Chapter 36 – Natural Enemy (5)

-Ssshhhh!

-Ssshhhhk!

The moment I leapt into the pitch-black pit with its gaping mouth wide open, the warning hisses of snakes filled my ears completely.

As soon as my feet touched the bottom of the pit, the snakes began biting at my ankles.

-kwadeug! kwadeudeug!

But it only stung slightly.

After all, they hadn’t started biting in earnest just yet.

-Tsrrrrrr!

And then came the sounds of the centipedes above me, perhaps startled by my leap into the pit.

“It’s fine! I’ll be out soon, so just wait a moment!”

I shouted at the centipedes, telling them to calm down, and then looked down at the creatures beneath my feet.

The snakes, commonly referred to as Tiger Keelbacks.

Unlike other snakes that swallow their prey head-first, they got their name because they swallow prey backwards, but their unique habits don’t stop there.

Not only do they swallow prey backwards, but there’s another thing that sets them apart from other snakes.

And what is that?

While these snakes are thought to be non-venomous, they actually possess two types of venom. The first is a toxin stored in their nape, which they collect from the toads they consume.

When faced with natural enemies attempting to eat them, they release the toad venom from their nape, preventing their predators from swallowing them.

And the second is their fangs, which have a very unique structure.

Backward Curved Teeth.

Unlike the hooked fangs of most snakes, which curve inward at the front of the mouth, the Tiger Keelbacks have tiny fangs located deep inside their mouth.

These rear-positioned fangs (posterior fangs) are short, small, and located at the very back of their mouths, distinct from the typical venomous fangs of other snakes.

This unusual fang structure is also the reason why these snakes were mistakenly considered non-venomous until the early 2000s.

Due to their small size and location at the very back of their mouth, they cannot inject venom even if they bite someone on the ankle while hiding in grass.

For these snakes to inject venom into a person, they must open their mouths as wide as possible and push the bitten area deep into the very back of their mouths. However, thick areas like the ankle don’t allow their fangs to reach.

Thus, for these relatively small snakes to inject venom properly, the bitten area must be something slender, like a wrist or finger. Moreover, these snakes lack the muscles behind their venom glands that could help push venom into their prey, making their venom delivery weak. This is why, even though people may get bitten, no fatalities have been recorded, leading to their long-standing reputation as non-venomous snakes.

-Gulp.

Looking down at my feet, I saw the waves of snakes in the pit, writhing and biting one another as they tried to sink their teeth into me.

I swallowed nervously, knowing I now had to let these creatures bite me properly.

Even though I liked snakes, I wasn’t exactly keen on getting bitten by them, especially considering that my previous life ended because of a snake.

But with the Ten Poisons Returning to Origin Technique on my side and the Tang Sect’s ample antidotes for poisons, I had no choice but to trust in them.

Besides, if there was even the slightest hope of saving everyone who kept prattling on about family, this was the only way I could think of.

The Tang Family was far away, and even if I gathered the scattered warriors nearby, I couldn’t guarantee we’d be able to defeat that thing.

‘You can do this. Fabre!’

I visualized the flow of the Ten Poisons Returning to Origin Technique that grandfather had engraved into my body.

The internal energy techniques of the Tang Sect were all designed to resist poisons and slow their progression.

I focused on the flow of qi emanating from my dantian and throughout my body, calming my mind.

Grandfather had always said that the Tang Sect’s internal energy techniques started with the Five Poisons Returning to Origin Technique as the beginner’s technique, while the Ten Poisons Returning to Origin Technique I was now using was the advanced one.

At first, I misunderstood the Ten Poisons Returning to Origin Technique as an internal energy method suited for me, someone with the Ten Poisons Physique, because the name suggested it only accepted ten poisons. However, I later learned it was an internal energy technique created by the Tang Sect’s founder after observing the Two-Headed Serpent.

Other martial artists could learn different methods to resist poisons, but this particular technique was said to be reserved exclusively for the direct bloodline of the Tang Family.

With this technique, one could progress to the Thousand Poisons Realm and even the Ten Thousand Poisons Realm. However, I was told my innate talent was insufficient to handle more than ten poisons.

To master this technique, one must go through a process of absorbing poisons into their body, mixing the Tang Sect’s special medicines with poisons. Each time the body adapts to a new poison, the efficiency and power of the internal energy technique increase. But they also warned that if I exceeded ten poisons, my body would likely fail to withstand it.

Relieved by the fact that the venom of the Tiger Keelback wouldn’t likely become one of my ten poisons, I let my arms hang down.

After all, the only areas the Tiger Keelback could reliably bite were my fingers and wrists.

-kwadeug! kwadeudeug!

As soon as I extended my arms, the snakes latched onto them, clamping onto my fingers and wrists.

I waited, giving the snakes time to push the bitten areas deep into their mouths so they could inject their venom.

“Yes, bite harder. Sink your teeth in.”

The snakes coiled tightly around my wrists, but luckily, they weren’t the kind to climb trees or bodies. Their writhing stopped at my wrists.

-Tsrrrrr! Tsrrr!

Although I’d told them not to worry, the centipedes above me continued to let out frantic sounds, clearly distressed.

“I’ll be out soon, so calm down, you guys.”

I reassured the centipedes once more, waited until the snakes had injected their venom, and then yanked my arms free.

My fingers and arms were now riddled with countless puncture marks. Tiny droplets of blood welled up, a clear sign that I had been bitten properly.

I needed to get back quickly.

But just as I was about to grab the kudzu vine I had lowered earlier and climb out, I realized something.

My legs wouldn’t move, held in place by the coiling snakes.

“Uh… I didn’t think about this part.”

My legs were completely entangled by the swarming mass of snakes, making it impossible to free them.

I could even feel some of them slowly climbing higher up my legs as they intertwined with one another.

‘Wait, this wasn’t part of the plan!’

I was beginning to panic at this unexpected turn of events.

-Thud. Thud. Thud.

I felt something lightly dropping onto my head.

Moments later, the centipedes began crawling rapidly down my face and onto the snakes below.

-Tsrrr.

The centipedes let out a warning hiss.

Then, something remarkable happened.

The snakes coiled around my legs began retreating toward the edges of the pit as though a tide had receded.

Of course, a few snakes were slower to react, but one of the centipedes, Bin, jumped off my body and sank its pincers into one of the stragglers, smashing it onto the ground.

-Tsrrrrrk! Tsrrrrrk!

-Ssssshhhh!

Each time Bin advanced and threatened the snakes, they retreated further, even trying to crawl up the walls of the pit.

Bin’s antennae quivered rapidly, a clear sign of its intense anger.

The snake that Bin had bitten quickly turned pitch-black.

“Bin, let’s go. It’s fine now.”

Only after threatening the snakes two more times did Bin finally crawl back onto my body.

‘Ah, I’m so moved by you guys!’

My heart swelled with emotion at the sight of them.

Raising them had been worth it. These three sisters, Cho, Hyang, and Bin, had immediately rushed to save me after seeing their dad bitten by snakes.

Isn’t that way more impressive than a cat or a dog?

Still, I had to set aside my overwhelming emotions for now. I grabbed the kudzu vine and climbed up.

Time was running out.

“Let’s go! To where Mom is!”

Focusing my internal energy into my legs, I leapt toward the battlefield where the fight had broken out earlier.

All the while, a techno-style dance track I’d once heard in a club played in my mind.

Because this was the fastest way.

***

-Shaaa.

After two fierce clashes, both sides stepped back, leading to a brief lull in the battle.

The enemy was stabbing his fingers into the chest of another martial artist, sucking the blood out of him.

But no one could stop him from doing it.

Tang Hwa-eun’s harsh breathing could be heard as she gasped for air.

“Haa… Haa…”

After two violent clashes, most of the family’s warriors and elders had been swept away by the rampaging figure, moving like a great tiger.

The family’s warriors lay sprawled across the ground, groaning in pain.

Now, with Wei Soryong gone, there was no one left to assist the warriors.

‘Still… Soryong… is he doing okay?’

Worry for Soryong began to rise in Tang Hwa-eun’s mind as she thought of the boy she had sent away on his own earlier.

What if the enemy had stationed other attackers nearby? That possibility gnawed at her.

Her mind flashed back to the sight of Soryong darting through the rain, his light and nimble steps carrying him farther away toward the Tang family’s direction.

The memory brought a brief smile to Tang Hwa-eun’s face, despite herself.

And she made a resolution.

If she survived this, she would ask him what song that was….

Catching her breath, Tang Hwa-eun wiped the blood from her lips with her soaked sleeve and shouted to the remaining warriors.

“Don’t get too close to him! Keep your distance and hold him in check as much as possible! The rain will stop soon, and when it does, send signals to the surrounding warriors again!”

“Yes, Young Miss!”

It had been Tang Hwa-eun’s decision to send Soryong to the family estate to bring reinforcements.

The thought struck her the moment she had been struck by the enemy and supported by Soryong. She realized she couldn’t afford to keep him here.

She couldn’t leave a fifteen-year-old boy who didn’t even fully realize he had become part of the Tang Family in this seemingly hopeless situation.

So, she had no choice but to send him off with the instruction to return with reinforcements.

It was a lie.

The distance to the family estate was one issue, but to subdue the enemy, either her father, a few elders, or her grandfather would need to come. Yet her father had already left, leading the Poison Extermination Squad, and her grandfather had departed with the family’s most skilled elders to treat the poisoned Sichuan Magistrate.

Even if they brought back all the remaining warriors and elders at the estate, there was no guarantee they’d be able to stop this enemy.

The Poison Extermination Squad specialized in dealing with human opponents, but there was no one left in the family strong enough to block even a single strike from this enemy’s palm.

The treatment of the Sichuan Magistrate required multiple experts with strong internal energy to expel the poison from his body, so the family’s top masters had followed her grandfather to handle this critical task.

When Tang Hwa-eun issued what might have been her warriors’ final orders, an elder of the family, who had been moved under a tree after falling early in the fight, shouted at her.

“Hwa-eun! You should escape like Soryong!”

“No! How can a direct descendant of the Tang family abandon their fighting kin and flee alone!?”

In response to the elder’s plea, Tang Hwa-eun gripped her whip tightly once more.

She was already out of hidden weapons.

Getting too close to the enemy meant risking being captured and having her essence blood drained, so she resorted to wielding her whip instead.

“If we can’t even save you, how could we ever face the Family Head? The purpose of the branch families is to protect the main family! It’s your duty to preserve the Tang family, so you must escape, at the very least!”

“Don’t say such nonsense! The Tang family never abandons its kin in battle!”

As the two shouted at each other, the elder of the Blood Cult, who had been their opponent, brushed his rain-soaked hair back and smirked.

“If my little playthings keep running away, I won’t have enough fun. And if I feel like I haven’t had enough fun… Well, I’ve heard the Man of Ten Thousand Poisons isn’t here, and neither is the Family Head. Perhaps I’ll just sweep through this lot and turn the Tang Sect into a pile of rubble. It’d be quite the entertaining way to announce the return of the Blood Cult, wouldn’t it?”

It was a threat, a declaration that if he couldn’t continue his massacre to his satisfaction here, he’d head straight for the Tang family estate.

He was making it clear that running away wouldn’t be tolerated.

“Damn it!”

The elder of the family clenched his teeth at the enemy’s words.

Now, there were only two options: fight and die here or kill that man.

If even one of them escaped, and the enemy truly attacked the Tang family estate as he claimed, there would be no one there capable of stopping him. Whether his words were truth or bluff, it didn’t matter. The estate was defenseless against him.

“Even if we all die here, we’ll take at least one of his arms with us!”

“Understood, Young Miss!”

At the moment when everyone present, including Tang Hwa-eun, was making their final resolve, a voice rang out from behind.

“That’s right. The Tang Family never abandons family members.”

It was a familiar voice.

No, it was the very voice that Hwa-eun had thought of in her final moments, prepared to face death.

“S-Soryong?”

“Young Master Soryong!?”

“W-Why have you returned!”

At first, there was hope, perhaps he had brought reinforcements.

But no, Soryong walked alone, having left the centipedes attached to the trees, steadily approaching by himself.

“A Tang family member never abandons their kin, isn’t that what you said?”

With a smile, Soryong threw off his upper garment like a third-rate thug and, gripping flying daggers in both hands, charged straight at the enemy.

“Ack! No!”

“Young Master Soryong! Don’t!”

Cries of alarm erupted at Soryong’s sudden, reckless action.

It was absurd to even think that Soryong, who had never properly learned footwork or movement arts, could face that monster.

As expected, Soryong, who charged recklessly at the enemy with those ungraceful, awkward steps, was caught by the nape of his neck in an instant.

Soryong wriggled and struggled, caught firmly by the nape.

“Ugh…”

“Oh ho. Could it be that you’ve come to offer your essence blood to the Blood Cult voluntarily?”

The elder of the Blood Cult smirked gleefully as he tightened his grip on Soryong’s neck, then drove his claws into Soryong’s abdomen without hesitation.

-Crunch!

“Ughhh!”

“Hm? Blocking me, are you? Foolish boy, do you not know that your blood flows to your arms as well?”

Soryong, perhaps attempting one last act of defiance, crossed his arms to block the elder’s claws. However, the Blood Cult elder’s claws pierced right through Soryong’s arms.

Soon, his claws began to ravenously suck blood from Soryong.

The veins in Soryong’s arms visibly bulged, pulsating grotesquely.

“Arghhhh!”

“Soryong!”

“Save Young Master Soryong! Everyone charge!”

Caught off guard by the sudden turn of events, the Tang family members charged at the enemy in an attempt to save Soryong.

But this clash only hastened the fall of the Tang family.

In their reckless charge to rescue Soryong, the elder of the Blood Cult threw Soryong aside and counterattacked, leaving most of the remaining family elders and warriors incapacitated, unable to continue fighting.

With most of the Tang family members lying defeated, the sky finally began to clear.

The clouds dispersed, and the sun shone through, but the fate of the Tang family was shrouded in darkness.

Tang Hwa-eun caught the thrown Soryong and held him tightly in her arms, despair filling her heart.

The elders who had lived through the Blood Cult Massacre of the past had often spoken of how strong the Blood Cult experts were. But this was beyond anything mere “strength” could explain.

Monsters who grew stronger with every drop of blood they sucked.

How many people’s essence blood had that elder consumed to become such a monster?

“Ah…”

“Kahaha. You’ve been such an annoyance, flinging hidden weapons at me like flies. But thanks to that little brat, everything has been resolved in one fell swoop. For your troubles, I’ll grant you a painless death.”

The Blood Cult elder slowly approached Tang Hwa-eun, a sadistic grin on his face.

Seeing this, Hwa-eun clutched Soryong tightly in her arms.

And then it happened.

The elder had only taken about three steps when he suddenly froze, his expression contorting in confusion and panic.

“W-What have you done!? You… ugh… this… this is Energy Scattering Poison!? No, that’s impossible. The cult’s internal energy techniques should be resistant to Energy Scattering Poison…! This doesn’t make any sense! What… what are you!?”

At the mention of Energy Scattering Poison, Hwa-eun’s eyes widened in shock as she turned to look at Soryong.

Neither she nor the Tang family warriors had carried any strong poisons or toxins to use in the rain, thinking they were simply chasing a thief.

There was no way Soryong could have had something like Energy Scattering Poison.

No, he hadn’t even been supplied with any poisons in the first place.

Furthermore, he hadn’t yet learned the Art of Using Poisons.

Then, from within Hwa-eun’s arms, Soryong, his face deathly pale and drained of blood, smiled weakly and shouted at the elder.

“What am I? I’m your natural enemy.”

At Soryong’s words, Hwa-eun’s heart began pounding wildly once again.

***

If you find any errors or have suggestions, please feel free to provide feedback.

Thank you for reading!

[Author – 에르훗]

[Translator – bjgoofy]