progression would be fire poison blowing away the dantian, water poison dissolving the five viscera and six bowels.
Hadn’t Ju-seong himself needed to learn the Five Poisons Valley’s secret Poison Accumulation Art to realize the mystery of Using Poison to Control Poison back in Yunnan?
But the Green Forest King was an existence unconstrained by such common sense.
They were the Ten Greats Under Heaven.
Only the top ten of jianghu could claim that title, and it now decorated the Green Forest King’s name.
Internal energy manipulation that had reached a certain realm allowed him to do what needed to be done without any special poison techniques or external help.
“Let’s discuss rewards after all this is over.”
Ju-seong murmured this as he rose. The battlefield was still chaotic with the clash of weapons. Ju-seong walked back into the forest of blades and screams.
* * *
The headscarf fluttered as it fell, split in two.
Yi Pyo-eum hurriedly tried to cover her forehead, but the two characters inscribed there had already been clearly captured in Flying Dragon Divine Brush’s eyes.
He sneered with a bitter smile.
“So you are that woman from back then. To think you’ve learned martial arts… truly a new view with fresh eyes, as they say.”
He kept awkwardly forcing literary phrases that didn’t suit him, which would have been amusing, but Yi Pyo-eum couldn’t laugh.
Her face was pale as she stumbled backward. Hopping backward on her single leg, she looked pitiful.
Flying Dragon Divine Brush leisurely twirled his twin brushes as he followed her.
“Now… Where do you think you’re going, lady? Since we’ve reunited like this, I should inscribe a few more characters.”
Just as he was following with that lecherous smile, a meteor hammer flew at him from directly behind.
“Tch.”
Flying Dragon Divine Brush clicked his tongue in annoyance, relaxing his wrists as he spun his brushes.
-SCREEECH…!
An ear-grating friction sound rang out, and the meteor hammer was deflected in another direction. A display of the grafting technique.
Flying Dragon Divine Brush wrinkled his brow in irritation and muttered.
“Tch… Ignorantly strong is all you are. You’ve scratched the bristles.”
Having said that, he bent slightly at the waist before suddenly straightening up.
-THUMP!
A strange sound followed.
It was the Bowstring Body Shadow.
A movement technique using only waist flexibility to instantly close distance while standing stiffly.
Without vulgarly spreading his legs, he could move while standing straight… a technique usually used by refined elders of prestigious families or palace eunuchs.
Due to the extreme difficulty in controlling internal energy and regulating movement, it was practically a lost art, but if one wore appropriately loose robes, it had the advantage of closing distance before the opponent could react.
Sure enough, Black Pig couldn’t respond to his technique in time.
This was unusual. Black Pig was also a member of the Battle Maniacs, trained in flexible fighting methods.
According to Battle Maniac fighting style, since the opponent was already inside his range, he should have released the chain holding the meteor hammer and used another secondary weapon, but…
“Wh-whoa!”
Black Pig only let out a stupid grunt, raising the chain gripped tightly in both hands.
Flying Dragon Divine Brush had charged in too suddenly, too quickly.
“Haha! Stupid insect!”
In an instant, all pretense of being a refined scholar vanished. Flying Dragon Divine Brush spat vulgar curses as he thrust his brush.
-CLACK!
The brush slipped into a gap in the chain as if being sucked in.
Normally when entangled like this, the stronger one had the advantage, but not this time.
Black Pig tried to forcefully push away the brush stuck in his chain, but…
-SCREEE!
Flying Dragon Divine Brush instead used that force against him. Lowering his stance, he swept the hand entangled in the chain in a great arc over his own head.
This left Flying Dragon Divine Brush practically falling into Black Pig’s embrace.
From that position, he spun halfway and slammed his elbow into Black Pig’s flank.
-CRUNCH!
It was a wicked strike. Black Pig felt his lungs compress and ribs crumble as his breath caught.
“Let’s hear you squeal, you filthy pig!”
Just as Flying Dragon Divine Brush was about to tear out Black Pig’s throat to finish him…
-PFFT, PFFT!
Two crimson finger winds flew toward him. One aimed at his wrist, one at the back of his head.
Flying Dragon Divine Brush had no choice but to raise his hand to block the finger winds instead of tearing out the throat.
“HRAAH!”
Black Pig seized that moment to grab hold of his senses, released the chain, and kicked off the ground hard to fly backward.
“Two people making a nuisance of themselves in pairs.”
Flying Dragon Divine Brush ground his teeth as he turned.
“So, do you remember me now, lady?”
Yi Pyo-eum’s eyes trembled. Memories she’d sunk deep beneath her consciousness, left to be buried by layers of sediment.
But she couldn’t keep forgetting forever.
Yi Pyo-eum gently brushed her forehead, her eyelids trembling.
* * *
Pyo-eum fell into a momentary flashback.
[Well now, a courtesan is still a courtesan, so why refuse to serve? How can such unreasonable things exist!]
[I am not a prostitute but an entertainer. All the courtesans here are the same.]
Her younger self’s resolute voice echoed in her memory.
Several years ago. At the time, Pyo-eum had been a promising young martial artist, her talents recognized at a renowned sect in Guangxi.
That sect was called Sea Moon Pavilion. It was an all-female sect, and their universally beautiful women also ran a courtesan business.
Naturally, they were entertainers, not prostitutes.
They absolutely never gave their bodies to random martial artists, but…
[Entertainers, you say. An amusing thing to say. Didn’t the reputation of the Fifteen Heroes of Nan-yue ultimately come from spreading your legs? Isn’t that right, brothers?]
At Flying Dragon Divine Brush’s mockery, the thugs behind him burst into laughter.
It wasn’t wrong, which made it more infuriating.
A sect leader of a middle-tier sect or higher could pick a concubine from among them.
That was how Sea Moon Pavilion had expanded its influence.
While there were martial artists who harassed them, considering Sea Moon Pavilion’s own female masters plus their surrounding allied sects, antagonizing them was unthinkable.
Being among the top fifteen sects in the combined Guangxi-Guangdong region made it even more so.
Flying Dragon Divine Brush had pointed out exactly that.
At first, when they’d received him as a guest, he’d put on a refined act… writing poetry on paper, drawing pictures, playing around.
Of course, his skill was so pathetic and his learning so shallow that the courtesans exchanged glances and silently mocked him.
Apparently he’d noticed, because that’s when Flying Dragon Divine Brush’s rampage began.
Though called a rampage, it was the kind that was difficult to simply throw him out.
In a refined voice, persistently, without leaving his seat, he kept making advances on the courtesans.
He didn’t flip tables or lay hands carelessly on their bodies.
When the courtesans moved to a different room, he simply followed and continued pestering. Residences and annexes were no exception. When guards tried to block him, he’d smile and back off.
Then the next day, he’d come to the courtesan house again, invade someone else’s table, recite old poetry, then start pestering again.
When they barred him from the establishment, he sang loudly at the entrance and drank heavily.
Finally, Pyo-eum, who was managing the courtesan house at the time, couldn’t take it anymore and drew her sword to threaten him.
Frankly, the fact that she’d endured that long was remarkable restraint.
A normal Jiangnan evil path sect would have started fighting long ago, but Pyo-eum had been particularly mild-tempered back then, so she’d endured and endured.
[Leave immediately or Sea Moon Pavilion’s swords will find you.]
At her words, Flying Dragon Divine Brush laughed brightly and turned away… and that very day, Sea Moon Pavilion burned.
The thugs following him suddenly transformed into murderous spirits, raping and killing the women.
Not just them… several martial artists wielding twin weapons like him attacked Sea Moon Pavilion’s main hall and destroyed it.
Their intentions and identity remained unknown both at the time and afterward.
And Pyo-eum, who had been the first to confront Flying Dragon Divine Brush…
“Lady, would you repeat what you said earlier?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook off these thoughts.
* * *
Ju-seong ran. It was an utterly exhilarating sprint… because everything blocking his path was smashed.
Racing at top speed, he quickly defeated two Battle Maniacs.
One wielded twin birchwood clubs, but they shattered under Ju-seong’s punch.
Then a palm strike to the chest stopped his heart instantly.
The next opponent was a twin-sword wielder. Two swords weren’t naturally suited for each other.
Even one sword had such varied transformations that it consumed mental energy.
Despite considerable skill, Ju-seong confused his hands with Scattering Flying Fluff Palm before finishing him by driving needles coated with Human-Faced Spider poison into both eyes.
Ju-seong felt he had climbed to the very edge of the peak realm, tickling the buttocks of the next level.
Of course, there were unfortunate geniuses who planted themselves at this stage in their youth and never shed this one layer their entire lives.
‘That’s not something I need to worry about right now.’
What he immediately needed to worry about was his companions’ safety.
A powerful aura could be felt in the distance.
Ju-seong excelled beyond others at sensing the presence of the strong. Having mastered the Three Divine Powers made it natural.
Ju-seong trampled the ground like a crazed colt.
-CRASH!
His body, refined through Samadhi Body Refinement, slammed directly into enemy lines.
“GYAAH!”
“My leg!”
The enemies either had their chests caved in or their legs broken, rolling about.
Ju-seong’s shoulder also stung, but he could endure.
‘If only I could make my whole body a weapon like the Green Forest King.’
That realm still seemed distant.
He began breaking through the martial artists, hands and feet moving busily.
-TAT-TAT!
He deployed the White Phoenix Nine Heavens Movement at near-invisible speed.
Now he was like a lone eagle leaping from cloud to cloud.
He hadn’t yet reached the phoenix’s realm of crossing stars, but felt that too would come soon.
-THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD…
Footprints stamped between the martial artists, afterimages of palms and fists remaining.
Blood spurted; screams burst out.
Ju-seong suppressed over a dozen in an instant before reaching where the powerful aura emanated.
The terrain was slightly lower than elsewhere, so he only understood the situation there upon arrival.
“Hm.”
Black Pig and Yi Pyo-eum, bleeding but holding on.
Between them stood a man in scholar’s robes, his expression composed as he leisurely handled their combined assault.
The skill with which he wielded his twin brushes was genuinely impressive.
Ju-seong enhanced his vision with Celestial Eye to examine the man’s weapons.
“Well, well… Using quite an unusual weapon?”
Looking closely, they weren’t ordinary Judge’s Brushes.
The tips were covered in stiff iron bristles as if they were actual brushes.
Internal energy seeped between the bristles to make them stiffer; when deflecting attacks, he adjusted the energy to make the bristles flexible again.
Ju-seong examined the man’s weapons, then shifted his gaze to Yi Pyo-eum.
‘Oh, her headscarf.’
The red headscarf she always wore was gone. On her exposed forehead, two characters were brazenly written… characters a woman could never bear to carry on her head.
“…Ah.”
Ju-seong exhaled a suppressed sound.