Chapter 168
Chapter 168
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 168
Chapter Title: If You Receive One, Return Ten (3)
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Puk!
Jong Riyeon carefully inserted the final silver needle. The target of her needle was none other than Damho.
Damho was in such a ruined state that one could scarcely bear to look at him with eyes open. His chest had a hole punched through it the size of a child's fist, and his side bore another massive gash so deep that his entrails were fully visible.
On top of that, he had wounds all over that would have killed any ordinary person several times over. The mere fact that he was still alive with such injuries felt like a miracle.
For this Damho, Jong Riyeon employed a secret acupuncture technique known as the Soul-Returning Vital Needle Grand Method.
The Soul-Returning Vital Needle Grand Method was one of her secret arts, a technique that consumed an enormous amount of inner energy and thus was rarely used. But Damho's condition was so dire that she had cast it despite the burden.
'I've done everything I can. All that's left is to watch.'
Even after deploying the Soul-Returning Vital Needle Grand Method, she couldn't guarantee Damho's recovery. Though she had walked the path of a physician since childhood, she had never once seen a patient covered head to toe in wounds as fatal as his.
'It won't be easy.'
Jong Riyeon sat by Damho's side, watching him intently for a long while.
At first, there was no change whatsoever. Just as Jong Riyeon was about to give up,
Chiiik!
Damho's entire body flushed red-hot as if thrust into a blast furnace. Sweat rose from him in steaming vapors.
"What?"
Jong Riyeon widened her eyes at the sight she had never witnessed before.
The steam emanating from Damho's body reeked foully, enough to induce headaches in anyone who caught the scent.
As an exceptional physician, Jong Riyeon quickly assessed Damho's condition.
'Evidence that the accumulated toxins and waste in his body are being expelled.'
The problem was that no such phenomenon occurred with the Soul-Returning Vital Needle Grand Method. That technique was merely an emergency measure to fan the flickering embers of his waning vitality.
The heat radiating from Damho's entire body grew ever more intense as time passed. Jong Riyeon had to distance herself from him because of it.
Drip, drip!
Waste poured from Damho's pores, while pus and dead blood oozed from his horrifically torn wounds.
It was a recovery beyond belief, even seeing it with her own eyes.
'Did the Soul-Returning Vital Needle Grand Method have some hidden effect I didn't know about? No, that method merely adds a single drop of oil to a dying ember. It's this man's strength... the heart method he cultivates that's healing him on its own.'
Inside Damho's body, the Dark Soul Divine Art was at work.
The Dark Soul Divine Art, built upon the foundation of Mount Hua's Midheaven Heart Canon and infused with demonic cult methods, stimulated Damho's innate vital energy.
Innate vital energy was the primal life force humans possessed from birth. Those born with strong innate vital energy grew robust without frequent illnesses, while the weak-born suffered frail bodies and myriad diseases, often meeting early deaths.
Fortunately, Damho's innate vital energy was exceptionally potent. The Dark Soul Divine Art strongly stimulated it.
Like wielding violence, it battered the innate vital energy to forcibly activate it. United with the Dark Soul Divine Art, the innate true energy slowly restored Damho's ravaged flesh.
Watching this scene, Jong Riyeon shook her head slowly.
In her lifetime as a physician, she had never heard or seen such formidable regenerative power.
"The Lone Blossom Style, was it? What an absurd sect's birth. Strength like that, plus recovery power."
Jong Riyeon let out a sigh and stepped outside.
There was nothing more she could do now.
"Divine Physician, thank you truly. Thank you so much."
As she emerged, Kwak San bowed his head repeatedly.
Even in a situation where life hung by a thread, Jong Riyeon had remained unshaken and successfully administered the third Life-Death Soul-Separating Needle. Thanks to her, Kwak Yeon had barely clung to life.
No one knew better than Kwak San how perilous the situation had been. Thus, he felt gratitude toward Jong Riyeon beyond words.
"I've removed the root of the affliction, but he's not fully recovered yet. Make him drink the herbal decoction exactly as I prescribed. At minimum, for three months."
"Don't worry, miss. I can procure all the herbs you prescribed."
"And leave this place immediately. If the Nangong Clan learns a bloodbath occurred here, they won't let it slide."
"And you, miss?"
"I need to watch over that man a bit longer."
Jong Riyeon glanced subtly toward Damho inside the straw hut. He was still deep in meditation, with no telling when it might end.
"Then we'll stay too, miss."
"No need."
"But..."
"I'm a physician. A physician can't abandon a patient and flee. Don't worry about me—take Yeon and go quickly. You can't let the life you barely saved go to waste."
"Understood."
In the end, Kwak San answered with difficulty.
For the past few years, he had lived in hardship to save Kwak Yeon. Now that the hellish wait was over, he couldn't put her in danger again.
Ultimately, Kwak San took Kwak Yeon and left the straw hut. Jong Riyeon smiled as she watched the father and daughter depart.
But the smile faded quickly, replaced by a sigh as she moved. Her destination was the clearing behind the straw hut.
There stood a freshly made grave. It was Hwa No's tomb.
"Hwa No."
Jong Riyeon reached out and gently caressed the mound.
"Come to think of it, I never even learned Hwa No's real name. If I'd known, I should've nagged him to tell me sooner."
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
Her connection with Hwa No dated back three years.
At that time, her reputation as a physician was on the brink of ruin. On her way back from diagnosing a patient, she discovered Hwa No collapsed by an nameless lakeside.
Hwa No had sustained grievous wounds, his breathing faint and ragged. Jong Riyeon took him home and treated him.
Having barely saved his life, Hwa No thereafter appointed himself her protector and traveled with her. He lived without pretensions alongside Jong Riyeon but kept his past sealed tight, never revealing it.
All he had shared was the name Hwa No. But even that was likely not his true name.
She had always meant to find out someday, but now the chance to learn his real name was gone forever.
"Thank you for everything."
Jong Riyeon leaned against the mound, closed her eyes, and sat.
Damho's body trembled violently.
A sign that his meditation had reached its peak. Cold sweat poured ceaselessly from his entire body.
No outward signs showed it, but inside Damho's body, a fierce battle raged.
The Dark Soul Divine Art was exploding.
Until now under Damho's control, it now mingled with his innate vital energy and rampaged like a wild horse freed of its reins.
Damho abandoned attempts to control the Dark Soul Divine Art and simply observed. The more he forced it, the more violently it rebelled.
"Keuk!"
Instead, he gritted his teeth.
Enduring pain was what he did best. This level of agony was nothing he couldn't bear.
Damho endured, and endured again.
How much time passed? The madly rampaging inner energy of the Dark Soul Divine Art gradually calmed.
His overheated innate vital energy regained its composure and returned to its rightful place.
"Huu!"
Damho exhaled deeply and opened his eyes.
The first thing they fell upon was Jong Riyeon.
"Ah! You're awake."
Her large eyes reflected Damho's figure. Bewildered, Damho blinked for a moment.
Memories before his meditation resurfaced.
After slaughtering the entire Sword King Squad, Damho had been on the brink of death. At a point where he could have perished any instant. Had Jong Riyeon not applied the Soul-Returning Vital Needle Grand Method in time, his life truly would have been in peril.
"How many days was I meditating?"
"Today makes the third day."
Damho furrowed his brow at Jong Riyeon's answer.
Three days was ample time for the Nangong Clan to sense something amiss and dispatch an investigation team.
Damho rose.
His joints, stiffened from three days of meditation, screamed in protest.
"You can't move yet. Your internal injuries have stabilized somewhat, but the external ones aren't fully healed."
Ignoring Jong Riyeon's remonstrance, Damho glanced at his wounds.
As she said, the external injuries weren't healed. Scabs had just formed to staunch the bleeding. Any strain would rip them open and send blood flowing anew.
Yet Damho paid it no mind and stood. Excruciating pain shot up his spine, but he showed no sign of it.
"Sigh! So stubborn."
Jong Riyeon shook her head at the sight of him.
She had known he wasn't an ordinary man, but she hadn't realized his stubbornness ran this deep.
"No helping it. Put these on. It's the least damaged outfit from Uncle Kwak's clothes."
Jong Riyeon handed Damho a neatly folded garment.
The clothes Damho wore were shredded and tattered, barely covering his privates. He was all but naked.
Having handed him the clothes, Jong Riyeon flushed and turned away, stepping outside. After a brief wait, Damho emerged, changed into the clean attire.
The scenery outside, site of the battle, was utterly desolate. The corpses had been roughly cleared by Kwak San, so none remained, but bloodstains lingered everywhere, and flies buzzed thickly.
"Let's leave this place first."
Jong Riyeon spoke urgently.
She had been stuck here against her will because of Damho. She wanted to depart as soon as possible.
Damho nodded and whistled. Jong Riyeon eyed him suspiciously.
But her curiosity resolved quickly. Moments later, a pitch-black horse came galloping toward them like an arrow.
The black horse was Black Ghost. It arrived in an instant and nuzzled Damho's face affectionately.
Damho lightly patted Black Ghost's cheek.
Once Black Ghost had calmed, Damho said to Jong Riyeon,
"Get on!"
"You mean ride together right now?"
"If you don't like it, walk down yourself."
"Sigh!"
Jong Riyeon sighed and mounted Black Ghost, with Damho settling behind her.
"Go!"
Black Ghost kicked off madly and raced down the mountain.
"Aah!"
Jong Riyeon let out an involuntary cry at the fierce wind battering her body.
The rough gusts made it hard to even keep her eyes open. But as she grew accustomed, the surrounding landscape blurring past came into view.
She had no leisure to admire it, though. The potent masculine scent emanating from the man at her back overwhelmed her.
As a physician, she had met countless people, many men, but none exuded a presence as overpowering as Damho's.
The intense aroma teasing her nostrils left Jong Riyeon dazed. Her face burned red, her heart pounded wildly.
Jong Riyeon was glad Damho couldn't see her face.
***
Shortly after Damho departed, someone appeared at the straw hut.
A refined old man who appeared in his mid-to-late fifties.
His usually leisurely face was hardened like ironclad armor.
Before him loomed a large mound, seemingly freshly made.
Nangong Cheon flicked his hand lightly toward it. The soil of the mound parted to one side, pushed by an invisible force.
In the pit revealed beneath lay twenty corpses tangled together.
"The Sword King Squad annihilated."
The old man's name was Nangong Cheon, patriarch of the great Nangong Clan.
Unable to wait for the Sword King Squad's return, he had come himself.
En route, he had personally confirmed the deaths of thousands of others and the Sword King Squad. Now he verified that even these remnants had all been slain.
"Ha! Unbelievable. To think the Sword King Squad was wiped out by a single man."
His voice carried even a sense of emptiness.
The Nangong Clan's greatest defending force had vanished into nothing. By one man's hand.
No matter how mighty the Nangong Clan, rebuilding the Sword King Squad would take decades. For that long span, they would suffer a massive power vacuum. A truly fatal blow.
Moreover, Young Master Nangong Mujin's condition had worsened to the point where even a divine immortal could not save him.
"That bastard! I will kill him."
The Sword King Nangong Cheon burned with rage.