Chapter 593: Chapter-593
The moment the heavy Vanguard carriage rolled through the iron-forged gates of the estate, the absolute chaos began.
Heena barely had time to register that she was finally safe before she was whisked away into her private chambers. Samuel and her grandfather had transformed her bedroom into a makeshift triage center. No less than four of the most prestigious physicians in the capital were already waiting, nervously clutching their medical boxes while the old Vanguard General paced the floor like a caged tiger.
"Check her! Check everything!" her grandfather roared, his booming voice shaking the dust from the rafters. "If a single strand of her hair is out of place, I will dismantle the Imperial Academy brick by brick!"
Samuel stood silently by the door, his arms crossed over his chest. He had washed the blood from his hands, but the terrifying, predatory stillness in his golden eyes made the physicians tremble even harder than the old general’s shouting.
It was, frankly, incredibly frustrating.
Heena sat on the edge of her plush silk bed, enduring the endless pulse-checking, the glaring lantern lights in her eyes, and the bitter herbal concoctions they forced down her throat. Through sheer Vanguard willpower, she managed to control her temper and stop herself from snapping their necks.
The physicians concluded that the paralyzing neurotoxin and the aphrodisiac were already rapidly breaking down. The freezing water, combined with her monstrous physical constitution, had lessened the effects drastically. They prescribed a heavy dose of cleansing tonics to flush the remaining toxins from her blood and nervously backed away, declaring that she would make a full recovery.
But they were wrong.
The drugs were fading, but as the chemical fog cleared from her mind, a familiar, agonizing sensation began to claw at the inside of her skull.
The headache had returned.
When Heena had first transmigrated into this body—taking over the life of the original owner, Sera—the blinding, paralyzing head pains had been her constant companion. But over the last few weeks, they had miraculously faded into the background. She thought she had finally conquered the physical weaknesses of the vessel. She hadn’t even survived a full month before the damn thing decided to rear its ugly head again.
It wasn’t a sharp, blinding stab like a knife. Not yet. It was a slow, heavy, suffocating pressure building behind her eyes. It was a dull, persistent throb that made the lantern light feel like needles and the sound of her grandfather’s voice echo like a war drum in her brain.
It was, without a doubt, the most irritating thing in the world.
’Damn it,’ Heena cursed inwardly, pressing her pale fingers against her throbbing temples. It was painful like hell.
She didn’t tell the hovering physicians. She didn’t mention it to Samuel, whose sharp eyes were already analyzing every micro-expression on her face. And she certainly didn’t tell her grandfather, who looked like he was one bad news away from marching an army into the Prime Minister’s courtyard.
"Everyone, out," Heena finally commanded, her raspy voice leaving absolutely no room for debate. "I am going to sleep. If anyone wakes me before noon tomorrow, I will shoot them."
Recognizing the dangerous, exhausted glint in her eyes, her grandfather finally sighed and ordered the physicians out. Samuel lingered for a fraction of a second longer, his golden gaze searching her face, before he silently closed the heavy wooden doors, leaving her in the dark.
Heena collapsed back onto her pillows. She didn’t even bother taking off the fresh silk robes the maids had dressed her in. The exhaustion was absolute.
"Host..." the glowing blue lion materialized next to her ear, its digital voice unusually quiet and hesitant. "Host, are you okay? We should talk about—"
’Shut up,’ Heena groaned, burying her face into the soft blankets. ’Sleep now. Talk later.’
Within seconds, the Vanguard Madam was completely unconscious, dragged under by the sheer physical and mental toll of the night’s slaughter.
The room was completely silent, save for the steady, even sound of Heena’s breathing.
The System hovered over the bed, its pixelated ears drooping. It watched her sleep for a long time, the digital lion’s usual chaotic energy entirely absent. It knew something was deeply wrong. It had felt the spike in her pain receptors the moment the headache returned.
Before tonight, the System had been severely limited in its diagnostic capabilities. The original soul of the body, Sera, had unconsciously resisted the System’s deep scans, acting as a biological firewall. Combined with the System’s embarrassingly low point balance, it simply hadn’t possessed the power to bypass the restrictions to see what was truly happening inside her brain.
But tonight, Heena had survived a lethal assassination, manipulated a major political figure’s wife, and commanded a squad of shadow guards to execute a dozen men. The System’s point balance had skyrocketed.
"Alright," the System whispered, its digital form glowing with a bright, intense light. "Let’s see what you are hiding in there."
The lion raised its intangible paws, initiating a deep-tissue, neurological scan. A highly advanced, translucent blue holographic interface expanded over Heena’s sleeping form, rendering a perfect 3D model of her brain and nervous system.
As the scan rendered, the System’s digital eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated horror.
"Oh no..." the lion breathed out, its voice trembling.
There, nestled deep within the fragile web of her cerebral cortex, was a massive, dark mass. It was a blood clot—a malignant, pulsating tumor that was pressing heavily against her optical nerves and pain centers.
It wasn’t static. It was aggressive. And looking at the comparative data from the moment they first transmigrated, the truth was undeniable.
The blood clot was getting bigger. And it was growing fast.
The System floated down, landing softly on the pillow next to Heena’s face. It stared at the terrifying red warning signs flashing across its internal interface.
The headache wasn’t a lingering side effect of the original owner’s weak constitution. It wasn’t stress. It was a ticking biological time bomb. The clot was expanding, slowly crushing the healthy brain tissue around it. It was going to cause severe neurological problems sooner rather than later—loss of vision, loss of motor control, and eventually, a total hemorrhagic stroke.
The System frantically opened its multidimensional shop, scrolling through thousands of pages of futuristic medicines, spiritual elixirs, and legendary healing artifacts. It calculated the progression rate of the tumor against everything it had in its arsenal.
The results came back in a cold, unforgiving red font.
0% Probability of Complete Eradication.
Because the clot was so deeply intertwined with the delicate, ancient structure of her brain stem, forcibly removing it or violently dissolving it with a miracle pill would instantly trigger a fatal hemorrhage. The body’s ancient, mortal limitations could not withstand the necessary medical intervention.
The System slowly closed the shop interface, its glowing blue light dimming in the dark room.
If its calculations were right—and the System was always right when it came to hard data—its invincible, terrifying, brilliant Host was living on borrowed time.
She had, at most, exactly six months left before she would die. And this time, there was absolutely no miracle medicine in existence that could save her.
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