Chapter 388: Passage Through the Wound

The lead box once held something, now it was 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 no sound came out.

The unspoken sentence was missing a key word—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 presence slipping into the crack, gliding along the subtle divide between subjective perception and objective reality.

But it was too close, too vast, inevitably pressing against its surroundings, generating ripples of tremors—like a crawling insect burrowing beneath wallpaper, its supple, elongated body undulating, lifting the skin of reality, swelling and heaving.

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

To those insufficiently sensitive, the subtle contradiction was nearly imperceptible. Brother Kanser, who had only just entered, hadn’t even realized what had happened—his gaze still swept the floor, perhaps thinking some valuable item had rolled away.

Kup lunged to the table, gripping the arrowhead in his hand, then hurried back to the operating table, twisting his body with agile, almost comical motions to avoid the spread-out instruments and sterilized zones.

Training had forged a conditioned reflex; his body completed the motion almost automatically, while most of his mind searched for the missing thing.

The result terrified him: the information that should have settled like a skeletal specimen had sprouted living flesh, left its place, leaving only a serpent’s path vanishing into darkness.

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

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

What remained was a scar stretching along the memory—thin, cold, and every time he traced it, dull pain and twisted tugs pulled at his nerves, evoking the image of unhealed sinus tracts beneath the skin, long writhings, 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 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 couldn’t recall how the attack had come, but the wound was real—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 slipped through curtains, crawled over tables and chairs, traversed the cluttered room without touching anything, fitting into any narrow gap.

He even felt something pass through his own body, crossing defenses that held no meaning.

Past experiences of being destroyed by tangible forces had made it cautious; it 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 bird calls had vanished entirely, leaving only distant human voices from the village.

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

More importantly, a heavy keel stone rested beside him, steadying his emotions shaken by the unexpected.

When he glanced with his peripheral vision, 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 and stuffed them into the wound, while his other hand simultaneously pressed the pressure point on the inner upper arm.

Ineffective—the bleeding surged like a swarm of snakes rising from underground, climbing 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, refusing to be controlled.

The smell 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 sterilization—and took over the pressure, then picked up the scalpel himself, deliberately widening the wound slightly.

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

Only then could they see the source: a severed vessel end, its cut clean as if sliced by a sharp blade, impossible to explain as mere tearing.

The curved needle pierced through one side, emerged beneath the skin on the other—efficiency so extreme it bordered on brutality, like a flying fish leaping from the sea, silver light guiding the white thread, binding the restless tear, pinching its head and tail.

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

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

The faint friction sound returned at his ear, prompting him to listen—but he could not locate its source; it was 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 expansion trend early, sealing its path with concise, effective sutures—no more, no less.

Only those who understood the mechanism realized this was not treating a wound—it was nailing something 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 more skilled, his predictions ever earlier.

From Kup’s perspective, these actions shifted from barely comprehensible to utterly incomprehensible—as if the operator was seeing clearer and clearer, pinning it down with something beyond needle and thread, gradually revealing its form and trajectory.

The balance of initiative and passivity tipped; the snake’s head and tail began to emerge.