Chapter 418: Return of Questionable Medical Practices
‘Well that’s fucking fantastic, looks like tetanus is a thing in this universe,’ Zhen Liu cursed, ‘wait, is aether enhanced bacteria a thing, or not?’
=Naturally occurring? No.=
‘…’
‘Fucking dammit.’
At this point in time, Zhen Liu had acclimated to this world’s nature so he knew that there was probably some crazy magic pill or spring water that could definitely cure tetanus, even it was aether enhanced. The only obstacles in relation to that though would either be a price tag or it being located in some bullshit dungeon guarded by an ancient monster with a tragic backstory.
On the plus(?) side, Zhen Liu did have access to giant magic library of infinite(?) knowledge that probably has something that could help with this.
Thankfully though, Zhen Liu wouldn’t have to worry about any of that.
[Not to worry, milord! I’d be a terrible secretary if I allowed one of the sons of my employer to die so easily and stupidly!]
‘Excellent! Thank you, Archanidame, what is the plan?’
[Bloodletting!]
‘…’
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*Bing-Bong*
The writer of this work would like to make it known that bloodletting shouldn’t be done unless you’re in a sterile, medical environment.
…
Actually, not even then.
Bloodletting is a very bad idea, especially if you’re hemophiliac.
…
Unless you’re magic.
…
Or cyborg.
…
Why am I even making this PSA?
I’m pretty sure most of our readers know not to take a scalpel to their wrists in a ham-fisted attempt at amateur surgery.
|There is a non-zero chance someone attempts this for shits and giggles, I ain’t getting sued for it.|
Fair enough…?
*Bing-Bong*
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Back in the cargo hold, Zhen Jin was currently convulsing on the floor as a sharp, deep pain began to rock his body.
‘What…the…fuck?!’
Zhen Jin knew he was infected with something bad, but he didn’t know what he was infected with exactly.
As a member of the Zhen Clan, he had been thoroughly schooled on the quirks and oddities of aether beasts, so he knew that multiple types of rat type aether beasts tended to carry some kind of disease to the.
The only problem was that he didn’t know of any associated with rust of all things.
‘Gods dammit…have to…stay…awake.’
By virtue of being an Aether Master, and having been envenomated multiple times before now, he was able to resist the pain to an extent and even destroy the toxins in his body, but it was far more taxing than anything he ever dealt with in the past.
It was as if everytime he flushed out some of the toxins, even more of it would suddenly be produced as if out of nowhere.
However, he would soon learn the origins of this continuous toxin when a familiar voice suddenly chimed in.
[Tetanus.]
‘What?’
As soon as Zhen Jin heard that voice, he began to notice a presence inside of his mind starting to become more and more prominent. Oddly enough, this presence felt very familiar to him.
‘Wait…I know this presence…the arachne? Why are you in my-?’
[Your body is currently being attacked by bacteria,] the arachne continued while interrupting Zhen Jin’s questioning, [tiny organisms that likes to live in the mouths of rats and warm soil. The bacteria is currently multiplying and releasing a poison that’s causing your muscles contract in an extreme manner. Everytime you flush out the toxin, you just encourage the bacteria to reproduce more and release more toxins as a result. You need to get rid of the bacteria first.]
‘Bacteria?,’ Zhen Jin repeated in a bewildered tone, ‘what’s bacteria?’
Evidently, in a world where magical medicine and people can quite literally become gods via cultivation, the concept of “germ theory” was lost to the waysides. Well, to be more accurate, germ theory was known but it wasn’t widespread.
Books are expensive.
[Wait, I didn’t transfer that over knowledge? Why didn’t I-wait,right, no unnecessary educational material transference without the right permissions…okay! All you need to know that unless you allow me to take over your body right this instance, you’ll probably die a very painful death. So what do you say? Want to let me try and save your life?]
The thing about [Possession] is that the kaijin actually have surprisingly little control on how the possessed act once they’re inside, with the exception of their lord, due to the effectiveness of this ability being directly correlated to the target’s “strength of will” in comparison to their own.
Depending on this disparity, the kaijin could flat out control someone’s body and mind due to the person being near dead and having very little strength of will present, or they can’t do a single thing due to the person being the mental equivalent of an unbreakable fortress.
Evidently, this is why Zhen Liu’s main method of exercising [Possession] involves a gun. Practically everyone’s strength of will gets shaken up when they get shot at.
Zhen Jin was in too much pain to actually comprehend what the voice in his head meant by take over his body…but this was the same voice that helped him achieve a breakthrough of sorts literally minutes ago, so…
‘I can’t control the universe, but I can control myself…alright, go for it.’
[Excellent.]
With permission given, Zhen Jin’s consciousness began to dial back as Arachnidame began to exert more control on his body and even a touch of his aether.
[Alright then, let’s get to work. I’ve never practiced medicine inside of someone’s body before… actually, I’ve never done medicine aside from first-aid. This will be interesting,] Archanidame mused. As she did, she began to focus her mind on diffusing her spirit more with Zhen Jin’s body so that she could start controlling specific cells and organs.
[Hmmm. A majority of the bacterium appears to be in the leg still, but it has spread throughout the body because of all the physical activity…,] Archanidame pondered, [I can’t rely on the body’s immune system to produce the antibodies I need in time to end the infection…but maybe I can make it easier to excise the offending cellular organisms?]
Zhen Jin’s fingers began to twitch as tiny threads of aether began to spool out of them and enter into several pores throughout his body.
[Just need to thread the needle…]
As the threads of aether entered the body, passed the skin and flesh and into the bloodstream, Archanidame could now detect with significantly more detail the exact locations where the offending bacteria had already spread to as well as they were about spread to.
[ Forty-six percent located in the initial leg wound, thirteen percent in the hip area, seven percent already in the abdomen and thirty-four percent in the lower leg and foot…not good but not terrible to deal with…]
Archanidame’s plan was simple…sort of.
She was going to make use of her aether threads to stop Zhen Jin’s heart in order to stop the blood flow, create several internal blood clots made of aether silk to contain the bacteria and toxins, force the formation of several postules, and then violently pop them from the inside by jumpstarting his heart and simultaneously cutting open the postules so that the blood was no choice but to exit through the new wounds.
The idea being that the sudden surge of blood flow pushing against one side of the makeshift clot while Archanidame holds the other would cause the pressure to be rather intense.
On paper this should work, in practice…that was another matter entirely.
[I can start pumping the blood again via my threads but I’ll have to be incredibly careful not to accidentally crush his heart in the process…alright, let’s do this thi-]
“Father!”
“Fifth Uncle?!”
“Zhen Jin?!”
[Ah fuck me sideways with a chancla.]
At the exact moment Archanidame was set to put her plan into action, Zhen Jin’s son, his first niece and nephew as well as his brothers all came into the cargo hold at once like it was a sitcom or a fucking medical drama.
[Y’all couldn’t have waited until after I save his life?]
“Holy shit what happened in here? It’s like a tornado tore through here.”
“Judging by the giant rat corpse with plants growing out of it, looks like it was more destructive.”
“Father!”
“Xiao Xing, wait!”
[Wait a minute…]
Archanidame was initially rather miffed about the intrusion of familial elements, but quickly realized she could use this to her advantage.
[Milord does care about secrecy whilst raising the prestige of his other family members, at least somewhat, and Hurricroak did teach that shark boy over there how to perform defibrillation…maybe I can…]
After a few quick calculations, Archanidame realized she wouldn’t have to be as careful as she needed to be to perform this internal bloodletting procedure by herself. Instead, she could rely on a certain electric hammerhead boy to do the tricky part for her.
[Looks like all I need to do is prepare the clots and stop the heart…does this mean I’m inducing a stroke or a heart attack? Things to muse afterwards,] Archanidame concluded.
Her plans now modified, Archanidame began to weave her threads as subtley and quickly as possible.
[The heroic beast slayer almost succumbs to their wounds, but is then saved at the last minute by a family member…that feels poetic somehow, and I swore I read that somewhere once.]
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“Father!”
“Whoa! Xiao Xing, stand back! Something’s happening!”
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS
Mizako
I have hit 5k Favorites as of this chapter…alright!
time to share art then
A hot kaijin teaser by @BoltMassive pic.twitter.com/Z9bhWdLZLG
— Mizako (@MajorMizako) October 27, 2022
this boy is a teaser
