Chapter 86: Blood Incident of the Yangtze River (2)
…Snap!
A large retaining wall gradually tilted to the side.
The axes that Jeok-hyang was brandishing had before long increased to two.
Even while wreaking havoc, she would change to another weapon when hers broke and continue to run wild.
“Hey, you sons of bitches! Tell all the chiefs to get out here!”
The log that could not withstand Jeok-hyang’s axe strikes snapping was the beginning.
Crash-crash-crash-crash!
A giant retaining wall that supported the mountain fortress above collapsed entirely.
As stones and dirt poured down, the water bandits below were helplessly crushed to death.
Gyeon Sul whistled as he watched that spectacle.
“Indeed, she is a girl with monstrous strength. She is no different from the Black Whirlwind (黑旋風).”
Even while admiring her, Gyeon Sul’s Dog-Head Guillotine did not rest, hacking through the air.
Slash! Snip!
Every time the guillotine blade sliced down, two or three necks without fail ended up rolling on the ground.
“Do not hold a grudge. Since this is all for fun. You understand, right?”
The waist of a water bandit who tried to shoot a whistling arrow was severed, the torso of one who tried to light a signal flare was split vertically, and one who mounted a horse to deliver an urgent message was decapitated along with the horse.
Gyeon Sul selectively picked out and eliminated only the messengers among the confused water bandits.
Since they were originally two of the Thousand-Head (千頭) class who commanded a thousand subordinates, the ordinary water bandits had no way to maintain the defensive line.
Soon, movement came from above the mountain fortress.
“Who are you bastards!”
Myo Butcher, Jin Butcher, Oh Butcher, Mi Butcher, Shin Butcher, and Yu Butcher.
The Rabbit, Dragon, Horse, Goat, Monkey, and Rooster blocked the way in front of Gyeon Sul and Jeok-hyang.
Jeok-hyang spoke with bloodshot eyes.
“Hey, chiefs. Did you make Senior Brother Ja and Senior Brother Chuk like that?”
At that, the mouths of the six Thousand-Heads closed in unison.
Jeok-hyang ground her teeth and shouted fiercely.
“Are you bastards even human?! Betraying Master and betraying your own siblings! It makes me want to throw up!”
“Look at this bitch’s insolent mouth? Who says we betrayed anyone?!”
Myo Butcher shrieked.
Mi Butcher also flared up and continued.
“Why are you pitching a fit now when you haven’t even shown your nose until now? Why is a stupid pig of a bitch who doesn’t even know how the world turns making a fuss only now?!”
“Fine. Yes. If I don’t snap you bastards’ necks today, I am a real pig.”
Jeok-hyang raised her twin axes.
At that fierce momentum, Myo Butcher and Mi Butcher exchanged glances.
“It seems we need a ranking reorganization among us women.”
“Let’s not kill her, Sister. After chopping off both of that bitch’s legs, I will use her as my maid.”
“Oh? I was thinking of cutting off both of her hands and throwing her to my subordinates as a plaything.”
“Then let’s just do both. Giggle—”
Myo Butcher and Mi Butcher each took out their weapons.
Myo Butcher’s twin swords and Mi Butcher’s chain sickle surrounded Jeok-hyang.
Meanwhile, Gyeon Sul was also looking at Jin Butcher, Oh Butcher, Shin Butcher, and Yu Butcher with a peculiar expression.
“……Why did four attach themselves to my side?”
“They said the other side is a fight among women.”
At Jin Butcher’s words, Gyeon Sul shrugged his shoulders.
“I never particularly asked to fight among men though.”
“……”
“Let’s balance the numbers. Send one over to that side~”
However, even at Gyeon Sul’s playful banter, there was no change in the expressions of the four Thousand-Heads.
Slowly—
Jin Butcher’s mace, Oh Butcher’s spear, Shin Butcher’s double palms, and Yu Butcher’s longsword surrounded Gyeon Sul.
Jin Butcher spoke as if growling.
“I have disliked your slick face since a long time ago.”
“When it comes to a slick face, isn’t the Tiger Butcher’s worse than mine?”
“Insolent bastard. Who are you calling a butcher? Senior Brother In has now become the Union Master of the Great Yangtze River Water Bandit Union.”
“Bullshit. How did you, a bastard who is nominally a dragon, end up attached to a tiger’s tail? Were you not a real dragon, but just an earthworm (土龍)?”
At Gyeon Sul’s mockery, veins bulged on Jin Butcher’s forehead.
“I will absolutely not let you leave here alive today.”
“Ah, so scary.”
Gyeon Sul backed away, feigning to shiver with fear.
Beside him, Jeok-hyang stood with her twin axes, wearing a pathetic expression.
“Hey, sisters. Unlike this Gyeon bastard here, I have no backing out. Come at me, and I will mince you into salted meat.”
At Jeok-hyang’s words, Myo Butcher and Mi Butcher took their stances.
Jin Butcher, Oh Butcher, Shin Butcher, and Yu Butcher, who were chasing Gyeon Sul, were also narrowing the encirclement.
Jeok-hyang spoke to Gyeon Sul beside her.
“Hey, Gyeon. Are you confident?”
However, no answer returned.
Jeok-hyang clicked her tongue, thinking Gyeon Sul had gotten scared.
“I will take four, so you take only two.”
Yet this time as well, no reply came.
“……?”
Wondering what was going on, Jeok-hyang turned her head.
Swish!
Gyeon Sul was seen fleeing fiercely toward the back over there.
“You fucking bastard!”
The few are no match for the many. There was no hero before superior numbers.
Jeok-hyang also ground her teeth and ran after Gyeon Sul.
“Those dogs and pigs of bitches have only their mouths alive!”
“We will absolutely hunt you down and kill you today!”
The Thousand-Heads jumped into the forest, chasing after them.
Into the deep darkness without a single torch.
* * *
Chui was melting into the darkness.
Step, step, step—
Due to his childhood training, Chui already possessed immunity to the Miao poison.
Chui’s footsteps passed between the curved pine pillars and stopped beneath the rafters.
…Thud!
Chui’s spear pierced the ceiling and became embedded.
At that, there was a reaction.
“What kind of fellow are you to survive and remain alive without dying from the Miao poison?”
A man whose face was wrapped in a black mask fell down in front of Chui.
Chui asked.
“You were not of the Miao tribe, but Sa Butcher Tang Sanlang. Did you set up the poison trap?”
“Indeed. Knowing me, you still do not flee?”
“What is there to fear about an expelled fellow?”
“……”
Beneath the mask, Sa Butcher’s eyes curved sharply.
Chui had already heard information about him from Jeok-hyang and Gyeon Sul.
“The pitiful third son cast out of the Sichuan Tang Clan. Does a guy who was nominally the young master of an orthodox sect hide in such a secluded place to live as a water bandit?”
“Haha—to hear a lecture from a young brat wet behind the ears. It seems I am also finished.”
Sa Butcher let out a hollow laugh.
And he responded to Chui’s mockery.
“If so, do you also know why I was expelled from the Tang Clan?”
“……?”
Chui stopped speaking.
Because Jeok-hyang and Gyeon Sul had not told him that far.
Amusement lingered in Sa Butcher’s eyes.
“You know that those who massacred the Miao tribe of Nanman (南蠻) were the Sichuan Tang Clan, right?”
“……!”
That was a fact Chui had not known either.
Was it the martial artists of the Sichuan Tang Clan who had raided his village in his childhood, killing the adults and taking the young children as slaves?
Sa Butcher laughed.
“I killed so many of those Miao bastards back then, and was expelled as punishment for that crime. So to speak, I was cut off like a tail to save the rest.”
“……”
“Isn’t it funny? The Tang Clan attacked and ravaged them to obtain the Miao’s poison recipe. And after placing all the responsibility on me, they took only the poison recipe.”
“……”
“Seeing that you have resistance to the Miao poison, you must be of Miao origin. If so, perhaps you know me.”
Sa Butcher took off the mask that had covered his face.
With a sharp nose and fair skin, he had the face of an overall elegantly formed handsome man, but his eyes were slit like a snake’s, making it an impression that was not very likable.
After staring at his face for a long while, Chui shook his head.
“I do not know. A face like yours.”
He had memories of fleeing frantically in his childhood, with his village burning at his back.
In the midst of running for his life to evade the attackers’ swords, there was no way he would remember the enemy’s face.
Sa Butcher shrugged his shoulders.
An awl and a dagger were drawn from his chest.
“It’s a pity you don’t know. For some reason, I feel like I might know you.”
The night when everything was drenched in the light of fire.
The man killed by slashing then, the wailing woman, and the fleeing child.
“There was a woman who cried out, begging me to save at least her son. She was pregnant, and I personally sliced open her belly to kill her. I was curious if the fetus inside her womb also had immunity to poison. So as soon as I pulled it out, I submerged it in poisonous liquid, and surprisingly, it stayed alive for over seven and a half minutes. I knew that Miao bastards were originally tough, but those were the first who were that tough. There was something special about them, those village bastards, from their very birth……”
However, Sa Butcher could not finish his reminiscence to the end.
Thud—
This was because Chui’s spear tip had dug into Sa Butcher’s neck to a depth of two inches.
“……Huh?”
Sa Butcher gaped his mouth.
However, because of the spear blade that had split his Adam’s apple vertically and dug inside, no voice came out.
Sh-sh—bubble bubble bubble…
Along the side of the spear blade, blood foam boiled up along with escaping air.
Chui’s shadow fell in front of such a Sa Butcher.
A calm face.
A dry voice.
“Not interested.”
It was an attitude close to an inanimate object, in which neither hatred, anger, sadness, nor even emptiness could be felt.
Sshhk—
The blade of the Plum Blossom Ghost Spear pulled out from Sa Butcher’s neck.
Sa Butcher collapsed while flailing against the air.
“Im…… impossible……”
Who would have known that an assassin possessing first-class martial arts would die without even being able to lift a hand.
But it could not be helped.
“An assassin loses half of their advantage the moment they reveal their form.”
Chui kicked Sa Butcher’s neck with his foot.
…Crack!
With his neck bone snapped at a right angle, Sa Butcher died instantly, sticking out his tongue.
Chui searched Sa Butcher’s chest without any particular word.
Two uniformly black awls, iron caltrops coated with paralyzing poison, a bundle of cocoon silk thread that was barely visible to the eye yet tougher than bull sinew, and additionally, one jar in which the Miao poison was sealed.
“Good. This is much better than the awls I used before.”
Chui discarded the old awls he used before and exchanged them for Sa Butcher’s black awls.
Two crude awls engraved with the letters ‘Poison Fang (毒牙)’ shone like the venomous fangs of a viper.
Chui searched Sa Butcher’s chest to see if there was perhaps something like a hammer, but other than that, it was filled only with abnormally shaped daggers or short swords, with nothing else useful.
Thud—thud—thud—thud—
Chui finally thrust his spear to stab Sa Butcher’s brow, neck, heart, and crotch once more.
It was a confirmation kill that he absolutely performed after killing a formidable enemy.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch…
Only then was the spear ghost of Sa Butcher Tang Sanlang pulled out.
It seemed he had been pretending to be dead until just now, waiting for an opportunity.
[Wooo…… Woooooo……]
Tang Sanlang could not enter eternal rest even in death.
His soul had now fallen into Chui’s grasp.
Perhaps he would suffer endlessly and endlessly as long as Chui remained alive.
Step, step, step—
While Chui peeked at Sa Butcher’s memories with one eye, he searched for the Tiger Butcher’s room with his other eye.
The second room of the inner chamber that appeared directly after passing through the hallway.
That was precisely the space where the Tiger Butcher meditated and regulated his qi.
…Crash!
Chui immediately kicked and shattered the Tiger Butcher’s door.
The sharp tip of the Plum Blossom Ghost Spear aimed at the bathtub inside.
Chui swept away all the cloths that were concealing the bathroom.
Fwoosh—
At that moment, Chui’s brow furrowed, if only slightly, as he looked inside the bathroom.
“……!”
For an extremely unpleasant situation had been waiting for Chui.
Unrivaled Spear Ghost