Vol20: In the Heart of the Flames

"Wake up! Doctor! Wake up!"

Still half-asleep and groggy, I could hear two young girls shouting.

"Doctor! Can you hear me? Doctor!"

"Wake up! Wake up!"

It was the familiar operating light; this was Maquire's first time lying on an operating table.

--In the final stages of his life, he felt as if he had been hit hard by something, like being thrown by a large truck.

A familiar voice came from above; it was the nurse, Dannie.

"Director Maquire has lost too much blood."

"Should I come? Me?"

"You have experience as a lead surgeon, and Maquire has always treated you as his successor."

"I don't know. I'm scared. I..."

"Part of his temporal lobe is necrotic. Before we can use Universal Elixir cure, we have to remove the rotten parts of his brain. Whether he survives or not depends entirely on the doctor's skill and his will to live, Dannie!"

The operating room was completely silent, while the area outside was bustling with noise.

Each hunting party sent a representative to visit Maquire Copenhagen, the surgeon who had saved their lives.

Young nurse Dannie was preparing for surgery. She was nervous and anxious, and asked the two monster hybrids at the scene about Chief Maquire's injuries.

How did he get injured?

Dannie had to figure out the source of Chief Maquire's physical injuries, confirm that there were no other fatal foreign objects blocking his blood vessels, and verify his mental state and psychic abilities. She repeatedly reviewed the surgical notes left by Chief Maquire, checking the procedures again and again—these notes contained Maquire's unique medical skills learned from his father's practice in the underworld, and now they were to be used to save him.

Holly: "I got into a fight with her!"

Benni: "I didn't see anything!"

Holly: "She suddenly went crazy, saying the hilt of the sword was missing! The hilt of the sword was missing!"

Benni: "I searched all the way, following the cloth strip to the lakeside hut, and there he was, sitting in front of the dock."

Holly: "When we found him, he had no heartbeat. He was covered in blood, and the house was full of blood, and there were so many bugs."

Benni: "I called the police and the ambulance. Berloberg didn't want him to die, but I was afraid to give him CPR. He's covered in holes, and I was afraid that if I touched him, he'd bleed even more!"

Holly: "I don't know why, but after a few minutes, he started coughing again, and then lay down on his back."

Even these cryptic words, when heard by Dannie, conveyed some important information—

Before Dr. Maquire entered a near-death state, he remained seated, preventing blood from reaching his head. The blood in his lungs caused him to convulse and cough reflexively. In the instant he regained consciousness, the burly man seemed to be struggling to survive, maintaining a supine position. His heart began to pump, and his brain started working again, buying the medical team some time.

Dannie immediately rushed into the operating room and took up a scalpel to save the patient's life.

She didn't rush to treat Director Maquire's temporal lobe injury. First, she cut open Old Ma's clothes one by one, exposing the thirty-three wounds. Then she cut open Old Ma's two femoral arteries and saw shocking blood clots. After eliminating all the hidden dangers affecting the cardiovascular system, she was covered in sweat, as if she were carving flowers on tofu with an embroidery needle.

Clear the nerves and blood vessels, remove bone fragments and wood chips from the wound, and wash it with Universal Elixir by one while simultaneously using a bone saw to perform craniotomy.

The temporal lobe is located below the lateral fissure of the skull, which is to the side of the ear and slightly behind the head. Unlike the skull and the top of the head, it is a relatively intact bone. The brain region that has become necrotic is the temporal lobe of the right brain. Dannie has already completed the brain decompression process, and cerebrospinal fluid and blood are oozing from Maquire's bald scalp.

At this point, Dannie's movements need to be very fast, her knife technique needs to be precise, and she needs to be both bold and meticulous.

Her eyes widened; the continuous, high-intensity impurity removal process had left her exhausted. She was fighting for her Death God, and she had a similar experience to Maquire.

When the brain region in the middle temporal gyrus was dissected, the necrotic parts had begun to ulcerate. Due to the boiling blood curse of Saint Josh Joris, this part of the brain region had been cooked. If it had been a second or two slower, Maquire would have died on the spot.

That was the devil manipulating two walking corpses, their two mouths simultaneously chanting death curses at high speed.

Dannie held a knife in one hand and Universal Elixir sprayer in the other. This sprayer tool can apply medicine to wounds with high precision, down to the micrometer thickness.

She had to make sure her hands were skillful enough; the necrotic area in the temporal lobe was only one centimeter wide and about five millimeters deep, but if the brain injury was not treated properly, it could completely turn a person into a mentally deranged monster.

She carefully avoided hair follicles and bones, repeatedly cleaning and repairing the brain area. The whole process was quick and efficient, and she could hardly believe that she could perform the surgery independently.

"He's alive! He's alive! His eye movements are normal. His heart rate is normal, his blood pressure is normal, and his brain waves are normal! He's all normal!"

Dannie's tone was apprehensive. Even during the final stages, she kept her eyes glued to Maquire's face, secretly glancing at the brainwave spectrum and electrocardiogram out of the corner of her eye, and fiddling with Director Maquire's eyelids to observe his physiological state.

In another ward, the Ek Maddens family was crammed together. There were also two other victims of the psychic ritual, both children of the hunting party, hot-blooded young men.

"Oh dear!" Liliya had just woken up when she began to feel regret and anger. "Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear! This time, things went wrong!"

Ek was the first to wake up. He woke up in the field next to the cabin, with only half of his torso remaining, his body growing into the grass and trees. The power of the Universal Elixir pulled him back to the human world. Because there were still foreign objects in his body, he inevitably suffered physical pain after being sent to the clinic to remove all the allergens from his body.

He was covered in bandages and Band-Aid of various sizes. The dirt and insect corpses inside his body had been removed, and his eyeballs had just regrown thanks to the healing products made by White Lady.

"Mom! We were possessed by a demon! Doctor Maguire saved us!"

Sophia's legs were hanging high in the air. Fortunately, the young pregnant woman saved her unborn child. Although Saint Josh had chopped off her limbs, she was the least affected by psionic corruption—she did not merge with the flesh golem.

"Promise me, can you channel your family's adventurous spirit into something else?"

Meanwhile, Oscar received news of the psychic incident at Moon River Lake.

As a lapis lazuli half-wolf, he still had to rush to the scene and work overtime. Zhang Congfeng still hadn't woken up—but Oscar had no reason to stay in the morgue any longer. There were priorities to these matters. He took out more of his catalyst inventory to reinforce the guardian array and made another trip.

It was two hours later when we searched for traces of the Spirit Calamity in the cabin by Moon River Lake and determined the extent of the disaster.

During this time, Oscar kept making video calls to the staff at the Hunter's Guild meeting place, asking the guards to keep an eye on Zhang Congfeng's physical body. Holly didn't reply to his messages for a long time, which made Oscar increasingly anxious— Zhang Congfeng might not be coming back.

At noon on the second day, a warm and sweet breeze blew into the assembly hall.

A blood-soaked phantom emerged from a manhole cover, its body covered in grotesque strips of flesh and entrails. When it returned to the human world, it raised its iron arm and flipped open the chunks of flesh on its head, revealing a pair of green cat eyes through the congealed scabs.

Jiang Xueming returned to the morgue, seething with anger.

He did indeed break through the entire Netherworld, going down from Limbo, passing through eight other bizarre spaces, and through the bottommost "hole" in this chaotic funnel. It felt like crawling through the rectum, or through the birth canal of a giant beast.

The whole process is hard to describe in words; it was all fighting and killing, with no time to rest.

The eerie souls of hell were hurting, pleasing, and copulating with each other, endlessly experiencing pain and pleasure. The further down they went, the fewer spirits there were. This huge funnel-shaped ramp seemed to have no end. The powerful demon lords carved out their own territory, and upon seeing this strange steel cat, they all spoke no human language and immediately wanted to fight.

Xue Ming certainly wouldn't tolerate these demons. He didn't know much about them, and besides the famous figures in the demon world recorded in the Great Rift of All Things, there were many demons he couldn't recognize or whose names he didn't know.

Jewish mythology originated in Mesopotamia, and along the way, he defeated more than twenty large units, more than one hundred and seventy humanoid units, and countless other lesser demons.

He recognized two familiar faces.

One is the Southwest Evil Wind Pazuzu, a strange evil god with a wolf's body, bird's claws, four wings, and a scorpion's tail; the other is a snake-shaped √ba with two pairs of wings.

It can bring plague and misfortune, but it is also a guardian deity for pregnant women.

The other is Lamastu, a monster with a lion's head, bird's claws, eagle's wings, and a donkey's mouth. She is a female demon who harms pregnant women and fetuses.

These monsters closely resemble the stitched-together Chimera monsters, perhaps having been elevated to godhood by humans in an earlier, primitive era, and attaining the status of evil gods in the Netherworld.

The two monsters had been fighting each other in the hellish prison. Due to the special environment of hell, the wounds on these spirits kept healing and regenerating. Xue Ming went up and kindly tried to mediate the fight. Now the two monsters should have a more harmonious relationship.

Overcoming the lowest level of the prison--

Jiang Xueming squeezed out a cat's head from the narrow passage that resembled a birth canal, and found himself on the main road outside the hunting party's meeting place.

The sky turned into the earth, and the earth turned into the sky. He looked down again, and it all seemed like an illusion, with only the iron stairs of the sewer and the rumbling sound of water.

He returned to the vicinity of the morgue. The protective array created by the mandala petals had become ineffective, transforming into a high-level spiritual energy protective array with six stars and six corners. Wolf Brother had placed spiritual mediums related to the four elements and the three fundamental elements in various locations within the morgue. This protective array must have been quite elaborate—yet there were still quite a few little devils crouching between the walls outside the array, wandering around the crematorium and corridors.

He went to the physical body, and these scoundrels only glanced at him before their bodies were immediately terrified and split open. The monsters turned into a pool of orange-red mud and merged back into one with Mother Earth.

In Xue Ming's eyes, the physical body still looked like that ghost.

His physical body remained motionless, like a limp cocoon, until he sat back down in the chair. His flesh and torn skin healed again, and his feet, which had been soaking in acid for hours, throbbed with intense pain.

"Hiss!"

Louise was almost asleep, but she held onto Zhang Congfeng's hand tightly, gripping the wizard's withered claws, and dared not let go.

"Oh! You're awake!"

"Ah!" Jiang Xueming felt the force of gravity, as if he were climbing back to shore from the ocean, and his body became heavy.

He held his legs and feet, pulled them out of the basin, and then treated the injuries with White Lady's products.

When Oscar received the news, he rushed back to the morgue. As soon as he entered, he saw Father Zhang Congfeng looking relaxed and carefree, as if he were no longer sick or in pain, and was boiling water to make tea.

"You're back?" Oscar was skeptical and dared not immediately remove the psionic catalyst from the magic circle.

Jiang Xueming poured tea for Wolf Brother, his eyes filled with exhaustion. This was the first time his soul had left his body, and he felt as if he had walked a very, very long way. Most of the nerve endings in his legs were completely necrotic and would require a long time to recover.

It's me.

Oscar immediately asked, "I don't believe you, give me a lick!"

Jiang Xueming: "You have Arab citizenship, your wife has a stronger body odor than you, and you want to find a girl who has had her scent glands removed."

"Stop talking! Stop talking!" Oscar immediately called out.

Jiang Xueming raised her glass and asked, "What's your HC card number?"

Oscar: "Stop! Stop! Can't you psychologists at least consider other people's privacy?"

After proving his identity, Wolf Brother was still confused.

Without a real name, bringing a soul back from Limbo is extremely difficult.

Does this mysterious Easterner possess some secret technique?

"There's a saying in my hometown," Jiang Xueming saw through Wolf Brother's little scheme, "That black cats can ward off evil spirits, Louise is a good medium; she saved me."

Oscar remained skeptical, his eyes filled with distrust. "Where? Where are you talking to? You crawled back by yourself?"

Jiang Xueming: "There's another saying that if you keep a chicken at home, you can follow the sound of the rooster crowing at dawn and find your way back home."

Oscar was confused. "I didn't prepare any chicken for you!"

Miss Benni's hysterical screams echoed from the lobby of the meeting hall; she seemed to be having another episode.

"The gunsmith! The gunsmith! I need to see the gunsmith! If I can't marry the gunsmith, my soul will be defiled! I'll be unclean!"

Xue Ming patted the big wolf on the shoulder--

--I still have to stand on tiptoe this time, Oscar is just too tall.

Did you hear that?

What else does Oscar want to argue about?

--After all, only roosters crow.

But Zhang Congfeng waved his hand, pressed down on Wolf Brother's arm, and presented the teacup to Wolf Brother with a kiss, everything was understood without words, telling Wolf Brother not to ask any more questions.

When the priest limped out the door, his legs still recovering from the acid, Oscar watched his retreating figure thoughtfully, unable to convince himself otherwise. After all, when he first met the gunsmith, the man walked quickly and steadily, every step like an attack.

The Black Cat Louise approached Oscar. She was only 1.6 meters tall, and when she offered the wizard's arm to the wolf, it startled him.

"Holy crap! What is this thing?"

Oscar has completely forgotten that this was his own stuff; after all, he has so much inventory, it's normal to forget things. Perhaps he'll soon forget this bizarre experience as well.

Louise retorted, "I suspect this priest is insulting me!"

Oscar: "What did he do to you?"

Louise: "He called me a chicken! How dare he presume my species!"

A week later, this was the last chance to go into the mountains before early spring.

Maquire Copenhagen has fully recovered and is sitting on the dock of Moon River Lake, fishing with the priest.

The two middle-aged people lived a slow-paced life and began to chatter about some trivial family matters, talking nonsense.

"You threw that golden arm into the lake, Maquire?"

"Yes."

Aren't you afraid the salvage team will pull it up again?

"The situation was urgent. If the people from the medical station or the military post found it, I feared that Saint Josh Joris would be resurrected."

"Well done."

Did I do a good job?

"You did a great job! You did a great job!"

"Did I really do a good job, Mr. Gunsmith?"

The fishing rod twitched slightly, but Jiang Xueming didn't lift it. He continued to gaze at the shimmering lake in the distance, his expression seemingly unchanged, and began to speak earnestly about something else.

"The book has arrived. The delivery service at Mimir Hot Spring Market is really impressive; they even dared to send a truck during the season when the mountains are closed."

"Which book?" Maquire asked curiously. "What are you talking about? Please answer directly!"

"You'll definitely find it useful, or perhaps you already have," Jiang Xueming said with a smile. "It's that book—"

"--Traumatic Brain Injury."

Maquire: "Stop insulting me."

Jiang Xueming: "Is the old Chinese medicine doctor at the clinic still in good health?"

Maquire: "She was a little startled, but she found it quite novel and kept asking about you."

Jiang Xueming: "Grandma cares about me?"

Maquire: "After all, you're the one who saved her."

Jiang Xueming: "That car is nice."

Maquire: "I like Chinese cars; they're cheap and durable."

Jiang Xueming: "I'll give you one."

Maquire: "Are you kidding me?"

Jiang Xueming pointed to the main road next to the lakeside cabin, and said that along with the <Brain Injury>, there was also a brand-new Tank 300.

I don't like your color scheme.

Maquire: "You don't have to send me a pink one, do you?! Hey!"

"Actually, it doesn't have a pink model; there are only a few colors available from the factory," Jiang Xueming said proudly. "I painted it myself."

As he said this, Xue Ming picked up the fishing rod, with a bunch of keys hanging on the hook, and handed it to Maquire.

"Come here, surgeon."

Maquire thought about it for a very, very long time. So long that a distant fishing boat finally pulled the remains of lumberjack Dickens from the mud and onto the deck.

He heard Dickens' family suddenly erupt in enthusiastic celebration, along with cries and shouts. The laughter was the miraculous reunion with loved ones after many years, while the cries were the moment of separation by death, finally seeing the bodies of his father, son, and husband with his own eyes.

He only felt pain in his buttocks, a phantom pain that accompanied him. It was as if his spirit had been violently struck, soaring all the way from Lingbo Hell, almost causing his hip bones to become inflamed, his legs to tremble, and there was a raging fire on the chair—he was sitting in the fire.

Maquire Copenhagen took the keychain, which included a bright yellow pure copper bullet pendant.

"Okay, psychologist."