Chapter 388: Passage Through the Wound

The lead box, once holding something, is now empty.

Cold sweat trickled down his nose bridge; Kup struggled to open his jaw, trying to spit out the words right at his lips, but could not speak.

The unspoken sentence lacked a crucial keyword—it had been taken.

Or it had escaped.

Something was missing from the room, yet something else seemed to have appeared. An inexplicable tension spread, as if space itself had been compressed to make way, an entire segment of existence slipping into the crack, gliding along the subtle divide between subjective perception and objective reality.

But it was too close, and far too vast, inevitably pressing against its surroundings, generating a ripple-like tremor—like a crawling insect burrowing beneath wallpaper, its supple, elongated body winding forward, lifting the skin of reality, swelling and undulating.

It moved freely within the cramped room, existing between being and non-being.

To those insufficiently sensitive, the subtle contradiction was nearly imperceptible. The novice Kanser hadn't even realized what had happened; his gaze still swept the floor, perhaps thinking some valuable item had rolled away and been lost.

Kup lunged to the table, gripping the arrowhead in his hand, then returned to the operating table, twisting his body with nimble, almost comical motions to avoid the spread-out instruments and the sterilized zone.

Training-induced reflexes made his body complete the sequence almost automatically, most of his mind focused on finding the missing thing.

The result terrified him: the information that should have settled like a bone specimen had grown fresh flesh and blood, left its place, leaving only a serpent's path vanishing into darkness.

Those memories had been processed by an extraordinarily skilled practitioner—cut open, the related portions extracted, images, sounds, sensations peeled and excised one by one, then meticulously sutured back together.

But no matter how skillful the surgery, it could never leave no trace.

What remained was a scar extending along the memory, slender and chilling; every time he traced or touched it, dull pain and twisted tugs pulled at his nerves, evoking the image of an unhealed sinus deep in the skin, prolonged writhing, and…

【Snake】

Its arrival could not be refused; its departure could not be stopped. It reshaped itself from the images preserved in others' memories.

He saw the same blank confusion on the faces of other witnesses, and immediately realized he would have to face that thing again—for the "first" time.

But for it, this was not the first time.

Kup held his breath, straining to catch the faintest movement.

He could not recall how the attack had occurred, but the wound he bore was no lie—it must have been a physical thing, at least when it struck him.

The semi-enclosed space offered defensive advantages: nowhere to hide, and entry required passing through doors or windows.

Yet the attacker did not arrive as imagined; an indescribable oddness passed through the curtain, crawled over tables and chairs, traversed the cluttered space without touching a single thing—any narrow gap was wide enough to accommodate it.

He could even feel something passing through his body, crossing defenses that held no meaning.

His prior experience of being destroyed by physical forces had made him more cautious; he chose not to manifest immediately.

No one knew where to look—only an undeniable intuition remained: it was already inside.

The roof, the attic, the window—sudden silence descended; the occasional birdcalls had vanished entirely, leaving only distant human voices from the village far away.

A bitter tension rose; he gripped his weapon tightly. Memories could be lost, but the resolve forged through experience would not.

More importantly, a heavy ballast lay beside him, steadying his emotions shaken by the unexpected situation.

And when he glanced sideways, he saw Kraft picking up needle and thread, his movements suddenly accelerating—a fresh stream of red was surging from the patient's wound.

A faint rustling sound, nearly drowned by the soft scrape of cotton balls over scabs, blurred together—like smooth, slimy scales rubbing against fat, soaked in viscous fluid.

"Get gauze… no, go heat the wire." Kraft snatched the remaining gauze pads, stuffing them into the wound, while his other hand simultaneously pressed the pressure point on the inner upper arm to stop the bleeding.

Ineffective—the bleeding surged like a swarm of snakes rising from underground, climbing up the cotton fibers, white turning crimson in an instant.

The wound was restless; perhaps due to muscle contraction or something else, it worsened, spreading and tearing like a crawling thing.

His fingers touched irrational spasms knotted into bundles, resisting pressure. The skin was cold and hard, as if beneath it lay not muscle, but something tough and smooth, writhing and struggling, refusing to be controlled.

The metallic taste of rust filled his nose and mouth; his saliva thickened. When he swallowed, it felt like gulping down a mouthful of salty, viscous fluid—making him nauseous.

"Hold this, quickly."

Kraft's tone remained steady, but now carried a hint of urgency.

Seeing the priest's skin turning pale again, he grabbed the nearest hand—regardless of whether it was sterilized—and took over the pressure, while he himself picked up the scalpel and deliberately widened the wound slightly.

Hemostats clamped down, sutures threaded in, pulled tight; his fingers danced like magic between the loops, tying two opposing knots that slipped through the clamps into the wound—the crimson spread abruptly halted, the blood tide absorbed and receded into the gauze.

Only now could the source of bleeding be seen: a severed vessel end, its cut clean as if sliced by a sharp blade, impossible to explain fully as a tear.

The curved needle pierced in from one side, emerged beneath the skin on the other, so efficient it bordered on brutality—like a flying fish leaping from the sea, its silver glint guiding the white trail, binding the restless wound, pinching its head and tail.

The wound jerked violently, straining to twist and extend further, but was ultimately forced to contract, leaving only its center irregularly wriggling, like a long creature struggling beneath the skin.

He did not linger, turning to the second wound, deeper into the muscle; he pre-tightened the two ends of the suture, the faintly quivering edges twitching like snake tails before reluctantly settling.

The faint friction sound returned at his ear, prompting him to listen closely—but he could not locate its source; it was the thing crawling through non-existent gaps.

And the doctor was an experienced snake-catcher, always finding the next potential threat among the tangled wounds, intercepting the wound's tendency to spread in advance, sealing its path with simple, effective sutures—no more, no less.

Only those with a slight grasp of the mechanism could realize: this was not treating a wound—it was nailing a thing trying to escape back into its grave.

At first, it held the advantage, slipping between wounds through some incomprehensible means, taking refuge within them.

But as time passed, Kraft's movements grew ever more skilled, his predictions coming earlier with each attempt.

From Kup's perspective, these actions were shifting from something he could barely comprehend toward the utterly incomprehensible—as if the operator was seeing more and more clearly, pinning it down with something beyond needle and thread, step by step clarifying its form and trajectory.

The balance of initiative and passivity tilted; the snake's head and tail gradually emerged.