His Vengeance is Poison
Legend of Asura – The Venom Dragon is an action fantasy martial arts webcomic drawn by Ant Studio.
In the land of China, an army of Martial Arts has assembled in a time of desperate need, banding together in one last stand against a powerful foe that can cut down entire sects of martial artists on on his lonesome with his utter mastery of poison arts and techniques- The Venom Dragon. But this lone killer's actions have a story behind them...
Jagan Jin is a young boy living a peaceful life as a member of the low-ranked medicine Sect when one night, their rivals, the Venom sect, attack unprovoked, poisoning many of Jagan's family to death before his eyes and taking Jagan himself away to be tortured to death in their cruel experiments to test the effectiveness of their poisons. Despite his body being ravaged by their toxins, Jagan is able to escape and attempt to seek aid, only to discover that the attack was allowed on the behalf of the leader of the righteous Murimm Alliance, Lee Joong Bak. Aware he cannot turn to the 'official' authorities for aid, Jagan is struck with further tragedy when his attempts to protect the few survivors of the attack result in the venom sect burying them all alive inside a disused mine.
Left to die, the survivors hatch a plan to eventually get their vengeance on their killers. The experiments with the venom Sect toxins have instead allowed Jagan to absorb and nullify almost any poisonous substance his body encounters, as well as allowing him to produce a highly-deadly toxin of his own from his now-contaminated body. This trait means that he alone can survive and subsist on the toxifed plants and water present in the mines, with the survivors agreeing to teach him what they know of martial arts in order so they he can one way dig his way out of their living tomb and take revenge on those who wiped their existence from the face of the earth.
After years of toiling away in the dark, with only the corpses of his fallen friends and family for comfort, Jagan eventually breaks break into the outside world, to begin his quest for revenge on those who wronged him, but unbeknownst to him, his journey of revenge has not gone unnoticed. An old enemy of Jagan's has been waiting for his emergence as well, an enemy that would see the boy's righteous quest for justice lead him down the path to becoming a blood-soaked Asura all the lands will fear...
Legend of Asura – The Venom Dragon contains examples of the following tropes:
- Acquired Poison Immunity: Jagan's most notable trait, and greatest asset is his ability to take any number of poisonous substances and shrug them off without dying, though it's implied strong poisons or unfamiliar ones he's not yet experienced do cause him pain before his body can fully neutralise them. This allows him to trick or outmanoeuvre most of the poison sects he faces early in the story, taking their poison covered attacks in order to trick them into thinking they're winning, or lure them closer so he can counter attack them. Even his poison resistance isn't infallible, however, as it can be overtaxed if Jagan is exposed to enough toxins at once, such as taking all 100 of Wijong's poisons at once in the latter's final attack, leaving him on the verge of death.
- Arch-Enemy: Mang Ryo to Jagan Jin, and vice versa, given their roles in affecting the other during the Venom Sect's massacre of the medicine sects, and Mang Ryo's twisted obsession with Jagan. Ironically, Jagan believes Mang Ryo died when he first escaped from the Venom sect and poisoned him in the process, being totally unaware of his survival and subsequent dependance on Jagan throughout the intervening years.
- Ax-Crazy: Mang Ryo survived Jagan's attempt to poison him during his escape through The Power of Hate, focusing on his desire for vengeance on Jagan to fight off the toxin through sheer willpower. The experience and aftereffects seem to have warped Mang Ryo's mind, leaving him unhealthily focused on Jagan and prone to breaking out Nightmare Faces whenever he's getting particular worked up thinking about him. He even gleefully admits that he's fully insane right before finishing off the leader of the Poison Valley clan after the latter hears why he orchestrated the ongoing massacre and is Dissapointed By The Motive.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Currently, the role of main antagonist is split between two people, Mang Ryo, the venom sect member who killed Jagan's family and personally subjected the boy to the toxin experiments that gave him his notable resistance to poison as Vengeance when Jagan forced him to cut off his left leg, and Lee Joong Bak, the current leader of the Murim Alliance who authorised the decimation of the medicine sects to further his own goals. Ironically, despite Mang Ryo being the more personal of the two, Jagan is totally unaware of his presence in the story, having assumed that he perished when he poisoned him during his escape from the Venom sects, an act which only cost Mang Ryo his left eye instead, and believing Joong Bak is his only enemy- a fact Man Ryo gleefully exploits to help turn Jagan into his Unwitting Pawn for his own plans against the Murim Alliance.
- Combat Pragmatist: Jagan was Incompletely Trained by a bunch of low-ranked medicine sect members, all of whom had disparate fighting styles that he had to cobble together into some form of martial arts over the intervening years he spent trapped down in the mines. Combined with his youth, inexperience and general weaknesses against the vastly more skilled opponents he faces, Jagan has zero chance of winning anything like a fair fight with a single one of them. Accordingly, he always sets up his confrontations with the various sects with some kind of scheme or plan in mind, taking advantage of his natural immunity to Poison agaisnt them and generally winning his battles through a combination of careful planning and preparation before the fighting even starts.
- Determinator: Jagan's only real asset that he has to work with starting out is his intense willpower, refusing to submit and die when faced with opponents vastly more skilled that him, or hopeless odds. This has allowed him to turn the tables on his enemies more than once, such as stabbing Mang Ryo's leg with the shell of a poisoned centipede as he was dying, earning him his eternal ire, or enduring a extensive beating from the Poison sect members for a prolonged period of time, just so the head of the poison valley could get close enough to him for him to spit a glob of poison he was hiding in his mouth straight into his face. This is why Mang Ryo was dead certain he'd make it out of the mines eventually, having become somewhat enamoured by Jagan's relentless drive to succeed no matter what, and himself becoming equally determined to eventually kill Jagan and take his own twisted form of revenge out on the Murim Alliance.
- Future Badass: The Flash Forward at the beginning of the manhwa shows that Jagan will eventually become a skilled enough martial artist and poisoner that the Murim Alliance marshals 10,000 martial artists from all over the empire just for the hope of being able to stop his rampage. After Lee Joong Bak finishes his Rousing Speech, Jagang Jing suddenly arrives at the venue, killing hundreds of guards swiftly and silently. This sells his threat level and acts as a contrast to the present Jagan, whom is left riddled with weaknesses owing to his tragic circumstances and inexperience.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: The story shows Jagang Jing's journey from a pitiful orphan to the greatest assassin in all history, dreaded by the Murim.
- Handicapped Badass: In addition to Jagan's general weakness in being Incompletely Trained and lacking experience in fighting others, he also seems to have become physically handicapped at some point during his ordeal at the start of his journey, his left leg being damaged and forcing him to walk with a limp. It doesn't affect his fighting skills too much, as Jagan can move well enough in short battles and rarely allows a fight to drag on too long, but it serves as a easy way for others to identify him on sight as his reputation starts growing, and Jagan cannot hide how he walks with a limp for too long from skilled Martial artists looking for the 'Dreadful Poison Cripple'. Mang Ryo orchestrates several conflicts with the numerous sects in the Un Nam region merely by pointing out japan's distinguishing feature and allowing the sects to track Jagan down as he passes nearby, all to either use the fights to his advantage or toughen japan up and preventing him being too reliant on clever schemes and tricks to kill his enemies.
- Mang Ryo himself is a more conventional example, having lost his left leg and eye to Jagan's poisons early in the story. By the time of the present, he's apparently stolen and mastered several obscure martial arts in secret in preparation for Jagan's return, allowing him to rip people apart with his bare hands and shatter earth with a kick, highlighting the difference between himself and Jagan, whom can barely combat others with conventional fighting skills, if not for his unique poison.
- Manipulative Bastard: Mang Ryo is the secret orchestrator of Jagan's revenge on the Poison Sects in the early half of the story, taking advantage of his Crusade against the Poison Sects for his own ends to direct Jagan's actions from the shadows. He leaves the Venom Sect a crippled shadow of it's former self to serve as an early warning system when Jagan returned and made it his first target, and butchered civilians nearby wherever Jagan clashed with the Martial sects, to drive up his threat level and reputation as a remorseless killer who required the full might of the Sects to combat, rather than sending out lone groups of Martial artists to be easily killed by Jagan's poison techniques. He also sows Misinformation to trick the poison sects into making the wrong moves in tracking down Jagan, allowing him to move more freely in order to prepare for his annihilation of the Poison sects. He frames Jagan for the death of the son and Heir of the Ripening Millet sect, whose leader is an old friend of his, in order to have the grief-stricken leader unite the various Justice-alliance sects of the Un Nam region into a coalition to stand against Wi Jong and the Thousand Poison Sect as Jagan's revenge continues, claiming that Jagan is merely a tool of the Poison sects to wipe out the sects and claim their lands, causing a massive fight between all the top-ranking sects in the region, then stepping in to massacre both sides to the last man, leaving the barely-living Jagan the Sole Survivor of the incident and cementing his status as a serious threat to the Murim alliance. All of this is achieved without Jagan's knowledge of Mang Ryo's involvement, though he does gradually come to understand that somebody is using him for their own ends.
- Shortly afterwards, Lee Joong Bak proves to be no slouch in this department either. He orders Jaegal Yeon, a member of the prodigious Jaegal Clan and one of the future leaders of the Murim Alliance, to hunt down and kill Jagan in the aftermath of the massacre, only for her to be poisoned and killed by an assassin from the Sichuan Regions, a group allied with Mang Ryo in the interests of eventually tearing down the Murim Alliance. In the aftermath of her death, it's revealed that Joong Bak deliberately sent Yeon out to die, as his own pupil, Baekil Kwon, was sweet on her, and he hoped the her demise would harden him into a man more worthy of inheriting his martial Arts techniques. In addition, it also removed a troublesome competitor for Kwon's heart, allowing Bak to pair him up with the pupil of the Sword Queen and bring her closer to his side, and by also framing Jagan as a tool of the lesser Sects in the region and responsible for Yeon's demise, he was able to bring the Jaegal clan into the Murim Alliance as a forefront ally to crush the sects in Un Nam and Jagan at once. He reveals all this to Mang Ryo, having taken advantage of the latter's own attempts to sabotage Yeon by giving her a poisonous pill disguised as medicine, whilst finalising the authorisation for the Jaegal clan to begin a martial arts formation designed to entrap Jagan and his 'allies' and massacre them all, cutting off all loose ends. Mang Ryo lampshades his deviousness.Mang Ryo: Sect leader Lee Bak... You're a bigger son of a bitch than me, aren't ya?
- Shortly afterwards, Lee Joong Bak proves to be no slouch in this department either. He orders Jaegal Yeon, a member of the prodigious Jaegal Clan and one of the future leaders of the Murim Alliance, to hunt down and kill Jagan in the aftermath of the massacre, only for her to be poisoned and killed by an assassin from the Sichuan Regions, a group allied with Mang Ryo in the interests of eventually tearing down the Murim Alliance. In the aftermath of her death, it's revealed that Joong Bak deliberately sent Yeon out to die, as his own pupil, Baekil Kwon, was sweet on her, and he hoped the her demise would harden him into a man more worthy of inheriting his martial Arts techniques. In addition, it also removed a troublesome competitor for Kwon's heart, allowing Bak to pair him up with the pupil of the Sword Queen and bring her closer to his side, and by also framing Jagan as a tool of the lesser Sects in the region and responsible for Yeon's demise, he was able to bring the Jaegal clan into the Murim Alliance as a forefront ally to crush the sects in Un Nam and Jagan at once. He reveals all this to Mang Ryo, having taken advantage of the latter's own attempts to sabotage Yeon by giving her a poisonous pill disguised as medicine, whilst finalising the authorisation for the Jaegal clan to begin a martial arts formation designed to entrap Jagan and his 'allies' and massacre them all, cutting off all loose ends. Mang Ryo lampshades his deviousness.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Mang Ryo's obsession with being the one to kill Jagan actually drives him to aid him on his quest for vengeance at times, just so he can have the satisfaction of killing him after casting him into hell, for which he needs Jagan to become a strong and powerful figure the Murim world can unite against.
- Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Through Mang-Ryo's manipulation, Jagan Jin's marriage is fixed to the Tang Clan's heiress, Tang Haran. Haran is disgusted with the prospect. After learning of Jagan Jin's tragic past, she eventually falls in love with him and elopes with him, giving up her prestigious clan in the process. Haran promises to always be with Jagan Jin. She is currently expecting their child.
