Chapter 816: Our Wish Is Slaughter (7)

Hu Cheonchi, the Sect Leader of the Five Poison Sect, was absolutely seething.

Not as a figure of speech, either.

He was literally seething with poison.

Grotesque lines had split across the skin he left exposed—an outward symptom of virulent poison mixed into his blood as it flowed.

A Poison Person!

The Sect Leader of the Five Poison Sect had reached the Poison Person Realm!

The ultimate realm every master of poison arts craved—the Poison Person Realm.

And yet.

Hu Cheonchi didn’t feel proud in the slightest.

It wasn’t a realm he’d achieved with his own strength. In truth, it was nothing more than a shortcut built with wicked methods—a half-baked Poison Person.

Worse, because of this, he’d become incapable of ever reaching the true Poison Person Realm.

But he had no regrets.

Because there was something he had to do.

A revenge he had to take.

When the great cause in Sichuan failed, the Five Poison Sect’s first-generation disciples died in droves during the process.

And not just died—died horribly, at the hands of a vicious Killing Wraith.

First-generation disciples meant the disciples in the sect leader–elder line—disciples he’d cherished like his own children. After they were slaughtered like that, what master wouldn’t be filled with poison?

His greatest enemy was that vicious Killing Wraith woman—the one who ruined the entire great cause—Seomun Cheong.

His second enemy was the cruel Tang Clan of Sichuan.

His third enemy was the Central Plains itself—the invaders who dared steal the land of his own people.

So when the Blood Cult extended its sinister hand toward the Five Poison Sect, the Five Poison Sect could gladly take it.

And now, his second enemy was walking into Five Poison Sect territory of its own accord.

A child of the Tang Clan—one the entire Tang Clan loved most.

Tang Nanna.

And on top of that, it sounded like Seomun Cheong—the greatest enemy—was traveling with her as well.

He couldn’t be certain because that person had covered her face, but did he really need to brood long over who a three-headed female swordswoman was, strolling around with the Tang Clan’s daughter?

Ghostfire rose from Hu Cheonchi’s eyes.

In reality, it was the Poison Person’s virulent poison—coldly blooming—his savage grudge billowing out in thick clouds from his eyes, his nose, his ears, his mouth, and then dispersing.

Gritting his teeth, Hu Cheonchi spoke to the one standing beside him in a rough voice that sounded like a growl.

“Ten-Sided Ambush. Is it complete?”

Ten-Sided Ambush!

This was a stratagem from The Chu–Han Chronicle—the story where the “Southern Heavenly Flower Sword,” Xiang Yu, faced off against the founding Han emperor Liu.

The target: Xiang Yu and his army of twenty-five thousand.

The ambushers: ten corps under ten commanders including Liu Bang, for a total of three hundred thousand.

With more than ten times the manpower encircling from every direction, laying countless ambush points, and tracking the enemy down to the last detail with eyes and ears—

No commander alive could survive a death trap like that.

Except Xiang Yu.

Xiang Yu broke through.

You could argue Ten-Sided Ambush was a weird case—since Xiang Yu alone lived, maybe it’s hard to call it a “failure,” but the goal was to kill Xiang Yu, so in practice, yeah, it failed.

Actually, Ten-Sided Ambush was a later invention.

(Though yes—Xiang Yu really was a lunatic who could carve through even twelve times the manpower with sheer personal force.)

If you asked Han Xin about Ten-Sided Ambush, he’d probably shout and blow up instead.

What? I came up with that?

No, what—do I look like some pathetic bastard who needs “stratagems” when I’m facing twenty-five thousand with three hundred thousand?

The army’s twelve times bigger. What tactics? What strategy?

If the command baton was in a dog’s mouth instead of a man’s, they’d still win.

Really, if you’re fighting twenty-five thousand with three hundred thousand, you don’t need some grand strategy.

With three hundred thousand, you don’t even need spears or swords.

After that, the original ancient Zhuge Liang—Zhang Liang, the OG genius who played the “Zhuge Liang role” in The Chu–Han Chronicle—had all three hundred thousand soldiers sing at once, to weaponize floor-noise warfare.

Xiang Yu took catastrophic mental damage and killed himself.

That’s the famous Four-Sided Chu Songs!

A scheme where Chu songs are heard from all directions.

Because who on earth could keep their sanity when the upstairs, downstairs, left neighbor, and right neighbor are blasting nonstop noise on all sides?

Xiang Yu survived a three-hundred-thousand-man Ten-Sided Ambush.

But he couldn’t survive floor-noise warfare.

A vivid reminder of what a serious social problem floor-noise warfare really is.

Anyway.

Ten-Sided Ambush meant encircling with overwhelming force to wipe the enemy out—not to make them surrender, but to annihilate them.

In other words: Encirclement-Annihilation Formation.

It was also the true meaning of the “greeting” Poison Demon had mentioned.

You might ask why they would leave the Five Poison Sect’s main base and go out to meet them.

But if a Tang Clan woman died inside the Five Poison Sect, it would become a massive problem.

And if their involvement with the Blood Cult got exposed, the righteous sects would attack immediately—and the Blood Cult had its own agenda, so that would be inconvenient.

On the other hand—

A person vanishing on the road, with no rats or birds witnessing it... tragic, sure, but wasn’t it the kind of thing that could happen at any time?

So the preparations for the “greeting” had been underway for a while.

Still, wasn’t it excessive to ask eight times per hour, every hour, about how the ambush was progressing?

“Big brother, just wait a little longer. Just because you’re desperate for tofu doesn’t mean you can drink the bean-water, right?”

You had to strain bean-water and set it into tofu—was tofu going to appear just because you hurried and demanded it?

A Central Plains proverb: tofu won’t set faster just because you’re impatient, so don’t nag—wait with dignity.

“And you aren’t burning inside? We don’t know when those enemies will strike.”

“I want to tear those two apart and kill them too, big brother. But haven’t you been awake for two straight days already? You need to stay alive to take revenge—at this rate you’ll collapse first.”

“Every time I close my eyes, I see my disciples. They’re crying blood, begging me to avenge them. How complete is the formation? The poison? The Blood Cult said they’d send blood poison—has it arrived?”

“You’re asking every hour, big brother. If you try to eat hot tofu in a hurry, it only gets harder.”

If your heart is too rushed, you can’t eat hot tofu.

In Qing’s hometown, it matched the proverb: The more urgent it is, the more you should go the long way around.

“We have to hurry. Not even an ant can slip out. Those ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) two bastards—damn them—chewing them alive wouldn’t be enough—”

“Hurrying only becomes poison, that’s what I’m saying. Stink tofu has to rot hard to become stink tofu—if it hasn’t rotted enough, it’s just spoiled tofu—”

“Tofu, tofu—enough with the tofu! Ha. I have to go check myself. Our sect’s great enemies are crawling in on their own feet, and you still can’t move briskly, you’re dawdling, how—how—”

“Please. For the love of—”

It looked like the Five Poison Sect wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, either.

They had to add this grudge of stolen sleep to their terrifying Ten-Sided Ambush, and get the “guest greeting” ready.

*****

Midnight.

Somewhere along a mountainside, Five Poison Sect warriors were working up beads of sweat as they dug traps, set formations, and built ambush positions.

And Qing’s group was also deep in a night outing.

In the Central Plains, a night-raid outfit was pitch-black.

Logically, night clothes—clothes you wear at night—should be white, or yellow, or fluorescent, so you don’t meet a terrible fate in the dark.

If it’s already pitch-black, and your clothes are pitch-black too, how is anyone supposed to see you?

But in the Central Plains of this era, humanity still hadn’t conquered the night.

Night was for sleeping.

There was no reason to go out in the first place.

So anyone moving around at night was, nine times out of ten, a thief—

Which meant night-raid outfits could only become black clothes meant for stealing.

And Qing was wearing exactly that.

After she bound her chest tight, the ferocity of a three-headed beauty vanished without a trace—what remained was the figure of a tall, lean thief.

“Damn, it’s kind of hard to breathe. Did I cinch it too tight?”

At the sight of her tugging at the bandages over her chest, Peng Daesan and Jegal Ihyeon looked away, embarrassed.

So why the night-raid outfit all of a sudden?

Had she abruptly realized her true calling wasn’t being a martial artist, but being a thief—so she was quitting martial arts and changing careers?

Of course not.

Because Qing had always been someone who did martial arts and theft as a side job.

A thief from the start.

And not just any thief—a great thief. The greatest thief under Heaven: the successor of the Divine Thief.

She differed from past Divine Thieves in that she stole lives rather than wealth, but hey—if you steal something from evil people and benefit the world, isn’t that the Divine Thief spirit?

(Of course it isn’t.)

“See? I told you it was suspicious.”

Down below, near the Jeong Family Manor coal mine, multiple red torches burned as they slowly patrolled.

By the very logic of night-raid outfits, a normal mine wouldn’t need to stand night watch in the dead of night with torches.

And if it was a mine still under development—one that hadn’t even started full-scale extraction yet—that made it even less likely.

And if it was a coal mine, where even the tiniest ember could be dangerous—an ignition-heavy nest that should be using expensive glass lanterns—

Then it was even more unlikely.

“Anyway, I’m going, okay? You don’t have to come all the way with me.”

Qing waved a hand at her friends crouched low in the brush on the slope.

Through the only opening in her mask—the eyeholes—a pretty crescent moon hung sideways across the sky.

They’d followed, saying they’d help immediately if anything happened.

Sure, they were amateurs—how much help could they really be?—but the heart was commendable.

Two people lifting one sheet of paper makes it lighter, they said.

Though honestly, if two people lift one sheet of paper, isn’t it just more awkward?

Still, if things went bad, they could help.

Yeah.

Reassuring.

Sure.

Getting past the torch-bearing night watch and heading to the mine wasn’t difficult.

Teachings of the current Divine Thief, Cheon Yuhak.

Don’t think it’s difficult just because there are many people standing watch.

If a place is guarded with truly strict security, that strictness is exactly why thieves don’t break in.

They assume, A thief won’t come anyway, and their mindset gets lazy—so you can move forward boldly, even brazenly.

You exploit the psychological gap.

Torch-bearing night watch were even more so.

A torch is never light.

Even if it isn’t heavy, who can keep their arm raised the whole time while standing watch?

In the end, they have no choice but to drop the arm and hold the torch forward.

And a torch held forward into the darkness is a nuisance that’s worse than not holding one at all.

When a bright thing sits in your field of view, the dark parts get darker and disappear.

And humans are creatures that inevitably look at fire.

So how could they possibly catch Qing sliding behind the neat miner dorms and the tents filled with assorted supplies?

Especially when she was a Transformation Realm master moving with no sound, no presence.

With no particular trouble, she reached the mine entrance.

The only issue: the two men on night watch stationed left and right of the entrance looked properly disciplined.

But that, too, had a method.

Qing climbed straight up the cliff.

The finger-force of the Minor Water Demonic Art, strong enough to punch through steel, drilled into the rock face like tofu—so she didn’t even need protruding stones as footholds. She climbed the cliff with aggressive, effortless speed.

After climbing for a while, she moved sideways.

Then down—scraping and sliding along the rock face—

Until she finally arrived right above the mine entrance.

People don’t have eyes on the crown of their heads.

They can’t see above them.

And who, while standing watch, is going to crane their neck and stare overhead the entire time?

Clinging upside-down to the mine ceiling, Qing crept inward on all fours.

Only after she’d gone far enough that everything became pitch-black did she drop with a soft—

TAP.

—and plant her feet on the mine floor.

Mine infiltration: complete.

Easy, right?

Coal’s distinctive acrid smell seeped into her lungs.

Unpleasant—but somehow, weirdly familiar, almost reassuring.

Why was that...?

Qing didn’t know it, but it was the scent of civilization.

The lingering exhaust of internal-combustion engines—the kind city people grew accustomed to without realizing it.

Qing moved deeper without hesitation.

Outside, the security looked strict—no, they were pretending it was strict—but inside, it felt empty, with no human presence at all.

Because darkness itself was sufficient security.

From the entrance onward, everything was a world of black—so dark you couldn’t see a thing.

Qing’s body was beyond human.

Even her night vision was beyond human—practically a built-in night-vision lens for eyeballs.

But even that required some light—any light, however faint—to see.

She couldn’t pierce absolute darkness with no light source at all.

But Qing had a method.

A faint starlight bloomed in her hand.

Her constant “sparkle sparkle” talk wasn’t total nonsense—her aura was faint, but it was a person’s starlight that produced its own light.

It was too dim to even call it a proper light source, but with Qing’s exceptional night vision—and with the Awakening Divine Art sweeping her spatial perception alongside it—it became lighting that wasn’t lacking.

So that faint starlight traveled deep under the earth for a long while.

SNIFF SNIFF. What is that smell?

A subtle stench seeped into her nose, and Qing’s eyebrow twitched.

Now that she thought about it, the coal’s acrid smell had vanished a long time ago.

This was faint, but it hit with a sharp revulsion—a stench that made her feel reluctant to breathe, like it was soaking straight into her lungs.

It was also a smell Qing knew well.

A smell she’d gotten sick of during her “one year into the martial world” days.

The smell of something living that died, then rotted.

In other words—

Corpse stench.