Valentina whirled around to face Marcus, her eyes blazing with fury and desperation. "Get out! Get out right now before you make everything worse!"
"Valentina, please—" Alessandro wheezed weakly from the bed.
"No, Papa!" she snapped. "This amateur has done enough damage. Dr. Martinez is a real physician with decades of experience, not some street performer pretending to know medicine."
Marcus looked at her with divine composure, his supernatural foresight already revealing what would unfold in the next few minutes. "As you wish. But remember this moment, Valentina Romano."
"What's that supposed to mean, you arrogant fraud?" she snarled.
"You'll understand soon enough," Marcus replied calmly, walking toward the suite's exit with the confidence of an immortal deity who knew the future.
She will beg me to return within ten minutes, he thought, his godly patience infinite. Mortals always learn their lessons the hard way.
Dr. Martinez inserted the first silver needle into Alessandro's chest with practiced precision. The elderly physician's weathered hands moved with the confidence of forty years of medical experience.
"There," he said with satisfaction. "You should feel relief momentarily, Mr. Romano."
Alessandro's eyes fluttered open, and color returned to his pale cheeks. He took a deep, steady breath for the first time in over an hour.
"Papa!" Valentina cried joyfully, rushing to his bedside. "You're awake! Dr. Martinez saved you!"
"I told you to trust real medicine," the doctor said proudly, inserting the second needle. "That charlatan nearly killed you with his amateur theatrics."
But as Dr. Martinez inserted the third needle, Alessandro's body suddenly convulsed violently. His back arched off the bed as tremors wracked his entire frame, and his face began turning a sickly shade of purple.
"What's happening?" Valentina screamed in terror.
"I... I don't understand," Dr. Martinez stammered, his confident demeanor cracking. "This shouldn't be happening. The treatment was working perfectly."
Alessandro's breathing became labored, then stopped entirely. His eyes rolled back as his body went rigid, foam gathering at the corners of his mouth.
"Papa! Papa, breathe!" Valentina shook her father desperately. "Do something, Doctor! He's dying!"
"We need to get him to the hospital immediately," Dr. Martinez said, panic creeping into his voice. "My equipment here isn't sufficient for this level of emergency."
"Are you insane?" Valentina shrieked, tears streaming down her face. "He can't even breathe! He'll die before we reach the lobby!"
Dr. Martinez stared helplessly at his patient, his four decades of medical expertise utterly useless in the face of Alessandro's rapidly deteriorating condition.
"There is... there is one option," he said reluctantly, his professional pride warring with desperate necessity.
"What? Tell me!"
"That young man who was here earlier. He seemed to understand your father's condition better than I initially gave him credit for."
Valentina's face twisted with anguish and humiliation. "You want me to call back that... that scammer?"
"I hate to admit it, but he predicted this exact scenario. Perhaps..." Dr. Martinez swallowed his pride with visible difficulty. "Perhaps we should consider his assistance."
I have to swallow my pride to save Papa, Valentina thought desperately. Even if it means begging that arrogant fraud.
She rushed out of the suite and into the hotel corridor, where Marcus stood calmly against the wall, looking as if he'd been expecting her arrival.
"You!" she gasped, her chest heaving from panic and exertion. "Please... please help my father."
"Help him?" Marcus raised an eyebrow with divine amusement. "I thought I was just a pathetic scammer who learned medicine from YouTube videos."
Valentina's cheeks burned with shame and desperation. "I... I was wrong. Please, I'm begging you. My father is dying."
"And what makes you think a street con artist can succeed where a real doctor with forty years of experience has failed?"
"Please!" Valentina fell to her knees in the hallway, her designer dress pooling around her. "I'll do anything! Pay you anything! Just save him!"
Marcus looked down at her with the compassion of a deity for suffering mortals. "Your father is innocent in all this. I'll help him—but not for you."
Back in the suite, Dr. Martinez nervously approached Marcus with a leather pouch containing his acupuncture needles.
"I have thirty silver needles here," he said humbly. "The finest quality available."
Marcus examined the needles with supernatural perception and shook his head. "Thirty won't be sufficient for what needs to be done. I require eighty-one needles minimum."
"Eighty-one?" Dr. Martinez's eyes widened in shock. "That's... that's an incredibly advanced technique. I've only read about such methods in ancient texts."
"Do you have them or not?"
"I... yes, I have additional sets in my emergency kit." Dr. Martinez hurried to gather every needle in his possession. "But using so many simultaneously requires incredible precision and energy. One mistake could—"
"Could kill him," Marcus finished. "I'm aware of the risks."
Only a master of celestial healing could attempt such a technique, Marcus thought, and even then, the energy expenditure will be enormous.
Marcus carefully moved Alessandro's unconscious body to the floor, positioning him with divine precision. He knelt beside the dying man and began inserting needles with supernatural speed and accuracy—both hands working simultaneously, each placement calculated to the millimeter.
Celestial energy flowed through Marcus's fingertips into each silver needle, creating a complex network of healing qi that pulsed through Alessandro's failing body. Sweat poured down Marcus's face as he channeled divine power through mortal acupuncture points, his godly essence straining under the enormous energy expenditure required to save a life from the brink of death.
The jade ring blazed with otherworldly light as Marcus completed the eighty-one needle array, his entire body trembling from the effort of channeling divine healing energy through mortal tools.
Finally, the God of War collapsed backward, completely drained, his chest heaving as he struggled to recover from the monumental effort of saving a mortal life with celestial power.
Valentina watched in stunned silence, too awed and terrified to speak as she witnessed what could only be described as divine intervention.
Dr. Martinez stared at Marcus's technique with the amazement of a lifetime medical practitioner seeing something that transcended everything he thought he knew about healing arts.
"Impossible," he whispered, then dropped to his knees before Marcus. "Master, please forgive my ignorance. I have never witnessed such skill in my entire career."
The suite fell silent except for Alessandro's steady, peaceful breathing as the mortal doctor knelt before the God of War.