Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 437
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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 437
“I refuse.”
“Hoh? Why?”
Cheon I-mun asked, as he had in the past.
-I know you save people with good intentions. However, a righteous process does not guarantee a righteous outcome. Sometimes, the correct path can bring about the worst catastrophe.
Words he had spoken to Jin Cheon-hee as a warning back then.
Perhaps Jin Cheon-hee alone could foresee the result of this path. But not yet.
Jin Cheon-hee gave the same answer to Hyeolseonggyo that he had once given to Cheon I-mun.
“…Because I cannot hope for a righteous result while committing wrongful acts.”
“Hehehehe, are you serious? You could prevent the war right now, yet you refuse because it’s wrong?”
“Yes, and there’s one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I need to beat all of you senseless with my own hands.”
“Huh?”
“If I walk alongside you, I could never hold you accountable for your crimes. I would never be able to punish you for slaughtering a thousand people for the sake of one Hyeolseon, for taking tens of thousands of lives as your price.”
“Punish? Just for that?”
“I’m not such a great person. Once I start compromising, I’ll keep compromising, and someday I’ll become the kind of wretch who says that thousands or tens of thousands don’t matter for the sake of the world’s fate.”
“…I was trying to resolve this peacefully, but negotiations have broken down?”
“Peacefully? After killing all these people? Now?”
Jin Cheon-hee raised his middle finger.
“Krkrkrk, fine. I understand. You say such things, but you don’t want the Suksin Tribe to die either. Because to you, they too are ‘people.'”
“Think as you wish.”
Crack—
Strength surged into Jin Cheon-hee’s hands.
“Take your time thinking it over. Our offer will always be valid.”
With those words, the patient’s crimson eyes grew dim. Then he collapsed into unconsciousness.
Thud—
“….”
Jin Cheon-hee exhaled softly.
‘I suppose I should have this man interrogated now.’
But he had a premonition that nothing would come of it.
Still, the information gained from this conversation had been quite useful.
‘Though Hyeolseonggyo himself doesn’t seem to realize it.’
Jin Cheon-hee drew a deep breath.
No matter how much he circulated the Hyeonwon Jeondan Singeong, it felt like he was barely keeping his head above water.
Likely, the very fact that he could endure even this much meant the Hyeonwon Jeondan Singeong had already reached its limits.
He wanted to smoke a cigarette again.
‘But I’ll surely become dependent on it.’
If a proper psychiatrist were to fall here, perhaps. But he knew that for someone without expertise like himself to self-prescribe was dangerous.
And he’d heard countless cautionary tales of people who fell into the abyss that way.
I realized that there was no way to escape this hell with such an approach.
I closed my eyes for a moment.
I heard my heart pounding violently.
It sounded like screams, and also like whispers begging for salvation.
But it sounded different.
‘Ah, the sound of my inner demon boiling.’
I adjusted and readjusted myself to avoid falling into demonic possession.
It wasn’t simple meditation to calm the mind, but rather circulating my energy to prevent demonic possession caused by the inner demon.
A thick smell of blood wafted through my throat.
It felt as though blood was boiling up along with my inner demon.
‘Water remains water until it reaches its boiling point. Once it surpasses that, water vaporizes…’
Then what of a person?
Until the boiling point, one would still be human.
But if one surpasses that limit.
What do we become when we exceed the boiling point?
I swallowed the blood rising in my throat with a composed expression.
It tasted like hell.
* * *
The wind blew.
The stench of blood was thick and suffocating.
In the sky, creatures—whether crows or eagles, none could tell—circled in formation with the army’s march.
Today was a day of great feast.
A day when man slew man to offer sacrifice to the rulers of the sky.
The birds merely had to prepare their meal.
Among them, a few impatient ones descended before the war had even ended, frantically pecking out eyeballs.
The corpse, already beginning to stiffen, twitched.
Within the field of corpses stretching to the horizon, the war still raged on.
The Tortoise-Shell Formation devised by General Yuk Heon certainly boasted solid defense.
Waaaaaah!
The Suksin Tribe charged with horn pipes blaring, yet the corpses of their cavalry piled up layer upon layer.
But was this too a limit?
‘At first, the casualty ratio was three to one—three Suksin Tribe members died for every Imperial soldier. But now… now two Imperial soldiers die for every one Suksin Tribe member.’
The Imperial Army Vice-Commander gripped the reins with trembling hands.
The reason for this dire situation was that the Suksin Tribe’s commander had brought a different strategy.
Meanwhile, in the Suksin Tribe camp.
“Are the buffalo prepared?”
At those words, the Suksin Tribe General prostrated and spoke.
“Yes, Khan. However, the tribal leaders’ dissatisfaction runs high.”
“This is the last time. We will dispose of those bastards this time, so do not worry.”
The Khan gazed at the Imperial Army slowly advancing while maintaining a solid formation in the distance and spoke.
Their numbers reached a staggering one hundred and twenty thousand!
After several battles since the initial deployment, the Imperial Army had lost thirty thousand soldiers.
“I shall face the God of War myself. Begin.”
At those words, the General’s eyes widened in shock.
“Do not worry. As long as the spirits of heaven stand with me, I remain strong.”
“Yes, Khan!”
As the General signaled, the Adjutant brought the horn to his lips.
Buuuuuu–!
A tremendous sound infused with inner force resonated across the plains, and the Suksin Tribe split into two formations.
And just as the Khan had said, a wave of buffalo appeared.
At least several hundred buffalo surged into view as they began their charge.
A small number compared to the one hundred and twenty thousand soldiers arrayed in tight formation.
Yet despite this, the buffalo herd’s assault possessed formidable breakthrough power.
Uuuuuuu–!
At the second horn blast, the buffalo herd began stampeding in terror.
The Imperial Army commanders, already having experienced this attack several times, issued immediate orders.
“The cattle! The cattle are coming again! Those damned savages have released the beasts once more! Activate the Bichano again!”
“You bastards, what are you doing! Prepare the arrow barrage now–!”
“If we’re too slow, we all die!”
Thud thud thud thud–!
The sound of the buffalo herd sweeping across the horizon was like an earthquake itself.
No, it was an earthquake.
An earthquake created by man.
The Imperial Army unleashed a torrent of arrows.
Yet at the very front.
A buffalo black as a mountain charged at the head of the herd.
Its massive horns were lavishly adorned with gold, and at their tips were sharpened spear blades.
It had slain countless Imperial soldiers.
It was undoubtedly the Khan’s Bull.
The moment their eyes met—those blazing crimson orbs against its black body.
Crash!
The buffalo crashes through the formation.
As the Khan’s Bull smashes into the front ranks, several Imperial soldiers are lifted from the ground by its sheer force alone.
Yet that was the end for them.
No matter how skilled in martial arts, none could withstand the Khan’s Bull—they vomit fragments of their organs and perish.
But the bull cared nothing for human circumstances.
A second collision.
Crash!
It overturns the turtle-shell Bichano and crushes the soldiers behind it as it charges onward.
“The formation is breached!”
“Damn it, you Young Ones! Hold the line, hold it! If this position breaks, we’re all dead!”
Above the crumbling formation, a rain of arrows from the Suksin Tribe blanketed the sky.
Arrowheads shaped like the broad bills of ducks.
The arrow rain that had soared high enough to blot out the sun now fell under gravity’s pull, accelerating downward.
Without distinction between the Khan’s Bull and Imperial soldiers, the arrows began piercing through bodies and embedding themselves into the earth.
Thud-thud-thud!
They tore through the Imperial Army’s armor and rained down.
The armored cavalry of the Khan’s Bull fared no better.
Only then did some Imperial soldiers understand why these savages had conducted so many experiments on prisoners with these duck-bill-shaped arrowheads.
Those arrows were perfectly suited to pierce iron plates, tear through human flesh, and penetrate deep.
They continued their research and evolution, testing the arrows on prisoners to add real-world combat effectiveness.
As the formation shattered and the arrow rain finished its devastating work, the Cavalry of the Suksin Tribe Mastering Horse Taming Technique began their charge.
Their mission was simple.
The armored shell created by the Khan’s Bull had been shattered, so they would pour through the gaps and attack the soft flesh within.
While the mounted archers provided covering fire with their arrows, these merciless Suksin warriors wielded their curved blades, cutting down soldiers indiscriminately and trampling them beneath their horses’ hooves.
And remarkably, they were stronger than the Imperial soldiers.
Horse Taming Technique.
If the people of the Middle Kingdom trained their vital energy through martial arts to reach higher realms of transcendence,
then Horse Taming Technique served that role for the Suksin Tribe.
As evident from the character itself—not the character for “demon” but the character for “horse”—the Suksin Tribe possessed a peculiar martial art that made them stronger through living and riding horses.
Though the people of the Middle Kingdom could not understand the principle behind this, they now felt its tremendous power with their entire bodies.
A Cavalry of the Suksin Tribe Mastering Horse Taming Technique who had perfected this art became strong enough to face four or five elite Imperial cavalry alone.
The horses they rode became faster and more powerful than ordinary mounts, and they themselves could suddenly unleash strength ranging from half to double that of the physically conditioned Imperial soldiers.
Truly monstrous troops in their own right!
Moreover, those who had trained in Horse Taming Technique for extended periods became as powerful as Martial Arts Masters.
The Empire learned this through war.
Those belonging to this cavalry charge unit were precisely such warriors.
Like autumn leaves falling before the wind, they advanced, slaughtering the exhausted Imperial soldiers.
As they pushed forward, carving through the soft flesh within the formation, other Suksin mounted archers surrounded this turtle-like defensive line entirely, unleashing a torrent of arrows.
“Damn it… They’ve thoroughly prepared to settle this today!”
The Adjutant issued orders with the bitterness of spitting blood.
“Raise your shields and hold the line! We must hold!”
“We’re surrounded on all sides!”
“Those bastards mean to herd us like sheep and slaughter us all!”
The Khan’s Bull cavalry had many arrows, but the enemy numbered roughly twice their force!
With such a massive force all capable of drawing bows, it was inevitable that arrows rained down like the monsoon rains.
“This is… hell. Pure hell!”
“Cursed Xiongnu bastards!”
Then, a voice rang out across that hellish battlefield.
Though clearly a low voice, somehow it carried through the air so that all could hear it distinctly.
“Kneel. You stand before the King’s presence.”
Crackle, crackle, crackle—
In that instant, the cavalry’s charge was halted.
The ground beneath their horses’ hooves froze solid, and their hooves could no longer move freely.
Yet simultaneously, the front ranks of the cavalry were engulfed in a scorching heat as if they had entered a furnace.
Rumble, rumble, rumble—
A small sun hung in the air.
The sun that rose above my wounded hands grew larger with each passing moment, and paradoxically, the surrounding area froze solid like a glacial wasteland.
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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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