Chapter 366: Deciding Superiority, Deciding Life and Death

The blade descended, the metal, forged and polished a thousand times, sinking into the focal point of layered reflections, offering no visual resistance, an unnatural sense of unreality.

Only when red followed the silver trail and seeped out did Benny, across the room, lean forward with a sharp, first-time-sight-of-blood inhalation.

Kup didn’t remember if he’d described the general treatment process last night. But whether explained beforehand or not, a father imagining such an operation being performed on his own child could hardly remain calm.

Soon, he had no time for idle thoughts.

“Gauze.”

Before his mind could turn, a white cotton textile was seized and placed into the outstretched hand, just as rehearsed.

He even felt no reminder was needed—so long as Kraft emitted a single affirmative or dissatisfied grunt, he would instinctively know what to hand over.

Under pressure from the gauze, bleeding was preliminarily controlled; the severed surface of the thick scalp became visible, the frontalis muscle twitching faintly in view, releasing a warm, rust-like odor that stirred memories deep in his mind of his first use of the Page Hammer.

The shaved, bluish scalp was clamped and pulled apart, exposing the periosteum below, then further incised and bluntly dissected with the blade’s back.

The entire process resembled peeling away a resilient membrane from a spherical surface—and indeed, it was. Blood seeped from the separation, pooled on the surface and wiped away by cotton cloth; bleeding points unresponsive to pressure were cauterized with heated thin metal wires.

When the gray-white skull bone appeared, Kup glanced at the hourglass—one-third of the fine sand had drained. Perhaps because the exposed area was larger, progress was slightly slower than ideal.

Next came the specially crafted bone saw provided by the Xigo family—this tool made the operation appear considerably more civilized than using a carpenter’s chisel, though only marginally; the main improvement lay in efficiency.

Especially when the surgeon had clear expectations of cranial thickness, it greatly reduced concerns of applying too little or too much force, slowly and evenly sawing a square bone plate, roughly five fingers wide on each side, through the grating, laborious sound.

Minutes later, the bone plate loosened. A retractor slipped into the gap, and with a faint “click,” it was carefully removed and placed into cooled, boiled saline for preservation.

After opening the window to the brain, what met the eye was the old acquaintance—the dura mater. Previous hematoma removal procedures had been confined to this layer, but this time, they would go much deeper.

A smaller, thinner blade was swapped in, and the dura mater was cut in a cross pattern, its edges sutured and flipped outward.

The gray-pink, moist, furrowed soft tissue—the frontal lobe. At this point, the surgery entered the true realm of the brain, the center of all thought, revealed for the first time in its living form.

“Prepare,” Kraft whispered.

Though mentally prepared, the sensation’s emergence still caused discomfort.

Repeated exposure had not desensitized him; instead, it sharpened his perception—he almost felt he could see the thing itself.

Vast, soft, like a colossal soft-bodied organism unfolding, permeating every inch of space, evoking a contradictory sensation between revulsion and intricate grandeur.

Kraft’s movements accelerated in sync. In the depths beyond the reach of light, a faint pulsation could be sensed—the blood’s power source mapping through complex vascular branches to the neural core, warning them they were nearing a highly vascularized zone.

By this point, even from the closest assistant position, details were nearly impossible to discern.

The primary instrument had been replaced by fine forceps no thicker than a steel needle, separating the tissues enveloping the brain’s and cranial base’s tiny, dense vessels, clearing space.

Then, a retractor with a long handle and broad, flat blades was inserted, gently lifting the brain tissue, slowly raising the frontal lobe to reveal the space beneath.

“Silver clips!”

Before Kup could react, fluid surged from the blind zone of light, rapidly filling one corner of the surgical field.

Without waiting, Kraft handed the retractor to Kup, freeing his left hand to pick from the instrument tray the required object—a small silver clip, similar in shape to a staple but far smaller.

The forceps in his right hand had already plunged into the dark, red-tinged depths, clamping a bleeding point invisible to the eye—the flow of fluid instantly halted.

The silver clip slid along the fine forceps, secured, and clamped shut. Cotton strips followed immediately, absorbing residual oozing.

“Good—it’s just a small vein.”

Raising the frontal lobe by only two finger-widths consumed several times the time of all prior work; the hourglass had flipped twice without notice, and the surgery was halfway done.

His hands began to tremble, his left arm especially so—he could only operate in intermittent bursts during moments of stability; any observer could see he was no longer suited for fine manipulation.

Fortunately, only one and a half people could see what he was doing.

Sweat beads continuously slid from his hairline, stinging his corneas. Kraft simply closed his eyes. No reminder was needed—the limit was approaching, waiting for him at a perceptible threshold.

The retractor was handed back to the assistant; Kraft gripped the forceps with both hands and reached toward the gray-white tumor nestled deep within the sella turcica.

It had hijacked the pituitary gland, stealing its function to serve its own ends, controlling systemic changes with a mass less than one ten-thousandth of the body’s.

Remove a fraction less, and it would recur; remove a fraction more, and the pituitary would be damaged—death would come faster.

If the surgeon here were an ordinary person—even an experienced veteran—it would have been doomed to fail; no, under identical conditions, they might not even reach this step.

But here stood no ordinary man; the most difficult step of the surgery had already been completed for him.

“Hold steady. Prepare.”

As practiced yesterday, his spiritual form actively contacted the pain entrenched within—the anguish erupted violently, striking his rational defenses, instinctively urging him to tear open the veil separating this world from the other.

But what the surgery required was the opposite. He had to control the manifestation of this pain, shaping the force of rending layers like a canal controlling floodwaters—turning it into a gentle stream, precisely channeled to the target location.

The struggle between madness and reason, between release and control—he won again.

An exquisitely precise fissure formed at the perfect point, severing the boundary between tumor and pituitary, between life and death.

The forceps clamped the tumor, extracted it effortlessly, and placed it upon the white gauze of the tray; a pea-sized cotton ball was pressed against the wound to staunch bleeding—all completed in a single breath, swift as the instant a swordsman decides victory.

The patient’s breathing was steady, condition stable, deep in sleep.

The fourth flip of the hourglass was nearing its end—a fortunate surgery. Kraft even had enough energy left to meticulously suture the dura mater, reattach the bone flap, and hand over the scalp suturing to Kup before severing his spiritual senses.

Perhaps it was the sense of accomplishment, or perhaps the fleeting afterglow of adrenaline—amid the tidal waves of side effects and exhaustion—he still stood firmly before the operating table until the ceiling entered his vision at a strange angle.

?? Tomorrow is the college entrance exam. I specially wish all examinees success. Also, those considering applying for clinical medicine should think carefully before proceeding.

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