Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 45 - A Letter from King Yama
Chapter 45 – A Letter from King Yama
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Even while fighting, Ju-seong noticed that toxic powder scattered from the moths’ corpses was encroaching on the surroundings.
-Hiss…
White smoke rose bit by bit from the clothes covering him.
‘Thanks to the medicine-soaked clothes, I am holding on, but.’
The amount of medicine applied was limited from the start, while the supply of toxic powder was endless. If they kept neutralizing each other, the losing side would inevitably be them.
Moreover, it was more dangerous because the poison induced sleep. If he accidentally inhaled it, he might die without even knowing he was dying.
“Red Beggar, let us break through.”
“Breakthrough, sounds good!”
Red Beggar and Ju-seong switched from defense to offense in an instant, as if they had coordinated in advance, and charged in one direction.
Red Beggar, who could deal with the moths more stably, took the rear, while Ju-seong surged forward with the power of the Flame Crow Six Stage Art.
-BOOM BOOM BOOM…!
The forms of the Scarlet Palm exploded.
Five moths at once scattered flying sparks and tumbled away. Ju-seong could not help but burst into laughter at the joy welling up in his chest.
It was an incomparably mighty martial art smashing everything in its path, with a reliable man guarding his back. The two of them were sprinting through the green forest like a gale together.
“Bwahahahaha…!”
“Please stop messing around! Look ahead!”
“Hahaha!”
Ju-seong’s laughter trailed long through the jungle and faded. They ran and ran with fluttering moths trailing behind them like a tail.
Without the poison, the moths were nothing, and Ju-seong had the means to effectively neutralize the poison, so things went smoothly.
After running for some time, Ju-seong finally collected himself and slowed down.
“Something feels off.”
The moths that could not match their speed lagged behind in the distance. Ju-seong narrowed his eyes and looked around.
Things he had not noticed properly because of the thick toxic powder came into view.
“There are many corpses.”
Dead human bodies were strewn about here and there. Though considerably decomposed, Ju-seong could tell they had closed their eyes very peacefully.
“They are Sleeping Demon Moths… the demon moths that bring sleep.”
Only now did the name sink in, and a slight chill ran down his spine.
What was more terrifying was that every single one of their chests was opened up.
Ju-seong pulled out the medicine bottle and poured more onto his mask. Since breath went in and out through the mask, the toxic powder concentrated there and the neutralization was happening faster.
After handing Red Beggar a bottle of medicine too, Ju-seong examined closely the corpse of the martial artist whose chest was opened.
Boils had grown all over the body like mushrooms, and the chest was opened up like a flower, as if something had burst out from inside.
“Was it stabbed from behind?”
Red Beggar tilted his head and flipped the corpse over, but the back was clean.
“I cannot figure it out.”
Ju-seong racked his brain. Something flashed in his mind.
“I think they put the host to sleep, then lay eggs in the body.”
That would explain everything. Why the toxic powder put people to sleep, why boils bloomed when the powder touched the skin.
“What does that mean?”
Ju-seong explained calmly.
“Their toxic powder has two effects. First, putting people to sleep as if dead. Second, excessively boosting regeneration.”
Wood was the power of growth. When it became poison, it caused uncontrolled proliferation and excessive growth in the human body, namely swellings and tumors.
“They first put the host to sleep, then use the life force of the toxic powder to keep the host’s breath going while making it baby food for their larvae.”
“No way… Could such a demon beast that crawled straight out of the Asura Realm exist in the world?”
“Why not? Many species of wasps reproduce similarly. They parasitize fat pupae or caterpillars and grow by sucking their juices.”
Red Beggar replied with a doubtful expression.
“No, that is bugs doing it to bugs. This is people.”
Ju-seong replied nonchalantly.
“So what if they are people.”
“Excuse me?”
“From the human perspective, humans are important, but surely these creatures do not see it that way…”
Ju-seong smacked his lips bitterly.
He thought this kind of realization might be what sometimes led people to fall into the demonic path.
Natural inaction makes no distinction between humans and beasts. If that is so, is there essentially no difference between humans and insects?
“…But since we are born as humans, we must value humans.”
When Ju-seong added this out of concern, Red Beggar gave him a strange look as if he had said something bizarre.
“Well, obviously…”
-SLASH!
Ju-seong grabbed Red Beggar’s head and immediately ducked. A sinister energy swept past their bared napes.
-THWACK!
The energy that passed them shot far out and embedded itself in a tall tree behind them.
The trees here had grown tall but their trunks were thin, so the tree swayed greatly.
Ju-seong raised his head and spoke.
“Seems we found the right place. How are you, Mr. Sexual Predator? Really now, if you were caught, you should have been obediently escorted and died. What is a bastard like you running around everywhere trying to live for. Huh? You son of a bitch!”
His temper flared as he spoke, and by the end Ju-seong was outright shouting. But the sexual predator showed no change in expression even after hearing the invective.
“He has completely lost his mind.”
Ju-seong clicked his tongue quietly. Red Beggar was already drinking and preparing for battle.
The sexual predator glared at the two and spoke.
“Stop appearing before my eyes… No matter how many I kill, there is no end. You are already dead, so why do you keep appearing and circling. Why? Are you vengeful spirits? Hallucinations? To Xinjiang… Who are you, Elder? Why are you…”
His speech broke off randomly in disjointed fragments, rambling and incoherent.
“AAAAARGH!”
The sexual predator screamed and swung his nails. Unlike before, the terrible stench of miasmic poison was not present.
‘He has used it all up.’
Martial arts that accumulated poison in body parts like this had the inconvenience of needing replenishment after use. Having recklessly used claw techniques while killing moths, it was no surprise his miasmic poison had run out.
“Urk. This liquor is good! The iron staff looks like a dragon, so am I drunk, or is the world strange!”
Iron Staff Becoming Dragon was activated, and Red Beggar, temporarily boosted to a higher level, drew a long energy from his staff and sent it at the sexual predator.
Red Beggar’s yang-filled energy met the sexual predator’s sinister palm force and canceled out.
In that interval, Ju-seong ignited flames in both hands and charged like a maddened ox.
His flames had already left yellow behind and taken on a light orange hue.
The sexual predator was in lively condition thanks to the Poison Heart Blood Boil Art, a burst power technique. His damaged body was temporarily patched, and his internal energy output was no less than before his qi deviation.
But one thing: since he had used the Poison Heart Blood Boil Art after the qi deviation, the demonic nature of the martial art had consumed his mind.
In short, the personality called Byeok Sa-un that had inhabited the sexual predator’s head was now largely broken and cracked.
And in those cracks, something called the Inner Demon had settled in.
Naturally, the forms and martial arts Byeok Sa-un had honed could not shine.
“Like a child holding a treasured blade!”
Ju-seong shouted, and Red Beggar received.
“Indeed! He only knows how to swing wildly!”
When Red Beggar thrust his staff at the lower body, the sexual predator leaped up. The old sexual predator would not have fallen for such a third-rate trick, but.
The man now had no reason. Ju-seong shot six needles at once at the airborne sexual predator.
-TING TING TING!
Airborne, he could not easily evade by moving position and had to deflect every single one.
Ju-seong used the Mother-Child Dart technique again this time.
He cursed himself inside.
‘Ah… What an unimaginative bastard I am.’
But fortunately, the sexual predator did not remember the technique he had been hit by once before.
He had become a complete half-wit idiot.
-Thunk! Thunk!
Of the six needles, tricks were hidden behind two.
Two needles embedded themselves in the sexual predator’s elbow and knee respectively.
When the sexual predator landed, his movements were much slower than before.
No matter how strange a burst power technique he had used, three days had already passed, so he was inevitably much weaker.
It was actually quite astonishing that it had held this long.
‘It must be the internal energy.’
Ju-seong knew the man had harvested yin and held vast internal energy.
Having reached peak level, the middle dantian would be wide open, giving an advantage in drawing and using innate true energy.
But now was not the time for martial studies.
Red Beggar thrust his staff at the slowed sexual predator’s nape.
The old sexual predator would have gently touched it with his palm to push it away, but he instead hurled his palm head-on to respond.
“Crazy bastard!”
Red Beggar, not having expected such an aggressive response, cursed and was flung backward. Ju-seong glanced at Red Beggar’s blood-soaked grip, then focused on the attack at hand.
-BANG! BOOM!
Palm force flew continuously at where Ju-seong stood, embedding into the trees behind.
The terrible yin-cold energy seeped into the trees and instantly blackened and killed the bark.
“What are you doing to those innocent trees!”
Ju-seong raged on behalf of the trees and began swinging the orange flames wrapped around both hands.
Come to think of it, each form of the Three Yang Fist was different from before.
The synergy between forms had become even stronger, and the operation of internal energy had become much more natural.
Somehow, Ju-seong’s movements executing the Three Yang Fist resembled fire itself.
-Crackle.
The form of the Gold Whip Fist unfolded from Ju-seong’s hands.
As if fire had caught on a steel whip, the trajectory of the fist stretched long and rippled elegantly.
The orange whip teased and flickered, threading through the sexual predator’s straight palm force.
The sexual predator screamed madly.
“You rat-like ghosts! If you are dead, depart to the netherworld! Yes, you want me to kill you again! Hahaha!”
The sexual predator extended his right palm and poured out black palm force.
Ju-seong’s gaze sank low.
The rippling orange trajectories were withdrawn at once and organized into a single sharp trajectory.
Piercing One Hand.
The fourth form of the Three Yang Fist, fusing finger strike and grappling technique, flowed from Ju-seong’s hand.
Ju-seong’s wrist bypassed the sexual predator’s right palm and struck the man’s forearm with a fingertip.
-BOOM!
The forearm’s skin burst and was badly burned.
“GAAAAH! You bitch! How dare you!”
The sexual predator roared and swung his left palm at Ju-seong.
‘He must be seeing vengeful spirits.’
He seemed to be seeing ghosts of those he had killed. In effect, while he was fighting Ju-seong and Red Beggar in reality, in his dream he was fighting his own sins.
A peculiar retribution indeed.
Ju-seong quickly leaped and raised his shin to block the left palm.
-WHOOSH!
Having taken the hit, Ju-seong decided to fly far to gain distance. Somersaulting three times in the air as he flew, he looked like a burning wheel flying through the sky.
While he retreated into the distance, carried by the sexual predator’s palm force, Red Beggar, his hands drenched in blood, gripped the staff and charged. He swung his full hip power at the sexual predator, shouting, “You son of a bitch! Have you forgotten me!”
The sexual predator also extended both palms and unleashed black energy.
-CRAAASH…!
Milky-white energy burst in all directions like splashing liquor.
The sexual predator and Red Beggar each retreated two steps and seven steps respectively.
Red Beggar threw away his broken bamboo staff and began using palm techniques like the sexual predator.
Milky-white palm force staggered and wobbled as it shot out, resembling its drunken master. But within that staggering was a solid martial foundation.
Ju-seong watched with his hands hanging at his sides, then asked.
“Red Beggar, that palm technique looks cool. What is it called?”
“Drunken Immortal… Ah damn, stop watching and come help!”
“Understood.”
Ju-seong said that but feinted a big step forward as if to join the fight.
“KIYAAH!”
The sexual predator overreacted, pushing Red Beggar away with both palms and extending his left palm at Ju-seong to release palm force.
The power was forceful enough to crush bones, yet it was a yawn-inducingly monotonous attack.
“What a feisty sexual predator.”
Ju-seong stopped his advance and pulled back a beat.
The palm force just grazed past him, tearing up innocent ferns.
He threw two needles he had been fingering inside his sleeve.
This time Ju-seong poured maximum power into the needles until they glowed red-hot.
Normally, cramming the violent energy of the Flame Crow Six Stage Art into such a small object would melt or explode it.
But the needles he used were made of cold iron, so they could withstand his power.
One flew straight at the sexual predator.
The other shot past the sexual predator at twice that speed.
The man had no reason, so he did not even register the needle that had just passed him and only warily watched the needle flying straight at him.
Then.
-SWOOSH!
The needle that had passed him suddenly curved back toward him like magic.
‘Imbalance.’
What made the needle turn without touching it was an imbalance in the internal energy infused.
Red Beggar’s palm force and internal energy staggered and wobbled on their own as they flew through the air. How was that possible?
Even when releasing a single palm force, put strong power in the index finger portion, weak power in the ring finger, medium power in the palm center.
By infusing power unevenly like this, the direction kept twisting in mid-air.
And yet hitting the originally intended target required immense skill.
It was a martial art difficult to learn without exceptional comprehension, and indeed Red Beggar was a remarkable talent to have learned it.
Ju-seong had nicked the mystery within Red Beggar’s martial art and crammed it into his own hidden weapon technique.
One flew straight, and the other secretly passed then curved back. The returning one contained the mystery of imbalance.
Depending on how uneven, the needle would turn and twist at a certain place and time.
With the target point in between, the two needles would meet precisely there.
When the sexual predator belatedly extended his right palm toward the needle flying from the opposite side, the two needles were drawn precisely toward both of his palms.
The two red-hot needles rushed at the sexual predator from both sides.
Ju-seong smiled crookedly at the sexual predator staring at him with wide eyes and said.
“This is a letter from King Yama.”
King Yama’s Letter.
It was a technique that still needed much refinement. The people of the martial world were not fools. If a needle openly passed by them, they would realize trickery was involved.
He needed to create the impression of barely missing, wage psychological warfare, and reduce the small sound when the needle turned.
But anyway, it had worked this time, so it was all fine.
-CRASH!
Black palm force burst from the sexual predator’s hands to push back the two needles.
But the two needles, into which Ju-seong had poured ten parts of his power, would not be pushed back so easily.
Ever so shallowly, the needles pierced into the sexual predator’s flesh.
Since they embedded in the palm centers, the internal energy contained in the needles interfered with the sexual predator’s energy circulation. For a martial artist, the palm center was another vital point besides the body’s central line.
The man grimaced as he suppressed his roiling meridians.
Not much time was needed. A blink of an eye would be enough to resolve the attack’s aftermath.
But for a man who had lived like the sexual predator, he was seldom allowed even a moment’s pause. Because he had treated the world harshly throughout his life.
In that split second, he saw a shadow charging at him like the wind.
Red Beggar’s eyes streamed milky-white radiance like tears as he pulled his right fist back fully.
From the sexual predator’s mouth, a calm cursing voice emerged, as if he had come to his senses.
“Damn it.”
In the end, Ju-seong’s move was indeed a letter from King Yama.