Chapter 3

I Obtained Guan Yu’s Martial Arts

Gwan Hwi (3)

“Open the door, you bastard!”

“Are you not opening it?! Do you really want to die?”

The members of the Poison Refinery Hall pounded on the firmly locked door, their faces twisted with irritation.

“What the hell is that bastard Garam doing? Why did he even lock the door?”

“Wasn’t today the day we were supposed to kill that bastard Gwan Hwi? Why is it taking so long?”

“Exactly. I told you we should just leave him alone. The Hall Master was going to kill him soon anyway. Tsk.”

The Poison Refinery Hall had actually intended to kill Gwan Hwi from the very beginning.

It was much cheaper to kill Gwan Hwi than to pay off the Gwan Estate’s debt.

“Haa. Exactly. This is such a damn nuisance.”

The men grumbled as they kicked the door.

Upstairs, a feast involving alcohol and women was in full swing, and they were already irritated at having to come all the way down here because of that bastard Garam.

“Surely that bastard Gwan Hwi isn’t pulling some kind of stunt in there, is he?”

At the words of one of the more perceptive men, the other two smirked.

“What kind of crazy nonsense is that? What could he possibly do? He’s so drugged up he probably can’t even take a single step.”

“Talk sense. What the hell could a pathetic bastard who barely manages to act as the patriarch of a third-rate martial family possibly do?”

Hearing the other two men mock Gwan Hwi, the first man nodded as though they had a point.

“True. That bastard does have exceptional natural strength, but he’s still nothing more than a wild boar. He can’t beat a human being.”

“Ha-ha. Exactly. So stop worrying about useless things.”

“Instead, let’s hurry up and smash through that door the idiot Garam locked.”

Just as the three men casually raised their feet to kick down the door—

BOOM!—

The center of the firmly shut iron door was torn apart, and a thick hand reached through and grabbed one of the men by the neck.

“…?!”

The men’s faces were filled with shock at the sight of a fist tearing through an iron door that was nearly a handspan thick.

But their surprise had only just begun.

“Did you miss me?”

Crack!—

Gwan Hwi crushed the man’s neck bones with nothing but the strength of his grip before kicking the iron door.

BOOM!—

With another thunderous crash, the iron door was ripped completely from its hinges.

It fell forward and crushed the corpse of the man whose neck had been twisted, turning the body into a bloody mess.

“I missed you too, you bastards.”

Gwan Hwi brushed the dust from his beard and smiled sinisterly.

After learning Scarlet Transformation Radiant Martial Arts, Gwan Hwi’s skin was no longer its normal color.

It had turned the color of a red jujube.

“G-Gwan Hwi, you bastard! Have you gone crazy?!”

“You really must have a death wish.”

Despite the overwhelming strength Gwan Hwi had just demonstrated, there was no fear in the eyes of the Poison Refinery Hall members.

They were overflowing with confidence that someone like Gwan Hwi, who was only a third-rate martial artist, could be killed at any time.

“Yeah. I guess I have gone crazy.”

Crack—

Gwan Hwi clenched his two reddened fists and glared at the members of the Poison Refinery Hall.

“You know what’s crazy? Trusting bastards like you and working myself to death for an entire year.”

Gwan Hwi had heard every single word they had said outside.

After working like a dog for them from below, they had tried to kill him.

He knew that was simply how Black Path bastards behaved, but experiencing it firsthand made his blood boil even more.

Flash!—

Gwan Hwi charged toward one of the men at lightning speed.

“…Huh?!”

The startled man hurriedly reached for the sword at his waist.

But Gwan Hwi was much faster than the man’s hand could reach the sword.

Crack!—

Gwan Hwi’s fist smashed into the man’s jaw, causing more than a dozen yellow teeth and a spray of blood to burst from his mouth.

“Uaaagh!”

Not only had all his teeth been shattered, but his jawbone had also broken.

A horrific scream erupted from his mouth.

If he survived, he would probably have to live on thin gruel for the rest of his life.

But he would not have to worry about that.

‘I’ll kill every last one of them.’

There was no reason to spare Black Path bastards.

Even if you kept them alive, they were the sort who would eventually stab you in the back rather than kneel down and thank you.

“Understand this. Isn’t life in the Black Path about either killing or being killed?”

“You son of a—!”

Gwan Hwi’s eyes flashed coldly.

Whoosh!—

He spread his hand, grabbed the man’s face, and slammed him into the outer wall of the underground cavern.

Bam!—

With a sound like leather tearing, the man’s face was crushed so badly that his nose and the back of his head nearly touched.

He died instantly.

“H-Hieek!”

The last remaining member of the Poison Refinery Hall stumbled backward, wetting his pants.

A red-skinned demon had defeated his companions using nothing but his physical strength, without even wielding a proper weapon.

Seeing it with his own eyes, the man’s legs trembled so badly that he could not move.

He could not even think about drawing his sword.

“P-Please, spare me…”

Crack!—

Gwan Hwi drove his reddened fist into the man’s chest.

His ribs broke and pierced his heart.

Gwan Hwi casually wiped the blood from his fist onto his clothes.

“Hoo.”

After finally releasing the breath he had been holding, Gwan Hwi spread his chest and felt refreshed.

These men had tried to make all of his sacrifices over the past year meaningless.

Now that he had shown them the sweet taste of revenge, he finally felt as though he could breathe again.

“But it’s not over yet.”

His revenge was not finished.

This was only the beginning.

“There are still plenty of Poison Refinery Hall members left.”

The Gwan Estate and the Poison Refinery Hall had already crossed a point of no return.

Kill or be killed.

As the bastards themselves had said, that was the only choice remaining.

And at the end of it all, the ones who would die would be the Poison Refinery Hall.

“By the way, this martial art is incredible. I can feel power overflowing from my body.”

The martial art of a legendary general who had dominated an entire era truly was something else.

To possess such overwhelming power that those notorious members of the Poison Refinery Hall could not even move.

“Especially when I broke through that iron door earlier. It was incredible. I can’t believe I could smash something that thick with my bare hands.”

—…

“General?”

When Guan Yu did not answer, Gwan Hwi tilted his head.

—Scarlet Transformation Radiant Martial Arts does not increase your strength.

“What?”

Scarlet Transformation Radiant Martial Arts accelerated the flow of blood, making the body’s physical abilities work faster.

In other words, it multiplied the speed of the body several times.

It did not make one’s innate strength greater.

And that meant…

“Th-Then you’re saying I did all that with my natural strength?”

Gwan Hwi stared wide-eyed at his own body.

Shock and disbelief filled his expression.

“Come on. You’re praising me again. You don’t have to do that.”

—…

Guan Yu was truly speechless.

Why was this descendant so unwilling to believe that he possessed tremendous innate strength?

‘There’s no way I’m actually that strong.’

Gwan Hwi had possessed innate physical strength since childhood.

Standing nearly six feet tall with a massive physique, he had always been capable of things ordinary people could not do.

But even so, he had never been capable of punching through an iron door a handspan thick or destroying someone’s heart with a single punch.

—Perhaps it is because of the poisons you have consumed for the past year.

“Poison?”

Poison was a mysterious discipline that humans still had not fully comprehended.

Depending on how it was prepared and combined, poison could produce tens of thousands of different effects.

Gwan Hwi had consumed all kinds of poisons six times a day for an entire year.

It would not have been strange if his body had undergone some kind of change.

They said that what did not kill you made you stronger.

Perhaps, just as the saying went, the poisons created by the Poison Refinery Hall had strengthened Gwan Hwi’s innate physical power.

—Perhaps those poisons awakened your natural constitution.

“Huh… That’s fascinating. To think that after paying the price for a year, I gained this kind of strength.”

Out of curiosity, Gwan Hwi threw a powerful punch at the wall of the cavern.

BOOOOM!—

With a thunderous sound like an exploding shell, the cavern wall caved inward in a semicircular depression.

It looked as though a Shaolin martial monk possessing tremendous internal energy had unleashed the Great Strength Vajra Palm.

“I see. So this is the power of the poison.”

—…Judging by that power, I am not so sure.

Even if he had consumed a great deal of poison, could a human being really become this strong?

Guan Yu was slightly puzzled.

What exactly has happened to this descendant’s body?

“Come on. So you really did help me, General.”

—…Just keep walking forward.

Guan Yu chose to ignore him, a technique favored by the souls of the Middle Heaven.

He had practically given up because Gwan Hwi simply refused to listen no matter what he said.

—Are you going to deal with all the remaining men as well?

“Yes. I intend to. There’s no way we can reconcile now.”

These people had signed a contract with him and then secretly attempted to kill him.

Even if it were possible to restore their relationship, Gwan Hwi had no intention of doing so.

If someone had screwed you over, returning twice as much was only fair.

“I’m going to kill every one of these Black Path bastards here.”

Gwan Hwi clenched his fists.

—An excellent decision. But it will be difficult for you right now.

“What?”

—With your current condition, I said it would be difficult to kill everyone outside and then fight the man called the Hall Master.

Gwan Hwi tilted his head in confusion.

With this insane physical strength and the power of Scarlet Transformation Radiant Martial Arts, he thought it seemed entirely possible.

There were only about twenty Black Path martial artists, most of them at the second-rate level.

—Your body is not in a normal condition.

“Ah…”

Although Guan Yu’s words were vague, Gwan Hwi immediately understood.

The various poisons had combined to strengthen his innate physical power, but that did not mean every poison inside his body was beneficial.

After a year of poisoning, Gwan Hwi’s body had suffered considerable damage.

In fact, the fact that he could move like this at all was almost a miracle.

—If your body were in normal condition, whether there were a hundred or a thousand Black Path bastards would make no difference. But that is not the case right now.

“How long can I keep moving?”

—Half a shichen. That is the maximum.

“Hmm. I see. Then…”

Gwan Hwi went back into the underground room and took the poison bottles that had been neatly arranged along one wall.

He stuffed them roughly into his pockets.

—Why are you taking those?

“I’m going to use them.”

—A descendant of the Gwan Family has no need for something as lowly as poison.

“When strength doesn’t work, you have to use your head.”

Despite Guan Yu’s objections, Gwan Hwi did not remove the poison bottles from his clothes.

No matter how poor his physical condition was, he had to deal with these bastards today.

Why?

‘I can’t drag the other members of my family into this.’

The members of the Gwan Estate were, just like Gwan Hwi, merely third-rate martial artists who had learned mediocre martial arts.

No.

Strictly speaking, they were even weaker than Gwan Hwi.

They did not possess his monstrous physical strength.

‘So I’ll end it here.’

Driving away evil and protecting his family was also the duty of a patriarch.

Gwan Hwi might be inadequate and clumsy, but he had absolutely no intention of abandoning that duty.

After all, the patriarch of the Gwan Estate, Gwan Hwi, had devoted his entire life to fulfilling it.

‘I’ll make them pay back everything they put me through for the past year, all at once.’

Fiddling with the poison bottles, Gwan Hwi climbed the stairs of the underground cavern and headed toward the surface.

He closed his eyes and felt the warm sunlight shining down on him before carefully moving forward.

Keeping his body half-crouched and hiding between pillars as he walked, Gwan Hwi eventually spotted the training grounds of the Poison Refinery Hall.

“Hmm. Fortunately, everyone except the Hall Master is gathered together.”

For whatever reason, perhaps because it was a particularly good day, the members of the Poison Refinery Hall were gathered on the training grounds, drinking and enjoying themselves.

More than a dozen men had alcohol in one hand and women in the other.

‘He’s not here.’

At the thought of that man, killing intent appeared in Gwan Hwi’s eyes.

The Hall Master of the Poison Refinery Hall and the man who had orchestrated the entire contract—

Gwang Sa-heun.

To Gwan Hwi, that man was an enemy who absolutely had to die, and die horribly.

‘Where did he go?’

Everyone had gathered in the courtyard, but the Hall Master, Gwang Sa-heun, was nowhere to be seen.

Considering that he had no interest in things like alcohol and women, he was probably alone at the top of the three-story pavilion, indulging in his own eccentricities.

‘Then who should I target first?’

Gwan Hwi stroked his beard as he thought.

He intended to kill all of them, but he needed to decide who would be most advantageous to deal with first.

Even after learning Scarlet Transformation Radiant Martial Arts, with his current physical condition it would be difficult to defeat more than a dozen second-rate martial artists and Gwang Sa-heun, a first-rate master, all at once.

—Deal with the Hall Master first. If the leader dies, his subordinates will give up fighting.

“Hmm. That’s a good idea, but then those bastards will run away.”

Unlike the White Path, Black Path martial artists did not have particularly strong bonds with one another.

Especially those men currently drinking and partying.

Rather than shouting, “For revenge for our Hall Master!”, they looked much more like the type to shout, “Run!”

—Then do you have another method?

“I have an idea.”

Gwan Hwi raised the corners of his mouth into a sinister grin and pulled out a poison bottle from inside his clothes.

“You bastards should try some too.”