Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 297

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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 297
In any case, this hypothesis must begin by acknowledging one fundamental truth.
‘Effort is a finite resource.’
Human lifespan is limited, and as one ages, martial arts progress inevitably slows.
The time spent eating, sleeping, and resting cannot be subtracted away.
No matter how much one claims to sacrifice everything through seclusion training, human willpower is also a finite resource.
One cannot spend an entire lifetime doing nothing but seclusion training.
Humans are social creatures, after all.
In the end, one must cram inner cultivation techniques, martial arts, footwork, and practical combat experience into a fixed timeframe like pieces of Tetris.
‘Hmm… this line of thinking is probably insane too.’
In a typical martial arts world, wouldn’t effort always be an infinite resource for a true sword master?
If progress is still slow despite that, then it’s a matter of insufficient enlightenment or incompatible constitution.
‘The Taeul technique is less dependent on individual aptitude than Miribeo, and mastery comes relatively easier. That’s significant efficiency.’
Clank—
The chain sickle spun, targeting Cheonwoo’s blind spot once more.
Cheonwoo’s body slid as he tried to close the distance with the Heukgang Hyeolma.
In that instant, the chain sickle extended from the Heukgang Hyeolma’s hand like a serpent, and Cheonwoo twisted his blade diagonally to block it.
Screech!
‘Breaking the blade just before impact—that’s the practical application of Taeul’s principle of using softness to overcome hardness. This definitely reduces the strain on the wrist when blade meets blade.’
There’s no helping it.
Using martial arts-style metaphors is truly difficult for me.
‘But the Heukgang Hyeolma is at least a master of sword-expert level. Even if he merely blocked the chain sickle…’
Screech-clang!
The chain coiled around Cheonwoo’s blade and rotated once, grazing past his sword and slicing across his face.
Fortunately, only a shallow wound.
‘His instantaneous judgment and reflexes are excellent, I’ll give him that. If it were me, I would have blocked the ranged attack from the very first move.’
A modern person excels at acrobatics.
‘The chain sickle is certainly an annoying weapon. Most sword practitioners would have dropped their blade by now against a chain sickle wielding sword-silk.’
The match would be over.
Cheonwoo would have become minced meat.
But I know that Cheonwoo would sooner lose his arm than drop his blade, so I simply observe.
If the worst comes to pass, I’m prepared to abandon all notions of warrior honor and grab my younger brother by the ribs to drag him away.
A modern doctor cannot understand why martial reputation is more precious than human life.
As long as I pursue the path of a doctor, I will probably never understand that.
Instead… extreme pragmatism began assembling new martial techniques simply through observation.
Clank-clank—
The chain coiling around Cheonwoo’s blade pulled taut.
If he released the blade now, he would die. If he held on, the blade would break.
Cheonwoo’s sword is not some divine weapon like the one I possess.
As a disciple of the Mudang Sect, it’s better than average, but that doesn’t mean the blade won’t dull.
Screech—
The blade began emitting increasingly strained sounds under the chain’s pressure.
“Kekekek.”
The Heukgang Hyeolma, confident in his victory, wore a bloodthirsty smile.
The Heukgang Hyeolma’s shoulder muscles swelled with inner energy.
For someone who had mastered demonic cultivation, he possessed remarkably solid fundamentals.
‘Yes, that’s right. Even villains need solid foundations to be proper villains.’
The longer Cheonwoo held his ground, the greater the burden placed upon his blade would become.
Even if Cheonwoo had transcended the realm of swordsmen and reached the state of sword energy, severing the chain from this position was impossible.
I found myself curious about how Cheonwoo would respond.
It was the gaze of a scholar dissecting the Mudang Sect’s secret techniques and reassembling them in a corner of my mind.
The Mudang Sect would have reason to dislike it, but what could be done?
It was merely an occupational habit of the Jegal Family, whose founder was a strategist.
Clang clang clang—
The moment the stalemate reached its limit.
Thud!
As Cheonwoo stepped forward, he drove straight toward the Heukgang Hyeolma.
Whoosh—
The chain, deprived of its target, snapped back rapidly, and the Heukgang Hyeolma’s center of balance suddenly wavered.
As the chain’s pressure loosened with its master lost, Cheonwoo’s movements transitioned into a familiar technique.
‘Taeguk Hye Sword.’
Had my younger brother finally stepped into the depths of the profound martial way that my brother had walked?
The Heukgang Hyeolma hastily retrieved his chain and launched it forward with inner force incomparably stronger than before.
Whoooosh!
The display was worthy of being called a true ultimate technique.
Cheonwoo answered that ultimate technique by unfurling the Taeguk Hye Sword.
A distortion as if space itself had warped appeared once at the tip of Cheonwoo’s blade, and once more in the counterattacking sword!
Crash—!
Cheonwoo’s heavy blade passed downward from above.
Even in a stroke that would cleave a person in half from head to groin, did the mercy of the Tao reside?
“Krraaaagh!”
With that single strike, the Heukgang Hyeolma was split in two, his breath ceasing.
My younger brother, drenched in blood, exhaled heavily for a long while.
Was this the first time he had faced such a master alone?
Once Cheonwoo had caught his breath, he spoke quietly.
“I’m not like you, brother.”
“…”
The bandits were left speechless.
Clearly, they had been evenly matched, or rather, the Heukgang Hyeolma seemed to be overwhelming—yet in an instant, he was brutally slaughtered.
Only I wore a peaceful expression.
‘Thank goodness Cheonwoo has a strong heart.’
The foundation for deploying martial arts is the spirit.
It’s not for nothing that all martial arts emphasize the harmony of mind, energy, and body.
I had worried that my body might stiffen in actual combat, especially against a master of the Demonic Sect, but it seemed my concern was unfounded.
I exhaled in relief.
However, from the bandits’ perspective, things were different.
There was only one reason these fools had survived this long.
They rarely encountered masters stronger than themselves.
If they faced a dark path master stronger than them, they would quickly surrender to save their lives; if they encountered a strong righteous path master, they would flee or die as a handful of blood.
That was simply the natural law of the dark path.
It was natural they couldn’t anticipate the variable of a master they had submitted to being killed by another master.
That was why these bastards were still alive.
However, unexpectedly, there was someone here who had considered even that variable.
“Don’t panic! Proceed as planned!”
At the Waho-chae Leader’s shout infused with inner energy, the enemies quickly regained their senses.
What flew at that moment was not a blade.
Twang!
A steel net thrown by someone with inner energy descended upon Cheonwoo with blinding speed.
Following that came a rain of arrows. The moment his body became entangled in the net, he would be struck by arrows and suffer fatal wounds; even if he somehow evaded the net, he wouldn’t have the capacity to block the arrow barrage.
‘Wow, this isn’t martial arts—it’s warfare tactics.’
I let out a small exclamation of admiration and unleashed my movement technique.
My mouth still wore a playful smile, but my eyes had grown cold with fury.
* * *
As the master hired by the Demonic Sect collapsed, the faces of the Waho-chae bandits rapidly darkened.
That Baekui Gwangryong wouldn’t kill them, but would certainly bind them and hand them over to the Gwana.
And he would leave scars so severe that recovery was impossible.
He would barely keep them alive, as if to say they should spend their remaining lives in reflection.
When government soldiers received bandits, there were usually two outcomes.
Either they were dragged to places like mines or salt fields to labor until death, or they were beaten with rods before the families of their victims, tortured under the guise of punishment, and then executed.
In a weakened state, going to mines or salt fields was worse than death.
Considering the atrocities they had committed, execution likely wouldn’t be clean either.
‘It’s better to die than to lose to Baekui Gwangryong.’
That was what all the dark path masters who had been beaten by Baekui Gwangryong said in unison.
If they were to spend their remaining lives in reflection, they wouldn’t have slaughtered innocent people in the first place.
Money more precious than human life?
There was no need to agree with such words.
For the dark path, it was all too natural.
Their very work was the elixir art of squeezing human blood and forging it into gold.
Crossing the line was far too easy, and the golden reward for doing so was so sweet.
‘Spend the remaining life in reflection? What nonsense.’
The bandits of Waho-chae cried out with desperate determination.
“Kill them! There are only two of us—we can kill them!”
“Damn it, at this point it’s either you die or I live!”
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
The bandits hurled something in unison.
Waho-chae, being one of the Eighteen Bandit Groups of the Green Forest, had members who had at least grasped the basics of martial arts, even if they were third-rate.
What they threw, infused with inner energy, cut through the air with piercing sounds.
It was a net made by linking chains together.
The sturdy iron net was a weapon crafted specifically to counter masters, made with considerable expense.
And it had proven effective before.
Warriors, after all, are those who have devoted themselves to mastering a single school of martial arts.
They are confident in sword-to-sword duels, but they falter when faced with group combat like this.
How panicked had the people of Baek-ui Sinryong been at such attacks?
How many times had a moment of panic led directly to death?
“….”
However, I showed no panic whatsoever at the sight, drawing my divine blade and unleashing sword energy.
My composure was evident even in the faint smile at the corner of my lips.
Only my blue eyes remained cold and desolate.
Tss, tss, tss, tss, tss—
The blade of energy surrounding my sword grew longer and longer, eventually reaching a length of over three meters.
I wielded such a blade with speed invisible to the naked eye.
Whoooosh!
The iron net was torn like paper by the blade.
Yet this was an iron net thrown by those who had cultivated inner energy, fast as lightning.
The sword strike of Baek-ui Sinryong had already far surpassed that speed.
And the martial technique contained in that blade was—
‘The Samsae Sword Technique…?’
It was a street-level sword strike that anyone who knew martial arts would recognize.
A clean, unadorned Samsae Sword Technique.
‘Why abandon the secret techniques of the Jegal Family like the Taeul Danseonggeom?’
Even the Mudang Sect’s Taiji Sword would have wounded my pride less.
I had thought myself a bandit leader who had abandoned such things as pride, yet my counterattack was deflected by merely the Samsae Sword Technique—something twisted inside my chest.
“What kind of sword energy is that large!”
“Did he eat elixirs instead of rice?!”
The subordinates, unable to recognize the Samsae Sword Technique even with their eyes, panicked.
Indeed, he had wielded a sword energy over three meters long three times in a single instant.
It was natural for the inexperienced to judge it as some secret technique.
The leader shouted.
“Fire! Shoot! Quickly!”
The bandits desperately unleashed a barrage of arrows.
I grabbed every throwing spear I had and hurled them indiscriminately.
After all, this was a clash against a master.
If I closed to melee range, I would be the one to die.
Shielding my body behind cover, if even a single blind poison arrow grazed him, victory would be mine.
A paralysis toxin arrow potent enough to paralyze a giant horse in a single strike.
I wasn’t even hoping for penetration. Just one touch beneath the skin would suffice!
At that moment, Jin Cheon-hee sent a rapid transmission to Cheonwoo.
[You’ve done enough. I’ll take it from here.]
“What do you mean—”

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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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