Making the first cut

[Blood Rampage]!

Activate!

Xia Shou closed his fingers around empty air, as though grasping something invisible.

In his vision, the light in the hospital corridor turned dark red. He seemed to have awakened a sixth sense, one that let him perceive blood in an entirely different way: the blood in his own body, the blood inside Su Weiyu beside him, and... the blood inside this dangerous patient Anomalous Entity!

Xia Shou clenched his hand and yanked it sideways. The skin on the anomalous patient's arms and legs instantly swelled. His yellow skin rapidly became engorged with blood, turning dark red, before the skin split and the muscles burst. All four limbs exploded like bursting water balloons, splashing great sheets of blood across the corridor floor like crimson paint.

Xia Shou's will acted like an invisible hand, exerting an unseen pull on the blood inside the patient's body and tearing his limbs apart.

The powerful force not only destroyed his limbs but also dragged the Anomalous Entity backward, sending him crashing onto the corridor floor.

With all four limbs completely crippled, the anomalous patient had utterly lost his ability to move quickly. He writhed on the floor like a maggot, crawling toward Xia Shou at an agonizingly slow pace. He was effectively no longer a threat.

Wang Long stood beside them, dumbfounded. He remembered that the file he had received on Xia Shou had only listed him as a level-one Transcendent. It had never mentioned that Xia Shou also possessed a supernatural ability-and his level-one ability could actually affect an Anomalous Entity!

Could this domain's anomaly level be only one?

Wang Long's mind wandered for a moment. When he snapped out of it and saw Xia Shou's skin turning yellow, he immediately shouted, "Quick! Come with me to the Intensive Care Unit!"

Fuck!

Even Xia Shou had been infected.

Fortunately, Xia Shou had not killed the Anomalous Entity, so his symptoms could still be transferred. As long as someone else could take the disease and die in his place, he would be fine.

"No, I'm not going there," Xia Shou flatly refused.

Su Weiyu exclaimed, "You're already like this, and you still won't go? There's no way this hospital's power supply will hold out for twenty-four hours now. You saw it yourself just now-the walls and furniture in the wards aged rapidly within a very short time. The hospital's wiring and equipment must be doing the same!

"Once the power cuts out, those people won't survive anyway. Rather than dying for nothing, they might as well contribute something! Even if it's for everyone else's sake, you have to stay alive! You're worth far more than those patients' lives!"

While Su Weiyu spoke, Wang Long said much the same thing beside her.

Xia Shou gave them an expressionless look and said calmly, "I have my own solution. Whether it works or not, I want to try it first. Where's the hospital's blood bank? Get me as much blood matching my blood type as possible. The more, the better!"

Wang Long frowned. "What are you planning to do?"

"The symptoms that Anomalous Entity had seemed to indicate liver and lung disease. The edema he recently developed suggests he had kidney disease too. In other words, I might now have diseases affecting all three organs... so I want to replace those three organs with new ones. Cough, cough, cough!" Xia Shou said between coughs.

Wang Long stared at him in disbelief. "You want surgery? That's impossible! Who would dare touch you now? And where are we supposed to find compatible organs? Your plan simply can't be carried out!"

"My ability can consume blood to regenerate organs that normally can't grow back. Someone else will perform the surgery. You only need to guide them through the critical steps. Leave everything else to me," Xia Shou ordered in a tone that allowed no argument.

"That's far too risky. You'd be better off just transferring the disease to..."

"Do as I say! This research is essential!" Xia Shou snapped, coughing again.

Wang Long had wanted to argue further, but then he suddenly remembered that under these circumstances, administrative personnel were automatically demoted in rank. He should now be considered Xia Shou's subordinate. In a situation like this, following a professional's instructions was the best strategy for maximizing their chances of survival.

"All right!... I'll get people on it right away! Liu! Zhang! Open the door and fetch the blood!"

Wang Long immediately turned around and knocked on the tightly shut ward door. He called out several nurses and doctors and told them to hurry to the blood bank and bring back all the type O blood. Meanwhile, Xia Shou brought over a chair, sat down in the middle of the corridor, and quietly waited for the surgery to begin.

He had certainly not chosen to take this risk out of kindness. He was thinking further ahead.

If he merely transferred his disease to an ICU patient this time, what would he do next time?

How many critically ill patients in the ICU could die in his place? Besides, he was not the only one infected. When people faced a life-or-death crisis, there was no limit to what they might do to survive.

Elsewhere in the hospital, the infected ordinary people must already have been causing an uproar. They were bound to have realized that they could make critically ill ICU patients and immobile patients in vegetative states die in their place. Once those people erupted, the hospital's security guards would never be able to stop them.

The security guards might even be among those causing the trouble.

In the worst case, most of the people in the ICU might already be dead.

The phone at the service desk rang again. Drenched in sweat, Wang Long immediately answered it.

"Hello? What? Those people stormed the ICU? Why didn't you stop them!"

After a brief exchange, Wang Long hung up and pressed a hand to his forehead in despair. His mind was already on the verge of breaking down.

In such a desperate situation, one must never overestimate human decency.

Soon, the blood bags and the necessary surgical equipment had all been brought over. Xia Shou immediately took off his clothes and called Wang Long over. "Now tell me how to remove the liver."

"Wait, aren't you going to get on an operating table?" Wang Long looked utterly shaken.

"It's fine. We'll perform the surgery right here. My surgery is different from other people's. You can see the spirit behind me, right? Alice-she'll be performing the operation. You only need to tell her how to make the incisions properly. Leave the rest to me. Cough, cough, cough! Hurry, we're running out of time!"

As he spoke, two translucent hands appeared out of thin air behind Xia Shou and picked up the two sharp scalpels with steady grips. Then more hands appeared, wrapping around Xia Shou's arms and thighs to hold him firmly in place.

Wang Long pushed up his glasses, so nervous he nearly fainted.

Seeing him like this, Xia Shou actually smiled. "Don't worry. Alice has very steady hands. I guarantee this will be the cleanest, most efficient surgery you've ever seen!"

Although Xia Shou was not completely certain this would work, he had reason to believe it was feasible.

When he had seen diseases transferring between Anomalous Entities earlier, he had thought of Liu Guangyao's rotting arm. Liu Guangyao had been killed in a dream,

and his normal arm had gradually taken on the condition of a corpse as he was being killed. There were certain similarities to the anomalous patients' disease transfer.

Furthermore, Liu Guangyao's dream had been connected to the Blood God, and the skill Xia Shou had gained after devouring the Blood God happened to allow flesh to regenerate.

He felt that none of this was a coincidence.

"Tell me, where should the first incision go?" Xia Shou asked calmly.