Emergency Protocol
Ouyang Qiangang eased himself out of Hwang Nodae's arms and leaned back against the wall. "I'm... I'm all right."
To Hwang Nodae, it was as if a man he had believed dead had returned to life. He recoiled in shock — and at the same time rejoiced until tears streamed down his face.
"Young Master! Thank heavens!"
Then Akasha's voice sounded within his mind.
Doctor, I just executed the emergency protocol. That was...
Explain the details later. I need to talk with Hwang Nodae right now.
Understood.
Hwang Nodae took Ouyang Qiangang's hand and channeled his internal power into the young man's body to assess his condition. Relief spread across his face — mixed with unmistakable bewilderment. The young master's body, which by all rights should have been teetering on the edge of death from grievous wounds, was impossibly intact. The flow of qi and blood was somewhat unstable, but there was no trace of fatal damage — no shattered organs, no severed meridians.
How strange... The assassin was without question a first-rate expert. How can he have escaped without a single internal or external wound?
Hwang Nodae was swept by a shock that went far beyond mere puzzlement. The masked man he had fought had been an unmistakable first-rate master, his palm force carrying destructive power enough to pulverize a boulder the size of a child's head. That an attack from such a man, taken head-on, had left not one cracked rib defied every scrap of common sense the murim possessed.
Hwang Nodae tilted his head, frowning. "Thank heaven you seem unharmed... I truly feared you had suffered grave injuries, Young Master."
Ouyang Qiangang said, his face pale, "I suppose I was lucky."
A heavy silence hung over the room, thick with the smell of blood and an indefinable tension. Ouyang Qiangang's face was ashen, yet his eyes alone were strangely clear and composed. Seeing him like that, Hwang Nodae felt his heart tremble.
His severed meridians keep it hidden, but the Young Master is no ordinary man. If the Lady were still alive, she would have been so proud of him...
Thinking of Ouyang Qiangang's mother, long dead, the old servant sighed inwardly.
Ouyang Qiangang asked in a calm voice, "The masked man came to kill me. Yet even though he failed, he withdrew. Did you drive him off, Nodae?"
Hwang Nodae had burst into the room only after Ouyang Qiangang lost consciousness, so he had witnessed none of the fight. "I did, Young Master."
"Then... you've been training in martial arts all along, Nodae?"
"Yes."
"I never imagined it."
The fierce aura that rage had kindled in Hwang Nodae subsided in an instant. His expression turned complicated, and for a moment he even avoided Ouyang Qiangang's gaze.
"Is there some story behind it? You don't need to hide anything from me."
Hwang Nodae let out a short sigh and lowered his head. "You must be curious, but the time has not yet come to tell you."
"Then when will that time come?"
"The day your Nine Yin Severed Meridians are completely cured, Young Master. On that day, I will tell you everything you wish to know."
"A complete cure... I might die before I ever hear it, you know."
"Please don't say such things, even in jest. You will never die young, Young Master. Never."
His voice carried unwavering loyalty — and the weight of a man harboring secrets he could not speak of.
It seems he is carrying some enormous secret.
No kidding. One thing's certain — this old man is no ordinary servant.
Ouyang Qiangang nodded. "Very well."
Realizing he could not break Hwang Nodae's resolve, he changed the subject. "Nodae, why would the masked man want me dead?"
"Hmm..."
"I've hardly ever set foot outside the family estate. Naturally, I've never made an enemy so deep that anyone in the murim would want me dead."
At his words, Hwang Nodae's eyes grew heavy. "Then... you suspect this was not the work of someone outside?"
"Yes. The odds that someone out there is desperate enough to kill me like this are low. In my view... the culprit is inside the main family."
That Ouyang Qiangang could size up the situation with such astonishing composure even after enduring all this left Hwang Nodae inwardly marveling.
Ouyang Qiangang asked, "Who inside the family would want me dead? If anyone has a guess, Nodae, it should be you."
Hwang Nodae's wrinkled face twisted with fury. "Then... there can be no doubt — it was Dong Yeon-hwa who sent the assassin!"
His feelings toward her were clearly bitter, for he called her by name rather than by the respectful title of "Madam."
Ouyang Qiangang frowned. "What makes you so certain it's her?"
"Only if you disappear from the line of succession can Dong Yeon-hwa's own son, the Second Young Master, ascend to the seat of Young Family Head. No one else comes to mind who would send assassins against you."
Deep conviction and barely contained fury rang together in Hwang Nodae's voice.
Ouyang Qiangang fell into thought for a moment.
Succession... On the surface it's a plausible motive, but something about it doesn't sit right.
I reach the same conclusion. If Dong Yeon-hwa truly wanted you dead, Doctor, she would have acted long ago — not on the very day Dong Ha-jin and Dong Seol-ah came to visit. She did not strike me as foolish enough to do something that would make herself the obvious suspect.
"Your reasoning makes sense, Nodae. But leaping to suspicion without solid proof is dangerous. It could bring hardship on the innocent — and worse, it could blind us to the real culprit."
Hwang Nodae panted, unable to fully smother his fury, but his face soon hardened with resolve. "You are right, Young Master. Then this old servant will find the evidence himself. I swear I will hunt down the villains who dared to take your life — and punish them with these very hands!"
The killing intent blazing from his eyes made the room feel several degrees colder.
"Hwang Nodae, please don't tell my parents about today. I don't want them worried."
"As you wish. They know now that I guard you, so they won't be foolish enough to send assassins again."
"Let's hope so."
"I'll take another look around the grounds. And I'll fetch a physician—"
"No physician needed. I'm truly fine."
Doubt still lingered in Hwang Nodae's eyes, but he asked nothing more. He bowed deeply and slipped quietly from the room.
Left alone, Ouyang Qiangang stared out at the darkness beyond the window, his eyes sunk deep in thought.
Then, without warning, his whole body began to shake.
"Ugh..."
He raised a hand and watched his fingertips quiver like a branch in the wind. His heartbeat was racing, too.
What is this?
Only when he was alone did he realize his body was reacting, belatedly, to the terror.
Ah. So this is a trauma response. Delayed shock, something like that?
Strangely enough, though, his heart was calm and his mind razor-sharp. His body trembled while his brain coolly dissected the situation — a bizarre disconnect between the two.
Akasha, can you see that I'm shaking right now?
Yes. It is a normal stress response following a life-threatening event.
Then why is my mind this clear? Shouldn't I be panicking in a situation like this?
Ah — that is because I activated a mode to shield you from psychological shock. Stress hormone regulation and neural stabilization protocols.
You could do that even with the system not fully activated?
I cannot control your body yet, but at the very least, I can protect your mind.
Thank you, Akasha. Without you, I'd be in a full-blown panic right now.
Think nothing of it. But the body's reaction is a natural one, so please don't force yourself to hold it in.
Ouyang Qiangang tried to take a sip of tea with his trembling hands and fumbled the cup.
So this really is the murim. Not just a story in a novel — a world where people truly kill and are killed.
Yes. It is a far more dangerous world than you imagined, Doctor.
I'm starting to see that. Back on Earth, this was the kind of thing I only ever saw on the news. I never imagined it would unfold in my own daily life...
He looked down at his still faintly trembling hand and gave a bitter smile.
By the way — how did you protect me from that palm strike? You told me yourself you were short on energy.
I used the trace amount of qi energy you had gathered through the Transcendent Heart Sutra to execute the emergency protocol.
Emergency protocol?
Yes. Deploying all one hundred thousand nanobots to construct a defensive barrier over the point of impact.
Ouyang Qiangang touched his chest as he spoke. I never expected my current level of internal power could move the nanobots.
To be honest, it surprised me as well. I never anticipated that this world's qi energy would be so compatible with the nanobot system. The nanobots operated as smoothly as if the world itself had been designed for them from the very beginning.
How effective was the defense, actually?
The nanobots reinforced your rib structure at the nanoscale and formed a multi-layered shock-absorbing membrane across your skin. In total, they neutralized 93% of the palm strike's destructive force.
Ouyang Qiangang said in genuine admiration, Ninety-three percent... That's far beyond the specs I originally designed. On Earth, that level was only theoretically possible.
This world's qi energy appears to maximize the nanobots' molecular bonding strength. Your original design, combined with this world's unique energy, produced a powerful synergy effect.
Interesting. So with enough energy, we could actually make something like the Invincible Vajra Body from the martial arts films a practical reality?
Theoretically, yes. But today's experiment confirmed one thing: with only trace amounts of qi energy, brief localized defense is our limit. If the masked man had attacked a second time, I could not have stopped it.
Hmm...
Sustained full-body reinforcement over long periods, or multi-layered total-body defense, would require vastly more energy.
Ouyang Qiangang's face fell with disappointment. Well, that's only natural...
Yes. Still, the encouraging part is that we have confirmed qi energy can control the nanobots perfectly. It means my system can operate without relying on any external power source.
So the more internal power I accumulate, the stronger you become too?
Precisely. Your martial training and the nanobot system now reinforce each other in a mutually amplifying structure. It is a truly ideal scenario.
Ouyang Qiangang clenched his fist. Then I need to focus everything on accumulating qi energy.
Yes. If we can secure a sufficient energy source, the complete Akasha system you originally envisioned can be realized in this world.
The complete form... My heart races just thinking about it.
Same here. It seems the dream you chased on Earth may finally come true here.
Ouyang Qiangang gazed out the window and murmured inwardly, The fusion of science and martial arts... A new path I could never even have imagined if I hadn't come here.
Today had been a dangerous day — and at the same time, a monumental one: the day he confirmed that infinite possibility lay before him.