WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Episode 8: Deathly Aura (1)
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“Both the Dagger and the internal energy are yours.”
‘!?’
Guard Gam’s eyes trembled at Mok GyeongUn’s words.
The Dagger embedded in the center of his chest.
The internal energy contained within it was his?
Did that mean this bastard had used the internal energy he had forcibly taken from him?
‘...Impossible.’
Every person’s internal energy possessed unique properties.
Because ki had been altered differently by martial clans, sects, and their various branches, taking another person’s internal energy would in truth only make it poisonous.
Even fellow disciples of the same martial clan could not immediately use passed-down internal energy unless they refined it through an energy circulation method and made it their own.
Yet he had used it?
‘Who in the world is this bastard?’
He was absolutely no ordinary civilian.
Guard Gam had thought he could control him because, even if he was a death-row prisoner, he was not a martial artist.
But that had been a grave mistake.
This bastard possessed strange abilities that he did not understand.
He could even control aberrations.
‘A mistake.’
He should never have brought him here.
To think he could control him simply because he had never learned Martial Arts.
How foolish.
He was clever enough to draw his attention with an aberration, then throw a Dagger carrying the internal energy he had absorbed and inflict a fatal wound.
Perhaps that was what made him truly terrifying.
“Huff... Huff...”
Guard Gam barely steadied his breathing.
The Dagger embedded in his chest made it difficult even to breathe.
His body temperature was dropping around the wound.
Its location was too fatal.
The moment he pulled it out, the bleeding might become severe enough that recovery would be impossible.
Swish!
Guard Gam raised his head and glared at Mok GyeongUn.
They had never been destined to walk the same path.
One way or another, he had to see this through.
Mok GyeongUn also had a Dagger lodged between his ribs and another in his thigh, so moving could not be easy for him either...
‘!?’
Guard Gam frowned.
The Dagger Mok GyeongUn had thrown was the one lodged in his thigh.
But why was he bleeding so little?
With a wound in that location, not only his thigh but the lower half of his trousers should already have been soaked in blood.
Yet blood did not seem to be flowing anywhere beyond that area.
‘He could not have stopped the bleeding or controlled his acupoints.’
Guard Gam had never seen anything like it.
Then what was it?
Staring at Mok GyeongUn as though he were a monster, Guard Gam bit down hard on his lip.
He could not understand how he had ended up making an enemy of such a bizarre bastard.
Still, he had one final card to play.
Had he not made him take it for precisely this moment?
“You bastard... have you forgotten... the poison pellet?”
It was the poison pellet.
He had made Mok GyeongUn swallow one beforehand to prevent him from going out of control, doing as he pleased, or escaping.
Mok GyeongUn parted his lips at Guard Gam’s words.
“Ah? The poison pellet?”
“Yes.”
“I forgot about it.”
“Hah.”
Guard Gam was dumbfounded by Mok GyeongUn’s answer.
How could anyone forget that their life was being held hostage?
It did not matter what he was thinking.
That sly bastard could not possibly have forgotten it.
“Huff... Huff... Let us make a deal.”
“A deal?”
“If you stop fighting and hand over the martial arts book, I will let you go.”
“Let me go?”
“Is that not what you wanted? Even if you remain here, you will be living a false life, always burdened by the risk of being exposed.”
Mok GyeongUn nodded at those words.
“Well, that is true.”
“...Then I will give you the antidote formula and travel money. Any physician with a decent degree of skill should be able to make it, and you can use the money to begin anew. Cough, cough.”
As he spoke at length, Guard Gam’s voice became hoarse.
If he did not receive emergency treatment and cultivate soon, he would be in danger.
There was a limit to how long he could endure with internal energy.
“Choose. If we continue fighting like this, both of us will lose.”
“That certainly makes sense.”
Mok GyeongUn seemed willing to agree.
Seeing this, Guard Gam was about to breathe a sigh of relief.
He only needed to put out the immediate fire. It would not be too late to eliminate this bastard afterward.
For now, he had to put Mok GyeongUn at ease.
“I will give you a stabilizing medicine first. Then we can each receive treatment... Cough...”
At that moment, Guard Gam coughed.
Blood mixed with the cough.
It could have been because of his injuries, but Guard Gam felt something was wrong.
‘The blood...’
An unpleasant scent wafted from it.
Startled, Guard Gam tried to pull open his clothes around his chest.
But his hand trembled so badly that it would not move.
‘Why is my hand...’
Thud!
That was not all.
Soon, strength left Guard Gam’s legs, and he dropped to one knee.
Then,
“Ghk!”
Guard Gam vomited a mouthful of black blood.
He had been so focused on protecting his chest and internal organs with internal energy that he had not noticed something spreading rapidly through his Five Viscera and Six Bowels, causing damage.
‘Could it be?’
Guard Gam’s eyes widened.
These were unmistakably symptoms of poison.
Something was wrong.
This bastard had not used poison, so why had he been poisoned?
As he struggled to understand, Mok GyeongUn slowly staggered toward him.
“Huff. It really does hurt when a Dagger is stuck here.”
“You bastard... what did you do?”
“There is something I forgot to mention earlier.”
“What?”
“Along with the Dagger and internal energy, I gave you my blood.”
“Blood?”
“Yes. I did not have time to wipe the blood from the Dagger that was embedded in my thigh before giving it to you. Though I did intend it.”
“What are you talking about...?”
Mok GyeongUn gave a faint smile at Guard Gam, who could not understand.
“Of course you would not understand. I only told Guard Go Chan.”
“Go Chan?”
“Yes. It is nothing much. Perhaps because I ate many poisonous herbs from childhood, my blood is toxic.”
‘!?’
Guard Gam was dumbfounded.
His blood was toxic? What did that mean?
Was this bastard like a poison person of the Sichuan Tang Clan?
‘This bastard... Hah!’
It was absurd.
How much had he been hiding?
But that was not important now.
He had to use internal energy to stop the poison from spreading, not just protect his chest.
He did not know what poison this was, but it burned fiercely.
“Cough, cough...”
“It hurts, does it not?”
“You bastard... You think you will get away... unharmed...”
“Croton seed, false angelica, adonis, pinellia...”
‘!?’
Guard Gam’s eyes shook wildly at the medicinal ingredients leaving Mok GyeongUn’s mouth.
They were all ingredients used in the poison pellet.
“Pokeweed, sickener mushroom, fennel herb.”
“Y-you... How?”
“Well, can you not get a fair idea of simple ingredients like these with just a touch of the tongue?”
He could tell by tasting it?
Who in the world was this bastard?
Mok GyeongUn came right before the bewildered Guard Gam, bent his knees, met his eyes, and said,
“The truth is, I do not need an antidote at all.”
“You bastard... Cough, cough... Were you playing with me?”
At the question, Mok GyeongUn tilted his head slightly and stared intently at Guard Gam’s face.
His face was pale, and fear and terror filled his eyes.
Mok GyeongUn smiled brightly at the sight.
“Whether one is a martial artist or an Advanced master, there is not much difference from anyone else in the face of pain and death.”
Shiver!
The instant Guard Gam heard those words, a chill ran down his spine.
How could anyone wear human skin and say such things with eyes like those of the dead?
It did not feel as though he was facing a human being.
This bastard was a demon.
Tremble!
Guard Gam could not stop shaking.
His breathing became ragged, and fear made it difficult to breathe.
The human heart was truly fickle.
Only moments ago, he had thought himself superior to his opponent, so he had looked down on Mok GyeongUn without a trace of tension.
Now, everything was different.
“You are trembling.”
“S-save me.”
Guard Gam cast aside his pride and begged for his life.
He could not die like this.
He had escaped that ruthless world of assassins, where he never knew when he might die a violent death, and dreamed of a stable life.
It was too unjust to lose his life like this.
Mok GyeongUn stroked his chin.
“You want me to save you.”
“I swear my loyalty... No. I swear my loyalty, young master. Please... please spare me.”
Mok GyeongUn smiled at his pleading.
“Now that is an attitude I can appreciate.”
“I-I will live only for you, young master.”
“Then I would be grateful.”
Guard Gam’s expression was about to brighten at Mok GyeongUn’s words.
Then,
Stab!
“Ghk!”
Just as he thought Mok GyeongUn would spare him, Mok GyeongUn pressed the Dagger embedded in his chest until the hilt sank in.
Mok GyeongUn whispered into Guard Gam’s ear as he writhed in pain.
“What loyalty can you offer when you are willing to change sides whenever it suits you?”
“Ghh...”
“I think your death would be more helpful.”
Swish!
“Mmph!”
With those words, Mok GyeongUn covered Guard Gam’s gasping mouth and nose with his hand.
Blood vessels stood out in Guard Gam’s eyes as he flailed his hands and feet in agony, but Mok GyeongUn watched him expressionlessly.
It did not last long.
The twitching of his entire body soon stopped.
Guard Gam died with terror in his bloodshot eyes.
Mok GyeongUn stared at him as though he had lost interest, then removed the hand covering his nose and mouth.
‘That was dealt with faster than I expected. Was I lucky?’
He had intended to kill Guard Gam somehow from the beginning.
Keeping someone alive who knew he was a fake would only become troublesome.
Mok GyeongUn considered it.
‘Should I kill Guard Go Chan too?’
If he dealt with Guard Go Chan as well, no one who knew the truth would remain.
But Mok GyeongUn soon shook his head.
‘I will keep him alive.’
Go Chan was still useful.
The guard was convenient for handling this and that afterward.
And besides,
‘Go Chan seems capable of keeping their mouth shut.’
Mok GyeongUn liked that Go Chan had kept silent to the end, even while being tortured.
It did not matter whether it was because Go Chan feared him or because of the poison.
As long as Go Chan did not betray him, Mok GyeongUn was willing to use Go Chan as much as he pleased.
Throb!
Mok GyeongUn looked at the Dagger embedded between his ribs.
No matter how unnaturally strong his body’s recovery was, it still hurt to leave this lodged in him.
But he could not pull it out yet.
He needed to maintain a believable appearance.
‘It would be nice if someone came soon.’
It was cumbersome.
“Ah!”
He had nearly forgotten.
Mok GyeongUn placed his palm over the dantian of the dead Guard Gam.
Then he used the movement of Adhesion.
He wanted to confirm something.
The internal energy in Guard Gam’s dantian, which was dispersing after his death, was drawn into Mok GyeongUn’s body through the movement of Adhesion.
The amount was incomparable to what he had taken from Jo Il-sang.
‘A pie in the sky.’
Still, this was internal energy that would have dispersed and vanished anyway.
What he was curious about was something else.
Before long, the flow of internal energy stopped.
The response he had expected did not come.
‘Was I wrong?’
Just as he thought that, a cold, Yin deathly aura flowed from Guard Gam’s abdomen into Mok GyeongUn.
It was clearly similar to the aura he had absorbed from Jo Il-sang.
No, there was far more of it.
‘Ahhh!’
It was there after all.
The deathly aura that had been in Guard Gam’s body gathered below Mok GyeongUn’s navel.
Then it gradually began to take shape.
Mok GyeongUn did not know exactly what it was, but he was growing increasingly fond of the cold aura.
Puff.
Red eyes watched Mok GyeongUn with interest.
It was Blue Spirit, with a short tobacco pipe between her lips amid thick smoke.
Blue Spirit whispered softly to the Demonic Monk beside her.
“Bald monk, I think I understand why you are swayed by that mortal.”
That bastard was no ordinary human.
She, too, could instinctively tell.
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