Chapter 103: Wake Up, Clan Head

A person who had steeled their resolve wore a grim expression.

We stood again at the Tang Clan gate with faces set like men about to storm an enemy camp.

“……Haa, miss.”

“We told you already.”

The Tang Clan gatekeepers sighed heavily and tried again to drive us away.

One of them glanced at me, then scowled as if to say, ‘Did you provoke the lady?’

“You won’t get anywhere arguing alongside a wanderer.”

“So long as the Young Clan Master is present, no one will be granted entry….”

KWA-JAK—!

As if annoyed at the noise, Tang Yeo-hye’s kick smashed the main gate to splinters.

The qi rippled at her toes. The wild-dog face flashed a murderous glare.

“Get out of the way before you die.”

“……Y-yes.”

Once she decided to use force, no low-ranking gatekeeper could interfere.

Those who had stubbornly relied on the Young Clan Master hastily tucked their tails and ran.

Past the ruined gate, we heard a distant roar as a swarm of Tang Clan men rushed toward us.

They saw the gate smashed to pieces with smoke and let out horrified cries.

“Who the hell are you…!”

“How dare you cause such an uproar at the Tang Clan!”

“You brazen thugs have no shame!”

They were Tang Clan warriors, bristling with killing intent as they demanded the intruders’ identities.

The air itself seemed full of poisonous intent; a circular cordon closed around the broken gate.

“Whoever they are, break their arms and legs… Ah, no… Tang Yeo-hye?”

The man at the front blurted out in a dumbfounded voice.

It sounded like he had discovered something that should not exist.

“You all look pretty shocked. What’s so strange about the Tang Clan daughter walking into the Tang Clan?”

Tang Yeo-hye smiled coldly and slowly scanned the crowd.

Her strange pressure and aura seemed to pin the surrounding warriors down.

“B-but, miss. Young Clan Master Tang Ak said last time….”

“That the miss is currently bewitched by a handsome young wanderer and can’t tell heaven from earth….”

As they said that, the Tang Clan men glanced at me.

Well, I was a bit young and good-looking, I admitted.

Still, Tang Ak apparently had an eye for faces.

“Hah, you actually believe a man like that? A scoundrel who lurks in the family’s back alleys…!”

“Well… compared to Miss Tang Yeo-hye, who always throws the first punch….”

“He’s someone we can trust, though….”

Apparently the Tang Clan folk liked to say what was on their minds.

I looked sidelong at Tang Yeo-hye, who was bristling beside me.

This felt a little like her getting what she deserved, didn’t it?

“Take your eyes off me, little brother.”

As if reading my look, she slid her chin forward and nudged me.

“I won’t say it twice. Everyone, move aside. Don’t block a daughter from seeing her father.”

Tang Yeo-hye’s red eyes lifted in anger.

Her dark-green nails were raised like claws, and a vicious killing aura bloomed from them.

“……We can’t allow that!”

“We were ordered to stop the miss!”

The Tang Clan warriors drew their weapons.

Tang Yeo-hye’s expression froze cold as she watched them.

“So you want blood, is that it?”

Her eyes flashed. If a fight was inevitable, it was better to strike first.

Swish!

Her body cleaved through the air. Like a flash of lightning she tore into their ranks; her folded blades humored with qi carved mercilessly between them.

Chak-cheng! Pa-kang!

The Tang Clan men swung their weapons in panic, but it was useless. Their arms and armor shattered and burst against the peak-level edge of her twin blades.

“Ugh!”

“Gah!”

In an instant about ten warriors screamed and collapsed.

Fortunately their vital spots were spared, but each clutched at a broken limb and moaned in pain.

“Since when… did the miss have such martial skill…?”

“To wield qi so freely and precisely.”

“C-could she have reached peak level?”

Voices of astonishment rose among the Tang Clan men who had tangled with her before.

Even at her youthful age, rumor of her stepping into peak level sent them into a flutter.

With talent like that she could rival the Cheongun Sword of the Namgung Clan and maybe even aim for the next top spot in the world.

“I told you to step aside.”

But regret came too late.

Tang Yeo-hye dealt righteous blows to those who had stood in her way.

Punch! Punch!

A small fist struck faces; one by one she knocked everyone who opposed her unconscious.

It seemed we had successfully smashed the first wave racing toward the main gate.

“Mujin, what are you doing?”

“Backing her up.”

I slipped my thumb down and answered, feeling no need to step forth with a peak-level warrior beside me.

“Anyway, follow me, Mujin. I know a shortcut and a secret passage here.”

No sooner had she spoken than wave after wave of Tang Clan qi-perceptions reached us from afar.

I could feel horns being blown and shouts as they drew nearer.

“Let’s go quickly.”

Our goal was not to overthrow the Tang Clan, but to rouse Clan Head Tang Yangcheon.

We slipped through the gap while the enemies were sprawled and headed toward the Jeongak Hall.

We slid along the waterway and climbed, and Tang Yeo-hye and I popped up at a strange spot.

“Hm?”

“Why is the miss here…?”

Thump! Thump!

Like a scene from a spy film, we chopped the necks of the guards protecting the Jeongak Hall with hand-blade strikes and felled them all.

The peak-level warrior darted and leapt like a drenched swallow; the guards couldn’t mount any solid resistance and toppled in heaps.

“Mujin, over there! My father is in that building. I can feel his qi!”

Tang Yeo-hye punched my arm and brightened.

“Then let’s get in and wake him quickly. This could get serious.”

With the gate destroyed and the secret passage compromised, the Tang Clan was in complete chaos.

All their warriors had poured out, shouting as they searched for the intruders.

“Shall we?”

We were trying to sneak into the Jeongak Hall.

“Where are you rushing off to?”

A familiar mature male voice stopped our steps cold.

When we turned at the hall’s entrance, the obnoxious Young Clan Master Tang Ak glared back at us.

He approached flanked by elders and subordinates who had sided with him, wearing a face that said, ‘So that’s what it was.’

“Sis, you packed the Human-Faced Spider venom vial, right?”

“Yes, it’s in my bosom.”

She had painstakingly procured the item all the way from the southern barbarians to restore balance.

She nodded slightly at my whisper.

“It’ll take some time for it to take effect if we administer it?”

“Yeah, it’ll take a bit.”

We’d need to drip poison from the outside and balance it with the same poison technique, too.

Hearing that, I turned completely away at the hall entrance.

I faced Tang Ak and his approaching group.

“I’ll buy time, so go in and wake the Clan Head.”

“Hey, but—”

“If we stay here, neither of us will live nor eat.”

There was no room for argument. She glanced between me and Tang Ak, bit her lip, and then darted into the building.

“If I’d known you were this crazy, I should’ve given you a harsh shove so you’d never set foot in the Tang Clan from the start.”

Tang Ak let out a scoffing laugh as he gestured toward the Tang Clan, buzzing like a stirred beehive.

Then his face hardened as the Young Clan Master continued.

“I expected my little sister would rebel without knowing her place, but I never imagined some wandering vagrant would dare help her.”

Arrogant and unbearably conceited.

He declared that since I had interfered in Tang Clan affairs, the Wanderers’ Guild of Sichuan would be destroyed and drowned in blood as the price.

“Rebellion, you say? Let’s use a nicer word. Revolution.”

I raised the heavy Dog-Beating Staff as I spoke.

“Ha. To think there was ever a time I tried to persuade such a lawless fool.”

Tang Ak snorted when I rested the staff against my shoulder and squared off against them all.

He claimed he had never met anyone he couldn’t win over until now—only now did he begin to understand.

“Madman.”

With those three syllables Tang Ak summed up me, who now stood against the entire Tang Clan.

It wasn’t anything new to be called that.

They ought to die once and have a mad star crash into their heads—let’s see how sane they’d be then.

“Was it you who removed that important venom from the Grand Ten-thousand Emperor Pill?”

“What nonsense is this? And now baseless slander….”

“The Men in Black you hired from Nanman all confessed. Otherwise, how would you have come straight here to Jeongak Hall?”

“……”

In truth, even those men had kept silent about that particular matter, knowing how grave it was. But Tang Ak couldn’t possibly know that.

“You must not be allowed to live.”

Tang Ak muttered the classic words of a schemer and drew something from his robes.

Sssssk. Ssssk.

It was just to distract me while his underlings spread wide and closed the distance.

Then, with quick motions, Tang Ak flicked several round Poison Pellets from between his fingers.

BANG!

Like bullets, they spread venom through the air—Tang Clan’s signature attack.

“Ugh!”

I held my breath and threw myself aside.

But then—Pop! Through the thick poisonous haze burst a volley of Poison Needles.

Thuk! Thuk! Thuk!

I collapsed like a pincushion, Poison Needles stuck all over me.

“Gahh!”

Venom burned through my whole body like fire, twisting through my veins.

I pressed my face to the ground and coughed up blood.

“No matter how skilled a master, unfamiliar poison attacks often bring them down in an instant.”

That, Tang Ak sneered, was why the Tang Clan was feared even among fellow martial artists.

He strode closer, blade drawn from his waist with a shhhing sound, as if intending to personally finish me off.

“Kuh… What poison is this…?”

“Heh. If you dared charge into the Tang Clan, you should have prepared for this much.”

Like an executioner, he raised his sword high, grinning as he moved in for the kill.

SMACK!

“Guhh!”

I sprang up and smashed his jaw with an uppercut before he knew what hit him.

“Spicy enough for you, bastard?”

Trying to compare that poison to the Human-faced Spider’s? Please.

And just like that, I had neutralized a peak-level fighter from the very start.

Ground Human-faced Spider venom powder.

Tang Yeo-hye poured it carefully down her father’s mouth, then pressed a hand to his acupoints and circulated poison arts. What happened next was astounding.

Ssshhhh—

As if waiting for this moment, Tang Yangcheon’s body greedily absorbed the new poison.

At length, his body seemed to complete the Grand Ten-thousand Emperor Pill on its own, his deathly pale complexion slowly restoring to normal.

Seeing this, Tang Yeo-hye clenched her fist tightly.

Crack, crack!

But then a strange change overtook Tang Yangcheon’s body.

Like parched earth splitting in drought, his skin cracked, then peeled away.

“H-huh?”

Crack! Crunch!

Bones came apart and rearranged themselves before her eyes.

It was like watching Dan Mujin’s scenes of death and resurrection—she froze in shock.

Tssshhh—

His body floated into the air, wrapped in intense natural qi.

And at last Tang Yeo-hye realized what this was.

“B-Body Reformation!”

Muscles slackened and then rewound, flesh fell away and then reattached itself with uncanny precision.

The sight of a body being perfected for martial arts, surpassing human limits to ascend to a new realm.

“Ah…”

She stared, dazed, her eyes wide.

Having glimpsed a fragment of that process herself recently, the emotions welling in her were deep.

After about half an incense’s time, Tang Yangcheon’s body, fully reconstructed, descended gently.

“……”

He had reached Transformation Realm. Slowly, he opened his eyes.

From the depth of his immense gong power, dark-green light flashed in them.

One martial artist had shattered his limits, even as chaos still roared outside like an invasion.

“F-father. So, what happened was…”

Needing his help immediately, Tang Yeo-hye stammered as she tried to explain.

“It is enough, Yeo-hye. You need say no more.”

He explained that he hadn’t lost consciousness—his ears had been open the whole time.

He had listened to everything, thinking and struggling endlessly against twelve other poisons.

And at the crucial moment, his daughter had given him the final piece he needed.

While others fought like dogs over Tang Clan power, she had filled the last gap.

“Ahh, I see! Anyway, I’m so glad you’re awake, father!”

“Hu-hu, you wear the face of one who has suffered much, Yeo-hye.”

The child who had followed his teachings more faithfully than anyone. Who, because of that, had become an outcast in the clan.

He patted her back with great meaning.

And then—

CRASH! Crack!

The wooden wall of Jeongak Hall shattered, and a young man came flying in.

He tumbled across the floor and came to a stop at their feet.

“Ughh… H-hello? You’re awake, Clan Head.”

A youth he had never seen before. Yet, glancing at the daughter beside him, he seemed to guess his identity.

And when she saw he was unharmed, her face lit up.

“Who are you?”

Tang Yangcheon squinted at him and asked.

At that, Dan Mujin—mindful that this Sichuan magnate might become a future client—chose his words carefully.

“I’m from the Beijing Troubles—”

“He might be my future husband.”

But Tang Yeo-hye cut him off first.

“……W-what?”

Tang Yangcheon was dumbfounded the very moment he awoke.

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