Chương 68: CHAPTER 66: THE ILLEGAL CROSSING

The heavy, metallic stench of fresh necrotic blood instantly canceled out the cool, vinegar scent of the pickled cucumbers. On the freshly scrubbed stone floorboards, the pitch-black fluid sizzled faintly, eating away at the clean wood finish and spreading toward the base of the granite operating table. Rudra did not waste a fraction of a second staring at the glowing crimson eyes lurking outside the shattered window frame. His reaction was pure, automatic clinical reflex.

Before the scout's dying gasp even faded into the quiet room, Rudra was already moving. His dark-iron prosthetic hand dropped like a heavy anvil, slamming the thick wooden window shutters shut with a deafening bang. He threw the heavy iron bolt into place, locking the barrier against the shadowed alley outside. The dark, unnatural pressure lurking beyond the glass didn't attempt to breach the wood immediately; it lingered like a cold draft before slowly drifting back into the morning mist.

Rudra turned his full attention down to the man lying at his boots.

"Clinical evaluation," Rudra stated, his voice flat, emotionless, and completely detached as his diagnostic vision mapped the fallen scout's internal biology. [ANATOMICAL SCAN: TRAUMA METRICS] [Subject Status: Critical Biological Degradation] [Primary Trauma: Flail Chest / Multiple Rib Fractures] [Secondary Trauma: Open Compound Laceration / Left Humerus] [Pathogen Presence: High-Concentration Necrotic Agent] [Cardiac Status: Ventricular Fibrillation Imminent] Abe saale!

Pura tissue molecular level par collapse ho raha hai... ye koi normal spell nahi hai, ye toh pure cellular execution hai! Rudra thought to himself, his internal voice rising with sharp, irritated precision as he dropped to one knee beside the bloodied scout. (Damn it! The entire tissue is collapsing at a molecular level... this isn't some normal spell, this is pure cellular execution!) He did not ask the scout for his name, his rank, or his origin.

To a surgeon, a patient on the floor was not a political entity; he was an unstable system losing pressure. Rudra reached into his leather field bag, pulling out three long silver pressure needles and a roll of heavy, spirit-soaked linen bandages. His dark metal fingers moved with blinding speed, tapping the needle tips directly into the major nerve clusters along the scout's collarbone and upper chest.

The scout's body jerked violently, his back arching off the stone floor before his muscles locked into a rigid state of local paralysis. The uncontrolled spasms stopped instantly, stabilizing his chaotic heart rate and slowing the rapid loss of black blood from his torn chest. With a rapid, smooth motion, Rudra sliced away the shredded black leather of the scout's armor using his cold-moon scalpel. Beneath the leather, the man's chest was a mangled mess of torn muscle and exposed bone.

Three deep, jagged claw marks stretched from his right shoulder down to his left hip, the edges of the skin black, dry, and bubbling with the foul, corrupt energy of the necrotic pathogen. Cardiac output khatam ho raha hai, carotid pulse sink kar rahi hai... bina chest pipe ke ye fluid lungs ko poori tarah daba dega! Rudra thought, his mind calculating the exact volumetric displacement of the fluid pooling inside the man's chest cavity. (Cardiac output is dropping to zero, the carotid pulse is sinking... without a chest tube, this fluid will completely crush the lungs!) Working purely on instinct, Rudra reached for a clean glass drainage tube from his instrument rack. With a single, precise thrust of his scalpel, he made a small, clean incision between the scout's fifth and sixth ribs. He guided the glass tube straight into the pleural space, bypassing the shattered bone fragments. SPLASH.

A thick surge of dark, corrupted fluid and trapped air rushed through the glass tube, spilling straight into a brass collection basin Rudra kicked into place. The sudden release of pressure allowed the scout's collapsed left lung to expand once more. The dying man drew a long, ragged, whistling breath, his blue lips slowly regaining a faint trace of human color.

Rudra picked up his curved needle and a strand of heavy plant-fiber suture, stitching the torn muscle layers closed around the drainage tube with rapid, clockwork precision. Within ninety seconds, the bleeding was controlled, the open chest wound was sealed under a heavy layer of anti-bacterial salve, and the scout's vital signals settled into a weak but stable baseline. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The scout opened his bloodshot eyes, staring up through a haze of pain at the straw-hatted youth kneeling over him. The sight of a low-tier herbalist performing high-level trauma surgery without a single holy spell left the man speechless for a long moment.

"You... you stopped the rot..." the scout choked out, his voice hoarse, dry, and trembling. He tried to raise his right hand to grip Rudra's sleeve, but the paralysis needles held his frame firmly in place.

"Doctor... you have to... you have to listen to me..."

"Speak slowly," Rudra commanded, wiping his dark-iron fingers clean on a wet linen rag.

"Excessive vocal movement will dislodge the chest drain and re-introduce atmospheric air into your pleural cavity."

"It doesn't matter... my life doesn't matter," the scout rasped, coughing up a small fleck of dark, clotted blood.

"I am... I am an advance scout for the Night-Vane Syndicate. I was patrolling the outer perimeter of the mangrove swamp when... when they came across the border." Rudra set his scalpel down on the granite table with a quiet click.

"Who came across the border?"

"The Royal Vanguard... a rogue executioner squad from the Yamato Kingdom," the scout whispered, his eyes wide with pure terror.

"They didn't use the official maritime checkpoints. They bypassed the border arrays during the monsoon storm... an illegal crossing into the republic's sovereign territory." Rudra's deadpan expression did not flicker, but his dark eyes narrowed slightly under the brim of his straw hat. The Yamato Kingdom's military networks were expanding their search parameters far faster than he had anticipated.

"The republic border is monitored by high-frequency tracking arrays," Rudra noted calmly.

"An armored military unit cannot cross without triggering an immediate diplomatic crisis."

"They aren't wearing their kingdom armor..." the scout gasped, his chest rising in shallow, labored gasps against the glass tube.

"They are operating as a silent obliteration squad. They crossed the border for one reason... to eliminate the local slum syndicate leader, Master Corvus, before he can sell the regional trade maps to the eastern guilds. They are wiping out every witness in the lower delta!" The scout grabbed at the floorboards with his fingers, his voice dropping into a desperate, rattling plea.

"The monster outside... that was one of their high-tier blood hounds. They released them into the alleys to hunt down anyone carrying the syndicate's seal. If Master Corvus dies today, the entire lower slum district will fall into total chaos. The Vanguard will burn these streets to the ground to cover their tracks!" Rudra stood up slowly, adjusting the wide brim of his straw hat until his face was completely swallowed in shadow.

He folded his hands inside the wide, comfortable sleeves of his slate-gray Haori coat, his posture completely relaxed, unbothered, and detached.

"A political conflict between an imperial execution squad and a local crime syndicate falls outside my professional parameters," Rudra stated flatly.

"My contract in this republic is restricted to private medical practice and botanical acquisition. The territorial disputes of local warlords are irrelevant to my operations."

"You don't understand!" the scout wept, his hoarse voice cracking with utter desperation.

"They aren't sparing anyone! They consider this entire district a contaminated zone! Once they secure Corvus, they will purge every clinic, every shop, and every house within two miles of the delta channels! Your apothecary is right in their direct path of entry!" Rudra looked around his quiet, freshly scrubbed clinic.

He had spent three days cleaning the granite slabs, organizing his glass tubes, stocking his shelves with rare maritime moss, and securing over five hundred gold kobans worth of capital from Baron Oric. He had finally established a clean, peaceful sanctuary completely divorced from the corrupt guilds and endless battles of the northern territories.

The thought of an arrogant military squad waltzing into his quiet seaside town, breaking his windows, and setting fire to his newly organized apothecary crossed a line that no professional surgeon could tolerate. He looked down at the scout.

"Your internal bleeding has been contained, and the necrotic pathogen is being drawn into the collection basin. Stay still. If you dislodge the glass tube, your lung will collapse again within thirty seconds."

"Doctor... what are you going to do?" the scout asked, his voice trembling as he watched the young herbalist walk over to the heavy wooden lockbox beneath the main shelf. Rudra unlocked the chest, reached inside, and pulled out his spatial ring, sliding the silver band cleanly onto his finger. With a quiet flick of his wrist, he stored his iron lockbox, his signed asset documents, and his primary medical supplies into the weightless void of the ring.

He reached into his leather field bag, pulled out a fresh pair of dark leather gloves, and pulled them over his hands, covering the dark metal of his prosthetic fingers. He adjusted the strap of his bag across his shoulder and walked toward the front entrance of the clinic.

"I am going to inspect the local perimeter," Rudra said cleanly, his voice smooth and cold as ice.

"If an unauthorized military unit elevates the local violence levels to a point that disrupts my supply chain, I will be forced to apply a permanent neutralizer." Before the scout could utter another word, a sudden, terrifying shift occurred in the atmosphere outside. The quiet morning air vanished instantly. The ambient temperature inside the room plummeted, the air growing dry, heavy, and saturated with the unmistakable, metallic charge of raw, compressed mana.

The glass jars on Rudra's shelves began to rattle violently inside their wooden racks, vibrating in harmony with a deep, low rumble that shook the ground far beneath the city's foundations. BOOM! A deafening, earth-shattering explosion detonated roughly three blocks away toward the center of the lower slum district. The shockwave hit the clinic like a physical wall.

The heavy wooden shutters rattled against their iron bolts, dust rained down from the thatched ceiling, and the glass windows of neighboring houses shattered into thousands of tiny pieces. Rudra stepped out onto the front veranda, his dark eyes looking out over the rooftops of the lower delta. In the distance, three blocks away, a massive pillar of dark, crimson flame roared into the morning sky.

The brilliant, unnatural fire swallowed the wooden buildings of the central market, sending a towering plume of thick black smoke billowing into the clear blue air. The heat of the blast was so intense that even from three blocks away, a warm, dry wind rolled across the cobblestones, carrying the sharp scent of burning timber, melted metal, and ozone. Screams of terror instantly erupted from the surrounding streets.

Hundreds of local commoners, merchants, and dockworkers began pouring out of the narrow alleys, running in pure, unadulterated panic away from the burning center of the slums. Above the roaring red flames, four dark, cloaked figures hovered silently in the air, sustained by high-tier flight magic. They wore light, nondescript civilian cloaks, but their posture, their synchronized movements, and the long, thin executioner blades hanging at their waists revealed their true identity with absolute clarity.

The Royal Vanguard scout squad had officially launched their assault on the slum syndicate's stronghold. Rudra stood on his quiet porch, his slate-gray Haori coat swaying gently in the hot wind blowing off the distant fire. He reached up with his gloved hand, tilted the wide brim of his straw hat low over his eyes, and stepped off the veranda onto the wet cobblestones of the alley.

The quiet vacation of Doctor Shin was officially over, and the phantom surgeon of Mizugaon was about to show the imperial scouts the true cost of interrupting his peace.