Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 451

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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 451
“The Xiongnu bastards’ horses can move no further! Kill them! Kill them all!”
The shouts of commanders ring out.
The Eight Trigrams Formation shifts.
The Eight Trigrams Formation, Second Variation.
The Azure Dragon configuration.
The initial formation, with the enemy before us and resembling a coiled snake, is called the Snake formation.
It takes the shape of a snake crouched before striking—a posture focused on defense, observing the opponent.
Bichano’s movements between the front and middle ranks also stem from the tactical principles of the Snake formation.
Next comes the Dragon configuration.
The formation shifts to one designed for offense.
Can the dragon truly reach the heavens?
“Let us give it wind to soar.”
Eunwang draws in a breath.
Casting a verbal command over so many soldiers is no simple task—his complexion grows increasingly pale.
Yet his spine remains unbowed.
His bearing was unmistakably that of an emperor.
“Charge forth–!”
A single, sharp word.
At his command, the soldiers burst forth in fury, rushing at the Suksin Tribe.
And yet.
The Suksin Tribe, versed in beast magic, proved formidably strong even without spoken words.
Order crumbles in an instant, and formations become useless.
Arrows rain down, striking the dragon’s procession indiscriminately.
Mingled together, spears and blades thrust into flesh.
Human-formed dragon scales advance, bleeding, ever forward.
‘Master must have deemed this the best course.’
My physician’s conscience screams in protest.
But I suppress it, and suppress it again.
The pipe stem in my hand becomes incense smoke, comforting the spirits.
Ju Wang charges forward.
Behind him, Eun Wang-ya bolsters their resolve.
“Children of the Empire, rise! Behind you stand your families–!”
Ironically, it is one’s mother and father at home that comes to mind, rather than loyalty to the Empire.
Eun Wang-ya’s command infused the imperial forces with blood once more.
In that moment, Eunwang coughed up blood.
“Wang-ya!”
“You are no physician now. Remember that in this moment, you are merely a soldier.”
From within the smallest prison in the world, Eunwang commands his troops.
The formation’s power discriminates between neither ally nor enemy, yet it proved devastatingly effective against the Suksin Tribe, whose very foundation rested upon speech.
Can a dragon ascend to heaven?
Can a dragon truly ascend within this storm of blood?!
That was when it happened.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
Black dots came rushing from far within the enemy lines.
Like brushstrokes from a young child’s hand, darkness spread across the plains.
At first, no one could comprehend what it was.
A soldier who had survived the previous battle cried out.
“Cattle… It’s a herd of cattle!”
“All of that is cattle?”
“Damn it! The Xiongnu have released the cattle!”
“We’re all going to die!”
“Stop them, stop them now!”
The cattle’s eyes were strange.
They charged as if unaffected by the formation, or perhaps affected by it but driven mad by madness itself.
But that wasn’t what mattered.
Those who had experienced the Suksin Tribe’s cattle stampede before reacted differently from those seeing it for the first time.
The squad leaders shouted desperately at the new recruits.
“You damn fools! Move! Those horns will pierce your backsides!”
Yet the soldiers seeing Suksin cattle for the first time moved sluggishly.
They had heard well enough how devastating the Suksin Tribe’s cattle strategy was. But human reason becomes paralyzed before the wave created by cattle.
And charging ahead of them was a water buffalo clad in golden armor—the Khan’s mount.
“Raise your shields! Move, damn it, move!”
Before they could even respond, the field of vision filled with cattle.
A massive black ox, house-sized, the Khan’s water buffalo crashed into the main formation.
Crash-crash-crash-boom!
Sharp horns tore through ribs like a fork cutting through tofu steak.
Then it trampled indiscriminately—both Suksin tribesmen and imperial soldiers alike.
“Ahhhhh! Damn it, damn it!”
“You mad beasts!”
Enemy and friendly soldiers were trampled together, horses shrieked and collapsed.
The water buffalo also fell, coughing blood, pierced by the imperial spears.
As the impact intensified, the Cheon Jin-lei explosives on the buffalo’s back detonated.
Crash-crash-crash-boom!
“The water buffalo are self-destructing! Damn it! You vicious bastards!”
Cattle are precious resources.
That was true not only for the Suksin Tribe but for the imperial army as well.
Especially in this agricultural society, the feelings soldiers born of farming families held toward cattle differed from those toward horses.
I’m not sure when cattle became companions to farming, but at least since the Spring and Autumn period, they had already been using iron tools for ox-plowing.
In this world, the details might differ from Earth, but farmers using cattle more than horses for agriculture remained the same.
One ox could feed an entire family.
If a calf was born, it was cause for celebration in the household.
For soldiers with such attachments, the act of sending cattle charging into enemy lines and detonating them to shatter their formations awakened an indescribable sense of revulsion.
Moreover, as the Cheon Cheon-lei exploded, the iron shards contained within erupted skyward and embedded themselves in armor.
As men and water buffalo alike became mangled flesh, the dragon scales of the Eight Trigrams Formation were torn away.
A void as if rent by some ravenous beast.
And through that breach, approximately ten thousand elite cavalry surged forward like wolves scenting prey, their charge terrifyingly swift.
‘This is dire.’
From my perspective, the ten thousand cavalry charging toward us seemed unaffected by the formation’s influence.
Whatever method they employed, the horses themselves were receiving proper control.
If they poured through the gap created by the buffalo stampede moments ago, the Empire’s central force would be cleaved in two and the entire encampment could collapse.
If the encampment collapsed?
If the Eight Trigrams Formation were in the Snake configuration, we could recover.
Like a serpent coiling to defend itself, we could compress our lines and mount a fluid defense.
But now, we are in an offensive posture.
The Dragon configuration!
‘The army will descend into chaos beyond all comparison to the present moment.’
No matter how my Master sends tactics to General Yuk Heon, or how skillfully he commands, things will become difficult from that point onward.
Human vision is limited.
On this battlefield, what transpires even one zhang ahead cannot be seen through the press of our own soldiers and the enemy’s!
‘Has our intelligence been compromised?’
If the enemy had not known of the Eight Trigrams Pre-Chaos Soul Formation beforehand, such preparations would have been impossible.
And then.
The enemy cavalry at the vanguard hurled their war horse directly at Prince Ju-wang with all their might.
Kwaaaaaaang–!
Devastating destructive force!
Drawing upon innate true qi and augmented by the Hyeolseon Sect’s sorcery—concentrating the lives of ten thousand into a single person—the very impact alone seemed to dissolve the troops near Prince Ju-wang as if they were melting.
“My sister is surrounded. I must rescue her at once.”
Military God Pungju-ha.
If she fell on this battlefield, or even if she survived but suffered a mortal wound, the morale of the Imperial forces would plummet to nothing.
That would be the shortest path to defeat.
“Your Majesty. General Yuk Heon is already moving his forces. Hold your position.”
At last, my silent childhood friend opened his mouth.
That was when Eun Wang-ya turned her head to look at me.
‘So that is why you brought me.’
I understood.
Jegalling, the final heir of the Jegallim Family.
And I, his direct disciple and only disciple.
Not as a doctor, but as a military strategist—he was asking me.
‘Yes. That is correct.’
Whoosh—
I inhale the smoke from the pipe and open my blue eyes.
“…You must move, Your Highness.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Our strategy has undoubtedly been leaked from somewhere. The fact that they still engaged us means they saw a path to victory. Or rather, even without a guaranteed victory, if they can inflict a fatal wound on Prince Ju-wang, that is their triumph. Though His Highness has received treatment, he is not in the same condition as before.”
No matter how much rest he had, a few days would never fully heal old battle scars.
Prince Ju-wang was already pushing himself beyond his limits.
I whistled.
Shrieeek—
In that instant, Noeji descends with a sharp cry.
I relay something to Noeji and send him off again.
Receiving my command, Noeji flies away at great speed.
I nock an arrow to my bowstring and use Thousand-Mile Transmission to send a ‘message’ somewhere.
Twang—
‘Ugh, this really hurts.’
It’s not just a headache—it feels like an axe splitting my brain in two.
General Yuk Heon is doing this while commanding troops in the chaos of battle. He’s not in his right mind either.
If one can do this, that’s why he’s a great general.
I take one final deep drag from the pipe and hold the smoke in my lungs.
The bitter herbal scent calms my mind.
I speak with cool eyes.
“Let’s go, Your Highness.”
“So you’ve finally made your resolve.”
Resolve?
Can this even be called resolve?
It’s merely a desperate struggle to protect my people. Nothing so grand.
There are precious ones here, and behind me lies a land I wish to protect.
No matter how much I despise war and hate it, I cannot stop the surging murky current with my fingers.
I can only resist desperately to keep from drowning in this current.
One could call it the resistance of an ant glowing above a drain.
There is no leisure to worry about tomorrow’s dreams.
I know that if I succumb to my own powerlessness and the land behind me becomes a sea of fire, I will never sleep again.
“Yes.”
I wanted to live. And I wanted to protect those precious to me.
If I cannot undo this war, then I can only do what a person must do.
“Good.”
Eun Wang-ya also began to move.
* * *
“Hahahaha! What say you, Pungju-ha? Are you beginning to think of becoming my wife for real?”
Kahuray Khan revealed himself before Pungju-ha.
Through several mythical exchanges, I was forced to acknowledge that this bastard Pungju-ha had recovered nearly all of his stamina.
It was not within the realm of medicine. It was within the realm of dark sorcery.
Not merely the kind of sorcery rejected by Gangho, but the dark sorcery of one who sacrificed human lives in pursuit of eternal life.
“That bastard… how did he make such preparations?”
However, Pungju-ha would never walk that path.
No matter how much treatment was administered, the fractured places screamed with pain each time he received an impact.
His limbs creaked and announced their agony.
Life is suffering.
Crash—!
Yet, it is precisely for this reason that goodness holds value.
Kahuray Khan answered while blocking Pungju-ha’s spear.
“Those Hyeolseon Sect Members proved quite capable. One of the vassals belonging to your Empire informed me beforehand that such a formation could be deployed. So I made preparations in advance. The elephants with damaged ears, and my own elite guards whose ears were sealed beforehand.”
A reversal of reversal.
The Jegallim Family’s ultimate formation—the Severing Fate Returning Soul Formation—prepared to seize the opponent’s weakness.
By obtaining information about it in advance and using it to swiftly execute the military god who served as the core of the Empire’s army, the morale of the imperial forces was shattered.
Any soldiers, however numerous when gathered, become nothing but a rabble the moment their morale breaks.

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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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