Chapter 85: Five Poisons Sect
Translator: bjgoofy
-Thwip!
A thread shot out from Yohwa’s backside toward the cliff near the second entrance of the gourd-shaped cavern, where people were gathered.
Immediately, a spiderweb formed between the central pointed rock and the cliff, and the moment the web was complete, Yohwa hugged me and began climbing the thread.
-Keesit! Keesheeshee! Keeshiit!
Even as she climbed the thread, she kept muttering something incessantly. If only I could translate Yohwa language, maybe I’d understand what she was saying.
'I'm really upset! I'm going to tell Unnie to scold you properly!'
She was acting just like a wife.
Since she was doing this while looking like Nunim, I really felt like I was being nagged at.
-Tsurur!
And Cho, seemingly understanding Yohwa’s words, nodded along while matching Yohwa’s tone on her shoulder.
They had been awkward with each other since Cho bit me, but now they felt like best friends.
‘Fine, gang up on me. I will sacrifice myself for the peace of the household.’
-Swoooosh.
Yohwa gracefully crossed over the swirling wave of giant ants below by riding the spiderweb, with all her nagging in tow.
When Yohwa dropped down from above people's heads by lowering the thread, the first person to rush over was, as expected, Nunim.
“Soryong! Are you alright? Was there no poison on the ant's fangs? I told you not to get hurt.... Blood!?”
It wasn’t a serious injury, but Nunim panicked at the sight of my wound.
Even if it's just the beginner stage of Iron Chest Technique, as long as internal energy is well-operated, it can prevent muscle tears, so it was merely a skin scratch, yet she acted as if I were gravely wounded.
While Nunim fussed like that, the surroundings gradually darkened, and sensing the dimming environment, I turned my head to find ourselves surrounded by the people of Beast Palace, when did they arrive?
As Nunim was lifting up the fabric of my pants to inspect my leg, the booming voice of the Beast Palace Head rang out.
“Beast Palace is in great debt of gratitude!”
“““We are in your debt!”””
Behind us, a massive vortex of giant ants was still raging, and the people of Beast Palace, kneeling in respect, sent us looks full of gratitude and reverence.
‘Nunim, you’re killing the mood. Can we not lift my pants like this....’
It was my first life moment that felt seriously cool, but thanks to Nunim, it looked like I was heading to farm rice paddies.
***
-Swoooosh.
-Swoo....
At first, the sound was like bamboo forests shaking in a strong wind; now, it was more like a gentle breeze.
Even that breeze was slowly dying down.
By the second day, the whirlwind of ants that had raged so fiercely began to see more and more stragglers drop off from the edges.
And by the third day, the circular arena was covered with dead and sprawled ants.
Ants can survive without food for up to two weeks, but only about five days without water.
However, these ants were moving constantly without eating or drinking, so one by one, they began to collapse, and now only a few were still moving.
The flow of ants from the gourd’s entrance had completely stopped on the first day.
Once the ants that had entered inside all died, this colony would go extinct, and only the slightly pungent pheromone residue would remain in the valley.
-Thud.
An ant staggered out of the line and curled up near my feet.
The voice of the Beast Palace Head, who had just stepped on and killed it, echoed out.
“Is it finally ending?”
“Yes, probably....”
Then followed a tone that clearly carried discontent.
“But.... Even if it’s at the benefactor’s request, heading there....”
The reason why the Beast Palace Head’s voice trailed off in discontent.
It was because the reason we were heading to the center of the now-doomed army ant colony was entirely because they were fulfilling my request.
Originally, we could have waited until all the ants were dead before moving in, but despite them being exhausted, we were stepping into the ant swarm where some still clung to life. The reason wasn’t complicated.
We were going to harvest.
Not just any harvest, but the collection of the ‘Queen Ant’ herself.
Since most of the ants were dead, there would be no ants left to guard or care for the queen, which meant, in other words, it was a rare solo chance to face the queen.
Whether she could be raised or not was something to be decided after capturing her, so we were heading out to collect her.
Ants are the ones that protect their queen to the utmost.
The queen ant was likely still alive.
Though ants were a bit of a different category, as someone who specialized in venomous creatures, I couldn’t ignore them. After all, ants were the foundation of all pet insects.
What adult doesn't have a childhood memory of catching and raising ants?
‘Ants are a childhood romance, after all.’
-Crunch.
The heads of the listless ants moving weakly were crushed here and there underfoot, and scattered around were pupae dying without care.
Upon arriving beneath the pointed rock at the center of the circular clearing, we found a pile of ants.
I shouted to the warriors who had followed me.
“Look for one with a belly bigger than the others.”
“Understood, Benefactor! You all heard him, right?”
“““Yes!”””
Seolpyo, and the warriors of Beast Palace spread out, confirming the kills of the surviving ants and beginning the search for the queen. Not long after, voices from the other side of the pointed rock rang out.
“Benefactor! You should come over here!”
‘Did they find her?’
Just as I dashed to the other side of the rock, prompted by a warrior’s call suggesting they found something.
What came into view was a large ant buried among the pile of ants, frantically shoving the corpses of its kind into its mouth.
-Crunch. Crunch crunch.
The large ant, about the size of a six-year-old child, was devouring its dead kin with no awareness of our approach.
-Squelch.
And from its belly, a mass of pearly white eggs dripped out.
Most of the eggs were darkening with death, probably from the lack of care, yet the ant showed no signs of stopping either its feeding or egg-laying.
‘Something’s not right here.’
Except for some parasitic ant species that begin in other nests, the start of any ant queen is always solitary.
After mating in a nuptial flight, she lands, digs a burrow alone, lays eggs, and builds her colony.
For that reason, all ants engage in cannibalism of their kind.
In the beginning, there are no worker ants to bring her food, so she eats the eggs she lays to grow the colony.
If she lays five eggs initially, she eats one and raises four. As they grow, she kills and feeds one to the others, continuing this cycle to expand the colony, this is how ants begin.
But that only happens in the initial stages of the colony.
Once the colony becomes large, the queen ant never eats her own kind.
Yet here she was, eating her own kind?
No matter how you looked at it, this wasn’t normal.
Moreover, the queen ant was now shoving dead ants into her mouth indiscriminately, which from an ant’s perspective equated to eating the living, making it all the more incomprehensible.
Ants never consume living adult members of their kind.
“An ant eating its own kind, and alive at that? This is definitely strange.”
“Soryong, that ant is eating already-dead ants though?”
Nunim’s voice came from behind me, both guardian and observer, responding to my claim that the queen was eating living ants.
But there was a reason I said the queen was eating the living, even though she was consuming dead ants.
While she was indeed eating corpses, for ants, these were not corpses yet.
Ants do not immediately recognize the death of their comrades. It takes about three days after death for ants to detect it.
Only after that time do the dead ants begin to emit oleic acid, which signals their death to the others.
So, the queen ant now devouring her recently deceased offspring was clearly acting abnormally.
It was, in essence, a scene of her shoving her still-living offspring into her mouth.
When everyone was blankly staring at the creature radiating madness, Nunim called out to me.
“Soryong, look there.”
At the tip of Nunim's pointing finger, something was glittering on the ant's forehead.
At first, I thought it might be its shell or a simple eye, but it wasn’t that. It was clearly a golden glow.
Something was shining in the middle of the ant’s forehead, between its antennae.
“What’s that?”
“It’s strange… it looks like a Golden Needle.”
A Golden Needle referred to the gold-made needles occasionally used in Tang Family's Medical Hall.
Nunim carefully reached her hand toward the queen ant’s head, which was mindlessly and greedily tearing into the corpses of her own offspring.
“Be careful.”
Nodding at my warning, Nunim cautiously brought her hand closer to the golden needle. Soon, she pulled out a long needle that looked to be at least ten centimeters long from the ant’s head.
At that moment, the queen ant, still in the posture of eating, collapsed limply.
That was the pitiful end of the queen of an immense army ant kingdom, one that had commanded a swarm powerful enough to bring down an elephant.
“Why was there a Golden Needle in the forehead of a army ant…?”
“Young Miss of the Tang Family, do you know what that is?”
At the Beast Palace Head’s question, Nunim rubbed the needle against her sleeve to clean it, then examined it closely and shook her head.
“I’m not sure. While our Tang Family does use golden needles, the length and shape of this one are quite odd. Hm?”
“What is it?”
Nunim tilted her head while inspecting the golden needle.
She looked closely, then spoke with a puzzled expression.
“The center of this Golden Needle is hollow. It looks like it was filled with some kind of medicine or poison….”
At that, the Beast Palace Head exploded in rage.
He roared like a great tiger.
“Could there really be a sinister hand behind all of this!? Who dares to meddle with our Beast Palace!”
The ants bore clear signs of human interference.
Reflecting on the Beast Palace Head’s outburst, I too realized that something was definitely off.
If these ants had originally been living inside the Venomous Creatures Valley, there would be no reason for them to suddenly go berserk and flood out like this.
“If this was the work of someone’s hand, I will find the culprit and never let them go!”
As the Beast Palace Head was fuming in fury.
Figures flew into the arena.
The people of Sichuan’s Tang Family, along with Grandfather, the Man of Ten Thousand Poisons, entered the scene.
“Hwa-eun! Soryong!”
“Young Master Soryong!”
Grandfather and Gu Pae rushed over and checked on me.
Though I had already sent a letter using Beast Palace’s owl, it seemed they couldn’t rest easy.
They must have rushed over the moment the ants disappeared.
“Grandfather.”
“I’ve caused you worry, Grandfather.”
“Yes, Soryong, it seems you’re a bit injured. It’s not serious, is it?”
“No, thanks to Iron Chest Technique.”
Once our brief reunion ended, the Beast Palace Head came forward to greet us.
“Our Beast Palace has received a great favor from the Tang Family’s son-in-law. As the Palace Head of Beast Palace, I, Meng Hu, offer my deepest thanks.”
“Oh no, there’s no need to go that far….”
Grandfather looked quite flustered at his greeting, and Nunim quietly explained the reason through sound transmission.
[Although Grandfather’s position in the murim is indeed higher, this is an unusual show of courtesy from the Head of Beast Palace, who rarely offers such respect.]
“I am the Man of Ten Thousand Poisons. Thank you, Palace Head, for your sincere courtesy toward this old man.”
“It is only right. We shall treat the great elder of the Tang Family with the utmost respect. Please, enter Beast Palace.”
“Then, gratefully.”
After wandering the jungle for several days, our Tang Family members were in need of rest.
Of course, the invitation was accepted, and just as we began stepping inside, Grandfather smiled and asked with a chuckle,
“There is never a quiet moment wherever you go, Soryong. Haha. I have so many questions for you, so you must tell me everything. By the way, what exactly were you doing here?”
It sounded like he was calling me a troublemaker who brings accidents and incidents wherever I go. I scratched my head and gave an awkward smile, and Nunim extended the golden needle she had been holding toward Grandfather and asked,
“Soryong insisted on finding the queen army ant, and this was embedded in her head. Grandfather, it looks similar to the golden needles used by the Tang Family, have you ever seen anything like it?”
Nunim handed the golden needle to Grandfather.
After briefly examining the needle, Grandfather’s eyes widened in shock.
“W-where did you say this was!?”
“In the head of the queen army ant…”
Grandfather rushed to where Nunim was pointing, reexamined the queen ant, and discovered two more golden needles in her head.
They had been hidden around the mandibles and thus escaped our notice.
“Elder, do you recognize what that is? It seems to belong to the villain mastermind who caused all of this?”
The Beast Palace Head asked in a chilling tone.
Grandfather replied in a calm but heavy voice.
“It seems someone who holds a grudge against Sichuan's Tang Family and Southern Barbarian Beast Palace is still alive.”
“Someone who holds a grudge against Sichuan Tang Family and Southern Barbarian Beast Palace?”
‘What? Someone who holds a grudge against both our Tang Family and Beast Palace at the same time? Who’d dare such a thing?’
As I looked at Grandfather with a disbelieving expression, a familiar name flowed out from his lips.
“Five Poisons Sect....”
At that, the Beast Palace Head’s eyes also widened in disbelief.
*****
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