Chapter 730: Martial Contest for Marriage (5)

As I shot upward after her, the pressure dropped so fast that it felt like my eyeballs and internal organs were about to burst out through my throat.

I wrapped myself in a qi barrier to regulate the pressure, but the crisis was not over yet.

“Ghk.”

If you rise rapidly toward the surface from the deep sea, the nitrogen gas dissolved in the blood and bodily tissues boils up from the sudden pressure difference and destroys the cells.

The condition commonly called the bends was swallowing my body right now.

It seemed I had thought the deep sea too lightly.

My guts twisted, and pain burst out one after another as though flames were erupting from deep inside my joints. My body was trying to tear itself apart.

It felt as though every single cell was being pricked by needles, and as though countless tiny explosions were continuing in succession inside me.

Grinding my teeth, I began forcing the nitrogen gas forming here and there throughout my body out through my skin, just as if I were drawing out the main poison from my body.

At the same time, I drew out Moji and Soji’s abilities with all my strength.

Just forcing out the nitrogen was not enough.

Because there were already damaged cells and tissues.

As I expelled the nitrogen, I simultaneously activated Moji and Soji’s recovery abilities and immediately began healing the parts that were breaking down.

It was a grueling process of carrying out two tasks at once, like stopping poison from leaking while simultaneously pouring in water.

And so, enduring the pain, I kept rising for about thirty minutes.

Far, far above, beyond the darkness of the deep sea, light at last began to faintly filter down.

At first dimly, then more and more clearly, and at last the surface was drawing near.

“Puhah.”

When I kicked through the surface and hurled my upper body into the air, damp, salty sea air rushed deep into my lungs.

The feeling of being alive spread through my entire body.

When I looked around, she, who had arrived long before me, was gliding leisurely over the surface and smiling.

“T-that was a rough method. Up to now, y-you pass.”

She was moving with the surface beneath her feet, gliding as though she were a skater sliding across ice.

Judging by the nuance of her words, the somewhat reckless and rough method of ascent I had chosen in the middle of the danger of the bends had apparently impressed her.

Out of the water, her expression looked fairly normal, but her voice carried a slightly tense, cowed note, and as she corrected her posture on the surface, she spoke clearly.

“C-come.”

A woman telling me to come at her without even giving me time to catch my breath.

I asked Ji-ryeon inside Dokmul-hyang,

“Ji-ryeon, are you ready?”

Because while I had been rising from the deep sea just now, I had already asked Ji-ryeon for this.

Asked for what?

Yubing.

My proxy duelist.

I had already asked her to dress Yubing in men’s clothes and send him out made up to look as much like a man as possible.

“Yes, So-ryong, he’s going out now.”

It seemed the preparations were finished.

I raised a hand and said to the Fierce Poison Water Louse spirit-creature,

“Wait a moment. The one who will fight is not me, but someone else.”

“Hm? N-not you?”

“Yes, he is coming out now.”

-Poof.

Smoke came pouring out of my nose in clouds.

Out from within that smoke sprang Ji-ryeon and Yubing, along with Cho, Yo-hwa, and Cheonhae.

Ji-ryeon was at the very front. Yubing stood behind her, and behind him Yo-hwa was wrapped around Cho, with Cheonhae perched on a shoulder.

At the sight, the Fierce Poison Water Louse looked at me with an expression of utter absurdity.

“W-what is this? I d-don’t fight women.”

At her words, I smiled and said,

“That one over there is a man.”

“A-a woman? That is troublesome.”

At my words, Yubing came walking out from behind Ji-ryeon in a hesitant shuffle.

Yubing had even deliberately deepened his voice, and was neatly dressed in my clothes.

Even though it was a somewhat awkward voice forced low, the overall impression suited him strangely well.

Should I say he looked like a young nobleman who had been delicately raised in some exalted house?

His delicate features and refined bearing instead blended with the male outfit to create a peculiar atmosphere.

‘Oh, nice.’

Yubing was not the type like me who gave off a thick male scent, but he had looks more than enough to shake women’s hearts.

A style that looked delicate and cute was often surprisingly effective.

Especially a style that stimulated maternal instinct, very effective against someone with big-sister tendencies or someone older.

The Fierce Poison Water Louse slowly swept her gaze over Yubing from head to toe, clicked her tongue once, and then her expression changed one hundred and eighty degrees.

Her tone too was completely different from before.

“Tch. Hehe. What a cute child.”

At those words, Yubing flinched.

But I did not know who had taught him, and yet he suddenly barked harshly,

“S-shut up, wench. Since you are a body meant to become my possession, get ready to lie naked on your belly.”

I was startled out of my skin by Yubing’s words.

What kind of gap was this?

His face looked like a noble young master, but the way he spoke was pure macho man.

Ji-ryeon’s voice sounded in my ear.

“Wanting a martial contest for marriage means wanting a man who will dominate you. So I drilled him a little.”

At the same time, Ji-ryeon smiled sweetly my way and winked.

Where in the world had she learned something like that and gone on to teach it?

While I was flinching at the words Ji-ryeon had taught him, the Fierce Poison Water Louse said with a thoroughly satisfied expression,

“You’ve got spirit. Fine, if I lose to you, I’ll lie naked on my belly. Come!”

Whether Ji-ryeon’s words had hit the mark, the Fierce Poison Water Louse looked delighted.

No sooner had those words fallen than Yubing stepped on the surface and dashed swiftly sideways.

Maybe because of his crab bloodline, running sideways seemed much more natural and comfortable for him than moving straight ahead.

The Fierce Poison Water Louse slid slowly, and Yubing revolved in sideways steps as he narrowed the distance between them, and it was at that moment—

The surface around Yubing swirled as streams of water rose up.

A powerful torrent shot toward the Fierce Poison Water Louse.

-Shaaaak!

The water pressure was so intense that a sharp noise, as though space itself were about to split open, echoed across the surface in all directions.

The surface split like a blade and foam sprayed everywhere.

But the Fierce Poison Water Louse moved leisurely, gliding over the surface, and casually let the torrent slip past as though it were some kind of game.

“Hehe, good.”

“Tch.”

At that relaxed smile of hers, Yubing ground his teeth and closed the distance again.

Three consecutive water strikes.

-Shaaak! Shaaaak! Shaaak!

But not one of those torrents touched the Fierce Poison Water Louse’s body.

She glided over the surface like a shadow and let each attack slide away one by one.

She was not taking them head-on, but evading them with the minimum movement possible, movement that was a full level above.

At that sight, Yubing faltered and retreated.

“Then I’ll come from my side. Young lord.”

The Fierce Poison Water Louse, perhaps already having decided to make Yubing her husband, called him young groom and closed the distance.

Gliding over the surface as though swimming through it, the Fierce Poison Water Louse rushed straight at Yubing in an instant.

It was a silent charge that did not raise even a single wave, but its speed was so fast it was hard to catch with the eye.

Yubing tried to escape with sidesteps, but the Fierce Poison Water Louse’s body stuck to him like a shadow.

The Fierce Poison Water Louse’s hand shot toward Yubing.

-Shaaak.

She looked human, but at root, was she not still a Fierce Poison Water Louse?

Yubing tried to knock aside the reaching hand with his left hand, but the Fierce Poison Water Louse’s hand coiled around Yubing’s hand and burrowed into his guard.

‘She wasn’t fully transformed, but in a half-human half-beast form.’

She looked so much like a human that I had mistaken her for being in complete transformation.

But complete transformation was a technique only achieved upon reaching the Transformation Realm.

The current Fierce Poison Water Louse was in a half-human half-beast form, or a human-faced beast form, so her human hand could stretch and move freely like a jellyfish’s tentacle.

Outwardly it was a human hand, but its movement was no different from a tentacle itself.

The Fierce Poison Water Louse lightly placed her fingertips against Yubing’s collarbone and said with a fishy smile,

“What shall we do, our young lord? It seems this is the end now, doesn’t it?”

Light burst explosively from the Fierce Poison Water Louse’s body.

White-blue flashes sprayed in all directions and scorched the surface.

-Kwajijijik!

“Th-this is!?”

The voice I heard was Ji-ryeon’s startled voice.

No wonder, because the Fierce Poison Water Louse was using lightning qi.

‘Could she be some kind of electric jellyfish!?’

There were things like electric eels and electric catfish, but in reality there was no such thing as an electric jellyfish.

The things we called electric jellyfish did not actually shoot electricity; they had only gotten that name because their venom caused severe burning pain.

But this one was using lightning qi.

It seemed they all thought it was over, since most water-dwelling spirit-creatures were weak against electricity.

“H-has he lost?”

At the fact that the opponent was a spirit-creature using lightning qi, I finally understood why Sua, the ruler of the Black Water Sea, had been unable to catch this Fierce Poison Water Louse.

No matter how many fish she sent, they could never defeat that Fierce Poison Water Louse who handled lightning qi.

Even if the cultivation level was low, lightning qi dealt a severe shock to aquatic animals, and that Fierce Poison Water Louse was in the Golden Core Stage.

The thought crossed my mind that with that flashing lightning qi, maybe Yubing had no chance after all.

And then, in that instant—

-Thunk!

“Kyaak.”

Something slammed, and the Fierce Poison Water Louse went flying backward.

“What do you mean it’s over? No, m-more!”

Yubing, transformed into a giant red crab, had taken the lightning qi head-on and was completely fine as he swung his claw.

Perhaps because he was a spirit-crab, Yubing was perfectly fine even while taking the lightning qi.

Whether the hard shell of the spirit-crab had shed the current away, or the shell itself was a nonconductor that blocked the electricity, Yubing was astonishingly unharmed.

I understood why Bulsiho had said that even if Yubing could not beat just anyone in a fight, he would not lose either.

I clenched my fists tight.

‘Gyaaaah! Nice, Yubing! My little brother!’

Was Yubing not someone I had been unable to call male even though he was male?

But I would call him male to my heart’s content on this chance.

“My little brother fights well!”

I shouted to cheer him on, and perhaps gaining strength from that cry, Yubing tried to close in with sideways steps.

But when the Fierce Poison Water Louse quickly pulled away, Yubing began spewing foam from his mouth and running circles around the area.

‘What is this?’

At first I thought he was just frothing like a crab from excitement.

But the foam kept increasing.

Soon, with the Fierce Poison Water Louse in the center, the surrounding area was covered in foam.

From within that foam, Yubing appeared stealthily and began pounding the Fierce Poison Water Louse like a mole popping up.

-Thud!

-Wham!

When I rose into the air, I could see Yubing suddenly springing out from the foam covering the area, landing a blow, and vanishing again.

The Fierce Poison Water Louse, after taking several hits, wore a vexed expression, but it did not seem to be doing major damage.

Perhaps because she had a jellyfish body, blunt strikes did not inflict great harm.

“Khk. Our young lord, the only time you strike your wife is with a stick under the blankets, so how are your hands this vicious?”

-Thud.

She still seemed to have enough room left to joke, but when Yubing landed one more upward strike to her jaw, a strange voice came from the Fierce Poison Water Louse’s side.

“Damn it. I’m the only one getting hit because of you! Switch! You’re trying to lose on purpose, aren’t you?”

“No, I’ll win soon. It’s getting good now, so don’t cut in!”

“P-please don’t do that. If you act like this just because it matches y-your taste, th-that’s troublesome.”

It looked like some kind of multiple personalities.

At the same time, two different kinds of aura shot toward Yubing.

-Shiiing.

-Shaaaak.

They were blades imbued with the aura of water, like Yubing’s own, and the aura of wind.

And at the end, even flames were fired.

“I know your tastes, but I’m the one doing this! So maybe I’d understand if it were that man over there, but I cannot forgive losing to some weak little thing like that!”

The scale of that aura was so immense it felt as though three different people had fired it.

It was enough to make me believe three Golden Core Stage cultivators had loosed their aura at once.

The auras gathered together in midair as though fusing.

-Kwaaang!

Struck by that, Yubing flew far away across the surface, skipping like a stone on water.

I quickly moved and caught Yubing’s limp body in my arms, and from the opposite side I heard the Fierce Poison Water Louse’s voice.

“Hmph. I won.”

The first try had failed.