Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 395

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

Chapter 395
Crunch, crunch, crunch—
The ground began to cave inward like a bowl, centered on him.
The demonic qi consumed my inner energy, and finally devoured the true qi of life itself—the source of vitality.
Demonic qi runaway.
Within that chaos, I sensed the fragrance of the Cheonma Divine Art. It wasn’t the original Cheonma Divine Art, but rather some demonic technique derived from it.
‘To pass such a demonic art to someone like that….’
The reason was obvious.
Just as I disturb the celestial qi through life-saving, Bumun-ju must have a way to disturb the celestial qi through slaughter instead.
‘Or perhaps it was simply a whim.’
Bumun-ju, completely devoid of reason, let out a scream.
“Kwaaaaagh! Kwak! Kwaaaaaaaagh!”
Had he even lost the ability to speak human language?
I knew from reading the original work how terrifying demonic qi could be, but facing it directly was still unsettling.
‘Let’s see—his body has grown twenty percent larger. His muscles have swollen and developed even more. He’s completely lost his reason. And since he’s consumed the true qi of life, his poison technique has become absolutely lethal now.’
Drool dripped from the lips of the reason-bereft Bumun-ju.
Sizzzzle—
The ground melted away.
‘What surrounds him is protective qi. It’s said to be below the level of protective strong qi, but it destroys everything it merely grazes. Combined with the poison technique, should I call it protective poison qi?’
In that brief moment, a scholar’s eyes dissected and observed the opponent.
‘How strange. When I first received the demonic art from Cheonma, I never envisioned such a future.’
If one like Yeo Ha-ryun reached the extreme with demonic qi and became Cheonma, that would be different. But all others must live lives like batteries.
Devoting all their life’s energy to the Cheonma Divine Art.
Burning that life away, burning and burning until it spirals into runaway like this.
What remains is a dead battery, death itself.
‘Is the position of Odok Mun’s Mun-ju worth doing something like this?’
But then again, wasn’t Jeong Gwang of the Murim Sect the same?
Saving one person from another requires hundreds of motivations, but killing one person requires only a single one.
“Everyone, fall back!”
At my command, the Baekrin Uigak warriors and the Odok Mun disciples who followed the original Mun-ju all rapidly retreated backward.
“Kwaagh! Kwak! Kwaaaaaaaagh!”
He swung his weapon indiscriminately.
His shoulder, half severed, had already reattached itself.
He attacked the nearest enemy.
It was an ally—the traitorous Odok Mun disciples who had followed him.
“Aaaaagh! Bumun-ju!”
“Bumun-ju has been consumed by the demonic qi!”
Slash!
Cutting down the disciples who had learned the same demonic art, he became intoxicated with slaughter, emitting bestial sounds.
The traitorous Odok Mun disciples scattered like ants, but pools of blood formed in the wake of Bumun-ju’s passage.
It resembled the sight of crushing a swarm of ants with one’s thumb.
A veritable hellscape.
Rather than engage the maddened Bumun-ju, I moved forward in the same stance and kicked away a boulder.
“Haaah!”
Crash and boom!
I felled a tree.
Screech!
A massive sword mark carved across the ground.
Crack crack crack!
My response seemed equally mad as Bumun-ju’s, but soon everyone understood the reason.
“Could it be… you’re reconstructing the formation?”
“…Not just smashing everything to pieces?”
“Look carefully. The cardinal directions are properly aligned, aren’t they?”
Are all the Jegallim Family members this crazy?
Wasn’t opening a formation originally supposed to be done by reading the heavenly stems and cardinal directions, carrying a geomancy plate, and performing it with refined elegance?
“Haaaah!”
Crash and boom!
The fallen tree was struck by the sword mark and forced upright.
Amid the spiraling chaos, I continued calculating what I needed to do next and began creating variables.
This was heavily influenced by my past life as a surgeon.
Surgery ultimately doesn’t end with simply removing the affected area in that moment.
No matter how skilled my hands were or how well the patient endured, there was no way to know whether the tumor would recur.
Even if it didn’t recur, the patient’s fate would diverge endlessly depending on postoperative care.
Thus, any doctor naturally kept what came after surgery in mind, and instinctively began considering multiple variables.
The death of young patients always left the deepest impression.
Even more so if they were comrades who had fought alongside me against illness for so long.
Yet my emotions and the patient’s illness were separate matters.
No matter how much I grieved or paused in that moment, the illness continued consuming lives, consuming and consuming.
That was why I learned to separate emotion from action, and even now, fallen on this martial world, I moved like someone with my heart torn out.
And that brilliance shone through in this chaotic melee of the Gangho.
‘The formation reconstruction… I’ve done what I could. But I’m not properly reading the water veins from the start… Still, is this the best I can manage?’
First priority: securing the safety of my allies.
Next, enter the formation and deploy the Hyeonwon Jeondan Singeong to its peak, observing this situation meticulously.
“Hyeong, is that… okay?”
“At first, he said he was Hyeongyeong, so I fought him thinking he was lying. Turns out when you let your demonic energy run wild, that’s what happens.”
“He’s dead, right?”
Sama Hyeon doesn’t call Bumun-ju by name or title.
Since that thing is already something to be eliminated, does he not feel the need to address it as a person?
“With his innate true energy running wild like that, even if Hua Tuo himself were reborn, he couldn’t save that.”
“What about Baek Rin-ui-seon?”
“If my Master had come… he wouldn’t have treated him. He would have severed his neck.”
“That much is true.”
“Even so, my Master would find this difficult. If someone becomes crippled from qi deviation, it can be healed. But if they grow stronger while descending into madness, there’s no solution.”
If the qi channels burst and stop at some point, I could prevent them from ever using martial arts again and keep them alive in a severely paralyzed state.
Of course, that would require heaven’s favor as well.
But this is like setting fire to a coal mine.
It cannot stop until everything has burned.
And when all the innate qi has burned away, it means life itself has extinguished.
“You stay out of this for now. Poison arts have poor compatibility with your martial techniques. I don’t want to call it Hyeongyeong level, but I have no choice but to acknowledge the poison art itself.”
“It seems just getting close would cause poisoning.”
The moment Sama Hyeon finished speaking, one of Bumun-ju’s subordinates—who hadn’t even been struck by the attack—clutched his throat and coughed up black blood with choking sounds.
“The poison has penetrated his lungs. This… how is this possible with a human body? It’s a mystery of the martial world, truly a mystery.”
Jin Cheon-hee, who was scattering cold qi throughout his body, was saying such things.
Sama Hyeon fell into thought for a moment.
“I expected some combat with the Odok Mundobeul. But I never imagined fighting an incomplete Hyeongyeong-level warrior.”
“That’s life. Besides, now that the Demonic Cult is involved, you’re better off staying inside anyway. It works out.”
A wave of irritation washed over Sama Hyeon.
To counter poison arts, one must learn special martial techniques suited for that purpose.
One method was like Jin Cheon-hee’s—learning a martial art called the Five Elements Mutual Destruction Poison to build resistance to toxins.
Otherwise, one needed qi that could actively consume poison—such as fire qi, lightning qi, or extreme demonic qi like the Cheonma Divine Art.
One could also repel poison with the pure qi of Daoism or Buddhism, but Sama Hyeon practiced heterodox martial arts, so purity was far from his reach.
Unable to accept this, Sama Hyeon gritted his teeth.
My brother’s Five Elements Divine Art…
“Can you drink that poison qi without harm?”
“I’ve gained some fortunate opportunities. Besides, I’ve also learned martial arts to build poison resistance, so at this level… it should be possible.”
“Is it thanks to the Wudang Tai Chi Sword? Or perhaps you also have the Five Elements Mutual Destruction Poison.”
Based on the theory that all things in the world are composed of the Five Elements, the Five Elements Mutual Destruction Poison—which decomposes and reconstructs them as inner qi—could be said to hold an advantage in compatibility against poison arts.
“But there are still aftereffects, aren’t there~?”
‘Ah, I’ve been found out.’
Seeing how he struck right at the heart of the matter, one could truly say this was Sama Hyeon.
“Someone has to protect our wounded. I’m entrusting that to you.”
“What about Man Seon?”
“Man Seon is already working at his limit. Someone needs to help him. And Hyeon-a, after this life-or-death battle ends, I don’t think I’ll have the strength to treat anyone else.”
With those words, Jin Cheon-hee threw himself forward.
‘Poison arts have poor compatibility with Sama Hyeon anyway. No matter how much I’ve prepared gloves for him, they can’t prevent poisoning itself.’
Thinking of Sama Hyeon’s poison qi, I felt he might learn poison arts next time.
‘No, that’s impossible. I can learn it because my poison arts derive from the Five Elements Divine Art, but Sama Hyeon can’t do that.’
With Yo Cheon-gun, at least I could manage by having Cheonwoo and Yeo Ha-ryun form formations while fighting, but this was different.
Burning everything within himself, merely sublimating poison qi, and sublimating it again.
Against such an opponent, forming any formation would only increase casualties.
‘Many have died, but let’s not dwell on that.’
Those who stood with Bumun-ju were already those who had been absorbed into the Demonic Cult.
In the process of Yeo Ha-ryun becoming Cheonma, they would inevitably become enemies.
Jin Cheon-hee clenched and unclenched his fists repeatedly.
I wasn’t confident about how to proceed, but I had to try anyway.
Behind me were the Uigak Warriors and my younger brother Sama Hyeon.
And there were the village residents of the Sama clan.
‘It’s fine. I’m the older brother.’
I would protect them.
As Jin Cheon-hee raised his momentum and stepped outside the formation, the Bumun-ju who had lost his reason stared at him.
Sssssss—
The whites of his eyes had already turned pitch black, making the term “demonic being” far more fitting than “human.”
‘Those eyes are filled with toxic qi, but his vision seems to be functioning properly? This really is the martial world. What use is modern medicine here? Toxic liquid flows through his blood vessels, his eyes are filled with toxic qi, yet his vision remains intact. Unbelievable.’
With such absurd thoughts as a surgeon, I eased my own tension.
Grrrrrrr—
A beast’s sound, not a human voice, came from Bumun-ju’s throat.
“Can you see this? How many fingers do you see?”
Jin Cheon-hee waved two fingers in front of him.
“Patient, why don’t you try reciting the seven times table?”
Corpses lay thick beneath Bumun-ju’s feet, and the small stream now ran with blood instead of water.
Grrgh— Grrrrr—
“I see you can’t. Do you at least remember what day of the week it is?”
Bumun-ju took a step forward.
Crunch.
Crushing the head of what had once been his subordinate beneath his foot.
Breathing in the stench of exposed brain matter, Bumun-ju seemed delighted.
Jin Cheon-hee spoke to him calmly.
“Ah, so you can’t even recognize the days anymore. That’s fine. If you just take deep breaths as you are, you might live a bit longer. You should be able to survive for about two hours.”
Grrgh—
Bumun-ju’s purple muscles swelled even further.
A horrifying murderous aura.
Toxic qi alone filled the air completely.
A subordinate who had retreated to safety grabbed his throat and collapsed.
Had the toxic qi reached even there?
Crackle—
Even the formation began to deteriorate from such toxic qi.
‘It seems temporary repairs alone aren’t enough.’

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