Chapter 84 — Between Life and Death
"I won't undergo treatment anymore."
William's voice was faint and fragile, yet carried a strange, quiet resolve.
"Randall… in this lifetime… I've already made enough mistakes."
He exhaled softly, as though every word consumed the little strength he had left.
"I don't want the final stretch of my life… to make you run everywhere chasing some so-called miracle."
"So… just let me go."
Randall felt something lodge in his throat, his voice trembling as he spoke.
"You've made enough decisions for me in this lifetime."
He stared at William, his eyes reddening, stubbornly holding back tears.
"You decided I should be born."
"You decided to give me away."
"You decided that for thirty-six years I wouldn't even know who I really was."
His voice rose uncontrollably.
"And now you're deciding that you won't get treatment?!"
William's eyes widened slightly.
But Randall suddenly stopped.
All the surging emotion seemed to be forcibly pressed back down. He took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was strangely calm.
"I'm sorry."
"Consider this… repayment for those thirty-six years."
"This time, I want you to listen to my decision."
William fell silent for a long time.
So long that the only sound left in the room was the steady mechanical rhythm of the oxygen machine.
Finally, he answered in a voice barely above a whisper:
"…Alright."
Saturday Morning
Rayne Clinic was unusually quiet.
Ethan sat alone behind the reception desk. The consultation rooms were empty, and even the ticking of the clock seemed unnaturally loud.
Normally at this hour, he would still be asleep.
But the phone call last night had completely disrupted his weekend plans.
On Friday evening, Ethan had been driving back to his apartment from the clinic when his phone rang.
The caller ID made him pause.
Mary Mason.
He hadn't seen that name in quite some time.
When he answered, her voice came through the speaker—clearly exhausted, yet still sharp and composed.
Mary told him she was no longer in New York.
That didn't surprise Ethan.
Where an intern doctor ends up working has never been their own decision—it depends entirely on the system's assignment.
Staying in New York is normal.
Being transferred to another state is just as normal.
What made Ethan instinctively press the brake pedal slightly was what she said next—
She wanted to introduce him to a patient.
Ethan immediately realized this couldn't be an ordinary case.
Mary soon provided more details:
Stage-four malignant cancer.
Multiple systemic metastases.
Chronic persistent pain.
The patient had already been officially transferred into hospice care.
At this level of diagnosis, within modern medicine, it was essentially the final stop before death.
—From the perspective of Ethan's "healer system," most healing spells would probably just waste mana.
It might actually be more efficient to cast Resurrection directly.
Ethan fell silent for two seconds before jokingly asking whether she was trying to destroy Rayne Clinic's reputation, bankrupt the clinic, and thereby give herself a perfect excuse to cancel her employment contract.
On the other end of the line, Mary remained calm.
She simply told him—
The patient was part of a couple she had met in New York.
People who had helped her greatly.
He could refuse.
But she hoped he would at least meet them once… and see if he could truly help.
And so—
Once again having his schedule arranged by his future employee, Ethan found himself arriving at the clinic early on Saturday morning.
At least there were no patients scheduled for Saturdays.
That part was fine.
But Saturday also meant no cupcakes.
Damn it.
So Ethan sat alone in the empty clinic, quietly contemplating life.
Not long after, the doorbell rang.
A Black woman stood outside, holding the hands of two little girls.
Ethan invited them inside.
The woman introduced herself politely.
"My name is Beth Pearson."
"My husband is driving his father here directly from out of town. I brought the children ahead of them."
Ethan nodded as he exchanged pleasantries.
At the same time, a thought crossed his mind—
Were they here… for a final farewell?
And Pearson?
The surname sounded vaguely familiar.
Beth glanced around the clinic.
Her eyes passed over the one-way glass and the newly installed security systems.
"Your clinic… looks very secure."
"We recently upgraded it," Ethan replied briefly.
The two girls were unusually quiet.
Quiet enough to make the atmosphere tense.
As if they already sensed, in some instinctive way, what today might mean.
Time passed slowly.
Then Beth's phone vibrated softly.
She glanced down at the message.
It was from Randall.
She lifted her head and said to Ethan,
"Doctor—they're almost here."
Ethan nodded.
"Alright."
He turned and walked toward the front entrance.
Beth took a deep breath, gently pulling the girls into her arms.
"You two stay here. Don't go outside."
Then she followed Ethan out of the clinic.
12:30 PM
A dark SUV slowly turned into the street.
Before the vehicle even fully stopped, Ethan and Beth were already walking toward it.
The moment the door opened—
The rhythm of the air seemed to change instantly.
Randall Pearson stepped out of the driver's seat and rushed to the back door, yanking it open.
"William."
No response.
William Hill lay across the back seat on a makeshift "bed."
His face was gray.
His lips had turned purple.
His chest rose and fell so faintly that each breath made you wonder whether the next one would come.
His brow was tightly furrowed—not the calm of unconsciousness, but the instinctive reaction of someone enduring unbearable pain.
Ethan immediately stepped forward to examine him.
The next second—
His expression darkened completely.
This was no longer simply "terminal stage."
Nor was it the kind of "hospice case" that still had some time left.
This man was actively dying.
He might stop breathing at any moment.
Ethan said nothing further.
"Take him straight into the treatment room."
A wheelchair was brought to the car door.
Randall took a deep breath before steadying himself and carefully lifting William from the back seat.
He barely dared apply any force.
William's body was so limp it offered no support at all.
Once the seatbelt was secured, William's head slumped to one side.
His consciousness was already fading.
"We're here," Randall whispered.
He pushed the wheelchair quickly toward the clinic entrance.
Ethan held the door open while Beth hurried beside them.
Inside the clinic, the three of them wheeled William into the treatment room.
Then Ethan stopped Randall and Beth outside.
The door to the treatment room closed in front of them.
Beth stood in the hallway holding the two girls, her fingers pale with tension.
The children said nothing.
They simply stared wide-eyed at the closed door.
Randall stood beside it, unmoving.
His back was straight, rigid—
Like a bowstring stretched to its limit, refusing to snap.
The door closed before him, cutting off the view.
As though it had also sealed the boundary between life and death.
Inside the Treatment Room
The moment the door shut behind him, all outside noise disappeared.
Ethan didn't even have time to connect every monitor.
He quickly attached the three most critical ones:
Heart rate.
Blood oxygen.
Respiratory rate.
The screen lit up.
All three readings immediately plunged below the danger line.
Heart rhythm collapsing.
Blood oxygen so low it explained the purple lips.
Breathing so shallow it was nearly intermittent.
—At this rate, thirty seconds of hesitation might mean death.
Ethan didn't attempt any conventional treatment.
He stepped forward.
One hand firmly pressed William's shoulder.
The other landed squarely over his chest.
And he immediately cast—
Greater Healing.
Without hesitation.
Without restraint.
Holy light burst from his palm like a torrent forced into the dying body.
Golden radiance flared beneath his hand—
Like a flood of power being forced back into a fading life.
This was not gentle healing.
It was closer to forcefully lifting someone back from the brink.
William's body suddenly tensed. A muffled groan escaped his throat, suppressed beneath the oxygen mask.
For a brief moment—
His heart rate spiked.
His blood oxygen climbed back to the edge of the safe range.
But it lasted less than three seconds.
In the next instant, every vital sign began collapsing again.
Faster.
More violently than before.
Ordinary healing spells had already lost their meaning.
This wasn't a single organ failing anymore—
It was the entire biological system disintegrating.
The heart was exhausting itself at the limit.
The liver and kidneys were collapsing together.
The lungs were on the verge of structural failure.
The immune system had practically shut down.
This was a system-level death cascade, not something a simple healing spell could brute-force through.
"…This won't work."
Pouring more healing magic into him would only delay death by a few minutes.
What he needed wasn't repair.
He needed to restart the entire system.
Ethan's hand remained firmly pressed against William's chest.
He switched skills.
Resurrection.
The light filling the treatment room was no longer the gentle glow of restoration.
It was a violent pulse rising from the deepest foundation of life itself.
William's body trembled.
As if undergoing a dangerous system reboot.
His heart rate suddenly spiked into chaos—
Then stabilized.
Blood oxygen began rising rapidly.
His breathing shifted from the fragmented rhythm of someone dying to something barely but genuinely sustainable.
Ethan didn't stop.
The instant the Resurrection took effect—
He cast another spell.
Greater Healing.
This time, the holy light was no longer rejected.
It was as though the body had finally become a vessel capable of receiving repair.
The heart began beating within a stable range.
Liver and kidney function indicators slowly climbed upward.
The lungs recovered enough gas exchange to pass the minimum threshold required to sustain life.
Vital signs rose one by one.
Not in some miraculous surge.
Just steadily—
Slowly climbing out of the red zone of death.
Only then did Ethan finally let out a breath.
"…Alright."
"At least your life is safe for now."
But he still didn't stop.
Because the true root of the problem still remained—
The tumor system entrenched inside William's body like a poisonous parasite.
Ethan's gaze fell on William's upper abdomen.
He released the final skill.
Purify Disease.
This time, there was no violent reaction.
No tremor.
Only a quiet, gentle cleansing.
As though someone were erasing corrupted code from within the deepest layers of life.
The abnormal signals from the tumor tissue faded away.
One by one.
On the monitoring screen, the numbers finally settled into a stable green zone.
William's tightly furrowed brow slowly relaxed.
His breathing became steady and rhythmic.
Like someone who had just woken from a long nightmare—
Finally sinking into painless sleep.
Ethan stood beside the bed, watching silently.
Then he murmured softly, in a voice only he could hear:
"For now… you're not dying, William."