What does it feel like to have your skin cut open, your blood vessels separated, your tendons and nerves pulled apart?
Kian reported: absolutely nothing. He had applied Sacred Coolant Oil beforehand.
He lay perfectly still and watched Enginseer Antonius work. The surgical blades moved fast, stripping one thigh down to limp skin and muscle, until the femur was cleanly extracted in one piece.
All six Rejuvenat physicians stared.
The lord had not been given anaesthetic. They'd taken blood samples before the procedure and confird it themselves: no analgesic compounds present. And now an entire thigh bone had been removed while the man lay there without making a sound.
Was he even human?
Kian smiled faintly and decided this was an opportunity.
"I am a Pious Crusader of the Ecclesiarchy. My sworn purpose is to be the sharpest blade in the Emperor's hand. Pain like this does not register against the suffering the Emperor endures for all of humanity. He has never cried out. What right do I have?"
Antonius rolled his eyes. He knew Kian well enough. The man had synthesised the Substance from scratch. He'd almost certainly also synthesised so undetectable analgesic compound and dosed himself beforehand. The whole stoic act was precisely that.
The six Rejuvenat physicians, however, did not know Kian well enough.
They knew only that their instrunts, the finest Imperial dical equipnt available, had detected nothing in his blood. Which ant the lord was enduring this through sheer will alone.
In that context, the noble words landed completely differently. Ordinarily they might have rolled their eyes too. But watching a man lie motionless while his skeleton was disassembled, those words hit hard.
No wonder he'd been consecrated a Pious Crusader. That kind of fortitude, that level of conviction: double S-rank across the board.
Kian had no idea that this casual performance would follow him for a very long ti.
The procedure continued for four full hours. By the end, every bone in his body had been extracted and placed in treatnt canisters for density augntation. Kian was reduced to a boneless heap of skin, muscle, and organs spread across the steel slab. Deeply unsettling to look at.
What no one in the room knew was that Kian could still move. The Sacred Coolant Oil combined with his semi-digitalised physiology ant that if he'd wanted to, he could have kipped up off that table and started running around the Forge Temple as a boneless mass of flopping flesh. The image alone was enough to give him pause. Anyone who witnessed that would lose bladder control on the spot.
Four hours in, the first bones extracted, his femurs, had completed their density treatnt. Antonius drew them from the canisters, reinserted them into the appropriate cavities, and began nano-scale suturing. Several dicae-servitors assisted, reconnecting tendons, blood vessels, and nerves with precision. The thigh was restored to its external appearance, leaving behind one rough, jagged scar.
The Adeptus chanicus could have addressed the scarring easily enough. They simply chose not to. Practical people, tech-priests. Costics were not their concern.
The Rejuvenat physicians had other ideas.
While Antonius moved on to the next limb, they stepped forward with their own instrunts and re-scanned the completed thigh. Then they applied a cream to the scar.
Within minutes, the wound faded visibly until it was gone.
The Imperium's most distinguished figures tended to look like they'd been assembled from spare parts, especially the Astartes, faces mapped with blade scars, burns, and chemical damage. Not because the injuries couldn't be treated, but because they chose to keep them as a record. Every scar a credential.
Kian had no such preference. He liked his skin smooth. He'd told the Rejuvenat physicians before the procedure to handle the scarring once Antonius finished each section.
Antonius glanced over at the scar removal work, decided it was irrelevant to his concerns, and said nothing.
Another four hours passed. The last bone went back in. Kian went from a pile of boneless flesh back to sothing resembling a person.
Antonius straightened up.
"From here, a few days of rest while your green friends apply the recovery ointnts, and you'll be back on your feet. Before I began, I weighed your skeleton. Twenty-three kilograms. By the Omnissiah. Your baseline bone density is extraordinary. Adult males typically fall between ten and fifteen kilograms. I'm not asking how. Your secrets are your own.
What I will tell you: this was a conservative first procedure. I brought your skeletal mass from twenty-three to twenty-five kilograms. Keep your biotrics monitored going forward. Your current body weight is 129 kilograms. As you train, your body will respond to the increased bone density by adding muscle. Once your weight has climbed another ten kilograms or so, co back and we'll do the next round."
He left without further ceremony, leaving the Rejuvenat physicians to monitor.
In actual dical matters, they were considerably more capable than any tech-priest.
The six physicians unpacked their equipnt and attached monitoring sensors across Kian's body. One of them held up a Regen-Bolt, turning it over in his hands, uncertain.
Before the procedure, Kian had provided them with Regen-Bolts and instructed them to administer one imdiately after surgery. He'd described it as a rare recovery compound he'd sourced through unusual channels.
His body had been fully opened and reassembled. The suturing was clean, but cut was cut. Under normal Rejuvenat care, full recovery would take two to three days.
Kian didn't want to wait two to three days. One Regen-Bolt and he'd be up and moving in under twenty minutes.
The physicians hadn't been able to analyse the compound. None of them wanted to administer sothing unverified.
After a long pause, the eldest of the six spoke.
"Give it to him. It's likely a recovery compound sourced from sowhere we don't have access to. Better than what's in our kits, probably. And if anything goes wrong, we're right here. When the Rejuvenat Order is present, death takes a number and waits in line. Administer it."
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> spat-reon.co-m/c/Inkshaper
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you
User Comments
0 comments from readers