An F-Rank Veterinarian Physically Heals an S-Rank Magical Beast - Chapter 64

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 64
A sickly cyan curtain of death wrapped itself in a perfect circle around the Cathedral’s empty space. The defensive barrier erected by the Lich King was no mere wall of magical force—it was the crystallized embodiment of ultra-concentrated dark magic that desiccated the moisture from any living creature upon contact and corroded bone itself. An ordinary Hunter would have experienced their skin rotting away from merely approaching that barrier.
But there was not a shred of fear in Kang Jin-hyuk’s eyes as he shot upward in a straight line like a cannonball launched from a catapult. His gaze fixed obsessively on only one target: the Lich King’s beaked mask and the throat concealed beneath it.
“Foolish wretch! Throwing yourself forward to become bone dust!”
The Lich King laughed grotesquely from beyond the barrier and raised his spinal staff. Just as condensed orbs of decay magic gathered at the staff’s tip, ready to rain down upon Jin-hyuk’s crown—
“Where do you get off spewing filth! Shut your mouth!”
Jin-hyuk’s left hand slashed through empty air. A silver flash that left his hand traced a parabolic arc toward the Lich King’s black barrier. It was Jin-hyuk’s signature explosive holy water grenade—the finest spirit water extracted from Luna’s Forest combined with Beris’s sacred magic, compressed and packed with devastating force.
Clang!
The moment the glass vial shattered against the black curtain, a tremendous explosion erupted as if the Cathedral’s ceiling would collapse. It was neither flame nor tempest. It was pure white light so brilliant and intense that it burned the eyes—like a sun detonating within pitch darkness.
“Krraaaagh! This… this is holy power! How did you create such a horrific light!”
Wherever the light touched, the black curtain woven from death magic crackled and dissolved like cotton candy touching acid. A massive hole large enough for a person to pass through tore open in the Lich King’s vaunted absolute defense in an instant.
“Path’s open! Move!”
Jin-hyuk seized that fleeting opportunity without hesitation. Piercing through the white radiance, he concentrated every ounce of his mana into the cold adamantium scalpel gripped in his right hand. The blade, shimmering with azure light, traced a sharp arc toward the Lich King’s neck.
Shhrriiip—!
A sickening sound of something hard being split open echoed through the air.
“Grrgh!”
A gasp of shock burst from the Lich King’s mouth. Jin-hyuk’s scalpel had cleanly bisected the lower half of the beaked mask and torn deep into the withered throat concealed within.
“Your tonsils are quite swollen! No wonder you keep spouting nonsense!”
Jin-hyuk spoke coldly as he drove his heel hard into the Lich King’s chest. Using the recoil to create distance, Jin-hyuk plummeted toward the Cathedral floor. The Lich King, suspended in air, lost his balance as cyan flames of magical power erupted from his severed neck and began his own descent.
Boom!
Both figures crashed into the Cathedral floor almost simultaneously, raising a cloud of dust. Jin-hyuk rolled safely across the ground using a falling technique, but the Lich King shattered several operating tables and collapsed pathetically.
“Master! Are you unharmed! I’ll add the shipping fee to Hong Ryeon’s account!”
Kim Chun-sam, trampling the tattered golems with his hooves in centaur form on the ground level, let out a cheer. Beside him, Ma Dong-tak tore off a golem’s mace-tipped arm with his bare hands and nodded toward Jin-hyuk.
“Jin-hyuk! Is it finished up there? These rotten corpses down here are almost completely cleaned up!”
Ma Dong-tak was right. The dozen massive tattered golems that the Lich King had boasted about had already been reduced to their original recycled garbage state by Ma Dong-tak’s merciless crowbar treatment and punches, along with Kim Chun-sam’s hellfire kicks. Broken bones, gears, and putrid fluids pooled across the floor.
Jin-hyuk brushed the dust from his body and stood. His gaze turned toward the Lich King, buried beneath the shattered operating table fragments. The Lich King’s beaked mask lay split in half on the ground, and around the bone-bare neck, white smoke rose as holy water essence and dark magic collided.
“I wonder if your voice improved. The surgery went very cleanly, you know.”
In response to Jin-hyuk’s mocking provocation, an eerie laugh emanated from the pile of debris.
“Keh… kekekek… kahahahaha!”
An unsettling cackle that echoed throughout the entire Cathedral—impossible to believe it came from someone whose throat had just been severed.
Crack, crackle.
With the unpleasant sound of bones grinding together, the Lich King slowly rose to his feet. His true face, revealed within the split mask, was a terrifying skull completely desiccated without a trace of skin. Within his two empty eye sockets burned cyan flames that mingled fierce rage and mockery.
“Insolent human… did you truly believe yourself victorious after scratching away a few bones? If I were the sort to die from a severed neck, I would never have earned the title Lord of Death in the first place.”
The Lich King swung his spinal staff through the air. The sickly green miasma and putrid magic pooled on the Cathedral floor began to spiral and surge into the Lich King’s shattered neck.
Squelch, squelch.
The bone’s cut surface, cleanly severed by Jin-hyuk’s adamantium scalpel, began to squirm and grow like clay being kneaded, perfectly reattaching to its original form in an instant. Even the holy water essence was overwhelmed by the dense concentration of dark magic and vanished without a trace.
“Immortality. That is the ultimate realm achieved by one who has transcended death. Whether you slash with your scalpel a thousand times or that mindless brute strikes ten thousand times, I shall never perish. It is an eternal domain that your shallow mortal techniques could never possibly reach.”
The Lich King declared arrogantly, spreading both arms wide. Before his words even finished, the remains of the tattered golems scattered across the floor began to writhe and reassemble, reattaching to one another.
“Ugh, this is so tiresome! What are you, a cockroach? You keep coming back to life!”
Beris, who had been unleashing purification magic from above, swung his staff in frustration.
“Burn it to ash! We need to reduce it to nothing but cinders so not even bone fragments remain!”
A colossal inferno erupted from the tip of Beris’s staff. Her most powerful area-of-effect spell engulfed the Lich King in a direct hit, and half the Cathedral was consumed in crimson flames. Where the fire had swept through, the Lich King’s black priestly robes, his vertebral staff, and his skeletal form had all been reduced to black ash scattering through the air.
“See! I told you fire is the best!”
Beris gasped for breath and cried out triumphantly. But before her smile could fully bloom, the black ash scattered across the floor began writhing like a swarm of living insects, converging toward a single point.
“What is that! Disgusting!”
Beris recoiled in horror. The ash swirled in the air, and in less than ten seconds, it had completely reconstructed the Lich King’s perfect form. Not a trace of the fire damage remained—just the same arrogant, pristine skeleton as before.
“Kahahaha! Futile! My life force does not reside in this pitiful flesh. My soul and the source of my life are scattered across all of Floor 13, the entire Valley of the Dead. As long as the mist does not clear from this valley and the earth does not dry completely, I shall resurrect infinitely. Despair, and become my eternal plaything!”
The Lich King’s grotesque voice echoed off the Cathedral walls. An enemy that resurrected in ten seconds no matter how many times you destroyed or burned it. Before such an absurd premise—that the creature’s life was synchronized with the very space itself—even the formidable Ma Dong-tak clenched and unclenched his fists, his expression troubled.
“This is ridiculous… Even a punching bag hurts your knuckles if you keep hitting the same spot. Director, do we really have to destroy the entire valley?”
Instead of answering Ma Dong-tak’s question, I tilted my head. My eyes narrowed sharply behind the gas mask.
“Resurrect infinitely? Your life source is scattered across the entire valley?”
I let out a soft, derisive chuckle. That laugh was so absurd and arrogant that it even made the Lich King’s own laughter falter.
“Listen here, you quack. You don’t lie about a patient’s medical history in front of a doctor. Where did you get the audacity to spout such nonsense?”
“W-What? You dare doubt my magnificent immortality!”
“Immortality, my ass. Magic or whatever—the law of conservation of energy applies to every phenomenon in this world. For your body to turn to ash and then reassemble into bone, there has to be an enormous exchange of mass and mana. But if you’re drawing energy from the entire valley, then every time you resurrect, the mist outside should become thinner or the earth should dry out. Yet I see neither of those things happening.”
At my cold analysis, the cyan flames flickering in the Lich King’s empty eye sockets wavered slightly. I didn’t miss that minute tremor.
“You’re just compressing your energy very efficiently and hiding it. The entire valley? That’s laughable. Life force isn’t like WiFi—you can’t wireless charge it from that far away. It has to be close range, hidden somewhere within your line of sight.”
Without hesitation, I activated my unique skill.
“Let’s take an MRI and see where it really hurts.”
My eyes blazed with brilliant golden light. My ultimate diagnostic skill—the Eye of Truth, which pierces through all secrets and hidden structures of the world—activated.
My vision transformed completely. The drab Cathedral landscape and grotesque corpse fragments vanished. Only the flow of mana and life energy that composed all things in the world remained, drawn like a blueprint.
My gaze swept across the Lich King’s skeletal form. The hollow skull, the cervical vertebrae that had been broken and reattached, the exposed ribcage.
A typical undead would have a mana core inside its skull or near its heart. But the Lich King’s body only emanated death energy throughout. There was no massive energy source that could be called the source of life.
‘Where did it hide it? Could it really be outside?’
Just as I was about to turn my gaze away, the Eye of Truth detected a strange flow deep within the Lich King’s ribcage, in the dark space connected to the spine.
It was neither bone nor organ. Thousands, tens of thousands of strands of black magical threads had tangled and clumped together, forming something grotesque and massive—like a chunk of flesh. It pulsed like a living heart, kunk-kunk, pumping dark magic energy throughout the Lich King’s entire body.
The corners of my mouth curved upward in a smile.
“Found you, you bastard.”
The Eye of Truth displayed the identity of that grotesque mass as text.
[Diagnosis Result: Chronic Malignant Dark Magic Tumor]
[Description: A life vessel in which the Lich King has condensed and hidden his soul and life force. Though it appears to be nothing more than a mass of filth or cancer cells on the surface, it is the core that absorbs external impact and infinitely regenerates the host’s bones and flesh. It clings to the deep interior of the host’s ribcage like a parasite.]
“Kahahaha!”
I suddenly grabbed my stomach and burst into uncontrollable laughter. At my sudden, inexplicable outburst, Ma Dong-tak and Kim Chun-sam, who had been in defensive positions, were taken aback. Even the Lich King stumbled backward in confusion.
“Master? Why are you suddenly laughing? Did the toxic gas damage your brain nerves?”
Kim Chun-sam asked with concern. I laughed until tears streamed down my face, then pointed at the Lich King with my finger.
“Oh, this is killing me. Immortality? Your soul scattered across the entire valley? Listen here, you pompous fraud. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”
“W-What nonsense are you spouting! How dare you mock my great mystery….”
“Mystery my ass. You’re just a coward. You were so scared someone would steal your lifeline that you hid it deep in your gut and disguised it as garbage!”
At my barrage of facts, the Lich King’s skeletal body went rigid as if struck by lightning.
“The third vertebra inside your ribcage. That’s where that blackened tumor is clinging. That’s your real body. Every time you get destroyed, that cancer mass spews out mana and stitches your bones back together.”
The moment Jin-hyuk pinpointed the exact location, the flames dancing within the Lich King’s hollow eye sockets began to writhe in absolute frenzy. For centuries, it had remained undiscovered—a perfect vessel of life, meticulously camouflaged beneath the stench and rotting flesh. Yet this human before him had pierced through that concealment with a single scan.
“No, how did you…!”
“How? Because I’m a licensed physician and you’re a charlatan who can’t even take an X-ray. Diagnosis confirmed. You’re not a phoenix—just a remarkably stubborn and virulent chronic malignant tumor patient.”
Jin-hyuk tore off his gas mask. The toxic fumes inside the Cathedral had already settled to the floor level. He stretched the latex gloves taut across both hands, emanating the commanding presence of a surgeon presiding over an ice-cold operating theater.
“Director Ma! Chun-sam! Get the patient on the bed before they refuse surgery! Anesthesia is waived! Initiating forced thoracotomy!”
“Roger that! Cardiothoracic emergency service at your disposal!”
Ma Dong-tak bellowed his response, hurling the iron crowbar aside and clapping his hands together with a thunderous crack. Kim Chun-sam likewise raised Nightmare’s front hooves high, burning with fighting spirit.
“What is this, a hell-spawn centaur serving as auxiliary patient restraint personnel! Well, might as well trample the bastard!”
The morale of Jin-hyuk’s party soared to the heavens. The Lich King, his weakness completely exposed, was consumed by absolute terror and humiliation.
“You, you insolent insects! Do not approach! Not a single fingertip on my tumor—no, my soul!”
The Lich King stumbled backward, unleashing a barrage of corruption magic and curses. But it was insufficient to stop the ravenous beasts charging toward him now that his weakness was known. Beris’s purification magic swept away the Lich King’s curses, while Kim Chun-sam’s hellfire hooves cut off his escape route.
And finally, Ma Dong-tak—that overwhelming mountain range of muscle—seized the Lich King by the collar and slammed him to the ground.
“Director, patient is secured! Let’s crack open that chest!”
“Operating room prepared. Beginning procedure.”
Jin-hyuk inverted his adamantium scalpel and hurled himself mercilessly toward the ribcage of the undead lord thrashing on the ground, bound at all four limbs. The tyrant of Floor 13 was ascending to that horrifying surgical table where his own ribs would be torn away.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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