Chapter 568:
“Eeeeechoo!“
As he began to charge forward rapidly, the poisonous mist felt like it was rushing at him violently. Wei Yan-ho kept coughing continuously while never stopping his legs.
As the poison mist seemed to thin out a bit, a massive city wall came into view. Leaping over the wall, he immediately saw bright light. He had finally escaped from the thick poison mist that had even blocked out light.
“Hooooop!“
The moment he escaped the poison mist, he took a deep breath. When the clear air entered his lungs, he felt like he could live again.
The poison entering his body was being completely purified by Baek Mu-han’s inner core. There was no danger of poisoning, but the pain and discomfort that accompanied the process didn’t disappear.
People should live breathing clean air, shouldn’t they?
“Hup-cha!“
Wei Yan-ho, who had regulated his breathing and gotten himself together, blazed his eyes and began sprinting.
He charged violently around the perimeter of the poison mist that was flowing out and spreading beyond the city walls.
Tap-tap-tat!
The ground shattered with each step he took. And as his speed increased, whirlwinds gradually began forming behind Wei Yan-ho’s back.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tat!
His speed increased.
The whirlwind blew more fiercely.
“Huh-huh-huh?”
“Wh-what is that?”
Contrary to Wei Yan-ho’s expectations, people who had been watching the poison mist from a distance without much thought began crying out in alarm.
A massive whirlwind was blowing. The whirlwind that swept up dust began to envelop the poison.
“What’s happening?”
Ordinary people and those without high martial skills couldn’t properly understand what was happening. But those who could understand were surprised in a different way.
“That crazy bastard…”
Zhang-il shuddered.
“Now he’s really doing all sorts of things.”
Peng Dao-ji shook his head.
“Amitabha, that benefactor is hardly human.”
Mu-san clicked his tongue and shook his head.
Zhuge Family Head couldn’t properly see how the situation was unfolding, but curious nonetheless, he kept poking his head out bit by bit, while Wei Jeong-han and Divine Strategist stood with their mouths agape, watching the whirlwind Wei Yan-ho had created.
“I-is that even possible?”
“…What can we do when we can see it with our own eyes.”
Divine Strategist stuck out his tongue.
‘He’s really not human.’
The Poison Demon who had burst the poison stored in his body to create that massive poison mist was inhuman enough. But the bastard who was controlling that poison mist with wind pressure created by running was even less human.
How fast would you have to run to make that possible?
“…Now he’s flying around.”
“…”
Wei Yan-ho, who had been running on the ground, began kicking off the air.
Hmm… what do they call that?
Sky Walking?
Or perhaps Soaring Through Emptiness?
‘It seems a bit different from those too…’
But what does the name matter? Sky Walking and Soaring Through Emptiness are similar concepts, just with different methods.
People can walk and run by pushing off the ground. As one’s mastery of inner power deepens, instead of pushing off the ground’s surface, one advances by pushing off the ground’s energy.
What if that mastery deepens further?
One can receive sufficient force even without solid ground. Grass Flying, where one runs stepping on grass, and Water Flying, where one runs stepping on water, are such realms.
And if the mastery deepens even more from there?
One can run, stepping on empty air.
It’s not that there’s nothing there. Even when nothing is visible, everything fills the empty air. There’s air, there’s dust. When one reaches a realm where inner energy can be operated with extreme delicacy, one can even push off the air in empty space and lift the body.
This was the legendary realm called Sky Walking.
But…
‘That’s not Sky Walking.’
Sky Walking literally means walking by stepping on empty air. But right now, Wei Yan-ho wasn’t walking. He was kicking off the empty air as if it were solid ground and leaping around.
“That crazy bastard…”
Shouldn’t people live a bit more reasonably?
Now he’s even running through the sky.
“Uchaaaaaaat!“
Wei Yan-ho let out a tremendous battle cry and thrust his sword straight to the side.
Swooooosh!
The sound of air being cut.
A sound you’d rarely hear in a lifetime rang out clearly. The afterimage of light emitted by the sword stretched out long.
“Hah… hah-hah.”
Wei Jeong-han stared blankly at that scene.
How should one express that sight?
If one had to use crude language, it looked like wrapping a large green mass tightly with white string.
“It’s shrinking.”
“It’s shrinking…”
“That thing is shrinking.”
The poison mist pushed by the wind pressure Wei Yan-ho created gradually got pushed inward. It climbed back over the city walls it had crossed and began gathering back into the form it had spread from.
“…He’s solving it.”
“He’s solving that.”
“That madman is solving that.”
Exclamations flowed out. Even Wei Jeong-han was blinking and couldn’t say anything. What appeared to the eyes was simple, but everyone here understood just how incredible a feat that was.
Even ordinary people couldn’t catch and contain small smoke with their hands. Even skilled martial artists would shake their heads if asked to catch spreading smoke.
That’s what smoke is like. If there’s even the tiniest gap, smoke will somehow escape through it, won’t it?
But right now, Wei Yan-ho wasn’t dealing with small smoke – he was pushing that enormous smoke that could cover an entire city inward using only wind pressure created by his body.
“Well, I’ll be…”
Divine Strategist laughed helplessly.
When he had killed the Four Evils in one strike and driven the Poison Demon to self-destruct, it hadn’t been this absurd. That wasn’t something you could simply call having strong martial power.
If Quan Ji had been here, could he have done something similar?
Not a chance.
Even if Quan Ji became twice as strong, or even three times stronger, there would be no answer. At that speed, he wouldn’t be able to operate his inner power so precisely. This was a miracle that only Wei Yan-ho could perform in the current Central Plains.
“Th-that…”
It kept getting smaller.
Wei Yan-ho, who had pushed the poison mist into the Righteous Martial Alliance headquarters, began running while narrowing the poison mist. White light stretched out long, wrapping the poison mist densely without a single gap.
Now you could barely see the poison mist at all. Bright white light was wrapping around the entire Righteous Martial Alliance headquarters. It looked like a hemisphere of light had covered the headquarters.
That hemisphere kept shrinking.
They were just watching it with their eyes, so they accepted it, but if someone had described this scene in words, they would have smacked them upside the head and told them to come to their senses. If not that, they would have asked if they’d been dreaming.
Divine Strategist, who thought himself second to none in eloquence and expression, didn’t have confidence he could explain the scene he was witnessing to others.
Even with all the trust he had built up until now, it would be hard to avoid looks saying ‘Has this old geezer lost his mind?’ That’s how absurd what Wei Yan-ho was accomplishing was.
“…Hah.”
The hemisphere gradually shrank until it became as small as a house. Then it soon transformed to a size that could barely fit one person.
The poison mist was trapped inside that.
‘What does he plan to do from here?’
What he had shown so far was absurd enough. But the really important part was from now on. He couldn’t keep holding that poison mist like that forever.
If he couldn’t properly handle that poison mist, it would only result in buying a little time.
‘But how do you handle that?’
Divine Strategist’s face darkened.
He had gathered the spreading poison mist into one place, so now he just needed to handle it, one might think, but that ‘handling’ was the real problem. How do you handle that smoke?
If someone asked you to handle poison mist that someone else gathered for you, making sure it doesn’t leak out, how would you answer?
There’s no way.
If they could cover and contain it, that would be best, but there’s no container that could withstand the poison from that much poison mist. Even if such a container existed, it wasn’t here right now. To handle that, at minimum they’d need the Sichuan Tang Family’s elites to bring all the highest-grade poison storage containers the family had stashed away.
But when?
No matter how inhuman Wei Yan-ho’s actions were, he couldn’t continue that forever. At most, half a shijin. They should bring something to handle that poison mist within that half shijin?
‘Impossible.’
Besides, even if they could cover and block it, the ground wouldn’t hold up. No matter how he thought about it, there was no other way.
Divine Strategist stepped forward with large strides.
“M-Military Advisor, sir.”
“Move aside. Right now, that can’t be handled, can it? I need to go closer and see.”
“Hmm…”
Wei Jeong-han also thought there was no other choice and nodded. Then he leaped into the headquarters together with Divine Strategist. Zhang-il and the others followed behind.
Woooooong!
Seeing it up close made it even clearer how absurd this was. Wei Yan-ho’s figure was barely visible. He was circling around the poison mist at a terrifying speed, perfectly wrapping its perimeter so that not a handful of poison mist could escape.
It was remarkable and amazing.
Just from the wind pressure hitting their faces, they could feel how incredible what Wei Yan-ho was doing right now was.
But if this was all…
That was the moment.
Woong!
Something seemed to vibrate, and then the hemisphere of light that had been shining brilliantly suddenly disappeared.
“Huk!“
“Hiik!“
“Wh-what!”
Before their panic could even fade, the situation before their eyes became starkly clear. In front of the poison mist that had shrunk to the size of a person’s body, Wei Yan-ho stood on his knees with his face pale as a sheet.
“Hooook! Hooook!“
His trembling limbs and pale face alone showed how much Wei Yan-ho was struggling right now.
‘Is he exhausted?’
‘Are we done for?’
If Wei Yan-ho was too exhausted to suppress that smoke any longer, then there was no way left.
‘Should we run? Or should we throw our bodies at it?’
Just as Divine Strategist’s mind was spinning frantically!
Wei Yan-ho began doing something no one had ever imagined.
“Hooooooo.“
A deep sigh.
It was a sigh that seemed to make the ground cave in. At the very moment when everyone thought even Wei Yan-ho had given up.
“Swoooooooooop!“
Wei Yan-ho stuck his head forward and sucked in all the poison mist before his eyes.
“Hiiiiik!“
“Wh-what are you doing, you madman!”
“Amitabha! Amitabha! Amitabha! Amitabha! Amitabha!“
Mu-san’s continuous chanting of Buddha’s name sounded almost like he was praying for someone’s peaceful passage to the afterlife. But it was already too late to stop him.
Wei Yan-ho sucked in every bit of poison mist without leaving a single handful. The sight of green poison mist being sucked steadily into his mouth was vividly visible.
“He’s…”
Then, changes began.
Through his tattered clothes, Wei Yan-ho’s body began turning a blue-green color. Starting from his lower abdomen, like ink spreading, his entire body instantly turned green.
“…”
Wei Yan-ho’s body swayed.
After staggering and steadying himself with one foot, Wei Yan-ho looked at everyone with his bizarrely green-tinted face.
“I think I drank a bit too much of this?”
“…”
It was a sight that would make even ghosts run away.
