Surgery Is a Common Source of Nightmares

"What happened in Chernobog was wrong, but she used to..."

The lazy one retorted angrily, "The past is the past! The present is the present! Not only did she make Mephisto do that kind of thing, but she also used my older sister and father as cannon fodder!"

An ordinary person might think, "Are you missing the point?" How can setting a trap be more important than massacring ordinary people? But the guerrillas are an armed force that rose up on the tundra of the Northwest.

FrostNova and Patriot may each have their own set of beliefs, but their "subordinates" and "brothers" mostly follow the charismatic leader in their hearts. Or rather, a living idol is far more attractive than an ideology or a belief.

The capable-looking one nodded, indicating partial agreement, but then countered from another angle. "You arrived late and haven't had much interaction with Talulah, but she really was..."

High in the atmosphere, water vapor meets the cold winds blowing southward from the north, gradually forming solids along with condensation nuclei. These hexagonal solid water particles drift in the air on which aerobic animals depend for survival.

And these snowflakes, melted by the residual heat of the still stubbornly struggling "Number Fourteen Facility" at the edge of the horizon, glistened and clung to the streets of the abandoned city. After the snowflakes cooled again, they had become one with the annoying black ice on the ground, inseparable from it.

The Interstice, Hamlet Town, Hospital.

The Bloodfiend stood on tiptoe and shouted, "Hurry up, hurry up!"

Alina and FrostNova opened the side door of the stagecoach carriage, and sure enough, Oute was lying in a strange position on the back seat.

As Oute gradually became more adept at navigating the Interstice, he was now able to pre-book his entrance locations. However, he probably didn't anticipate the damage that sleeping on the back seat without armrests would inflict on his neck.

Just as FrostNova's hand was about to touch Oute, he opened his eyes.

But there was little shrewdness or indifference in his eyes; instead, there was a bewilderment and unease that had not been tainted by his own "astounding wisdom."

After a while, he finally came to his senses and asked, "Warfarin... have you seen a white-haired Bloodfiend?"

FrostNova nodded, already having a premonition.

"She is you, and she also has my medical insurance."

Oute left the carriage, and as his gaze swept across the town square, he could already see Warfa waving his arms.

On the way to the hospital, Oute asked FrostNova, "Approximately how much time has passed since we left?"

FrostNova frowned, puzzled, and said, "Seven or eight hours."

Although Hamlet experienced a "full week," the time laws at the Interstice were too arbitrary for most people to imagine, and FrostNova was naturally among them.

A mysterious smile appeared on Alina's lips.

Oute offered no explanation, but simply nodded.

In this way, the surface mechanism of the Interstice time has been deciphered.

After completing a dungeon instance, a "week" must pass before the next instance can be accessed. To achieve this, a week must pass between two dungeon instances. Furthermore, the timeline is synchronized with real-world time.

This may sound like a bit like rambling literature, but time, in the operational logic of the Interstice, does indeed play the role of "rambling literature." It needs the flow of time, but as long as the flow of time meets its requirements, that's sufficient.

Whether it was the "first week" Alina went through when Oute first brought Specter and Skadi to the Interstice; the second week when the six of them violated the rules by extending their exploration time and even Ignition torches to summon the Shambler; the third week when they intentionally split into two, obtained the Fate Reconstruction, and killed the Necromancer Apprentice; or the fourth week that they just completed... a "full week" was spent between the two dungeons!

"This is..." Just as Oute raised his hand to introduce Warfarin, he was interrupted by the Bloodfiend Doctor.

Warfarin crossed her arms, anticipating Oute's prediction, and said, "While you were fast asleep, I already introduced these two ladies to each other!"

"Enough with the small talk, let's begin!" Warfarin pushed open the sanatorium door with an air of familiarity. The morning sunlight streamed into the cold, gloomy corridor, creating a beautiful interplay of light and shadow.

As Oute had previously stated when he intentionally tempted Warfarin, their purpose in being in Hamlet Town today was to verify the feasibility of two medical technologies.

One of them was Oute's experiment on limb regeneration as a late Homo sapiens.

Secondly, it's also quite easy to guess.

Oute placed the jewelry on Warfarin, then gestured towards the operating table. "Miss Alina, please."

Bloodfiend frowned, sensing the increase in his power, and glanced sideways at Oute.

The Deer Woman took a deep breath and forced a smile, "At this crucial moment... I'm still a little nervous."

"Please my foot!" Warfarin, now fully engaged, jumped up without hesitation and tapped Oute on the back of the head. "It's not like we're field medics! Why the rush?!"

As she spoke, she sighed, "It's a pity there are no photography equipment here, otherwise..."

As an old Sarkaz Bloodfiend, Warfarin was quite knowledgeable. It was precisely this knowledge that led her to directly classify the Interstice as one of the "witchcraft" techniques she had encountered before.

Oute held up the handheld terminal and asked, "Is this okay?"

"..." Warfarin glanced at Oute speechlessly, staring at Oute's "ear feathers," and managed to utter a single sentence. "As expected of Mind Flayer."

To ease her pre-surgery anxiety, Alina quickly chimed in, asking, "Why do you say Doctor. Oute is Mind Flayer?"

As long as the surgery can be delayed, anything is fine, right?

She continued her rapid-fire questioning, "Mind Flayer is just a legend, isn't it?"

The elders often say that the Mind Flayer is the devil among devils.

"In their veins flows not fresh blood, but poison brewed from ambition and greed. Once it sets its sights on you, if your eyes are open and you meet its red gaze, your soul will be instantly sucked away! Not only ordinary people, they even suck the souls of demons! Ruthlessly enslaving all slaves!"

Red eyes? It seems you've included the Bloodfiend in the mix?

Chapter 118 Surgery: A Common Source of Nightmares

"The elders say that a Mind Flayer takes a month to devour a man's brain, suck the soul from a woman, and also..."

Warfarin remained silent, firstly because she understood the patient's thoughts, and secondly because she had nothing to say about the Mind Flayer —she had only learned about this group through the tactic of "If you don't sleep, the Mind Flayer will come and eat your brain."

If Warfarin hadn't seen Oute with her own eyes, she would have thought it was just a distorted legend left behind in history by the Mind Lash Demon.

Oute broke the eerie atmosphere by activating the recording mode on his handheld terminal and asking, "Can we start now?"

To Alina's question, he replied, "I don't eat human brains. As for whether I consume souls—that depends on your definition of a soul."

Anyway, the cat did say that he wanted to "absorb all the souls," although Kal'tsit's original words were more complicated and less human-like.

"What? You picked the least likely part to be true specifically to refute it?" Alina laughed inexplicably. "Doesn't that mean all the other parts could be true?"

"..." Warfarin's pretty face stiffened.

Regarding the statements "Sarkaz don't eat human brains" or "Sarkaz don't eat people," are these statements possibly true or not?

Warfarin stated that after two hundred years of practice, she can now distinguish between food and patients.

As for the dietary habits of other Sarkaz... Warfarin's behavior doesn't even represent the entire Bloodfiend race.

Those Bloodfiend who have integrated into modern "civilized" life and even intentionally show "elegance" are alright, but other Bloodfiend who follow the "ancient ways" might even eat the flesh as well.

"Before the surgery, I want to reiterate," Warfarin said, "That it's not that the Originium on the surface of an infected person's body is unimportant, but the crystals on the surface are only a small part of the Originium inside their bodies."

For Originium, a disease that is closely integrated with the victim's somatic cells, its toxicity to the patient's internal organs and circulatory system is particularly terrifying.

"The most basic procedure for treating Originium Infection surgically is hemodialysis. Moreover, this method is not very effective; at best, it's better than nothing," Mr. Blood said. "If supplemented with Originium Arts, it might be possible to save a person's life in a short time and temporarily slow down the erosion of Originium."

"But using Originium Arts in such a place might actually stimulate the activation of Originium!"

But as Oute repeatedly emphasized to others, this was not a cure—it was merely a postponement of death.

For Terra, Originium is like oxygen a million times gentler.

Oxygen, one of the most toxic substances in the universe, ruthlessly lashed out at the entire Earth, fueled by cyanobacteria, and forcibly transformed the young planet into a "poisonous planet" with the complete extinction of countless species as a prelude.

From that time onward, those who loathed and resisted oxygen could only huddle on the fringes of the biosphere, licking their wounds. The greatest evil that humanity could imagine, the most heinous deeds that could be committed, could not compare to even a fraction of the importance of oxygen at that time.

But even such a "gentle" Originium has its own purpose.

Perhaps its creator loves the entire Terra, but for that very reason, a particular beast-eared girl is neither important to her nor to it.

Cheating on her husband is a different story.

"Don't talk about this kind of thing in front of the patients," Oute said, glancing at FrostNova.

There was a hint of fear on her face.

The operating table and doctors—such scenes of being unable to control oneself can easily evoke fear in others.

Warfarin nodded and said, "The record is as follows: Date: December 28, 1096, Hamlet Town."

"The patient is a young Elafia woman, an infected individual."

She quickly got to the point. "Objective: To verify a method for containing Originium Infection based on individual Originium Arts."

"Chief writer and scribe: Oute."

"Anesthesiologist: Warfarin."

Upon hearing this, with a hint of resolve, Alina finally closed her eyes, and FrostNova left the operating room.

With Oute blank expression, Warfarin, "'Shouldn't we anesthetize her?'"

"Yes, begin anesthesia," said the Bloodfiend Physician.

Warfarin was almost completely unaware as Oute infiltrated her body.

"Due to a lack of the necessary equipment, somatic cell binding rate cannot be measured, and blood test results..."

In order to deactivate the Originium inside Alina's body, Oute designed a surgical procedure that was somewhat too brutal and bloody.

Fortunately, FrostNova had already been expelled from the operating room; otherwise, witnessing such a brutal "treatment" would have made her question what kind of organization Rhodes Island really was...

Although it seemed that she didn't need to do anything herself, Warfarin still monitored Alina's vital signs very professionally.

"Your Originium Arts are truly..." she said with a hint of understanding, "No wonder Kal'tsit calls you 'the greatest Originium scholar in history'."

Before losing his memory, the Doctor was indeed the "greatest Originium scholar in history." However, Kal'tsit and Oute had some slight disagreements about the use of "historical" and "greatest" in that statement.

"With such convenient technology, the secrets of Originium are like a dancer who has taken off all her clothes in front of you!"

Soon, on the wound that Oute had intentionally left open, blood shot out as if it were connected to a heart.

But with Warfarin's magic, the blood suddenly began to swirl and flow into a nearby vessel. She exclaimed in astonishment, "The blood she lost is more than three times the amount of blood in her entire body!"

What about the law of conservation of mass? Please help!

As the intense work of Fate Reconstruction progressed, the Originium that had been active within Alina's body gradually fell silent.

Lacking a gimmick like the "Dream-Sleep Device," Warfarin was unable to bring the device into Hamlet; she could only rely on her Originium Arts to monitor some important data. Although Oute, lurking within her, could also see it, at this moment, he didn't know what data was considered normal.

Ultimately, it was better to act sooner rather than later. After several measurements, Warfarin told Oute, "The Originium's activity has decreased to an acceptable level; we can begin the excision."