Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 598
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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 598
Yeo Ha-ryun sent Jeon Seo-gu toward the Demonic Cult.
To report the current situation to the Cult Leader. However…
‘I’m worried the other Soegooju faction might intercept Jeon Seo-gu.’
If another Demonic Cult faction intercepted Jeon Seo-gu, they would learn what Yeo Ha-ryun was doing, and that could bring interference.
But then again, flying spirit beasts like Noeji that my brother keeps are quite rare even among the Demonic Cult, aren’t they?
‘If interference comes, I’ll just have to kill them and resolve it.’
Now it was time to move to the next region.
[By the way, brother, why have you been doing cat’s cradle with your hands this whole time?]
At that, Jin Cheon-hee simply laughed.
It wasn’t cat’s cradle.
Tying. Knots.
During surgery, surgical thread is knotted to suture skin.
Each surgeon has their preferred knotting technique.
Jin Cheon-hee himself had a knotting method he habitually used.
He had been using the one-handed square knot method with his left hand.
The most basic test item when training first-year surgical residents at the university hospital.
He had used it countless times, so his hands were accustomed to it.
But that required using the pinky finger of the left hand.
Now was the time to change his knotting method.
‘I can just use the one-handed square knot method with my right hand, so it’s fine.’
He had mainly held the scalpel with his right hand and done the knots with his left.
‘It’s fortunate I injured my left hand, not my right. I don’t need to change my finger grip when holding the scalpel.’
Though ambidextrous, he had utilized his right hand somewhat better during surgery.
That would probably shorten the rehabilitation time.
He pulled the thread with his right hand, tied knots, untied them again, and pulled once more.
Jin Cheon-hee continued his training.
[I’m finding the knot that suits me. I’m adapting.]
Even if the doctor isn’t ready, illness won’t wait.
So…
Yeo Ha-ryun looked at Jin Cheon-hee once and vaguely understood that this must be something important to his brother.
[Still, things should go smoothly at this rate. The Holy Maiden’s resolve is firm, and the followers trust her as well.]
[…I’m not so sure.]
[Hm?]
Jin Cheon-hee chuckled.
[At the next place we arrive, we’ll have to fight.]
With each of his brother’s steps, white smoke drew long ribbons that shimmered and wavered.
And strangely enough, Jin Cheon-hee’s prediction proved accurate.
* * *
Defeating the Gungju faction’s martial artists and rallying the Holy Maiden faction’s warriors.
Amidst a situation bordering on civil war, where martial artists clashed in scattered skirmishes across the battlefield.
Gathering the Holy Maiden faction’s warriors was proceeding smoothly.
The problem was that the enemy was thinking and acting in exactly the same way.
“I am Hu Cheol-sang, the White Wave Ice Sword, one of the Four Heavenly Kings of the North Sea Ice Palace. You who dared raise rebellion—the Holy Maiden and the abominable disciple of Hyeolrin Gwangssal, Jin Cheon-hee. Surrender your heads!”
A man named Hu Cheol-sang appeared, leading over a hundred martial artists.
It seemed the other side had been rolling their own snowball just like I had!
Moreover.
The moment Hu Cheol-sang laid eyes on me and the Holy Maiden’s group, he began wrapping his blade with the formidable energy of the Binbaek Divine Art, and behind him appeared numerous martial artists generating sword auras.
Their number was thirty-two!
Elite forces!
[The Ice Dragon Unit, our palace’s elite, is all here.]
[Do all Ice Dragon Unit members use sword auras?]
[Yes. They are all supreme masters. Moreover, the Ice Dragon Unit Commander is one of our palace’s greatest masters. Ah… why did the Ice Dragon Unit Commander ever betray Father…?]
I marveled at this.
At that level, they were certainly worthy of being called supreme masters.
It was common knowledge throughout Gangho that five supreme masters could check an absolute master of Hwagyeong, and ten could kill even a Hwagyeong master.
Moreover, since they were a group called the Ice Dragon Unit, they would be skilled in coordinated strikes and could deploy sword formations with perfect freedom.
Of course.
If the opponent hadn’t been me, it would have been effective.
[We’ll handle this.]
After sending a telepathic message to the Holy Maiden, I spoke.
“Ha-ryun. You take that one.”
“What about you, brother?”
“I’ll handle the subordinates.”
“Understood.”
And hearing that exchange, Hu Cheol-sang’s face twisted.
“How dare an outsider meddle in this palace’s affairs. And you—a mere young disciple of Hyeolrin Gwangssal—dare commit such acts! I’ll sever your head…! Huh!?”
Before him, raging in fury, Yeo Ha-ryun stepped forward and swung his hand.
Crash!
A tremendous explosion erupted, and Hu Cheol-sang’s body was driven backward.
Such was the physical strength contained in Yeo Ha-ryun’s strike.
“Speaking to my brother like that. I’ll sever your head…”
“Ha-ryun, don’t kill him! You understand, right?”
“Then I’ll just break his limbs…”
“Just dislocate them cleanly! It’ll be hard to treat later!”
“Understood. I’ll dislocate them as you say and subdue him.”
Snap.
Something inside Hu Cheol-sang’s heart broke.
It was something like a control mechanism within his mind that couldn’t be expressed in a single word—patience, or perhaps humiliation.
“I’ll freeze you solid and shatter you to pieces! Kwaaaaagh!!”
He lunged forward like a beast.
Yet Yeo Ha-ryun’s eyes remained utterly transparent.
Ilkana, watching from a distance, had a thought.
‘Oh no! Both brothers have truly lost their minds. Why must I, the only sane one, suffer like this?’
She now had two superiors, and both of them were completely unhinged.
Middle manager Ilkana was wandering through hell.
* * *
Two supreme masters collided.
And the martial artists behind them drew their weapons toward each other, determined to settle matters of life and death.
‘I can’t let this happen!’
But.
They did not know that Ilgwang was here.
No—they didn’t even know what kind of being Ilgwang was.
Had this been Hangzhou instead of the North Sea Ice Palace, or at least warriors who could properly hear tales of the nameless, things might have been different.
Ilgwang the Celestial.
What in the world was this bearer of such a glorious epithet doing?
The warriors of the North Sea Ice Palace, knowing nothing, were left dumbfounded by the calamity descending upon them.
“Wheeeeooooo! Whiiiing! Whiing!”
A siren sound erupted from his mouth.
Whenever they tried to form the Life Gate and Death Gate formations, he would blast them with Tanjiheontong to scatter them, all while making these sounds.
“Eeeeeeeee–oooo–!!”
A bizarre mechanical noise that could never occur in nature.
While emitting that ear-shattering cacophony, Jin Cheon-hee shouted.
“Disperse the gathering! Disperse the gathering! We currently have a typhus outbreak—no, a chaos fever spreading! Everyone! Wash your hands thoroughly! Go home and wash your clothes and bedding properly! Eeeeeeeeeeng– Whiiing! Whiiing!”
“You crazy bastard!”
Sword qi streamed forth relentlessly, but Jin Cheon-hee dodged left and right, shaking their eardrums.
“Kiiiiiiik! Kigigigigi! Kiiiik–!”
“Someone grab that madman!!”
“Ilgwang, do you not know honor as a warrior? Are you not ashamed before your sect?”
Jin Cheon-hee answered that challenge.
“My Master would only pity his junior disciple being oppressed by overwhelming numbers, and would actually take pride in victory achieved through sound technique.”
“Sound technique? Soooound teeeechnique?”
“Exactly! Sound technique! This is why efficiency matters. Efficient sound technique!”
In that moment, Jin Cheon-hee paused slightly.
As the sound technique lifted, the warriors staggered and grasped their swords again.
“…?”
Jin Cheon-hee shook his head.
“Hahaha, never mind. I just remembered the speech patterns of someone I dislike.”
Then he resumed making ‘eeeeng’ siren sounds, tormenting everyone in sight.
“Stop it. You madman! Stop iiiiit!”
* * *
Total annihilation.
The elite forces of the North Sea Ice Palace’s faction, led by Hu Cheol-sang, were all subdued and rendered helpless as flopping fish.
What this meant was that their vital points had been sealed, leaving them with eyes wide open, their mouths gaping uselessly.
Ilkana was shocked.
‘My goodness… How can someone be this strong? Brother…?’
While Yeo Ha-ryun engaged Hu Cheol-sang, I alone subdued nearly a hundred opponents.
My inner energy consumption didn’t appear to be severe at all.
The Holy Maiden’s martial artists had to doubt their own eyes and steady their minds at such grotesque and terrifying power!
When I turned my head after subduing the warriors.
I could see Hu Cheol-sang, whose vital points had been sealed by Yeo Ha-ryun, standing rigid as a statue while his limbs were being dislocated.
“Ha-ryun! That’s enough if you’ve subdued him! Stop pulling!”
That was right.
Yeo Ha-ryun had already completed the subdual, yet he was in the process of tearing off limbs and dislocating joints.
Once the battle ended, the cleanup was swift.
With the Holy Maiden’s authority and Prince Han-bing, who commanded the garrison soldiers, the pace was lightning-fast.
“Those who are injured, please line up.”
What was truly terrifying here was my medical skill.
Having treated people on the battlefield more than once or twice, I quickly set up a tent and began treating the warriors.
The same applied to the injured commoners.
“Holy Maiden, Holy Maiden, Doctor! Doctor!!”
“You’re fine now. Relax and breathe. Exhale slowly, then inhale.”
“Hnnngh!”
“That’s right. Good. Just relax a bit more.”
Pop—
“Aaaahhhhh!”
“Excellent work. Now we just need to apply a splint and wrap it. I’ll give you medicine to take. I’ll write a prescription using the herbs around here. The problem is boiling water. Is there someone who can help boil water?”
As I rapidly treated the commoners, the people’s hearts began to turn toward the Holy Maiden.
Above all, when I rallied the warriors and fought, what I was most careful about was not causing harm to the commoners.
Moreover.
“Is it really true that the North Sea Ice Palace Master conducted experiments on human bodies!?”
“Where is our child who was taken! Theft, you say! Our child has done nothing wrong. Please, we must see if that child is safe!”
“My lords, please give us food. Please. Help us put something in our mouths to survive.”
The commoners’ desperate voices could only strengthen my resolve.
Finally, in the next village I entered, there were no armed warriors to be found.
Curious, I asked, and an elderly grandmother stepped forward.
“Ah, is your face feeling better now?”
She was the grandmother I had treated.
I remembered she had come carried on her son’s back.
At that time, she had suffered from facial paralysis, but fortunately it wasn’t a stroke—she was a patient with Bell’s palsy.
I recalled the acupuncture treatment that had healed me.
“Thank you. Thanks to you, I can speak clearly now.”
“Oh my. What a relief. But what about the martial artists?”
At those words, my grandmother’s ears perked up.
“…Well, it seems they’ve all come down with stomach troubles. They haven’t left the outhouse all day.”
That was true.
Every martial artist had fallen ill with stomach troubles of unknown origin.
When I realized what had happened.
‘Ah, they’ve contaminated the water supply.’
The village people had taken it upon themselves to contaminate the drinking water.
If that happened, even with the water the villagers had stockpiled in advance, they’d run out of drinking water—a dangerous situation.
I quickly grabbed my grandmother’s hand.
“You mustn’t do this. It’s dangerous!”
“I don’t care. Just go quickly.”
“Grandmother.”
“Go now! Why is someone like So Ui-seon so slow! Just kill that bastard and be done with it!”
I hadn’t expected her to speak of killing, so my eyes widened slightly.
As we were leaving.
A martial artist beside me spoke.
“Your grandmother’s son was dragged away to prison, and she hasn’t heard from him since.”
Her son…
That was the same son who had carried my grandmother on his back when we first arrived.
His filial piety was so profound that everyone praised him for it.
Even while waiting in line, he was massaging his grandmother’s legs.
‘Yes. Even if it means cutting off the water supply…’
Seeing the North Sea Ice Palace that had devoured her son, and those martial artists—what must she have been thinking?
My grandmother called out from a distance.
“What are you doing! Run! We’re fine! Go now!”
She shouted in a voice burning with urgency.
“I’m going, Grandmother. I’ll return quickly.”
The hearts of people gather together.
The common folk.
The dictionary says the name comes from how the vitality of the people is as tenacious as grass and trees.
Have you ever seen grass speak?
Have you ever seen grass grow angry?
Grass that merely bends with the wind—when it chose to live, it set the mountains ablaze and burned even the great tigers.
All the grass possessed was its own body.
And so it burned its flesh to spread the flame, and in spreading it, finally severed the Mountain Lord.
I don’t know who first poisoned the water supply.
But I could sense what feelings filled the hearts of all these village people as they watched it happen.
North Sea Ice Palace, the end of winter.
In the most frozen wasteland, the commoners passed embers between their bodies to keep each other alive.
It was a fire that consumed them from within.
I had to end this before they all burned away.
Time became even more precious to me as a doctor.
So I spoke to those who were sacrificing their lives.
“Please, preserve yourselves. All of you.”
You must remain healthy.
You must survive.
I performed a deep bow from a distance.
Thus I reached the very gates of the North Sea Ice Palace far sooner than I had anticipated.
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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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