Chapter 165

The sudden and catastrophic end of the Yong Bong Gathering.

The inn near the main arena was littered with a terrible sight.

It was an awkward way to put it, but the high-ranking members of the Martial Arts Alliance who witnessed the grotesque scene were generally thinking the same thing.

Truly, it was everywhere, sights so ugly they were hard to look at with open eyes.

First, the high-class inn where the members of the Nangong family had stayed.

“Is that guy… no, what am I even saying? Is that person really the Sword Sage?”

“It seems so.”

“The ones beside him are his children?”

“…Yes, Lord of the Alliance.”

The leaders and their children of a prestigious lineage lay sprawled in pitiful conditions.

“Huh, hah! Huh, hah!”

Struggling even as he gasped for breath, the head of the Nangong family attempted to rise.

This man was known as the Sword Sage—one of the greatest experts of the age—but now, he staggered, unable to maintain his balance.

Using his crooked knees to support himself, he wildly flailed his arms.

“Please, just lie still.”

“Demon Slayer! Demon Slayer!”

“Demon Slayer? What’s that?”

Of everyone present, the head was the only one who could barely move in any sort of coherent manner.

The rest of the clan members were in worse states.

Some twisted their rigid arms to try and place a smoking pipe in their mouths, others tried in vain repeatedly to pick up small white pills that had fallen to the ground, and yet others lay completely still, unable to do anything.

“Lord of the Alliance. This person is not breathing.”

“Aah, how could such a disaster occur?”

Several people had already ceased breathing and passed away.

The sudden fall of the prestigious lineage shook everyone.

What could have possibly caused such an atrocity?

Before the alliance could even investigate, further grim news began to arrive one after another.

Brothels, inns, taverns.

Establishments that had been hosting martial artists for the Yong Bong Gathering had become the scenes of chaos as people there were found in terrible states.

Why had it taken so long for anyone to notice such a massive calamity?

The cause was soon revealed.

“Lord of the Alliance. At the locations where these incidents occurred, not a single courtesan or waiter could be seen. In some places, even the proprietors had vanished.”

While the guests were dying, the staff had all disappeared.

Shouldn’t they have at least reported it? Or raised shouts of disturbance from the shops? Instead, they simply fled, leaving their incapacitated customers behind. This was a circumstance that raised suspicions for anyone.

No, suspicions weren’t the right term.

It was justified to consider those who fled as the culprits behind the catastrophe.

Still, the Lord of the Alliance did not unleash any furious outbursts. On the contrary,

“…It’s impossible for us to handle this situation alone.”

“Lord of the Alliance…?”

“I will ask for help from anyone I can. I, I am not capable enough to handle this.”

His restraint was due to the overwhelming fear of the sudden disaster.

The sight of hundreds of inns and brothels where martial artists of the righteous factions lay sprawled with twisted joints was horrifying beyond measure.

This was not something the martial world could solve on its own, as most of its main forces had been incapacitated.

“Hurry and seek help from the prefecture headquarters. No—seek aid from every office. Now.”

The Alliance’s officials immediately reached out to the government.

One desperate official even ran to the nearest command post, pleading for troops to be dispatched because there were too many victims to handle. Even amidst the chaos, more martial artists were dying from asphyxiation.

“Aaaah…!”

Ultimately, the Vice Lord of the Alliance fell unconscious from the shock.

The Master of the Hyunmu Pavilion, who had been supporting a member of the direct line of the Nangong family, inhaled some smoke from a pipe and swayed unsteadily.

As the situation grew more dire, the Lord of the Alliance wandered helplessly, eventually breaking into tears. The head of Nangong family also wept, choking on his sobs.

…

Even as the disaster unfolded, the administrative efficiency of the Chinguk Empire remained robust.

Under the direction of the chief of the Board of Revenue overseeing the Huainan Province, where the Yong Bong Gathering took place, the extent of the calamity was rapidly assessed.

The Censorate, responsible for the judiciary, pursued dozens of servants and courtesans who had fled in the dead of night.

Though a heavy-handed investigation of merchants was conducted, given the gravity of the matter, there was little room for criticism. It was an unprecedented disaster, like nothing in history.

Assessment of the situation and the partial capture of some culprits.

The officials of Huainan Province accomplished all this in just two days.

Yet none of this contributed to resolving the crisis.

Simply counting the dead or the number of twisted joints did not explain or mitigate the strange disaster. On the contrary, the more concrete the scale of the catastrophe became, the greater the fear grew.

This catastrophic story was also communicated to the capital city of Nanjing, where the Cheon-ja resided.

**

The inner chambers where Cheon-ja Tang Yeon-cheol resided.

“Is this the thing?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. The martial artists call it the ‘Invisible Poison.’”

“Is it truly an invisible poison?”

“No, it’s not. Only due to their great fear…”

“Alright, I understand what you mean.”

Tang Yeon-cheol almost let out a hollow laugh, but he stopped.

Just hearing it gave a sense of how much fear the martial artists had. And it was a situation where even a hollow laugh seemed inappropriate.

The current death toll was ninety-five.

Numerically speaking, it wasn’t particularly high.

The problem was that most of the victims were high-level experts of the martial world—not mere thugs but the core members of properly structured schools and houses, including masters, elders, and their top disciples.

Although not all of them had died, the number of those severely incapacitated was still being tallied, but it had already exceeded a thousand.

But being shocked by these unprecedented events was not the Cheon-ja’s role.

‘First, I must understand the situation.’

And quickly.

Currently, a variety of items lay in front of Tang Yeon-cheol.

Tea leaves, tobacco leaves, small pieces of paper, pills.

They were evidence collected from the inns and brothels surrounding the Yong Bong Gathering arena. It was said that poison was found on all of these items.

Rumors were flying in the martial world: it was poison stolen from the Imperial Medical Institute, poison created by remnants of the Blood Sect, even whispers that government officials disliked martial artists and had released poison.

Tang Yeon-cheol was not swayed by such rumors.

‘This is not just poison, it’s a narcotic.’

He had already guessed that the substance was a narcotic.

Though it had a strongly toxic effect, its highly addictive and compulsive nature was equally potent.

Once affected by it, even martial artists with bent waists would strive to keep inhaling smoke or drinking tea.

Only narcotics could explain such phenomena.

The question was their potency.

Even reading the reports was enough to make one want to curse.

Even so, he couldn’t allow himself to be shaken. After making an effort to calm himself, Tang Yeon-cheol summoned the highest-ranking physician from the Imperial Medical Institute, who had been responsible for matters related to morphine. He was the person most knowledgeable about narcotics in the current empire, though naturally less so than the empire’s foes, but there was no one else to turn to for advice at the moment.

“Answer my questions to the best of your knowledge.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“By how much morphine will a person die?”

After a brief pause, the physician explained fluently.

“When morphine is dissolved in water and administered to prisoners, around thirty percent die if they consume over one hundred milligrams, according to the imperial poison scale. If double that amount is consumed, death occurs regardless of gender or age.”

“In the case of smoking, morphine alone cannot be lethal. Even continuous smoking for half a day will only render a person unconscious, but it won’t kill them.”

“A person doesn’t die easily from morphine alone, Your Majesty.”

This meant that to kill a person with morphine, one would need to get them to consume a quantity close to a coin all at once. And even smoking it wouldn’t cause death easily.

‘Then, was the drug used in the Yong Bong Gathering heroin?’

Heroin, known to be two or three times more potent than morphine. That would make sense.

But to Tang Yeon-cheol, it didn’t seem like heroin.

The substance that caused this tragedy was said to make one struggle to breathe and become disoriented just from a brief whiff.

Based on his understanding, heroin didn’t have such potency.

After all, had not an entire group of martial artists, many of whom had far more sensitive senses than ordinary people, succumbed to it overnight without even realizing the danger?

‘How potent could this poison possibly be?’

Tang Yeon-cheol, finding no way to resolve his suspicion, closed his eyes tightly.

Then…

The cautious physician, who had been crouching, carefully assessing the Cheon-ja’s mood, spoke up.

“Your Majesty, as I infer from my limited knowledge… It’s possible that one of the empire’s foes has used heroin as a base to create an even more potent and addictive drug. Heroin is a drug that triples the toxicity of morphine. A foe could surely craft a more vicious drug using heroin.”

This was a plausible hypothesis.

That didn’t reduce his sense of crisis, though.

It meant that a drug at least three times stronger than heroin had infiltrated the empire.

While it was almost certain that the substance used in the Yong Bong Gathering had been manufactured by Alan Medoff, no clear countermeasures spontaneously came to mind. What’s more, there was even doubt as to whether the drug had indeed been made from heroin.

In any case, that it was a narcotic was certain.

But should the empire immediately declare that it was under attack by narcotics?

Would those in the martial world who suspected the revival of the Blood Sect or those local nobles who spoke of gango believe it willingly? Doubts lingered even if they did believe it. The situation wouldn’t improve, given that it implied Alan Medoff alone had either killed or incapacitated countless high-level experts. The commoners might even fall into a panic themselves.

‘How is such a thing even possible?’

A little fear began to creep into Tang Yeon-cheol’s heart.

But it wasn’t long before he felt a fierce anger at the realization that he had been overwhelmed.

The ruler of the Celestial Kingdom must not be dominated by fear.

Even if the enemy possessed an unknown weapon, the same principle applied.

“…I will issue an order.”

The young Cheon-ja swiftly moved forward with a decisive response.

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