Chapter 741: The Great Instructor Ximen Qing (13)

Gu had long been counted among the most powerful forms of sorcery, and yet, for all its fearsome notoriety, it was also a very simple sorcery.

You gathered up a whole bunch of poisonous creatures, shoved them all into one place, and kindly recited one line: “From now on, kill each other.”

That was it.

The one that survived to the end became the ultimate poisonous creature—that was the birth of gu.

Because it was so easy, back in the distant past when sorcery, not martial arts, was the mainstream, the state cracked down on it with eyes blazing, banned it outright, and if you got caught making it, they didn’t ask questions—they simply exterminated your whole clan. It counted among the very worst of crimes.

In the current Central Plains, where sorcery was half written off as cultish nonsense and weird ghost stories, more than half the people didn’t even believe in gu-poison.

Of course, even if the method of making gu was simple, the actual production was exceedingly difficult and demanded extremely advanced technique.

Just think about it with basic common sense: no matter how poisonous a creature was, how could it eat other creatures’ poison and stay fine?

So if you just threw a bunch of poisonous creatures into a jar and made them fight, all you got was a bunch of corpses that used to be poisonous, and all that vanished was your gold and your time.

So the birth of the parasitic salamander, the Blood Gu, had been the investment of a madman who had melted down thousands of bars of gold, and the completion of a never-before-seen, miraculous new species wrought by the obsession embedded in highly developed sorcery.

And Bottlesnout sat a few generations down that perfected product’s family tree.

Devouring any creature it met had been the answer its ancestor had reached in order to survive that horrific crucible, and that answer had become an instinct carved into the species.

Mm. Bottlesnout, you little shit, you really do swallow it raw without even chewing. Well, I suppose you don’t have teeth, so that figures.

When she poked and prodded him to harass him, Bottlesnout would dare to snap at her, but even so she had never felt a thing.

Gently tracing with her qi-sense, Qing found that Bottlesnout had clamped down on the head first, then used that recoil to inch his prey slowly inward.

Bottlesnout, who had grown fat from diligently sucking down poison, and Shotglass, who had just woken up, clearly differed in weight class, and yet the difference wasn’t so huge that this outcome should have been inevitable—and still, it was an astonishing bit of predation.

In that way, Shotglass became a special meal for Bottlesnout and vanished. Mm, well, Shotglass would now live on as Bottlesnout’s flesh and blood and poison, so in its own way you could call it a happy ending.

Qing hadn’t exactly had time to grow attached to the pet parasite anyway, so that was that.

She already had one; she didn’t need two.

Bottlesnout had swallowed a prey more than half his own body size.

So of course he puffed up round and plump, then flopped over on his back to lounge like some noble lord.

Pet parasite and owner were exactly the same, so you could say the parasite was a beast like Qing, and conversely, you could say Qing was a parasite-like bitch.

That was when it happened.

...Huh!?

Bottlesnout’s condition...!

Just as she thought he was squirming a bit, his four legs slipped right in—no, they didn’t slip in, they were buried, sunk into something, what was that? A cocoon? What kind of salamander went into a cocoon? Or was it that salamanders had always been that kind of creature?

Naturally, Qing knew nothing whatsoever about salamander ecology. That was what made them rare and special enough to be designated a natural monument or something, wasn’t it.

Was it a natural monument? A protected species? Some kind of cultural asset? Whatever, the vibe was something along those lines.

It didn’t look like something had gone wrong, and it wasn’t like he’d wake up later as a pterosaur instead of a salamander, so she decided to just leave him be so he could grow on his own.

He was a pet parasite she could dissolve with inner power at any time. It would be a shame to lose that free booze-adjacent feeling, but she could always check on him later and decide then whether they could go on together.

If he ever sprouted more than six legs, then their relationship would officially be over.

More than that, mm, what was she supposed to do with this bastard.

He had actually dared to present her with a pet parasite?

And because of that, the horrible horrors she had now suffered.

First of all, the qi channels and eight extraordinary meridians that Heaven-Breaking Demonic Qi’s rampage had damaged, leaving them swollen and sore, had calmed down and settled comfortably thanks to the thick medicinal power.

And not only that—her dantian had filled with a mysterious inner power of unknown origin, increasing her internal strength as well.

On top of that, Bottlesnout had gone and, spurred by the tragic pain of devouring his own kind and the shock of it, spun himself a cocoon and holed up.

He had dared to commit such a horrific atrocity against her, and on top of that, make her Bottlesnout evolve!

Absolutely unforgivable! She would have revenge!

...Mm. Awkward.

Was this truly Cadet Jo, Jo Hyeonil, acting as a member of the Blood Cult to try to feed gu-poison to the Heavenly Flower Sword, the future and sole hope of orthodox martial world?

Or had he simply been entrusted, in exchange for spirit medicine, with a request to pass it on to the Heavenly Flower Sword?

One thing was certain: he hadn’t been blackmailed with gu-poison addiction.

Back when Bottlesnout had unleashed his ultimate secret group move, the little preview of group-wide poison spray, once the agony passed Jo Hyeonil’s expression had been full of puzzlement, as if he had no idea what had happened.

That meant he had never suffered terrible torment from gu-poison before, so the assumption “idiot being blackmailed” was off the table.

There was no way a treasured heirloom would have gu in it, so it wasn’t a spirit medicine he had been carefully preserving as a family treasure either.

Mm. Wasn’t there some way to drive the nail in firmly, some way to determine his identity for certain.

Qing scratched the back of her head.

Damn it, wouldn’t it be nice if she could just ask and get an answer back.

Cadet, you have absolutely no connection to the Blood Cult, right?

Yes. None whatsoever.

All right then, let’s work hard together.

Or—

Cadet, you have absolutely no connection to the Blood Cult, right?

No, I am the Blood Cult.

Then you get split in half and die.

How convenient and simple that would be.

But ask him and he’d deny being Blood Cult anyway, so there was no use in asking a hundred days in a row.

And if she tried to get it out of him under torture, in the end, unable to withstand the pain, he’d insist he was Blood Cult even if he wasn’t.

Qing kept scratching at her scalp and then, at some point, paused.

No. Why couldn’t she ask?

It was because humans could communicate that they were humans—if they couldn’t, what kind of human was that.

She could just lay it out, man to man, fair and square, ask him directly and bluntly.

*****

When Jo Hyeonil finished his Academy schedule and returned to his bunk, then opened his locker, he found a bright red note he had never seen before.

Another prank? Lately those talentless, skill-less people who couldn’t hide their ugly jealousy had been acting up—this must be another one of those. Thinking it was no big deal, Jo Hyeonil picked up the note... and then—

—I know your secret. Come to the Sword Hall equipment storeroom by Chuk Hour. If I arrive and no one’s there, your secret will be spread far and wide.

Jo Hyeonil jolted, dropping the note, then snatched it back up before it hit the ground and hurriedly looked around.

Training had just ended, so everyone was busy gathering clothes to go wash up in the valley; fortunately, it seemed no one had noticed this suspicious scene.

Jo Hyeonil let out a breath of relief, and a beat later his heart plummeted, aching dully.

My secret? No way. It can’t be. It must not be. If that meant he knew my true identity—

Jo Hyeonil rushed outside.

In the living quarters built in a U shape, he spotted the other two in the crowd of cadets grabbing clothes and heading for the valley and called them over in a hurry.

“What is it? I feel gross as hell right now.”

“Let’s wash up first and talk.”

“This is no time to be leisurely washing up. Look at this.”

Jo Hyeonil extended the red note to the other two of the Blood Cult trio, Jang Seolkwon and Chu Johun.

The two, thinking what’s with him now, glanced down at the note—and their expressions froze on the spot.

Hadn’t the trio been taught that the Central Plains bastards, upon hearing the words Blood Cult, would start by ripping out fingernails and toenails, then take a whip to you and scorch your skin for fun?

Therefore, the destruction of the Central Plains was the only path of survival for us Blood Cult members, the victims who had long been oppressed and were still being oppressed.

It was the usual mental armoring—in other words, brainwashing.

If you were born into a closed society where everyone was raised that way and shared it as common sense, then no matter how smart you were, it was impossible not to believe it.

And in truth, aside from a difference in degree, it wasn’t all that far from the truth.

Everyone—the civil government, the military, and the martial world—recoiled at the word Blood Cult and tried to exterminate them.

“W-what is this.”

“You, what kind of conduct did you have for this to happen.”

Jang Seolkwon snarled and moved as if to grab Jo Hyeonil by the collar.

Still held by him, Jo Hyeonil lowered his voice.

“No matter how I think about it, nothing comes to mind, but isn’t what we do now more important than who’s at fault?”

At that, Jang Seolkwon clicked his tongue, his everyday expression crumpling, and let go of the collar with a rough hand.

Jo Hyeonil smoothed his clothes back into place with a snap and opened his mouth again.

“We need to decide right now. Are we going to abort the mission as is and run away at once, or are we going to stick together, the three of us, and catch this person and silence them.”

“Running away isn’t something only you can do, is it?”

“How do you know whether he knows your identities or not? Suppose I run away alone, and when they see me run, they decide they at least have to grab the two of you.”

At that, both their faces grew grave.

Now that they thought about it, this wasn’t just Jo Hyeonil’s problem.

Timid Chu Johun stamped his feet.

“Then what, no, this isn’t the time for that. We need to get out of this Central Plains bastards’ lair right now—”

“No. If we run, the mission fails; and didn’t you hear when Cell Leader Dan gave out the spirit medicine? He said the Demon King and the Venerable personally made it. After receiving that kind of grace, we fail our mission? I’m not sure we’d live through that.”

“Then, then what do we do?”

“If we’re going to die either way, we might as well use this chance to kill this bastard—whoever he is—and shut his mouth. That’s the only way we live, and the only way our families live.”

Resolve settled in the eyes of the three cadets.

To live, to survive.

And that night.

The moon wasn’t that high yet; it was still around the end of Ja Hour and the beginning of Chuk Hour, with plenty of time left until the appointed time.

Jo Hyeonil’s face was sour.

What a deviously clever trick.

It wasn’t “I’ll be waiting, so come out by Ja Hour.”

It was “I’ll come at Ja Hour, so you come first and wait, and if you’re not there when I arrive, I’ll expose your secret at once.”

Because of that, the three of them couldn’t just move together as they pleased. The blackmailer was clearly planning to watch from beforehand to see if they tried any tricks, then show up at Ja Hour.

“Then, I’m counting on you not to be late.”

The other two cadets nodded quietly.

There was really only one option.

First Jo Hyeonil would head to the storeroom, and only when Ja Hour came would the remaining two move out to launch a surprise attack.

If the blackmailer had companions and was already watching, all of it would be for nothing—but if they were going to die anyway, they could only choose the plan with the highest chance.

And so Jo Hyeonil crept silently across the nighttime Academy first.

Wary of running into any Academy security martial artists, he was extremely cautious and stealthy.

At least, that was what Jo Hyeonil thought.

To anyone else, he just looked like a very suspicious guy, repeatedly glancing around nervously as he shuffled half-sneaking, half-not.

That was how it was with using the body: you couldn’t watch your own body from outside the way another person could, so the postures, movements, and actions you thought you were doing might look ridiculous to others.

And so the extremely suspicious, clumsy infiltration continued—the infiltration of someone whose only experience with “moving covertly” was sneaking into the kitchen to steal potatoes.

At last he reached the storeroom and quietly took hold of the closed door—

KRRREEEAK.

At the shriek of warped wood hinges, Jo Hyeonil jumped like a cat doused with water.

Only, that kind of thing was cute on a cat; on a big, dark man it was pretty damn pathetic.

In the end, he was in the middle of squeezing his body carefully through the not-quite-open gap when—

“Tch. Only now you decide to show up?”

At the crisp, ringing voice, Jo Hyeonil gasped in shock, coughed out a breath, and took a heavy, clattering tumble.

He did leap up at once and draw his sword, but that didn’t mean his display stopped being pathetic.

“Tsk, tsk. This useless fool. Are you telling me our Cult is so short on talent? Boy, when you see your elder, shouldn’t your first act be a bow? Who ever taught you to point a sword at them first?”

“...Sir?”

Jo Hyeonil blurted back stupidly.

What the blackmailer was saying was nothing like what he had expected.

Our Cult? Elder?

While Jo Hyeonil stood there utterly at a loss—

The mysterious assailant lifted an arm.

Threatening starlight revealed itself.

A bluish Steel-qi that shone with its own light, a great white demonic hand formed entirely of Steel-qi—a weirdly twisted shape that somehow still held a strange beauty—rose up high.

Demonic Little-Water Hand!

It was the thought-form wielded by the Minor Water Witch in her true state, whether transcendent or demonically possessed, and the very symbol of the Minor Water Witch.