Chapter 205 – Heavenly Splendor Fairy

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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Edited by Celestial Knight

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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The Spreading Poison Incantation.

It was originally a technique for discharging poison stored in the dantian through the palms or index fingers.

Naturally, the essence of the method lay in carefully transporting the poison along the energy channels and firing it through a designated path.

‘This seems very wrong.’

The current situation, where toxic energy was erupting wildly from all eighty-four thousand pores, was not a normal state.

-KWAHAAAAA…!

The Zhen.

A bird possessing an extreme poison so potent that just by dipping its feather in water for an instant, a dozen grown men could easily be killed.

The king of toxic creatures.

Just as a Qilin appears when a sage ruler is born, some said that if a monarch treated the people harshly, a Zhen would visit the royal palace.

Black toxic energy spewed from Ju-seong’s entire body.

-Ssssss…!

His green robes were also soaked in the toxic energy, turning pitch black and swelling up to flutter like the wings of a crow.

The surrounding grass all withered yellow at once, quickly turning black, and eventually melted into a few drops of poisonous water.

And then…

-BOOM!

The toxic energy that had been condensing beneath Ju-seong’s skin finally exploded with its full force, extending in all directions.

“KYAAAAAA!”

The dancers of the Palace of Pleasure who had been forming the Heavenly Splendor formation.

The moment they were touched by that formidable toxic energy, their skin began to melt.

Their beautiful faces and soft, white skin were grotesquely distorted in an instant, looking like those of lepers.

At least the women with internal energy above the peak level gritted their teeth and deployed qinggong to scatter.

“Cough, cough!”

“Gack!”

But if they had inhaled the air where this formidable toxic energy had spread even once, there was no way to prevent them from vomiting blood and becoming incapacitated.

Ju-seong walked forward slowly, shedding black tears.

-FLUTTER, FLUTTER.

The tails of his robes whipped around behind him, and pitch-black smoke rose in billows.

With every single step he took, the grass shriveled as if screaming.

If the Wood Poison of the Heavenly Silkworm Moth was an uncontrollable power of growth…

“Guh…”

One dancer lay collapsed, groaning and trembling.

The Zhen’s poison was Earth Poison, a power of death and decay that returned everything to the soil.

Of course, the formidable wave of energy he had first unleashed couldn’t be maintained indefinitely. There was a limit to the amount of poison Ju-seong could draw out at once.

However…

“…A large black bird is coming this way, Palace Master. We will go and subdue it!”

The palanquin bearers lowered the palanquin and rushed forward blindly to protect their idol and reason for living, the Palace Master of Pleasure.

With his pupils now completely black like black jade, Ju-seong stared fixedly at the bearers charging toward him.

“I will kill you, rip off your limbs, and offer them to the Palace Master!”

The bearer in front shouted boldly and lunged at Ju-seong.

“…”

Ju-seong wordlessly extended his right palm.

Unlike his usual scarlet palm-force, a pitch-black palm-force shot out like a bird of prey.

-THUD!

The poisonous palm struck the bearer’s face squarely.

His face melted away exactly in the shape of a hand, leaving a blackened indentation.

Even after seeing that horrific sight, the bearers didn’t care and charged madly.

Ju-seong threaded through them with Zhen poison wrapped around both hands.

“Gack!”

“Urgh!”

Even if Ju-seong’s fingertips merely brushed them, they collapsed with foam at their mouths, their faces turning a deathly black.

“…”

Ju-seong stared at the palanquin sitting alone on the ridge, then walked toward it with steady steps.

One who commanded ghosts and deployed fantastic illusory formations.

The Palace Master of Pleasure would be inside there.

Just then…

[Stop.]

A voice that shook the soul.

[Halt right there, you lowly and ignorant thing. If you take one more step, that place is the Heavenly Realm… how dare you attempt to invade its boundary!]

Ju-seong slightly lifted his head, and indeed, a line was drawn right in front of him. Beyond it, five-colored radiance was brilliant, and various gods were looking down at him with bulging eyes.

Ju-seong twisted his lips and said.

“Regrettably, I have the most hideous demon sitting inside my head, so I’ll tear apart such trivial tricks in an instant.”

Ju-seong crossed the boundary with feet carrying pitch-black toxic energy as if it were nothing.

-SHHH…

It was a formation hastily constructed by drawing a boundary with salt and sticking a few counting rods into the ground.

Since Ju-seong had never seen the Palace Master of Pleasure leave the palanquin, she must have deployed the formation by throwing ritual objects from her seat.

‘A superb formation master. A type I’m facing for the first time.’

Ju-seong muttered to himself.

The current Palace Master of Pleasure, Heavenly Splendor Fairy, was famous as a heaven-sent talent.

Before her, the Palace of Pleasure was a palace in name only… it was essentially a red-light district where beautiful female martial artists who had learned seduction arts were gathered.

Its location wasn’t in the mountains like now, but in the middle of a bustling red-light district.

Heavenly Splendor Fairy had started as a low-ranking courtesan there, melting the hearts of many jianghu men and stealing all sorts of techniques and martial arts to learn.

And among them were even military personnel.

-…BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!!

The bottom of the palanquin suddenly exploded, and the acrid scent of gunpowder spread.

Ju-seong had sensed it in advance and leaped high into the air.

Hundreds, thousands of metal fragments spread in a cone shape, tearing through the ground and air.

Ju-seong recalled a fellow named Uncle Gongsun whom he had encountered in Chengdu, Sichuan, long ago.

That guy also enjoyed using hidden weapons that utilized gunpowder exactly like this.

Thanks to that experience, Ju-seong was able to quickly dodge.

Ju-seong landed with an exasperated face and said.

“Is the bullshit finished now?”

-CREEEAK.

As if all the trivial tricks were finally over, the palanquin door opened and a white hand appeared.

It was a delicate hand that could be called ‘slender jade fingers,’ yet its nails were excessively pointed and sharp, making them unsightly.

And the revealed face was of a beauty that could truly be called ‘a face that could topple a country.’

‘The face itself is a seduction art.’

Ju-seong muttered.

The face was alluring enough to rival Xishi of old.

Unlike the dancers she commanded, she didn’t wear vulgar silk but a very thin silk robe that fell elegantly along her body.

Dressed in a way that covered her whole body, she would make many men lose their minds with curiosity and longing.

Ju-seong looked at her and tilted his head in puzzlement.

“…A sword?”

Surprisingly, the weapon of the leader of an evil sect who seemed more proficient than anyone in what was called ‘secret arts’ in jianghu was a straight sword.

“Since an evil enemy who breaks the peace of Jiangxi has appeared, I have stepped forward to punish him… you are a dangerous one indeed.”

Ju-seong let out a smirk, shedding black tears. Black smoke billowed each time he spoke.

“Evil enemy, my ass. You monster-like old hag, no matter how much you pull your skin tight with disguise arts and apply powder, how will you hide the foul stench of evil karma leaking from your pores?”

Ju-seong’s Celestial Nose was becoming more divine by the day.

From Heavenly Splendor Fairy came the scent of years, and those years were stained with evil karma.

At Ju-seong’s words, which seemed to guess her age, Heavenly Splendor Fairy’s eyes distorted.

“How dare you…”

“The pitiable souls of that ghost village… you’re the one who trapped them all. You’ve toyed with human souls and twisted the logic of all things in the universe, so how do you plan to face the punishment alone?”

Ju-seong slowly took the starting stance of the Three Yang Fist.

It had changed so much from the original that it could rather be seen as a martial art Ju-seong had created alone.

Ju-seong’s starting stance was simply standing slightly diagonally with his right hand in front.

His left hand was lowered, ready to release hidden weapons at any time.

His right hand was relaxed and held out slightly forward, allowing for infinite transitions into grappling, finger, palm, fist, or claw techniques.

His right foot was placed forward for free advancement and retreat.

His left foot was firmly supporting the ground from behind, serving as preparation for an explosive leap.

Meanwhile, Heavenly Splendor Fairy charged with a face full of malice, without taking any starting stance.

A roar like a demon’s scream erupted from her mouth… it was a sound-based technique of a fairly high level.

-KYAAAAAA!

A technique utilizing the subtleties of scattering energy to disperse the internal energy released by the opponent through the vibrations of the sound itself.

However…

“Even if you shout at layers of piled earth, does it even budge?”

What Ju-seong was releasing wasn’t ordinary internal energy, but heavy and toxic Earth Poison.

In the end, the sound technique targeting a weakness didn’t work, leaving only a battle between martial artist and martial artist, excluding secret arts.

However, the Zhen poison Ju-seong wore over his whole body was something even Heavenly Splendor Fairy was reluctant to face.

Heavenly Splendor Fairy maintained distance by extending her arm as far as possible, keeping Ju-seong at bay with her sword tip.

It was a battle between super-peak masters. Ultimately, techniques like firing palm-force or sword-qi from a distance would be nothing but a wasteful drain of internal energy.

Fighting in contact was the only way to determine victory or defeat.

So Ju-seong tried to burrow in somehow to land a blow, but…

-CLANG! CLANG!

Heavenly Splendor Fairy’s illusory sword was more impressive than expected, making it difficult to find an opening.

Dozens of sword-shadows stabbed in sharply and irregularly like raindrops in a storm.

It was difficult to distinguish truth from falsehood in an illusory sword performed by a master of her caliber, so in the end, one had to respond by knocking them away one by one.

Just then…

‘Damn, I’ve reached the limit.’

Ju-seong’s body was also a human’s after all. Even if his threshold for enduring Zhen poison was higher than others, he couldn’t hold out forever.

Heavenly Splendor Fairy also seemed to notice Ju-seong’s situation, as she continued to keep her distance and jab lightly rather than launching a strong offensive.

Ju-seong also had no intention of just taking it.

Flicking his left hand twice, five butterflies flew in, slicing through the night air at once.

-FLUTTER!

Black Zhen poison emitted a dangerous luster from the tips of the butterflies’ needles.

While Heavenly Splendor Fairy’s sword switched to defense to knock away the butterflies, Ju-seong used this gap to deploy a second technique.

-WHIIIIINE!

When he clasped and then released his hands, the Heavenly Silkworm Thread that had become tangled like a spiderweb in between revealed itself.

Zhen poison was wrapped around the Heavenly Silkworm Thread.

When Ju-seong flicked both hands, a black line was drawn as if cutting through the air itself.

The Heavenly Silkworm Thread had become heavy from holding the Zhen poison, and thanks to that, it could be handled like a whip.

The ground in front of Ju-seong seemed to be sliced apart, and black death spread in a massive cone.

-BOOM!

Thanks to the whip’s characteristic of force exploding at the tip, the toxic energy exploded from the edge of the Heavenly Silkworm Thread.

An extensive explosion of toxic energy.

Surprisingly, Heavenly Splendor Fairy survived even that attack.

However, various parts of her body were being scorched black by the toxic energy, and because she had drawn upon her power to block the poison, wrinkles began to appear on her face according to her true age.

She was no longer the mysterious young woman from before, but appeared like a woman well past her prime.

“When one ages, there should be an elegant beauty to it, but to focus only on tending your face with secret arts and enchanting men at that age… how pathetic.”

At Ju-seong’s mockery, Heavenly Splendor Fairy distorted her face like a demon and threw her sword.

It seemed like a desperate move, but…

-WHIRRRRR!

Surprisingly, as soon as Ju-seong twisted his head aside, the sword rotated once and targeted Ju-seong’s throat.

Ju-seong’s eyes flew wide as he pulled back by a hair’s breadth, dodging the blade.

Nevertheless, a long gash was cut across his forehead.

‘Sword Control!’

Using the character for ‘driving’ (馭), it meant making the sword fly according to the swordsman’s intent as if it had a will of its own.

A sword that had left the hand dancing alone to cut down enemies… that level was a realm that couldn’t even be dreamed of unless one was an unparalleled master.

Of course, it was by no means perfect Sword Control. After unleashed one slash, the sword lost its power and fell to the ground.

But it was clearly a technique approaching Sword Control, which was the realm just below Heart Sword.

And the brief gap created while Ju-seong dodged the sword gave Heavenly Splendor Fairy an opportunity.

An opportunity to fight in the realm of secret arts, the field she was most confident in.

She was born with weak bones and muscles, but even as she grew, her Crown Chakra remained open, making her proficient in communicating with heaven and earth.

If a divine Taoist had seen her, they would have immediately taken her away, saying she had the qualities of an immortal, but for her, born in a pleasure house in a Jiangxi back alley, no such thing could happen.

Naturally, she grew strong by learning vicious spells that commanded ghosts in the shadows of jianghu… seduction arts, illusory formations, and mechanical traps.

And the best among them was a magic art devised by an evil immortal of the Han dynasty era.

A single needle she flicked and fired in an instant.

It embedded itself in Ju-seong’s shoulder, and the thread connected to its tip became a bridge, connecting the spirits of Ju-seong and Heavenly Splendor Fairy.

In an instant, all the surrounding scenery vanished.

Her mindscape.

The bustling pleasure house where she was born and raised unfolded.

Ju-seong looked around at the corridors and windows twisting and overlapping in all directions.

Within that space, the sinister voice of the aged Heavenly Splendor Fairy echoed.

[Now… it is time for you to fall into your own delusions and die, you arrogant brat.]