Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 898
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
Chapter 898
‘For a formation similar to the Soul Transfer Technique designed in the manor, the interior isn’t particularly complex.’
Moreover, night-luminescent pearls were embedded inside, making it easy to see within.
And then.
[Brother… don’t look.]
Cheonwoo’s telepathic voice trembled.
[Brother, you shouldn’t see this. It’s fine, so…]
Anger and faint fear colored his transmission.
Sama Hyeon, however, made no attempt to stop me.
As if he had predicted how I would act.
He simply stared at the scene before us.
[It’s alright, Cheonwoo.]
I pushed forward despite Cheonwoo’s protests.
Brushing aside my younger brother’s firm arm.
And what I saw beyond his shoulder was truly a horrific sight.
The first thing I felt was the stench that only humans could produce.
Not the smell of rot, but the distinctive reek born from human blood and flesh.
The scene before me was like what one might see in a butcher shop.
Except what hung there were not cattle or pigs, but humans.
People hung from hooks like meat in a butcher’s display.
Someone was extracting blood from a neck as one would draw blood from cattle, while the Goein on the other side were dragging down human corpses and butchering them into pieces by section.
Cheonwoo retched in disgust.
I pressed an acupoint on Cheonwoo to suppress his nausea.
If sound was heard here, we would be discovered.
Cheonwoo’s eyes expressed gratitude.
[How do you two endure this?]
[This isn’t our first time. Of course… it was never this extreme.]
I exhaled quietly.
Perhaps it was because I had witnessed humans tormenting other humans before.
There was still a minimum level of respect.
Of course, one could ask how ‘respect’ could exist when humans were being offered to the Hyeolseon, but at least they weren’t treated like pork laid out in a butcher’s shop.
That was an entirely different matter.
Species.
The way an entirely different species treated another species.
Any human would feel revulsion at this sight.
Only then did I truly comprehend it.
‘Ah, so Master fought against beings like this.’
They had said it.
That Blood Girin had killed everyone.
That they hadn’t plundered the merchant caravan, but he came first and swept them all away.
They felt wronged about why they had attacked first.
Moreover, they found it strange that Master had not negotiated with them in any way.
It was only natural.
If they treated people as they would cattle and pigs, then Jegalling would simply treat them as harmful creatures to be eliminated.
If the other side treated them like livestock, then we would treat them like bears or tigers.
No one negotiates with bears and tigers before subjugating them.
It was impossible to ask a tiger to leave this mountain.
So we would simply slay the remaining one to protect humanity.
The large cauldron before us brimmed with blood.
The corpses of people gathered this way were loaded onto carts and pushed into the top of a massive alchemical furnace.
Inside the furnace, azure flames flickered intensely, and through the elongated spout attached below, a thick liquid dripped down in tiny drops.
It was not blood.
It appeared to be material for some kind of elixir or mystical pill made from humans.
The amount was extremely small compared to the number of humans being processed.
Yet it seemed the sworn brothers had arrived at a critical moment, for the jar was quite full.
One of the Goe-eo-in came and removed the jar, then placed an empty one in its stead.
Taking the jar filled with essence, they moved to an adjacent area and mixed it with a certain powder to create pills.
Only ten pills were made.
With these newly created pills, they moved to another location.
Suppressing the rage that made me want to crush that Goe-eo-in’s head immediately.
The three of us moved stealthily across the ceiling, pursuing the one carrying the pills.
Entering another chamber, we found a suspicious altar.
Goe-eo-in wearing Taoist robes received the pills and placed them upon the altar.
Then they began prayers and incantations in a language humans could not comprehend.
And then.
A bizarre aura rose from the entire altar and began to settle upon the pills.
We observed for a while, but could not tell when it would end.
Perhaps we would have to wait for a long time.
[Hyeong. These bastards….]
[How long have these creatures been here? And why are we only finding out now?]
In the past, the Goe-eo-in were a type of mermaid mentioned in the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
So they were merely one of the legends passed down in the region.
Now such legends had openly crawled onto land and were devouring people.
Of course, they must have eaten people in the past as well.
After wiping out small villages and making it look like a flood, or attacking ships without anyone knowing, they had kidnapped merchants and done these things.
Having hidden themselves as legend, they were now doing it openly.
There had to be a reason.
‘Perhaps… it is simply because Heavenly Fortune has vanished.’
I considered the worst possibility.
Heavenly Fortune might have been the shackle that bound the non-human races.
When those disappeared, it’s possible that Rakshasa, Dragon Scale People, and Goe-eo-in emerged in their place.
‘From Jicheon Cheonma… Dragon Scale People, Rakshasa, and Goe-eo-in never appeared before.’
Thinking that far, my chest felt heavy and suffocated, as if I’d swallowed something indigestible.
Sama Hyeon sent a secret transmission.
[Hyeong. At this point, isn’t it less about Hyeolseonggyo destroying the world and more about the world being destined to collapse?]
[Hmm?]
[If you’re not there, it falls because of Hyeolseonggyo. If you are there, it falls because of foreign races. Either way, the ending is catastrophe, right?]
A refreshing perspective.
But it was difficult to find words to refute it.
In the original Jicheon Cheonma, even after Yeo Ha-ryun’s ascension, Hyeolseonggyo remained.
Though it was described that the Leader was killed, these creatures were capable of the Soul Transfer Technique, so I couldn’t be certain they were truly eliminated.
Based on surface-level descriptions alone, it seemed like they were genuinely dead.
But Yeo Ha-ryun hadn’t learned sorcery, and even colleagues with some expertise in that field had fallen to the Blood Sect and perished.
The world was filled with war, plague, and famine, and an apocalyptic age arrived where people devoured one another.
So Yeo Ha-ryun killed the wicked.
Yet the world did not return through killing.
Yeo Ha-ryun was a slayer sent by heaven, but murder could not dispel war, plague, and starvation.
‘A cruel tale. It means that a single wandering swordsman cannot change the world.’
No matter how much one builds sandcastles trying to transform the world, a single wave eventually sweeps them away.
That was Gangho, and that was the apocalypse.
Sama Hyeon spoke.
[So Hyeong, it’s because of me that the heavenly mandate scattered! How agonizing! All the time I spent saving lives was actually meaningless, just a mechanism to bring forth more suffering. I cannot escape the heavenly mandate—don’t go digging holes in the ground.]
[… I’ve never spoken like that.]
When Jin Cheon-hee sent a disgruntled transmission, Sama Hyeon chuckled softly.
[Hyeong, does the world look tilted to your eyes right now?]
He already knew.
My Heart Demon, and its signs.
After all, this one had already sensed something strange about me back at Oh Dok-mun’s place.
[It’s tilted a little, but it’s still fine. This isn’t a situation where humans are killing humans.]
There are traitors among mankind, but at its core, this is a war of species.
[That’s a relief. Surprisingly, you’re quite composed about these things~]
Only then did Jin Cheon-hee realize.
Sama Hyeon had been worried that I might collapse under my Heart Demon in this situation.
Even the exaggerated mimicry was ultimately meant to ease my tension.
Dispersing the Heart Demon before it accumulated, entering first to scatter it away.
Jin Cheon-hee sighed softly.
[More than that, I’m worried about you two. The opponent is strong.]
I trained both of them with all my strength, but even so, they’re different from something overwhelmingly powerful like Cheon Sal-seong.
And even Cheon Sal-seong’s might sometimes fails to work.
That’s why I worried about my younger sister.
[Hmm, yes. It seems the two of you had quite the conversation without me.]
Cheonwoo’s expression turned sullen.
He’d clearly noticed that the two of them were communicating through voice transmission alone.
[Ah, we were just talking about something that happened long ago.]
[Since I saw you using voice transmission instead of the Six Harmonies Unified Form, I figured as much. And this is something I shouldn’t hear about, isn’t it?]
[Ahahaha….]
I laughed awkwardly.
Cheonwoo spoke.
[From here on, let’s split up and search. The longer we take, the more likely they’ll notice us.]
I nodded in agreement.
[Good. That’s better. But I’m telling you again—be careful not to get caught. That Taha-pa was a formidable fighter. And since this is his lair, he’ll be even stronger here.]
[Gaga~ Don’t worry, Master. Who are we? We’re the ones who have the most terrifying master in the world when it comes to the Art of Stealth.]
[Are you talking about me?]
Sama Hyeon laughed playfully.
Just a few words.
With those few words, he’d suppressed my heart demon.
‘He has the courage to ignore what the Gangho points at, yet he loves humanity itself with terrible intensity.’
Despite claiming to like the Gangho but dislike its people.
When you look at what he actually does, they’re things that can only be done out of love.
Strong yet tender, tender yet strong.
‘At least he won’t need to torment himself needlessly now~ If he came all this way only to second-guess his path, that would be troublesome~ That’s a direct carriage to the heart demon.’
And from Sama Hyeon’s perspective, whether you do nothing or do something, if it’s a mess either way, isn’t it better to do something?
After all, wasn’t the situation objectively better than the future he saw in that other world?
Because Hye-a was alive. Hye-a was alive.
Just by her being at his side.
Just by being able to do what he wanted and complain that he was too busy these days.
Sama Hyeon could confidently say this world was better.
‘For a while, he won’t agonize over this~’
In peacetime, you could endure a heart demon by taking medicine, but not here.
‘The Hyeolseonggyo isn’t good for mental health~’
He’d said he was a villain determined by heaven.
Whether it was because his nature was made evil, or thanks to that, he remained cold about such matters.
‘More than anything, Cheonwoo hyeong is holding up better than expected.’
Cheonwoo hyeong didn’t seem like a villain bestowed by heaven at all.
‘From the look in his eyes, he seems like someone who was brought back to life because of hyeong… someone who shouldn’t have existed originally…? Just like Hye-a.’
Sama Hyeon stopped his thoughts there and moved on.
Thus all three of them scattered in different directions.
I decided to search the office first—the place where these dan pills were made.
Sama Hyeon and Cheonwoo melted into the darkness and disappeared.
I moved immediately.
Several rooms.
Following the movements of the Goein, I eventually arrived at what appeared to be an administrative office.
‘Even if the language is different, there’s no way I could understand it anyway….’
No Goein were visible in the surrounding area.
The empty office contained stacks of documents written on bamboo strips rather than paper.
I quickly pulled them out and examined them one by one.
As expected, I suppose.
They were written in an unfamiliar language.
Given enough time, I might be able to decipher them, but there were far too many to carry away.
That was when my observational prowess, honed by the Hyeonwon Jeondan Singeong, detected something peculiar.
-That one, that one.
-See? Isn’t it strange?
The small Jin Cheon-hees whispered in my mind.
Turning my gaze, I spotted a paper book wedged among the bamboo strips.
It was an old, worn volume.
Upon closer inspection, the front section was extremely aged, and toward the back, new paper had been patched on to reinforce it—a detail that caught my eye.
Though the cover bore no characters, when I opened it, the text was written in the Imperial language.
‘This is… a diary.’
I rapidly turned the pages.
Rustle—
My speed-reading was so fast that it looked less like reading a book and more like playing a game of turning pages.
As I read through the text….
Quite fascinating passages were written there.
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————