Chapter 118: Water Knows the Answer

Qing’s expression immediately turned fierce.

This was because, in her experience, anyone who started playing creepy flute music at people was never up to any good.

Above all, the traumatic memory of Jin Jangmyeong and the inescapable Net of Heaven and Earth was still vividly etched like a fresh scar upon her ample bosom.

Soon enough, figures began emerging from the cloth-covered fish farm interior—fishermen, each now wielding menacing weapons.

Qing drew her sword, her eyes turning cold and hard.

However… quite a lot of them emerged.

More and more poured out, like bees swarming from a disturbed hive, until it was impossible to tell if this was supposed to be a simple fish farm or some kind of hidden military barracks.

Uh, Qing blinked. That’s quite a lot, huh?

She wasn’t saying it out of panic.

Her expression, if anything, was one of bright, almost cheerful anticipation.

A quick scan revealed their cultivation levels were mostly mediocre—a whole crowd of easily manageable opponents.

For Qing, who specialized in being strong against the weak, this was just a welcome opportunity to stretch her legs and dance with her sword, burden-free.

“Ah! Jayu! Friend, you should probably stay back,”

She called out, still remembering to look out for her frail companion even amidst the escalating tension.

Based on their conversation yesterday, Peng Choryeo was clearly also a true martial artist who understood the real joy of combat, the ‘Pleasure of the Way’ inherent in a good fight.

Perhaps classifying it as Earthly Pleasure was appropriate?

It would be a real shame for Qing to miss out on playing properly just because she had to babysit the weakling who’d tagged along.

Come to think of it, Qing mused internally, Tang Nanah’s earlier description of him as a ‘weakling who tagged along’ couldn’t have been more accurate. Truly, insight worthy of a (future) doctor of traditional medicine!

Jayu started to protest, opening his mouth, but Old Dog (Gyeon No) moved instantly, swiftly grabbing the Grand Prince and tucking him securely under his arm at his waist like a sack of potatoes.

“No, but—Gah!”

“Dear Miss,” Old Dog declared loudly towards Qing, his voice filled with admiration, “to think you would show concern for the Young Master even in such a situation! Please, prioritize your own safety!”

With that performance of grateful thanks delivered, Old Dog immediately executed a flawless retreat, displaying the astonishing agility befitting a master of the Unrestrained Realm, vanishing from the immediate vicinity with Jayu protesting in tow.

Now with absolutely nothing else to worry about, Qing immediately took the lead, stepping forward deliberately, one step at a time, preparing to meet the oncoming enemy head-on.

It was at that moment—

The fishermen at the front simultaneously threw something. Pouch-like objects sailed through the air, landing just over the crude fence line near Qing’s group.

As yellow phosphorus inside the pouches ignited on contact with air, mixing instantly with the pouches’ other contents, plumes of thick, acrid, mustard-yellow smoke billowed out, rapidly forming dense clouds.

The wind blowing off the river immediately began carrying the toxic cloud straight towards them.

“Wait, hey! Poison! It’s poison gas! POISON!”

Tang Nanah shrieked from directly behind Qing, grabbing her wrist frantically.

Qing just smiled calmly and replied,

“It’s fine.”

Black, potent Heavenly Demonic Qi surged downwards, pooling at the soles of her feet.

Then, Qing took one light, almost casual step forward. Thud.

The very earth beneath her feet seemed to vibrate, and the surrounding Qi resonated in sympathy.

Originating from Qing, extending outwards in a sharp wedge shape—CHWAAAK!

The surface layer of the earth violently flipped upwards, sending soil, dry grass, and pebbles shooting into the air like a solid wave.

The oncoming poison cloud was instantly ripped apart, its dense form forced to split and flow harmlessly around the newly formed earthen barrier along the path of least resistance.

The First Step of the Heavenly Demon Overlord Step: Earth Command.

The lore stated: When the ten thousand demons advance, the Heavenly Demon steps forth first, and even the earth itself shows reverence, rising up to protect the demonic host. It was a legendary divine art, said to be capable of raising earthen ramparts ten zhang high [^(Approx. 33 meters or 109 feet)], sufficient to block tens of thousands of arrows.

Qing, who couldn’t even properly handle basic energy projection yet, was merely imitating the form from memory. But even just the resulting Qi wave, the sheer force of the technique, was more than enough to effortlessly split apart a simple smokescreen deployed at ground level.

“Wh-What the?!”

“Excellent! Qing-ah!” Peng Choryeo cheered from behind her.

One of the fishermen, who had been charging forward under the cover of the smoke, suddenly found himself in clear air directly in front of Qing. He froze, momentarily dumbfounded by the unexpected pocket of clean atmosphere centered solely around her.

One must remember: no matter how astonishing the technique displayed by an opponent, hesitating or losing focus during combat is fatal.

Qing flowed past him in a blur. As she passed, she grabbed a handful of the fisherman’s hair, yanking hard. With her terrifying strength, his entire body was pulled along helplessly, becoming a horizontal projectile.

Utilizing the fluid movements of the Moon Maiden Step combined with the earth-shattering impact of the Heavenly Demon Overlord Step, Qing advanced relentlessly. Her Internal Energy drained rapidly with each powerful step,

but she didn't care. It wasn't like she had any other practical use for this volatile Sky-Rending Demonic Energy anyway.

She advanced without holding back. With every footfall, the ground buckled and flipped, the earth itself seeming to churn and swirl around her, forcefully pushing the poison fog aside to her left and right, carving a clear path forward.

“Huh? What the? Where are you going? Why—?”

“Nanah! Focus! Don’t get separated!”

“Yes! Yes! Sister!”

Tang Nanah snapped back to attention. Her hands darted alternately into her bosom, emerging each time with sharp, gleaming acupuncture needles held deftly between her fingers as she hurried to follow Qing and Peng.

Finally, Qing’s relentless advance cleared a straight path through the poison-fog-spewing pouches, right up to the crude, waist-high fence marking the farm’s boundary.

The alleged fishermen, who had been formed up in a line ready to charge into the poison cloud, now hesitated, awkwardly raising their weapons at this unexpected turn of events.

Qing plunged directly into their midst, swinging the object held firmly in her left hand with magnificent force.

The fisherman whose hair she still held—now functioning as an impromptu human flail—described a large arc through the air. His flailing feet connected solidly with the side of another fisherman’s head, his toes embedding themselves directly next to the man’s eye.

The ensuing battle between toes and eye socket resulted in a mutual loss.

The fisherman whose head was dented was sent flying backward, unconscious. Simultaneously, the toe bones of the fisherman being used as a human club shattered into pieces upon impact.

This unfortunate outcome was primarily because the fisherman had only been wearing simple sandals woven from straw.

If he had been wearing proper safety shoes, only the head of the fisherman who got hit would have broken, while the toes of the human bludgeon would likely have remained intact.

Qing made a mental note, reconfirming the critical importance of sturdy footwear, as she continued to swing the human weapon itself with vicious abandon.

Each time her makeshift club collided with an enemy, foot bones and ankle bones shattered audibly. When opponents tried to counterattack with their own blades amidst the chaos, the sheer vicious momentum often caused their swords to glance off Qing or her weapon and strike their own comrades instead—shins were sliced open, knees were severed.

Every successful hit produced a double dose of screams—one from the target, one from the weapon.

Even when she missed an enemy, her weapon still shrieked in agony, so at the very least, it was an excellent tool for providing auditory feedback, never disappointing the ears.

However, even this gruesome spectacle didn’t last long.

Rip. With an exquisite tearing sensation traveling up her arm, the left hand Qing was swinging suddenly lost all its weight, flailing uselessly through empty air.

The human weapon she had momentarily grown quite fond of had flown off somewhere into the chaos. All that remained firmly grasped in her hand, dripping blood, was a thick clump of hair still attached to a surprisingly large piece of scalp.

“Aw, man.”

Qing sighed, disappointed. She casually tossed the grisly remnant—essentially a natural human hair wig—aside.

As expected, swinging people around by their hair just isn’t very economical. Breaks too easily.

Just as Qing was clicking her tongue in disappointment…

“You witch!”

A figure charged towards her, sword blade already emanating faint purple Sword Threads.

However, compared to the warrior's apparent cultivation realm, the swordsmanship itself was second-rate at best, maybe somewhere between the White and Blue tiers of basic techniques.

What this attacker failed to realize was that, surprisingly, Qing was actually a swordsman!

Having already learned peerless swordsmanship techniques, honed her skills through relentless duels with Ximen Surin, and even witnessed the transcendent sword style of the Celestial Martial Emperor himself, Qing’s discernment regarding swordplay was already at the level of a true master.

She easily scattered the clumsy illusions woven into his swift sword attack. Then, her own Moonlight Sword (No. 8) flashed out, a straight, clean thrust aimed directly at the enemy’s heart.

It was a counterattack so perfect, so exquisitely timed, that even Ximen Surin herself would have likely praised it as a flawless execution of intercepting and overpowering an opponent.

However, the opponent was also a Late Stage Peak Realm master, not some pushover. He twisted his body desperately at the last possible second. The blade missed his heart by a hair's breadth, instead piercing cleanly through his ribs and exiting out his back.

Just then, a woman’s scream, sharp as shattering glass, pierced the air.

“No! Gege! [^(Older brother, often used affectionately for lover/husband)]”

“Junior Sister! This witch! We need to move quickly! Attack!”

The impaled Peak Realm fisherman gasped out, ignoring his own horrific wound. He reached out, somehow managing to firmly grasp the thin blade of Qing’s Moonlight Sword, still embedded in his torso, with both hands.

Qing tried to pull her sword free, but the man’s hand bones, likely reinforced by a protective internal energy technique, interlocked tightly around the blade. Her pulling only served to shake his body grotesquely back and forth.

He was clearly employing a desperate, suicidal tactic—intending to hold her there, even if it meant dying together.

Qing frowned in annoyance.

She could simply let go of the sword, of course, but that would mean abandoning her weapon and letting a Late Stage Peak Realm enemy potentially survive. She didn’t like that option. -

Besides, letting go felt somehow… like losing.

Qing abruptly raised her right arm high.

It's a fundamental principle that people need the ground beneath them to brace and exert force; lifted into the air, resistance becomes impossible.

The Peak Realm fisherman, still skewered on her sword, was hoisted effortlessly into the air.

As he was lifted, the slender female fisherman who had been running up behind him was revealed. Qing saw her eyes widen in shock and horror.

“Let go of my Gege!” the woman shrieked.

Qing replied instantly,

“As you command!”

With all her might, Qing swung her right arm straight down vertically.

The man impaled on her sword landed heavily on the ground with both feet,

Following the laws of inertia, only Qing’s blade slipped cleanly upwards, sliding out from between his legs.

The Late Stage Peak Realm master, now resembling a gruesome, human version of the character 人 (person/human), sprawled lifelessly on the ground.

As his head lolled to the side, perhaps the character 入 (enter) was more fitting.

“Gege! Gege!”

The woman screamed again, completely ignoring the deadly enemy standing right before her, instead rushing to cradle her dead lover’s body, shaking him desperately.

Thanks to her frantic shaking, his carefully arranged limbs came loose, threatening to flop into something resembling the character 大 (big/great).

Were they lovers? Qing mused, observing the scene dispassionately.

A matched pair, their combined Evil Karma easily exceeded six hundred points.

Honestly, rather than getting married and inflicting themselves on the world, it would have been far more beneficial for everyone if they had just stabbed each other and gone to the afterlife together. And yet here they were, enacting a cheap melodrama.

Remember, the thing Qing hated most in this world was racial discrimination. Second was annoying developers who made shitty games. Third was… well, probably something else equally petty. Fourth was European imperialists. And finally, rounding out the top five, was excessive, overwrought melodrama.[^Translator's Note: The second and third items listed ("annoying developers..." and "something else petty...") replace terms from the original Korean text. These were 짱깨 (Jjangkkae), a derogatory slur for Chinese people, and 깜둥이 (Kkamdung-i), a derogatory slur for Black people, respectively.]

Having just witnessed a scene satisfying two out of her top five most hated things, the verdict was obvious: death penalty.

Just as Qing was preparing to finally enjoy the solid, satisfying impact of the Black Slaying Demonic Palm for the first time in a long while…

“Junior Brother! You wench! I’ll tear your crotch apart!”

A middle-aged fisherman suddenly leaped into the fray, radiating an ominous Qi wave far exceeding the others.

Shit, what the hell? A Transcendent?!

Qing subtly took a half-step back, adjusting her stance.

Of course, she didn’t forget to keep running her mouth even while retreating.

“Tear my crotch apart, you say? Sir, your words are far too harsh. Abbreviated, we could say YWH (Your Words Harsh). Combining both abbreviations, maybe ‘CT? YWH’ (Crotch Tear? Your Words Harsh). Did you know,” she added brightly, “that all the cool young people talk like this these days?”

“You wench!”

The middle-aged fisherman’s face turned dangerously red.

“Besides,” Qing continued conversationally, “your poor disciple just died with his crotch effectively torn apart like that. Is that really the appropriate thing to be shouting right now, especially in front of the grieving widow?”

“I’ll KILL YOU!” he roared, losing all composure.

The middle-aged fisherman’s sword began to glow intensely, light coalescing around the blade itself.

Sword Force. The starlight-like destruction permitted only to those who had reached the Transcendent Realm.

At that precise instant, Qing launched her body forward, not backward.

Dropping low, she touched the ground, rolled twice with incredible speed, and charged straight towards the kneeling Junior Sister fisherman who was still mourning her dead lover. Qing grabbed the grieving woman’s ankle firmly.

“Hey! Junior Sister whose name I don’t know!” Qing shouted cheerfully. “Since your cowardly Senior Brother here is unfairly picking on someone merely in the Peak Realm, I’ll have to borrow your strength for just a little bit, okay?”

With that, Qing began swinging the woman’s entire body around her head like a giant flail, faster and faster.

The Junior Sister fisherman rotated at the same dizzying speed.

“Wh-What are you doing?!” the Transcendent fisherman yelled, faltering in his attack.

“Pop quiz, asshole!” Qing yelled back over the whistling sound of rotating limbs. “Your Junior Sister here is currently rotating at approximately one revolution per second! Her estimated weight is about eighty catties! Her height is roughly five and a half chi! Calculate the centrifugal force exerted by the sister at this precise moment!”

Still swinging the screaming woman like a human sling, Qing charged directly at the Transcendent master.

The fisherman recoiled violently, clearly disgusted and horrified. Any thought of finally unleashing his hard-earned Sword Force in actual combat evaporated. Faced with the prospect of slicing his own Junior Sister in half, he could only frantically backpedal, completely losing his offensive momentum.

“Junior Sister, I’m counting on you!” Qing shouted gleefully.

With a final, staggering heave, Qing put all her strength into one last rotation and launched the Junior Sister fisherman bodily forward like a human cannonball, aimed squarely at the retreating Transcendent master.

Following immediately behind the human projectile, Qing raised her own sword, ready to strike.

The Transcendent fisherman’s choice was instantaneous: self-preservation decisively won out over saving his Junior Sister.

He leaped high into the air, completely dodging the incoming body. The fiercely flying Junior Sister fisherman slammed hard into the ground where he had just been standing, carving a long, ugly red smear across the dirt as she skidded violently to a halt.

Qing didn’t miss the opening, shouting triumphantly as she charged the airborne master!

“You didn’t even try to catch her! You murderer! You killed her! Your own Junior Sister! And you still dare call yourself her Senior Brother?!”

Spouting absolute nonsense, Qing reached out her hand towards the airborne, momentarily defenseless Transcendent master.

DEEEENG—! The clear, resonant sound of a massive temple bell!

He had never imagined she would employ a ranged Air Palm technique! Caught completely off guard, suspended in mid-air with no way to dodge, the Transcendent fisherman had no defense.

Qing immediately ran towards the spot where the Transcendent master crashed back down to earth.

“P-Please… spare…” he choked out, clearly incapacitated by the internal attack.

Qing paused, briefly checking the Transcendent fisherman’s Evil Karma score.

Damn. If his Evil Karma had been just 200 points lower, she might actually have spared him. What a shame.

“The Junior Sister you just murdered probably wanted to live too,” Qing stated coldly.

She stomped down hard on the Transcendent fisherman’s neck.

Her footprint was deeply engraved into the earth, leaving behind a compressed patty of meat and bone perfectly matching the sole of her leather shoe.

It was a historic moment, witnessing the Transcendent fisherman’s neck achieving liberation from his body. Sadly for him, his head was immediately snatched up by Qing, grabbed unceremoniously by the hair.

Qing raised the Transcendent fisherman’s severed head high in the air.

“Enemy general!” she bellowed triumphantly. “Defeated!”