Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 110

The head nun’s body began to heave.

To an uninformed observer, it might have looked like a grand mal seizure.

Kang Jin-ho’s hand remained glued to the head nun’s stomach.

He stared at the convulsing head nun with a blank expression, but inside, he was incredibly anxious.

‘This is dangerous.’

The head nun’s insides were filled with poison.

He didn’t know how this situation would be medically classified, but from a martial arts perspective, it was a miracle she was still alive.

‘Don’t get agitated.’

Kang Jin-ho pulled his hand away and stepped back.

“Haaaah…”

Even though she was supposed to be in a deep sleep from the sedative, a deep sigh escaped the head nun’s lips.

‘It’s worse than I thought.’

He never thought it would be easy. He even considered it might be impossible. But seeing the head nun’s body up close left him feeling stunned.

Unless a master of medicine and martial arts, someone on par with a legendary physician, came along, no one would even think of trying to treat her. But there was no such physician here, and no one else to treat the head nun in his stead.

‘Even if a legendary physician came, could they cure someone that modern medicine has given up on?’

It was an unprovable proposition.

And now was not the time to look for someone who wasn’t there. This was something only Kang Jin-ho could do, and something he had to do.

Kang Jin-ho took a deep breath.

‘My mastery should have been a little higher.’

He regretted neglecting his martial arts training, thinking it wasn’t that necessary in the modern world. It might not have made a huge difference, but it would have been better than his current state.

He knew that these distracting thoughts were due to fear.

The fear of not being able to cure her.

The fear of facing his own powerlessness.

Kang Jin-ho’s life had always been a battle against fear. He pushed aside the familiar yet unwelcome fear and placed his hand on the head nun’s stomach.

His fingertips tingled.

His body, sensing the bad energy, warned him to pull his hand away. But Kang Jin-ho gritted his teeth and slowly channeled his energy into her.

The head nun’s body began to heave again. The energy entering from the outside was colliding with the poison inside, causing a massive shock.

‘Please, hold on.’

It was his fight, but it was also the head nun’s fight.

Kang Jin-ho closed his eyes to avoid being distracted by what he was seeing and focused on his energy.

The energy he channeled approached the massive clump of poison.

He could feel the dark poison clumped in the center and the poison spreading around it. It seemed the metastasis had already begun.

‘Start with the periphery…’

The poison clumped in the center was beyond Kang Jin-ho’s reach. He might be able to purify it, but the head nun wouldn’t be able to withstand it. It would be foolish to take the patient’s life to remove the cancer.

He focused not on the poison clumped in the center, but on the poison spreading around it. It would be impossible to remove each of those poisons one by one with modern medicine, but Kang Jin-ho could do it.

The energy extending from his hand traveled through the meridians [energy pathways in the body] and converged toward the center.

Thud, thud.

Kang Jin-ho could almost hear the sound of pathways opening up. Finally reaching the center, he carefully controlled his energy and began to absorb the poison spreading around it, one by one.

Physically, these poisons were smaller than 0.01mm in diameter. But removing even one of them was no easy task. First of all, there was nowhere for the energy to escape inside the body.

The body was like a giant jar of energy. If he pushed it out, the poison would just move somewhere else. Kang Jin-ho chose to find each tiny poison and burn it away with fire energy.

He couldn’t neutralize it, nor did he know how.

‘Be careful.’

He had to minimize the area where he used fire energy. Fire energy could burn away the poison, but it could also burn the body. He had to minimize the damage to the body to avoid weakening it from the backlash.

Trickle.

The sweat running down his forehead dripped off his chin and onto the floor.

This kind of delicate energy manipulation was something only those who had reached the peak could even attempt.

If he hadn’t reached the Hwagyung realm [a high level of martial arts mastery] in his previous life, Kang Jin-ho wouldn’t have been able to attempt this. It was different from Hwang Jung-hoo’s case, where he could see results just by breaking through blockages.

Kang Jin-ho’s energy had the advantage of being able to reach places where modern medical endoscopes or catheters couldn’t, making it effective for diseases related to cerebral hemorrhage or infarction, but it didn’t have any particular advantage in surgeries that required incisions.

All he could rely on was his extreme energy manipulation and concentration.

‘Don’t rush.’

Continuously manipulating energy required extreme stamina. But he couldn’t rush. A single moment of impatience could lead to a lifetime of regret.

Kang Jin-ho carefully enveloped the poison with his energy and infused it with fire energy.

Sizzle.

The fire energy burned away the area where the poison was. It wasn’t just removing the poison, but also destroying the body itself. If his mastery was a little higher, he might have been able to remove only the poison, but this was the best he could do now.

Kang Jin-ho slowly, but surely, removed the poison one by one.

Since the poison was spread out everywhere, he was sweating profusely and doing his best, but it felt like he wasn’t making any progress at all.

But Kang Jin-ho didn’t rush.

‘A life is at stake.’

He could be more aggressive with his own body, but the head nun’s extremely weakened body wouldn’t be able to withstand the impact.

Little by little.

Very little by little.

He found every single tiny poison and removed them one by one.

It was a method that was possible with modern medicine, but it couldn’t be done because the patient’s body couldn’t handle the burden of open surgery. And the doctor’s concentration and stamina wouldn’t hold up either.

It was a method that Kang Jin-ho could attempt because he didn’t have to reopen and close the abdomen after the procedure.

‘Focus.’

He cleared the distracting thoughts from his mind. Now was the time to focus all his attention on removing the poison in front of him. Kang Jin-ho fell into a trance, focusing solely on removing the spreading poison.

Find and remove, find and remove again.

It wasn’t a grand task. Just a simple repetition. But it was also a task that required extreme concentration and precision.

How much time had passed?

Drip.

His entire face was soaked with sweat, as if he had just washed it. The sweat wasn’t just dripping, but pouring down like a leaky faucet.

“Ugh.”

Kang Jin-ho withdrew his energy. After withdrawing his energy, Kang Jin-ho took his hand off the head nun’s stomach and covered her with her clothes.

He took a step back.

The relief of being done washed over him, but almost immediately, Kang Jin-ho felt dizzy and collapsed on the spot.

“Hoo, hoo…”

His rough breathing filled the hospital room.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, but he couldn’t push himself any further today. His dantian [energy center in the body] felt completely empty. And the mental exhaustion was even greater than the loss of energy.

The sweat had already soaked through his clothes.

The urge to collapse on the spot completely exhausted him. His hands were trembling, so it wasn’t just a feeling.

“Hoo, hoo…”

Kang Jin-ho stabilized his breathing with deep breaths, wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve, and struggled to his feet.

‘This isn’t something that can be finished in a short time.’

He had almost removed the poison from the upper part. But there was still a lot of poison left.

‘But it’s possible!’

Kang Jin-ho clenched his fist.

He was worried if it would be possible, but the fact that it was working was proven. It would be impossible for Kang Jin-ho to remove all the poison, but if he could remove the cancer cells that had metastasized to other parts of the body, modern medicine could take care of the rest.

Now that he had confirmed that he could burn away the metastasized cancer cells, it was just a matter of time.

Kang Jin-ho, feeling the image of an impregnable fortress crumble, smiled without realizing it.

The head nun’s complexion was a little pale, but she didn’t seem to have any major problems. The heaving had also become much more stable. She might feel tired, but her body wouldn’t get any worse.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

At that moment, he heard the sound of the door lock being unlocked. Kang Jin-ho hid in the corner.

As the nurse on rounds entered, Kang Jin-ho, who had been hiding, slipped out of the room just before the door closed.

Before the door closed, he heard the nurse’s voice from inside.

“Huh? Why are the vitals like this? Are you okay, patient?”

Leaving the nurse, who was flustered by the temporarily elevated blood pressure, the door slowly closed.

“Hoo…”

A sigh escaped his lips.

He had exhausted so much energy that he wondered if he had ever been this tired since coming to this world. Kang Jin-ho moved his staggering body toward the stairs.

Hiding on the stairs to avoid being seen, Kang Jin-ho went up to the rooftop.

The cool night air made him feel a little more awake. He took out a cigarette from his pocket and lit it.

As the stale cigarette smoke entered and exited his lungs, he felt a dizzy sensation.

Finding a place to sit, Kang Jin-ho sat down and exhaled the cigarette smoke with a subtle smile.

“It’s not time to relax yet.”

He had only confirmed the possibility, not finished the treatment.

Now, all he needed was perseverance and effort. If he could remove as many of the surrounding cancer cells as possible before returning from his leave and then rely on the power of modern medicine, she would be able to recover fully.

If it was stomach cancer that hadn’t metastasized, it could be treated by removing the stomach. It would be difficult to recover to the physical strength of a normal person, but she might be able to live out her remaining years if she didn’t overexert herself.

Kang Jin-ho, having found hope, couldn’t help but smile.

‘It wasn’t a waste of time.’

He had often wondered what the time he spent learning martial arts and surviving meant to the current Kang Jin-ho. But now that he knew that what he had learned was not useless in this world, he felt relieved.

He could help others in ways other than violence.

It was a strange feeling.

He was the one who had performed the treatment, and the head nun was the one who had received it, but his heart felt at peace because of the treatment.

‘Mutual benefit, huh…’

Things he had thought were just pie-in-the-sky ideas were starting to feel real.

Kang Jin-ho flicked the cigarette butt, shoved it into his pocket, and started down the stairs.

It was a very tiring, yet very warm night.