Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 802
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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 802
I arrived at the mountain where Jin Cheon-hee was hiding.
An elite master and an assassin of the Wolsal Sect.
Geumgwak, the direct disciple of Mun-ju, had come to kill Ilgwang.
The reason he entered first was simple.
‘I’ll stake the honor of the Wolsal Sect and kill him before anyone else.’
If I could take the head of Cheonhailgwang, wouldn’t that be the greatest glory?
Geumgwak had gathered information about Ilgwang quite thoroughly.
According to that intelligence, he excelled at cunning schemes and possessed versatile martial techniques.
His martial achievements since arriving in Saeoe were unknown, but considering his progress until last year, the assassins believed he was not beyond killing.
No matter how skilled a master of Hyeongyeong might be, a human dies if half a span of the neck is severed.
Especially the gold offered for this contract was beyond imagination.
If this contract succeeded, not only would the Wolsal Sect dominate the Gangho anew, but he himself could live without financial worries for the rest of his life.
It was said that assassins in the Gangho could not achieve financial independence, but with that gold, even the impossible seemed possible.
As he thought this, his vision suddenly shook and the surrounding landscape scattered.
‘What is this?’
In that moment, he felt something at his ankle.
Looking down, it was a human hand.
“You… are you Pal Ho?”
It was a fellow assassin he had killed in the past.
Even if it was unavoidable during a mission, stabbing a comrade in the back could not be easy.
Pal Ho stared at him with resentment.
“Let go! Let go!”
And then another hand suddenly burst forth.
This time, the hand of a young child from a wealthy family.
It was a contract he had accepted to eliminate the heir of a Sega.
The child gasped and clutched at his leg.
And then another hand, and another after that.
“This… what! Let go! Let go!”
Geumgwak began swinging his blade in panic.
“Patriarch! Come to your senses!”
His subordinates shouted, but the Patriarch continued swinging his blade at empty air. Then a sound came from behind.
“Aaaagh! What is happening?”
“Could you be… you?!”
Some of the subordinates were caught in the formation and began flailing about as well.
“Sorcery! It’s sorcery!”
“The Jegallim Family used sorcery!”
* * *
“Kuhehe, kuhehehehe! The formation is working perfectly.”
“Brother Jin. Isn’t this the kind of formation that only villains usually use?”
That was certainly true. Setting up such a formation and wearing that sinister grin—wasn’t that exactly what the villains in martial arts novels did?
Jin Cheon-hee spoke.
“Ah, what are you saying? Our Gae Pa Josa’s Waryong Seongsaeng personally created the Cheongi Miri Talhon Formation. What problem could there possibly be?”
Watching him completely change his expression as he asked, Namgung Un thought to himself.
‘This is why everyone is wary of the Jegallim Family.’
In the past, the Jegallim Family had overseen the Righteous Faction between the political and private spheres.
According to what the elders of the Namgung Family said, the Jegallim Family didn’t hesitate to employ such suspicious formations, and depending on the Patriarch, they didn’t even care about others’ perceptions.
Whether it was because of the Hyeonwon Jeondan Singeong or something else, they shared a world unto themselves.
People from other families were from a different world.
There was always a peculiar sense of isolation that kept others at a distance.
Meanwhile, Jin Cheon-hee, whether because his blood didn’t connect him to that world or due to his nature, never deliberately rejected others.
Instead, there existed a sensation as if he simply isolated himself alone from the world.
They appeared similar, but the two were entirely different matters.
Jin Cheon-hee murmured while observing his opponent from a distance.
“Indeed, the formation my Master taught me is truly the greatest under heaven.”
A disciple’s trust in his Master is absolute.
Because it kept manifesting before their eyes, it could be nothing else. Meanwhile, Namgung Un felt the fine hairs on his arms stand on end.
Any ordinary person would feel such a sensation.
Sama Hyeon spoke.
“Right? Hyeong, already hundreds have collapsed. Isn’t it terrifying?”
Sama Hyeon actually affirmed what his older brother had accomplished.
He had watched Jin Cheon-hee since childhood.
Someone had risked their life fighting for him.
It was the first and the last. Only one person.
Rather, Sama Hyeon had grown accustomed to even the bizarre madness in what Jin Cheon-hee had unleashed.
After all, his older brother was the one who sustained his younger brother’s world.
Jin Cheon-hee spoke without blinking his blue eyes.
“Do you know what’s terrifying about the Cheongi Miri Talhon Formation?”
“What is it, Hyeong?”
“It drains the inner force of those caught in the formation to sustain and further strengthen itself.”
Saying so, he crunched on the Milgok Dan. It wasn’t a sight to behold while eating.
But the reason Jin Cheon-hee ate it was because it was efficient.
To maintain his stamina with a body that wasn’t boneless in the battles to come, he had to eat.
Sama Hyeon took out another Milgok Dan and handed it to his older brother.
“Ah, so those caught in it will all collapse from exhaustion?”
Soon after, Namgung Un let out a deep sigh and opened his mouth.
For some reason, those around him didn’t realize he was strange.
Or perhaps they knew but had simply grown accustomed to it.
But surely one person with a shred of sanity was needed by his side.
“Jin, younger brother. Have some water. You’ll get indigestion if you keep crunching on Milgok Dan like that.”
“Ah, yes, yes.”
Only then did I take a sip of water from the canteen.
My appearance had become considerably more human than before.
Namgung Un continued speaking.
“And it seems there are those who’ve escaped the formation. What’s the situation with them?”
“Those with strong willpower can break free. Or people who know something about formations. For those types, we need to give them something different.”
“Those things?”
Namgung Un pointed to the supplies behind us.
“Yes. Noeji, work hard for me today. Over a thousand people came just to kill one person, so these folks need a lesson too.”
“What kind of lesson.”
“Ah, a lesson that money doesn’t buy everything. A lesson for those high-ranking people who hired them—that money doesn’t make everything possible.”
Money doesn’t buy everything.
Money doesn’t make everything possible.
There’s a strangely poetic rhythm to it.
Squawk!
Sama Hyeon loaded numerous items onto Noeji’s feet as if he’d been waiting for this moment.
The items were all wrapped in paper, and their contents weren’t clearly visible.
After enlarging his body, Noeji easily grasped them all in his massive talons.
I stroked Noeji’s beak.
“Go on now.”
Squeak~
In that instant, Noeji kicked off the cliff and soared into the air.
* * *
Heukdo Eokmu.
He was a member of the Blood Shadow Pavilion and a fairly renowned assassin.
‘Dark world, dark world, dark dark world!’
…An assassin, but in truth a spy for the Demonic Sect.
He had come under orders from the Patriarch of the Blood Shadow Pavilion, though not specifically to kill Ilgwang—rather, he’d come to scout the situation.
He too had been caught by the formation, but he used a technique to artificially distort the formation’s energy and temporarily escape.
He was able to break free from the formation’s influence.
“Aaaaagh! Aagh! Aagh!”
“Who is it! Who! You, you, you—aaaaagh!”
Behind him, assassins from the Blood Shadow Pavilion frantically swung their blades at empty air.
Fortunately for them, the Blood Shadow Pavilion used short swords in their martial arts.
Because of this, they had fewer instances of harming each other compared to other assassin groups.
‘Ilgwang has set a devilish trap.’
The Demonic Sect naturally had formation masters of their own.
They installed formations specifically designed to bewitch people, tearing apart humanity itself to shreds.
He’d heard that those caught in the bewilderment formations created by Demonic Sect formation masters would lose themselves and become idiots.
‘The Demonic Sect’s formations are fundamentally different from this. Yet the effects are similar. But this doesn’t turn people into idiots or steal their sense of self.’
To put it bluntly, it’s a counterfeit… the Cheonma Miok Formation.
Looking at the effects alone, it resembles the Demonic Sect’s Miok Formation, but it’s fundamentally different. And the ultimate purpose of the formation technique differs as well.
‘The only advantage is that it maintains its effect far longer.’
Normally, multiple shamans would need to participate, ringing bells continuously while channeling their inner force and releasing the souls of people. None of that is happening here.
‘What on earth is the driving force behind this formation? It doesn’t seem to have a spiritual mountain capable of sustaining such a technique.’
Suddenly, I began to notice the swordsmen falling one by one.
‘Ah, this is?! Could it be?’
A system that drains people’s inner force itself to maintain the formation?!
This was a method rarely seen even in the Demonic Sect.
At that moment, something fell from the sky.
Eokmu reflexively swung his blade and shattered it.
Boom!
Something exploded as if it had been waiting for this moment.
‘What is this? A smoke bomb?’
It resembles what assassins use when escaping. But something feels different.
In that instant, Eokmu hastily held his breath.
But it was too late.
He felt his head throb with a dull ringing.
“Ugh! Poison! My… my inner force won’t move…! Kugh!”
In that moment, his body collapsed limply.
A supreme sleeping poison.
That wasn’t all. The other survivors of the formation also inhaled the poison mist and began collapsing one after another.
Vision darkening in an instant.
Beyond my eyelids, only the piercing cry of a hawk—kiiiii!—echoed.
* * *
“Wow… Hyeong. That’s genuinely vicious.”
Sama Hyeon looked delighted.
“Haha. Whoever controls the skies controls the battlefield!”
In my old Earth, they used the term “rebound” more often instead of controlling the skies, but it hardly matters.
We’re not playing basketball in the Central Plains, after all.
“Right. How could anyone possibly defend against poison pellets falling from overhead?”
Three against thousands.
It could only become one-sided violence.
Rather, it was like a short-distance sprint where whoever reached Jin Cheon-hee first and took his head would be the victor.
Moreover.
‘Ilgwang doesn’t kill people. If they fall to the two guards, that’s one thing, but if they fall to Ilgwang alone, I won’t die.’
I might experience pain worse than death, but they hadn’t heard even that much.
To assassins who made their living killing people, Ilgwang was a weakling.
With approximately two thousand assassins gathering to take the head of such a person, they had no choice but to compete to go first.
“Noeji. Let’s go! It’s the second round!”
Chirp, chirp!
Noeji was delighted.
Lately, I had felt my presence growing dim compared to Hwang-gu.
But now, in this very moment, I had become the morning star.
‘Everyone is watching me!’
Even around my neck hung the jeweled necklace that Sama Hyeon had given me.
I had grown fond of Sama Hyeon.
Chirrrrrp!
I flew with greater vigor than usual, scattering toxic smoke in all directions.
Dozens fell with each pass I made.
It was truly a combination of formation technique and toxic smoke.
“Hahaha. This is what formation defense truly is, you fools!”
Then I borrowed a golden fan from Sama Hyeon and waved it while shouting.
“Southeast wind, blow! Carry the toxic smoke and poison them all!”
Southeast wind?!
Whether by coincidence or because I had observed the terrain and season before arriving, the southeast wind was indeed blowing.
A situation no one had noticed until Jin Cheon-hee mentioned it.
Namgung Un spoke with an exasperated expression.
“Jin Aou is someone you must never make an enemy of.”
“Krahaha! Gae Pa Josa, behold! The southeast wind!”
It seemed as though Zhuge Liang, looking down from the immortal realm, would be thinking something like ‘That’s not how it works…’
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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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