SEC Chapter 1341 Tasha
Chapter 1341 Tasha
Lin Yi was sleeping soundly; the last time he slept this soundly was probably in the real world.
This time he didn't dream of anything. His consciousness felt like it had been turned off, the screen went black and there was no signal at all.
When he restarted the device, the light outside the tent had changed from deep black to grayish-white, whether it was because it was the next morning or because the weather was too gloomy.
Lin Yi yawned and sat up in bed.
The springs of the cot let out a groan as he got up, like an old donkey that had been pressed down for too long finally waiting for the person on top of it to move away.
He rubbed his eyes and rubbed his face with his palms, trying to squeeze out the lingering sleepiness from his pores.
The tent smelled of disinfectant mixed with the stench of blood, and there was also a hint of warmth from the heater.
The fire in the stove was almost out, with only a few dark red embers glowing faintly in the ashes.
A folding chair was placed next to Lin Yi's bed. There were several claw marks on the back of the chair, probably from the mechanical dog when it was carrying supplies.
A note lay on the cushion of the folding chair, pressed down by a bullet casing, the bottom of which still bore traces of gunpowder burns.
He picked up the slip of paper and unfolded it. The handwriting was neat and the strokes were clean and crisp. Every word was written in a very precise manner, as if it had been written with a ruler.
"Doctor, my brother is awake. We won't bother you any longer, we'll be leaving now. Thank you."
The note was unsigned, undated, and contained no superfluous pleasantries.
After reading the note, Lin Yi folded it twice and stuffed it into his pocket.
The autistic younger brother spoke fluently like a normal person while his older brother was in a coma, but as soon as his older brother woke up, he retreated back into his shell.
For the autistic younger brother, once a person has someone to rely on, his language function will degenerate to a minimum. This is not considered an illness in the cycle of reincarnation, but rather the norm.
Lin Yi got off the bed, his boots making a soft rustling sound on the tent floor.
He stretched and heard a series of soft clicking sounds coming from his spine, like the squeaking of gears squeezing out of a machine that has been sitting idle for too long when it is restarted.
When Lin Yi sat up in bed, he saw Wei Hua squatting beside the cot. Tasha was tightly bound with gray-white ropes, her eyes were open with radiating pupils, and there was a layer of dried drool on the corner of her mouth.
He yawned and asked Weihua how long she had been awake.
Wei Hua thought for a moment, poked the other person's waist and said, "I woke up about an hour ago. After waking up, I kept trying to run away, but the rope was tied too tightly, and it seems like there are some aftereffects. My legs are not very agile. Every time I struggle, I collapse halfway back, then collapse back to rest for a while before struggling again. It's a cycle, like a beetle that has been turned upside down."
Lin Yi nodded after listening, walked to the cot, squatted down, looked at Tasha's pupils, and felt her carotid artery to confirm that her heartbeat and blood pressure were within the normal range.
The anesthetic he injected her with was specially made, the Black Abyss Black Dragon Special Edition.
The origin of this thing is a bit outrageous. The Black Abyss Dragon is a sub-dragon creature that lives in the Black Abyss. Its whole body is covered with scales, and its bite force is enough to chew through the shield of a sixth-tier contractor. Its spitting acid can corrode a layer of epic-level armor in three seconds, making it one of the top predators in the sixth-tier food chain.
However, it has one fatal flaw—its meat is extremely delicious.
The meat of the Black Abyss Black Dragon is a legendary ingredient in the catering industry of the staff street of the Reincarnation Paradise. It is priced by the gram. A plate of charcoal-grilled Black Abyss Black Dragon tenderloin with black truffle sauce can sell for the price of an epic-level equipment, and it is still in short supply.
So even though the Black Abyss Dragon is extremely dangerous, a large number of people still flock to the world it inhabits to make a living by capturing it.
Some used traps, some used poison, some formed teams to hunt, and some even developed a special anesthetic formula for the Black Abyss Black Dragon.
The anesthetic that Lin Yi obtained was an advanced version of that formula, which was said to have been improved by a team specializing in biopharmaceuticals over three years.
Theoretically speaking, even an adult Black Abyss Dragon would be unconscious for about three days after being injected with this anesthetic, during which time it would be unable to even lift its eyelids.
Tasha woke up in less than a day.
"Humans, why haven't you surrendered yet?"
Lin Yi looked at her face, and the expression on her face was no different from that on the battlefield yesterday.
The one speaking to Lin Yi at this moment was a parasitic species. Its tone was extremely arrogant, like the condescending indifference of a creature that has long held a dominant position when facing a lower creature.
"What's your name?"
“Crimson Tasha.” Her voice changed very slightly when she said the name, as if something was struggling to come out from deep in her throat, only to be pushed back down by something stronger.
Lin Yi nodded; he recognized the name.
The introduction to the world of the Beast Continent mentions several top combatants from the human kingdom, with Tasha's name listed third in the information.
Do you remember how long you were parasitized?
Tasha's eyelids twitched slightly, as if she were recalling something, or perhaps resisting it.
Her pupils began to change again, the radiating patterns on her iris spinning rapidly a few times before slowly stabilizing.
"I don't remember."
Lin Yi nodded, then shifted his gaze from her face to the person next to him, Seien Mika.
"Knock her out."
Mika Seien blinked, as if she hadn't heard clearly.
"What did you say, teacher?"
"Knock her out and let the parasite completely take over her body. I'm going to peel it out of her body."
"When the parasite awakens, it enters a stress-induced dormant state, making it more difficult to remove. If the parasite is left awake and watching itself being removed, it will mobilize all its remaining energy to try to protect itself, which will only expose its location more thoroughly."
After hearing this, Mika Seien's expression changed from confusion to a vague state between understanding and not understanding.
She didn't ask any more questions, but instead walked to the cot, raised her fist, and punched Tasha behind the ear.
With a muffled thud, Tasha's eyes rolled back and then closed.
Her body twitched slightly while she was unconscious, then fell completely still.
Lin Yi turned to the tent entrance, lifted the curtain, and called out, "Qin Na, come here for a moment."
Washimi Serina, a second-year student at Trinity College, and a member of the Rescue Knights.
She was short and slender, with her hair tied in a low ponytail that hung down her back, the ends of which just touched the edge of her collar.
She was wearing a white nurse's uniform with a dark gray apron over it. The apron had a leather belt tied around the waist with several small pockets hanging from it, from which the edges of hemostats and gauze rolls could be seen.
The nurse's uniform has an embroidered badge on the left breast, which is a scepter wrapped around a snake with a red cross at the tip of the snake's tail. It is the symbol of the Order of the Holy Sacrifice.
Her face is the kind that isn't particularly striking at first glance, but becomes pleasing to the eye over time. Her features aren't particularly outstanding, but together they give a sense of calm, like a glass of warm water on a table. You don't consciously try to drink it, but you know it's there.
"Teacher, is there anything I can help you with?"
Lin Yi leaned against the edge of the operating table and nodded his chin toward Tasha: "I'll be the surgeon for the parasite removal surgery. You can hand me the tools. Have you handled similar cases before?"
Qinna walked to the instrument tray, reached out and adjusted the position of several hemostats, aligning their handles neatly in the same direction. "I've read some literature on nerve interface dissection; I have a theoretical understanding and can apply it in practice." "Who taught you first aid?"
"My predecessors in the Order of the Ambulance. Trinity's Order of the Ambulance has its own training system, with graded courses from basic anatomy to complex surgical procedures. I passed the intermediate surgical skills assessment in the first semester of my second year and can perform most routine surgeries independently."
She paused when she said "most routine surgeries," as if she felt that the statement was not quite accurate, and then added, "We can also assist the chief surgeon in completing more complex surgeries."
"What's the most complex case you've ever seen?"
Qinna thought for a moment, then pointed to her right shoulder: "A classmate was hit by shrapnel from an explosive device, which pierced his subclavian artery. The shrapnel was embedded between the blood vessel and the clavicle, and pulling it out might cause a secondary tear. The senior surgeon asked me to assist in suturing the blood vessel wall."
"Okay, first clear out that cot and move her to the operating table. Then go and move the oil drum over, the one in the corner of the warehouse that used to hold industrial alcohol. Clean it and make sure it's empty. Also, prepare a set of large surgical instruments, the kind that can cut through the spine; the regular instruments aren't long enough."
Qinna nodded, asked no further questions, and immediately turned to begin her work.
She rolled up the bedding on the cot and piled it in a corner, then lifted Tasha from the bed and placed her on the operating table.
The operating table was welded by engineering students using scrap materials. The tabletop was a thickened alloy plate with nylon straps around it for fixation.
Cinna secured Tasha's body, then turned and went to the toolbox in the corner of the tent to rummage for surgical instruments.
Lin Yi walked to the operating table and looked down at Tasha's profile.
Her breathing was steady, her heartbeat was normal, and her skin temperature was slightly lower than normal, which could be a side effect of the anesthetic or the parasite consuming too much energy while active in her body.
"Teacher, the surgical instruments are ready."
Lin Yi put on gloves and picked up the specially made scalpel from the instrument tray.
The blade is much longer than a regular scalpel, and the curvature of the blade is specially polished to cut through the gaps between the vertebrae.
The light from the operating lamp fell on Tasha's nape, where the skin had been shaved clean by Cinna, revealing the bluish-white scalp and the faint outline of blood vessels.
"Let's begin."
Lin Yi's scalpel cut along the midline of Tasha's nape, extending from her hairline to her cervical spine.
After the skin was cut open, the dark red muscle layer and grayish-white fascia were exposed. He used a retractor to separate the muscles on both sides, exposing the spinous processes and lamina of the cervical vertebrae.
The parasitic species' tentacles have covered the entire spinal cord. The grayish-white filaments wrap around the surface of the spinal cord like a fine net, extending from the cervical vertebrae to the lumbar vertebrae. Each tentacle is connected to a nerve root, and the ends of the tentacles have fused with nerve fibers, forming a semi-transparent mixed tissue.
The parasitic species Lin Yi had seen before were mostly in larval form, often only a small one parasitizing near the brainstem at the back of the head. But this time was different. Perhaps because the parasitic period was very long, the parasitic species had fully developed inside the other person's body.
Lin Yi dissected it slightly and found that the nerve endings of the other party had been completely covered by the tentacles of the parasite.
In other words, to get rid of this parasite, major surgery is required, which involves treating the nerve endings throughout the parasite's body.
Lin Yi used micro-tweezers to grasp the end of a tentacle and gently pulled it outward.
The tentacle was stretched a little, and then stopped.
He could feel the resistance, the pulling feedback from where the tentacles fused with the nerve fibers.
"Cinna, hemostats."
Qinna handed over the hemostat, and Lin Yi used the hemostat to clamp the elongated part of the tentacle, then used a scalpel to gently cut the edge of the fusion point.
He used a spiral cutting technique to separate the fusion of tentacles and nerve fibers.
There is actually an extremely thin boundary layer between the tentacles and nerve fibers. The shape of the cells in that layer is neither like tentacle tissue nor nerve tissue, but more like a transitional structure that is formed after the two coexist.
If you cut from the front, it's difficult to completely detach the tentacles without damaging the nerves.
Spiral cutting can cut into that transition layer from the side, rolling the tentacles down in circles along the direction of the fibers.
This method is slower, but it minimizes nerve damage.
Lin Yi's scalpel circled that small area four times, each circle cutting through a deeper layer of tentacle tissue. Only when the last circle reached the bottom nerve sheath did he gently pull out the separated tentacle with tweezers.
Qinna stood beside him, her gaze fixed on the cut.
Every time Lin Yi reached out, she knew which tool to hand him: hemostats, scissors, retractors, cotton swabs. The instruments moved silently between her and the workbench.
Three hours later, Lin Yi pulled the last tentacle out from the end of Tasha's lumbar spine.
That tentacle was thicker than any of the previous tentacles, with a diameter of nearly two millimeters. It was still wriggling slightly under the grip of the tweezers, like an earthworm being pulled out of the mud.
He didn't give it time to struggle and threw it directly into the clean iron bucket next to it.
A small layer of grayish-white fragments and translucent membranes had accumulated at the bottom of the iron bucket; these were the parasitic tissues that he had peeled off piece by piece before.
There were some dark red blood spots on the inside of the barrel, which were unavoidable bloodstains from the peeling process.
Lin Yi put down the scalpel and moved his right wrist. The joints of his wrist made a series of soft cracking sounds as he moved.
"That's it, cleaning the incision is all it takes."
Qinna nodded and picked up the prepared saline solution to rinse the incision.
A pale red liquid flowed down from the edge of the incision, dripping onto the floor along the edge of the operating table and forming a small patch of dark red water.
As the light of the healing spell faded, Tasha's dissected body finally returned to normal.
Lin Yi walked to the iron barrel and looked down at the remains of the parasitic species at the bottom of the barrel.
The grayish-white fragments piled up in a small heap at the bottom of the bucket, some of them still wriggling very slowly, like limbs cut off from the mother's body consuming the last bit of remaining energy.
He took a lighter out of his pocket, lit it, and threw it into the bucket.
The flames shot up the moment they touched the fragments, making a whooshing sound similar to burning grease.
The grayish-white fragments curled up in the flames, emitting a burnt protein smell mixed with a slight pungent sulfur odor.
Lin Yi put the lid on the bucket and pushed it onto the snow outside the tent, letting it cool slowly in the cold air.
After doing all this, Lin Yi went to the operating table to check and found that there was no major problem.
"Let her continue sleeping; she'll wake up naturally when she's had enough sleep."
Qinna responded, put the used equipment into the sterilization bucket, closed the lid, and then moved it to the washing table outside the tent.
When she returned, she had a blanket in her hand, which she unfolded and covered Tasha with.
Lin Yi walked to the tent entrance and stood there for a while, looking at the iron bucket on the snow that was still emitting white steam, pondering how to extract more information from Tasha.
The troublesome parasite has been dealt with; now all that's left is for her to awaken, and we'll receive accurate information about the Alien King. (End of Chapter)