Return of the Mount Hua Sect Chapter 1434: You Will Have To Kill Me First. (4)
Previously on Return of the Mount Hua Sect...
“Y-You bastards!”
The Elders’ faces went pale when they saw the enemies charging again.
Did you not see it clearly?
How dangerous the Sichuan Tang Family’s forbidden weapon is. How formidable its power. And yet those bastards show no fear. How could they act like this if they weren’t willing to throw away their lives?
“Aaaaaah!”
They had seized momentum, if only for a moment, but sadly could not keep it. One hoarse, aged scream in their ears made them give up everything they’d gained.
“Hyunggggg!”
Those who had lived their lives as warriors of the Tang Family. Feared and dreaded across the land. The emotions that rose in their eyes now were bewilderment and fear.
Should they have fled?
Like those who ran without looking back the moment Tang Wei’s words fell, should they have abandoned this meaningless struggle and at least saved their lives?
Or even now…
“Throw the poison!”
At that moment, Tang Byeok’s screaming voice burst out.
“B-Brother! In this situation, poison is…!”
“What are you waiting for! Deploy the poison at once! You idiots! Is our goal to beat them?”
Those words snapped the Elders awake.
“We will die here. Spray poison until the moment we die, throw out the hidden weapons! We cannot stop them from trampling our corpses. But do not let them follow our household members!”
Tang Byeok shouted, his face veined with blood.
“We are Elders of the Sichuan Tang Family! Die worthy of that name!”
It usually takes a great reason to risk one’s life. But sometimes no great reason is needed. As befits Elders of the Sichuan Tang Family. What more could be needed than that?
In an instant, the Elders’ eyes, who had been looking for a way to save themselves, filled with a poisonous intensity.
“Aaaaaaaaah!”
A flying blade lodged into one of the Elders.
But even with a sharp piece of metal buried in his chest, the Tang Family Elder no longer despaired.
“Kuh…”
Just as the Ten Thousand People Clan’s elite fighters were about to contort their faces at the Tang Family Elder’s grotesque smile.
Whooaaa!
Pinkish poisonous vapors billowed up from the Elder’s sleeve.
“Gasp!”
The startled Ten Thousand People Clan’s warriors tried to pull back, but no matter how hard he tried to pull it, the blade he had stuck into the Elder’s chest did not budge, as if driven into rock.
“The Tang Family…”
The Elder’s face twisted grotesquely.
“Do not underestimate the Sichuan… Tang Family…”
Sssshhh!
Black liquid sprayed everywhere from the Tang Elder’s sleeve. The Ten Thousand People Clan swordsman hit head-on by that black poison bit his lip and grabbed the Elder’s throat.
“Useless old man!”
Crack!
The Elder’s neck snapped and he collapsed on the spot. But the Ten Thousand People Clan’s warrior who ended his life was not safe either.
“U-Urghhhhhh!”
Black blood poured from the swordsman’s mouth like a waterfall. Excruciating pain, as if struck in the head with a hammer, overwhelmed him.
“Ugh…”
His body trembled with convulsions. Had he not mustered internal qi to suppress it, his body would already have been reduced to a handful of bloody pulp.
“Spray it!”
At Tang Byeok’s shout, black poisonous vapors rose simultaneously from all around. It wasn’t the dragon-poison wall that rose before them as before; it was a dragon-poison technique that enveloped the ground where they stood.
No matter how resistant the Sichuan Tang Family Elders were to poison, they were not completely immune. To wrap themselves in poison in this situation was a resolve to risk death. No, a resolve to beckon death.
And that was not the end.
The Elders spat blood-poison into their own mouths. This poison would certainly poison them, but it would turn their blood into a deadly toxin. Those who cut their bodies would not be safe either!
Even the Ten Thousand People Clan warriors of the world faltered for a moment at such a vicious countermeasure.
But…
“Kuhahahaha!”
What those who were about to step back saw was nothing less than the Red Dogs pouring in behind them.
The Ten Thousand People Clan warriors’ eyes filled with fear. If they moved forward they’d be poisoned; if they retreated they’d be certain to die. Those mad Red Dogs never considered them allies in the first place.
“Aaaaaaaah!”
The Ten Thousand People Clan warriors, trapped on all sides, screamed and charged into the rising clouds of poison.
“Come!”
The Tang Family Elders, driven to fury, shouted as if their throats would rip watching the Ten Thousand People Clan.
“We will never let them go! Never!”
“Aaaaaah!”
Tang Sobo flinched and tried to look back at the agonizing screams bursting from behind.
“Don’t look!”
Tang Wei’s shout forced her head to stay forward.
She wanted to plug her ears. She wanted to close her eyes and ignore what was happening. But she didn’t even have that luxury now.
‘I must go!’
She knew what she had to do now.
One step. Even one more step. If she didn’t, those Elders’ deaths would become meaningless.
‘I must live! Absolutely!’
Tang Sobo wiped her streaming tears and pulled Tang Wei along.
One.
“Go!”
In that moment Tang Wei pushed her from behind.
“Elder!”
Despite Tang Sobo’s urgent cry, Tang Wei remained steadfast.
“Go quickly! Now!”
“Then Elder…”
“Didn’t I tell you to go!?”
Where he found such vigor, Tang Wei let out a thunderous shout.
Tang Wei, eyes bloodshot, looked at the bewildered Tang Sobo and shoved her shoulder again.
“Go! You must survive! You must at all costs!”
“Elder!”
Tang Wei no longer urged her. He simply turned his body away.
He could clearly see the black poisonous mists rising as if to the sky’s edge. He could clearly hear the screams and shouts coming from within them.
The Elders had resolved to die.
But they would not hold out long. They were by no means weak, but their numbers were too few and the few were too formidable.
Not everyone remaining could live. Someone had to block them. Someone had to hold their feet here.
A momentary conflict flickered in Tang Wei’s eyes. The order that burst out at the end of that brief inner struggle was something the original Tang Wei would never have given.
“Send the children and women first! Now!”
“Yes! Elder!”
The men, hearing him, handed the children they were holding to the women.
“Dear!”
“Go! Quickly!”
Women crying mixed with screams were shoved by the men’s hands.
Tang Wei’s hand trembled for a moment as he watched that sight.
Is this right? Is this the right thing?
Even men untrained in martial arts, even if they had lost the workshop and the stocks of poison they’d built up—they were craftsmen who made secret armaments, researchers who manufactured poisons.
Is it right to use such people as shields for women who will not in the least help the family’s future?
He didn’t know.
Tang Wei realized he could not know everything. He could not answer everything in the world. His belief that he knew and understood more was pure arrogance.
Now he was only listening. Listening to what his heart shouted. To the voice that urged him to do something utterly foolish.
“Elder, lead the women away! The men cover behind them!”
“Yes!”
Biting his lip, Tang Wei turned his head unconsciously.
“I’m sorry.”
Tang Wei himself didn’t fully understand what those words meant, but the craftsmen who heard them instead laughed.
“A hammer wasn’t made to hit people, but can one not break a man while smashing iron?”
“…Even if we never learned martial arts, we are Tang Family people. Of course we’ll do it. If it were the other way around, I wouldn’t have followed the Elder’s orders.”
“I’ve always wanted to prove that the one who makes poison uses it best—this is as good a time as any.”
Tang Wei gave a hollow laugh at the men’s banter.
‘Have I been underestimating these people?’
They are all Tang Family. Yes, all of them.
From the child sweeping the Tang Family’s courtyard to the craftsmen waiting to die of old age—they were all Tang Family.
“Don’t talk nonsense! I’m not telling you to die here! You must survive too! Go! One more step!”
“Yes!”
Tang Wei was about to turn and run again.
Kraaaash!
With a terrifying tearing sound the poisonous mist scattered, and a man burst out wrapped in a blue aura.
A middle-aged man with oppressed-looking eyes. Jeok Ho gripped his curved blade inverse and charged at them in a single bound.
“Run! Quickly!”
“Yes!”
The Tang Family craftsmen ran desperately, but with their strength there was no way to escape the pursuit of an absolute warrior; it was a pipe dream.
The Tang Family craftsmen clenched their lips as the distance closed and the enemy surged toward them.
“We can’t go!”
The hammers in their hands were swung fiercely. The hammers they had never abandoned even while fleeing were now being used to defend the Tang Family.
But their hammers were far too weak to face that massive curved blade.
Wheee!
With a sound that seemed to crush the air, the craftsmen’s bodies were cleaved and flung up. A horrendous sight. Even then the Tang craftsmen clung to Jeok Ho’s ankles, and the pale Tang family’s poisoners desperately sprayed poison.
“Don’t get in the way!”
But Jeok Ho’s blade cut through even those like they were a group. A vicious killing intent rose in his usually composed eyes.
Taking them one by one from the rear was meaningless. The way to crush the fleeing ones at once was to break their vanguard.
Jeok Ho split apart those who blocked him and surged forward in an instant.
“Go quickly! Now!”
Seeing that, Tang Wei turned his body sharply.
“Elder!”
Tang Wei’s hand slipped out of that sleeve. Holding a dozen or so poison vials in both hands, he emptied opened vials into his mouth.
With a burning sensation in his throat, his body flared up in an instant.
‘Heaven and earth gods!’
Poison in his mouth, Tang Wei staggered and leapt at Jeok Ho. Jeok Ho’s blade calmly sliced straight through Tang Wei’s chest.
Shick!
A crimson line appeared across Tang Wei’s chest, and the focus left his eyes.
As Jeok Ho was about to pass over Tang Wei as if it were nothing, the crimson line on Tang Wei’s chest darkened black and his hands wrapped around Jeok Ho.
“Hm?”
“C-cannot go…”
Jeok Ho’s face twisted. He saw black blood flowing from Tang Wei, who was clinging to his leg.
“Vile old bastards!”
Kradash!
Jeok Ho’s curved blade plunged into Tang Wei’s back in an instant. Tang Wei convulsed, but the hands wrapped around Jeok Ho’s leg did not let go.
“Can’t… go… can’t…”
“What the—!”
Shick!
Jeok Ho’s curved blade severed Tang Wei’s arms at the shoulders.
“These damned poisoners.”
Jeok Ho ground his teeth. The clothing Tang Wei clung to was blackened and rotted away by the poison.
There was no immediate problem, but if time was dragged out they would inevitably be poisoned.
“Then don’t waste time!”
Bang!
Jeok Ho’s eyes flashed a steel-blue killing intent. In his sight was the back of a woman fleeing ahead.
‘I must go!’
Tears streamed endlessly from Tang Sobo’s eyes.
The screams behind her were so agonizing. And so heartbreaking.
Still, she had to go. She must go.
“Do not cry! I am a Tang Family person!”
Even if she had not mastered martial arts, proving oneself Tang Family was not only about martial skill. One who carries Tang blood must never show weakness before the enemy.
“Aaaaaaaah!”
Another chilling scream rang out behind her. The faces of those who turned in shock went deathly pale.
A child bursting into tears.
Someone who had simply collapsed to the ground.
Someone shouting curses like a hellish dirge.
They would all die. Every last one of them.
No matter how hard they tried, they could not survive with their strength. The deaths of all who sacrificed themselves to save them would be in vain.
Tang Sobo’s mouth fell open.
“Who…”
Somebody, please.
“Someone help! Please!”
Then—a fierce shout came from behind her.
“Die! You worthless—!”
A chill ran down her back. Sensing her fate, Tang Sobo instinctively squeezed her eyes shut.
‘Unnie!’
Kaaaaaang!
But the moment Tang Sobo faced it, it was neither pain nor peace.
It was simply a fierce gust of wind, as if something had burst and rushed across her back.
And then.
A chin.
Something touched her face.
Before she could understand what it was, a gentle voice reached her ear.
“Are you alright?”
“…”
Tang Sobo opened her eyes wide. In her sight was the figure of a man she’d never seen before.
“I’m too late, aren’t I. I’m sorry. But… it should be alright now.”
“…Yes?”
The man gave Tang Sobo’s back a firm pat, then passed by her and moved forward.
“…Who?”
Questions filled Tang Sobo’s eyes. But her doubt was no greater than Jeok Ho’s.
“…”
Jeok Ho’s face turned cold.
The wrist that held his cherished curved blade ached sharply.
‘What is this?’
No matter how casually he had struck, for it to be so easily deflected; no, that it was deflected wasn’t the point. The important thing was that the moment his blade met that sword, he felt a heavy weight as if he’d struck a thousand-pound rock.
Jeok Ho’s face contorted abruptly.
“You are…”
The man blocking Jeok Ho looked around calmly. Many were already bleeding and down. Lives that could have been saved had he arrived a little sooner.
The man’s face hardened.
“Do you find killing so easy?”
“…Who are you, you brat?”
“Lee Song-Baek of the Southern Edge Sect.”
“What?”
Confusion crossed Jeok Ho’s face. Someone of this level of martial might, he should have at least heard the name before—but he’d never heard this one.
“If you intend to kill them, you’ll have to kill me first.”
The man’s feet dug into the ground. Lee Song-Baek stood firm like a thousand-year tree, his eyes shining with crystal clarity.
“Come.”
His heavy voice echoed widely across the earth frozen in silence.