Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 856

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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 856
A bell tolls.
Its sound spreads across the entire surroundings.
And I and my companions immediately climbed onto the roof of the Jin Ju-eonga estate.
Looking down, the people of Jin Ju-eonga stood motionless as if time itself had frozen.
“Wow. They were already pale as corpses, but now that their bodies are frozen too, they look just like dolls~”
“They look like broken wooden puppets, don’t they?”
Daaaaaang—
That bell was profane and unclean, and the moment one heard its toll, one’s hair stood on end.
At first, Cheonwoo and Sama Hyeon didn’t recognize the evil contained within it.
However.
After some time, merely hearing the bell’s sound began to send chills down their spines.
It was growing stronger with each toll.
“Is this only happening in the Jin Ju-eonga estate?”
“We need to check the situation first….”
The moment we left the estate, several people came into view.
They too stood frozen like statues or lay collapsed on the ground.
I immediately approached one of them and reached out my hand.
I grasped their wrist and felt for their pulse.
The body was ice-cold, and the muscles were rigid and hard.
There was no pulse, no sign of life.
A corpse.
My expression hardened.
“How is it, hyeong?”
“Dead. It’s a corpse. A very well-preserved one at that.”
Looking around, I could see people frozen in various poses.
Some had collapsed to the ground due to loss of balance, while others stood like statues.
All of them.
Corpses.
“If the people inside the estate were actually already dead…then, hyeong. What about the city?”
Cheonwoo’s question about whether the people of Donggang-si were safe. My eyes gleamed a sharp blue in the darkness.
“We’ll find out now. Noeji!”
Squeeee!
Noeji soared into the sky.
Blue lightning flickered across his body.
The spirit beast Noeji was also sensing the damp, sinister power contained within the bell’s toll.
“Let’s go.”
The three of us leaped onto the roof of the mansion.
Normally, martial arts disciples should have been stationed on the roofs for security.
Yet those disciples were frozen like machinery that had ceased to function.
“Did all of Jin Ju-eonga’s people really die?”
“Except for Eon Jeong-mu, they all showed signs of life.”
“That seemed to be an illusion.”
Sorcery potent enough to deceive the observational prowess of Hyeonwon Jeondan Singeong!
It was becoming clear.
Something bizarre was definitely happening.
The three of us fled Jin Ju-eonga’s residence at full speed.
Then we headed toward a large inn located just near Ju-eonga’s estate.
Since no one walked the streets at night, we went to the inn to confirm if there were any living people.
Upon arriving there, the three of us and the two spirit beasts discovered that all the people had collapsed.
“This is!”
I rushed forward like the wind and grabbed the people.
“Phew….”
Fortunately, they weren’t dead.
They had simply fallen asleep, and there didn’t appear to be any injuries.
“Hyeon-a, check the kitchen. Cheonwoo, you check the guest rooms.”
“Okay~”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Both of them scattered quickly.
I took the pulse of each person in the inn’s dining hall.
They were all ordinary.
People with slightly poor livers, digestive disorders, athlete’s foot, and other minor ailments.
Yet all of them were asleep.
데에에엥—!
Then the bell sound rang out again.
In that moment, I could feel it.
Whoooosh!
The life force was being drained from the bodies of the sleeping people!
That life force was flowing directly toward the direction where the bell sound originated.
‘Absorption Technique!? No. This is… sorcery. Sorcery that drains life force! Not all at once, but gradually taking it away. Does the bell sound put people to sleep while simultaneously absorbing their life force?’
I understood the situation instantly just by observing it.
The moment I reached my conclusion, I didn’t hesitate.
“First, we need to stop that bell sound.”
“Brother! Everyone in the kitchen is asleep too! Fortunately, no one’s dead or injured~”
“Everyone in the guest rooms is just asleep, brother!”
Sama Hyeon burst out and spoke.
“But what is this? It really looks like sorcery… Can anyone figure out what’s going on? Third brother, have you ever seen anything like this?”
Cheonwoo answered.
“I’ve never encountered such evil before.”
“Hmm~ Really~? There must be some truly wicked person out there.”
Sama Hyeon smiled with a languid expression.
Cheonwoo clenched and unclenched his fists, as if he had made some resolve.
And to both of them, I shared the facts I had just discovered.
That the bell’s ringing was putting people to sleep and stealing their vitality.
“I knew something was suspicious about this.”
“For the Jin Ju-eonga clan to commit such evil deeds… and they claim to be a righteous faction family!”
“Well… even a righteous faction can fall into corruption in an instant.”
I spoke bitterly while gazing out the window.
“But the real question is why they chose to act at this exact moment when we arrived. It’s certainly a trap, but why now of all times?”
My eyes gleamed a brilliant blue.
First, I had to stop the bell’s ringing.
If the bell continued to sound, people would die one by one.
It was at that moment.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
It was a slightly faint vibration.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
And that vibration began to grow increasingly intense.
Gonnnnng!
The bell rang once.
Boom! Boom!
The vibrations grew even more violent.
My sworn brothers burst out of the inn immediately.
There, an unbelievable sight unfolded before us.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Jiangshi corpses.
Their arms held rigidly horizontal and their legs equally stiff, unable to bend properly.
The jiangshi corpses approached, bouncing and hopping on their rigid legs—and their numbers were beyond counting.
“Wow. The Jin Ju-eonga clan, were they planning a rebellion or something?”
“Heterodox cultivators from the Sama lineage…”
As Sama Hyeon and Cheonwoo spoke.
My gaze turned toward where the bell’s ringing echoed.
“Let’s go, you two.”
I had to stop that bell.
Before those jiangshi corpses reached us.
Otherwise, we would be swept away by the wave of corpses pouring in.
* * *
The jiangshi corpses appearing from all directions of the city did not attack the living who slept.
Had they attempted to kill the living, I would not have been able to move so freely either.
What the group saw as they rushed toward the Jin Ju-eonga clan like arrows was jiangshi corpses that moved like humans, unlike those outside.
“Kaaaaaaa!”
“Damn!”
But it seemed to lack reason.
It charged forward with a terrible shriek.
“Hwang-gu!”
“Grrrrrowl!”
Hwang-gu bolted forward first.
In an instant, his body swelled to enormous size, and as he swung his front paws, the charging corpses scattered like bowling pins.
All of them had their limbs broken and shattered from the impact alone, as if they’d suffered fatal wounds.
However.
The corpses still writhed, as though their lives hadn’t been extinguished.
“Wow~ These things are different from the ones outside?”
“They’re not ghost corpses, yet they move like humans… It seems Jin Ju-eonga has developed some kind of technique.”
“Destroy the head! That’s their weakness!”
“I’m already aware of that. Gaga~”
Sama Hyeon’s finger pierced through the forehead of Jin Ju-eonga’s servant—or rather, what had now clearly become a corpse.
Crack.
His hand, tempered harder than steel, crushed the skull without needing any inner force.
Whoosh.
As his finger withdrew, the corpse with a hole through its forehead collapsed.
“Gloves really are important~ No need to get dirty with filth, you know~”
Sama Hyeon pulled his black gloves up to his wrist, then grinned wickedly and threw himself into battle.
In an instant, his hands mercilessly punched holes through the corpses’ heads.
Crack!
In contrast, Cheonwoo was crushing each corpse’s skull one by one with his massive, thick fists.
Boom!
Even without using inner force, Cheonwoo’s monstrous strength alone shattered skulls in a single blow, turning the brains inside to mush.
Truly the wondrous skill worthy of being called the Power King!
Such results couldn’t come from mere strength alone.
His control of power was so exquisite it bordered on the miraculous.
Martial arts comprehended while dancing between life and death.
That martial mastery had transformed Cheonwoo into an incarnation of destruction.
And.
I passed between my two younger brothers.
Cheonwoo watched my afterimage and thought.
It was like the brushstroke of a master painter.
The sword path I created drew a sharp arc, freezing the air itself.
Whoosh!
“Whew~ Our older brother shows no mercy~”
“Corpses aren’t human. There’s no need for restraint.”
My blue eyes gleamed coldly.
Even without betting my life on it, the Bing Jeong Sword, which belongs to the Shinbyeong school, can slice through metal and stone like tofu.
With merely a light movement, the corpse’s brow is pierced clean through.
In an instant, dozens of those who rushed out from within Jin Ju-eonga collapsed in that manner.
“Phew… How many people does Jin Ju-eonga have?”
“From what I know, roughly two thousand live there? Including Gasol and the servants.”
“If the Youngest Brother is right, those corpses coming from outside the city have probably been prepared for a long time.”
Cheonwoo dusted off his fists as he acknowledged Sama Hyeon’s words.
The corpses that had collapsed after entering Jin Ju-eonga were one thing, but corpses were now swarming toward this residence, surrounding the entire city.
In truth, if escape were the goal, it wouldn’t be impossible.
Just by mounting Hwang-gu’s back and sprinting at full speed, even those at the Donggang-si level couldn’t stop us.
It’s said that even Donggang-si corpses are barely affected by blades without qi infused in them, but they’re still inferior to Hwang-gu.
But.
If that were the case, what would become of the city’s people?
Should I turn away from them right before my eyes and flee?
“Tsk. Those Jin Ju-eonga bastards… no matter how I look at it, they seem to be colluding with Hyeolseonggyo and doing dirty work… Hyeong. You’re not going to retreat like this, are you?”
This was no longer a matter of martial arts sects.
Wouldn’t it be a situation where even if the garrison soldiers stormed in and slaughtered them all, there’d be nothing to say?
No. We don’t even need to involve the garrison soldiers.
‘Whether it’s the Olyun Society or the Martial Arts Alliance, Jin Ju-eonga should be designated and subjugated as a public enemy of Gangho.’
Thousands upon thousands of Donggang-si corpses!
Where on earth did they obtain that many corpses?
Looking at their clothing, they were all different.
Most of the corpses wore tattered and worn clothes, which clearly indicated they were people who had lived with nothing.
Commoners.
Could it be they killed all of them and turned them into corpses?
A cold wind rose like a blade through Jin Cheon-hee’s hair.
My will responds to the deep anger.
Sama Hyeon observed this quietly.
‘Perhaps this is Hyeong’s true nature.’
Even until earlier, the exaggerated gestures of waving my arms back and forth, the appearance of a Doctor obsessed with cooking.
It occurred to him that perhaps these were all smokescreens to hide this true self.
“Hyeon-a. If Master were the Golden King, he would have retreated, wouldn’t he?”
“Mm~ If Master were, then yes.”
“But if Master were Elder Gwon Je, he wouldn’t have run away.”
“That’s right. Master would have told us to follow the Way. He would have clenched his fists first while speaking of that as chivalry.”
“Wow~ The Third Prince only makes me out to be the bad one.”
“Sorry, Hyeon-a.”
My eyes blazed like blades.
“Do you want to turn back?”
“Leave Hyeong here? Wow, do I look like that kind of person~?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. That’s when you say thank you instead~”
Something felt strange.
The children I had raised.
The children I had trained with just recently were now asking me to go with them.
Even knowing it was dangerous, even knowing they might die.
My chest felt oddly warm.
Brothers. Family.
These weren’t words I was accustomed to.
“Yes. Thank you.”
Did my Master foresee this far ahead?
Sending those two together wasn’t merely for their martial prowess alone.
I turned my head.
Dong-dong-dong—
The bell’s sound was ringing from deep within.
“Let’s go. We need to stop the bell before the Donggang-si soldiers arrive.”
Then I looked at Hwang-gu.
“And I’m not just asking you to come either. Hwang-gu!”
Woof woof!
“Full sprint!”
Boom!
Tangible energy began flowing from Hwang-gu’s entire body.
The ultimate weapon I had raised and fed!

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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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