## Chapter 178 – Heavy Secret (4)
Despite the sweat trickling down her palm, Vivian gripped the sword hilt tightly, staring back at Hye-ryung, who was glaring at her.
Her eyes showed no visible wavering, but her inner thoughts were a different story.
‘What is she plotting…?’
Vivian had known that Carla had been following her for days.
However, just as one wouldn’t overreact to a child’s prank, she assumed that the noble lady, accustomed to causing a stir at social gatherings, hadn’t broken her habit and was indulging in frivolous activities fueled by a sense of adventure in an unfamiliar place.
It wasn’t as if Vivian didn’t know who Carla was, what kind of person she was, or what to be wary of.
In many ways, Vivian was paying close attention to dealing with Carla.
She had met her privately in a room at the social gathering to talk, and she had faced Carla head-on while she was wearing medium-sized hydraulic armor.
Knowing that Carla could recognize her with just a little hint, Vivian had instead chosen to allow her distance, opting to confuse her through external means.
‘If I don’t show any suspicious behavior, she’ll quickly lose interest.’
Vivian had realized that Carla didn’t even remember her, which made Carla’s current strange behavior even more incomprehensible.
‘Why is she taking an interest in me…?
We shouldn’t have any contact right now…
She clearly doesn’t even remember what she saw at the social gathering…?’
Vivian, who never dreamed that her taking Marie and using Nemea would be accidentally discovered, couldn’t understand it at all.
But if things continued like this, it was inevitable that the situation would become difficult to control.
As the result of neglecting Carla returned as Hye-ryung before her eyes, Vivian’s mind became increasingly complicated.
‘A daughter of the Tang Clan…
Did this bitch bring her…?
Or is this also a coincidence…?’
Vivian had only seen Hye-ryung fight twice.
Once was during the special evaluation, when she was throwing around potion bottles while embodying the epitome of annoyance, and the other was at the social gathering, when she faced the arachne, Leia.
‘Poison… or at least a woman who uses drugs equivalent to it…
But her throwing accuracy is quite high, and she can see a few moves ahead.’
In her opinion, Hye-ryung’s skill in throwing poison bottles or needles was good enough to be considered top-notch.
But what about close combat?
Although she wasn’t an exceptionally talented student at the academy, Vivian was confident that she could perform well enough to barely scrape into the upper ranks with the help of Enic’s power.
By already securing a close distance, Vivian was silently posing a question to Hye-ryung.
‘You’ve always just thrown things from afar.
Wouldn’t this be a disadvantageous situation for you?’
She was asking if Hye-ryung was confident in defeating her at this distance.
But Hye-ryung’s unwavering expression was like answering that she was confident in winning, so the silence remained unbroken.
Eventually, it was Vivian who moved first.
This space was a narrow hallway.
As a swordswoman, it was a disadvantageous space for her, so she judged that it would be best to attack first to gain the upper hand.
However, Hye-ryung was not an easy opponent, even without a weapon.
“Haa…!!”
Hye-ryung narrowly avoided Vivian’s diagonally swung sword by tilting her head back by a hair’s breadth, then gracefully bent her body forward again as if defying the laws of physics.
“Kyaaak!!”
At the same time as Carla, who was caught between the two women, was pushed by Hye-ryung and tumbled to the floor, Hye-ryung suddenly twisted the wrist of her hand in mid-air.
Vivian, catching it with her excellent dynamic vision, quickly understood what Hye-ryung’s action, which she had seen once before, was for.
“Keueut……!!”
Vivian quickly twisted her body to the side to avoid something invisible, and the sound of something sharp passing right in front of her chest and hitting the wall echoed.
‘I see why Leia couldn’t handle her.
I can’t even see it properly with my eyes.’
If she hadn’t heard the sound of it hitting the wall, she definitely wouldn’t have known.
Even the sound of it hitting the wall was so subtle that one couldn’t imagine that it was a needle thinner than a hair piercing the wall.
It was difficult to judge even with her dynamic vision as it floated through the air and flew quickly.
It could be said that she was lucky to have avoided it by seeing her twist her hand.
However, apart from the glint in her eyes that she had avoided it, Hye-ryung’s reaction was lukewarm.
“You dodged it? Interesting?
You’re not just some common thug?
Newbies almost always get hit in one go.”
‘She aimed for my heart…
Is she really going to try it?’
The spot where she would have died instantly if she had been hit properly.
Vivian’s eyes sharpened at the fact that Hye-ryung was really planning to kill her.
“I am the daughter of the Jeil Clan, the Tang Clan.
The best creation made by the pinnacle of the Chao Xing sect?
Therefore, anything that blocks the Tang Clan, that blocks me, will not be spared.”
But even in the face of Vivian’s reaction, Hye-ryung instead wore a rotten smile and puffed out her chest.
“But, if you kneel before me and beg for your life…
I might consider killing you nicely?”
The arrogance of abusing borrowed power, and her appearance full of pride in something that wasn’t her own.
That appearance was like a reminder of her past self, and a small smile was etched on Vivian’s lips as she unknowingly let out a hollow laugh.
‘Was I like that back then…?
Well… it doesn’t seem like I’ve changed much now, but…’
If she were abandoned by her family, what kind of expression would Hye-ryung wear?
That expression would be the same as the helpless, unfortunate girl who burst into tears on the flower bed in the dark night, abandoned by everything she had.
“Calling yourself a puppet of the family is unnecessarily grandiose, isn’t it?
Being a part that can be replaced at any time, is that something to be proud of?”
She herself was just a replaceable part.
She had lived her whole life struggling to become a proud daughter for Grenot, and she had already learned from experience that she was being treated only as a means for revival, not as a precious daughter.
To Vivian, Hye-ryung’s appearance was nothing more than a ridiculous sight, like showing off in front of a veteran.
But to Hye-ryung, who had no way of knowing such inner circumstances, Vivian’s laughter could only be taken in a different sense.
“It doesn’t seem like you want to die nicely. Then die.”
Along with the motion of twisting her wrist, which had been hanging down, came the sounds of cutting through the air.
Although Vivian thought that Hye-ryung was relying on her family and throwing her weight around, that wasn’t the only reason.
The skills of throwing such hidden weapons, which were close to high-end products, and the ability to read the flow of battle were unique to her.
Vivian, gritting her teeth and observing Hye-ryung’s wrist, predicting the trajectory of the needles being thrown, was dodging the needles with the maximum speed and agility she could muster, even in an unfamiliar fight.
And she was somehow blocking the needles by covering the dangerous spots with the side of her sword, but the fight with Hye-ryung was not as simple as she had imagined.
Hye-ryung, who could easily spread a barrage of needles, and a dodging battle in the not-so-wide hallway of the brothel.
Moreover, Hye-ryung seemed to know that she was far superior, and she was only making very simple attacks that Vivian could block, trying to buy time.
She was sure that her speed and dynamic vision were faster, but despite that, Vivian was fighting a disadvantageous battle, being one step behind in terms of combat style.
Every time she twisted her body to dodge the attacks, her breath would catch in her throat, and Vivian was doing her best to dodge as if she was being pushed to her limit.
‘She’s really… not ordinary……
If she’s going to come at me like this…
I have no choice…!!’
As Vivian dodged Hye-ryung’s needles, she moved backward, and Hye-ryung smiled brightly and began to provoke Vivian.
“Are you even going to try to run away?
Well, that way, there’s a 10% chance you’ll live.”
“Tang Clan…… I see…
So you’re from the Tang Clan…”
But when Vivian, who didn’t seem to be running away at all, turned her body slightly to the side, Hye-ryung, whose eyes were filled with a questioning emotion, widened her eyes.
As if the scales on her skin were turning over, the blue dress that Vivian was wearing changed to black, melted into her skin, and soon only a black membrane that clung tightly to her body remained.
In a way, it was no different from revealing her naked form as it was, but what was more surprising was that Vivian began to charge at her mindlessly from that moment on.
“Uh… Ahh…!!”
Hye-ryung threw the needles again at Vivian, whose fighting style had suddenly changed, but Vivian was instead taking them head-on.
‘She’s taking those hits and coming at me…?
Is she crazy…?’
But the slender needles that had been fired from Hye-ryung’s hand didn’t even pierce Vivian’s body, but bounced off.
“Ugh…!! What is that…!! No way…!!
Those are Snow Peak Needles that can pierce even high-quality leather armor…!!”
Hye-ryung’s expression began to stiffen as she faced an unexpected situation.
Hye-ryung had been able to gain the upper hand by making Vivian dodge the needles and restricting her movements.
In this state, where the needles were not working at all, there was a difference in pure physical ability, and she had no choice but to be vulnerable.
In an instant, the good compatibility turned into a reverse compatibility, and Hye-ryung began to scatter needles in bunches, as if she was making a last-ditch effort, and Vivian, who had been gritting her teeth, finally opened her lips.
“The Jeil Clan, the Tang Clan?
But your house doesn’t have…”
The sword, thrust forward with all her might, was aimed at Hye-ryung, who had finally reached the end of her ability to even dodge.
“Anything like this……!?”
“Aaa……!!”
The match was already over in effect.
But Vivian had no intention of forgiving Hye-ryung this time.
After all, even if she let Hye-ryung live, she would attack again with another method, just like the old her.
Although there was a witness, she was about to quickly bury her as she was, and package it as a tragedy that often happens in the back alleys, at that very moment.
Just as the sword was about to be drawn into Hye-ryung’s chest, in that short moment when she closed her eyes in fear and threw something in front of her, Vivian’s movements momentarily stopped.
‘Crazy bitch……!!’
The dark liquid sloshing in the round glass bottle, like a potion, was flying towards her.
It was a glass bottle containing a liquid presumed to be a highly acidic poison, which she had used to keep Leia in check at the social gathering, and which had caused even the marble floor to bubble and melt.
If it was thrown and broken at this distance, even she herself could be in trouble.
‘She’s throwing something like that here…!!’
Whether it meant that Hye-ryung was also desperate, Vivian had no choice but to become desperate at Hye-ryung’s action of throwing that dangerous thing at her.
Unable to even think of dodging it at such a close distance, she desperately retrieved her sword and tried to block it somehow, but in that fleeting moment.
– Clang
In the end, she failed to block it, and the sound of the glass bottle breaking on Vivian’s abdomen echoed, and all she could do was instinctively cover her face with her arms.
“Kyaaaaaaaaak!!”
A scream that echoed throughout the hallway.
And Hye-ryung, who had seen the bottle break, was frantically checking to see if any poison had splashed on her.
But she was relieved to see that it had only gotten on the hem of her dress that was dragging on the floor, and she tore off the hem of her dress. This time, she began to check the condition of the person who had been hit by the poison bottle.
Vivian, who was in a state where the poison bottle had exploded on her stomach and she had been covered in it, was standing there quietly with her face covered, as if she had been hit directly.
The poison was flowing down her stomach, side, thighs, and calves.
Moreover, some of the poison had splashed on her arm that was covering her face, and droplets were forming there, trying to fall down due to gravity.
As her arm slowly began to fall as if she had lost strength, Hye-ryung let out a forced sneer and began to ridicule Vivian.
“Aha… Hahahaha…!! You’re finished now…!!
Now your limbs and torso will all melt away…!!
I should lower it……?”
But Vivian, who was also panting as if she was surprised, only had a terrified expression on her face.
Her body, completely surrounded by the black membrane, seemed to be fine.
“Aeu… Ho… It’s hot…
I… I don’t like it… Aeuheuk…!!
Kyaaaaaaaaaaak!!”
Rather, a piercing scream was coming from another place, starting from next to the two people who were maintaining silence.
And so, the heads of the two women were turning towards a girl they had forgotten about because of their fight.
“A… Milady……!!”
“Carla…!!”
She tried to grab her burning shoulder with her hand, but she took her hand away when she felt the hot sensation starting to be felt in her hand.
In the end, she didn’t know what to do with the pain that was spreading not only to her shoulder but also to the palm of her hand.
The terrible screams of the little girl writhing in agony on the cold floor caused the minds of the two women to go blank.
