Chapter 607: Arthur’s absurd claims

His thread of patience had been stretched a lot by Bai Chengsheng, and Chitra’s rude behaviour had already stretched it further. It was finally broken now. "How the fuck am I supposed to cure him when the entire force of the Tiger Clan is standing on my tail?"

"Y-you—" Nakula was about to speak when he was interrupted again.

"What!?" Maximilian retorted, his eyes rolling dramatically. "Will you take the responsibility if I get distracted during the healing?"

They understood what he was saying, but his choice of words was angering them to no end. Couldn’t he say it more nicely? Why did he have to be so rude?

"But we don’t trust you," Nakula immediately blurted, afraid that he might be cut off by him again.

"Then just heal him yourself," Maximilian shrugged as he began moving out from the hall, his steps deliberately slow.

"Wait, Lord Arthur," Vyaghra called after him. "How about this? Only I, Chitra, Nakula and Lady Gumiho will stay in the hall."

"..."

"Only me, Chitra and Lady Gumiho?"

"..."

"Only me and Lady Gumiho."

Chitra’s head snapped at Vyaghra in disbelief. "Young Mast—"

"Alright," Maximilian agreed, giving a mocking glare to Chitra. "Now-now, get lost." He told her, gesturing towards the exit with his middle finger, his smirk widening at her fury.

’Such disgraceful behaviour,’ Gumiho sighed inwardly, shaking her head in quiet disapproval.

Chitra was about to throw hands with Maximilian when Vyaghra gestured at Nakula. Understanding his intent, Nakula grabbed her by the waist and moved her outside, closing the heavy door behind him with a resounding thud.

"Hah... finally some peace," Maximilian stretched his arms sideways, cracking his neck as he turned back to the bed.

He approached the bed where Vyomendra lay unconscious. His skin seemed pale, and his breathing was irregular, each exhale accompanied by a faint wheeze. Every now and then, his eyebrows twitched as if he was in deep agony, his fingers curling and uncurling involuntarily.

Maximilian removed the robe from his upper body, revealing the horror beneath. The sight inside produced a gasp from Vyaghra’s lips, his fingers shuddering with goosebumps that crawled across his skin.

Gumiho’s eyes also widened for a moment but she didn’t seem that shocked, or more accurately, she had seen things far more grotesque than this.

Below Vyomendra’s navel, his skin was bulged out in the shape of a coiled centipede, almost the size of an arm, its grotesque form pressing against the flesh from within. The skin occasionally shifted as the insect slightly moved inside him.

Words were not enough to describe how much agony Vyomendra must have been suffering.

Maximilian placed his palm on the bulged skin, radiating a dark coat of energy that had multiple star-like particles visible within it, shimmering like a miniature galaxy.

’What kind of Soulforce is this?’ Gumiho gasped inwardly, her brows rising in astonishment. ’I can recognise any normal or divine Soulforce of Vyoman and tell the realm of its owner with just a look. Yet I cannot figure out its origin at all. There are only two possibilities for it. Either the Soulforce belongs to a cultivator with a realm beyond Demi-God... or the Soulforce doesn’t belong to Vyoman at all.’

Her pink eyes fixed on Maximilian’s face as she muttered inwardly, ’Who are you really... Arthur?’

A few minutes later, Maximilian removed his hand from Vyomendra’s abdomen, his expression grim and heavy.

"What happened?" Vyaghra asked, clearly on edge, his voice trembling with anxiety.

"There is a problem. The Soul-Gnawing Gu has devoured around seventy percent of his Soulforce," Maximilian revealed, releasing a weary sigh. "It has also eaten more than half of his internal organs."

"Seventy percent?" Vyaghra gasped, his lips parting in shock. He almost lost strength in his limbs, barely holding himself from falling by placing his hands on the edge of the bed.

Even he knew what Arthur’s words meant. Some skilled physicians could indeed remove the Soul-Gnawing Gu from a cultivator’s body. However, the percentage of Soulforce it had devoured should be less than five percent. For cultivators of the High-Tier realm like Vyomendra, the amount should be even less, since they possessed Divine Soulforce, which would actually boost the growth of the centipede even faster.

"So father cannot be healed," Vyaghra murmured, tightening his fists until his knuckles turned white, his voice cracking with despair.

"Huh? Which idiot said that?" Maximilian asked, raising an eyebrow in genuine confusion.

"You said that there is a problem," Gumiho repeated his exact words, standing on the other side of the bed.

"By problem, I meant that there is a risk in restoring all of his Soulforce," Maximilian revealed with a casual shrug.

"You can restore his Soulforce as well!?" Both Gumiho and Vyaghra exclaimed, their usual composure flying out the window.

Their reaction was completely natural, given the absurdity of his claims. The Soul Gnawing Gu settled itself in the core of the cultivator. Even when it ate the internal organs of the cultivator, one end always remained connected to the cultivation base, from where it absorbed the Soulforce the moment the cultivator attempted to use their powers.

Even those cultivators who had the Soul Gnawing Gu removed from their bodies were left with a damaged cultivation base, which crippled them on their path of cultivation.

Yet, Maximilian’s claims suggested that not only would Vyomendra not turn into a cripple, but he would even have some of his lost Soulforce restored.

"Lord Arthur, you should not jest in this situation," Vyaghra muttered, clearly not believing him. "I understand if you cannot heal him. I will make arrangements for you to return to the human territor—"

"The fuck are you yapping about?" Maximilian retorted, barely holding back his urge to hit him.

"Let me be blunt," he continued. "I have two cure methods. I can restore his Soulforce to the Level Four Sacred Beast Realm that he already had. But by doing this, he would not be able to break through any further. This cure has a hundred percent success rate.

"The other method will restore his Soulforce to only the Level One Sacred Beast Realm. He will have to cultivate again to reach his current strength, but there will be no limitations on his future. The success rate of this cure is eighty percent. Other twenty percent depends on the will power of the patient."

He looked at Vyaghra with an unreadable expression as he demanded, "Which method do you choose?"