Buy The Marshal Omega Chapter 6
byGive the Flower a Chance (2)
Lu Rong did not answer Shen Danshi immediately. A trace of cold, suppressed tension tightened his brow as he straightened up, his gaze falling on the wound on Feinier’s collarbone. There was not the slightest sign of healing.
When they first met, Lu Rong had learned a great deal of information regarding Winged Serpents.
Winged Serpents were different from other beastmen; they were an exceptionally superior and unique species with three forms: full beast, semi-beast, and human. The full beast form was a winged, serpentine creature. An adult Winged Serpent could exceed twenty meters in length with a wingspan of eight meters—a formidable beast capable of soaring straight into the clouds.
Feinier was currently in his semi-beast form: a human torso with a serpent’s tail and wings on his back. Both his body size and wingspan were smaller than those of his full beast form.
Regardless of the form, however, Winged Serpents possessed mimicry abilities and a certain degree of self-healing.
Under normal circumstances, there was no reason for the wounds on Feinier’s body to show zero inclination toward healing.
Lu Rong pointed at the wound on Feinier’s collarbone. “A Winged Serpent’s recovery capability is very strong. Why is there no sign of improvement even while he is in the treatment fluid?” He looked toward Feinier’s tail. “Ordinarily, even if his tail was injured, it shouldn’t be impossible to recover.”
Shen Danshi fell silent, her eyes downcast as she looked at the unresponsive Winged Serpent submerged in the fluid.
“X01,” Lu Rong called out.
X01 understood. One of his eight mechanical tentacles rose, its tip transforming into a scanning port. He began scanning from the stump of Feinier’s tail. His analytical functions were superior to medical eyes in this regard, and the results were more precise. He quickly generated a detailed breakdown diagram and sent it to both Shen Danshi’s and Lu Rong’s terminals.
Shen Danshi watched it quietly and seriously for a moment. “I think I understand. This is a very specific processing technique. It exploits the Winged Serpent’s self-healing traits to suspend his life in this hibernation stage. This bionic tail was likely forced onto him—possibly even flayed and attached while he was alive. That is the only way to activate his hibernation trait.”
Lu Rong recalled the special treatment of beastmen in the black market that Lucas had mentioned, and the realization gradually dawned on him.
Shen Danshi explained, “A Winged Serpent’s tail is an important weapon for attack and a tool for courtship, yet it is also a fatal weakness. In early evolution, a Winged Serpent with a severed tail would quickly die if there was no intervention.”
“The only solution was to enter a state of dormancy in a safe place to repair the tail. Because they would die if they didn’t sleep, the species eventually evolved so that regardless of the circumstances, as long as the tail is severed, the body enters hibernation to prioritize repairing the tail’s injury.”
“The person who made this tail took advantage of this physiological trait. They stripped the flesh from the tail section, leaving only the bone and nerves, keeping the Winged Serpent’s body in a constant state of hibernating repair. But the prosthetic is like a cage; instead of helping, it restricts the tail’s recovery. Thus, he remains in a half-dead state of hibernation.”
“This method is indeed something only those who create ‘Everlasting Flowers’ would use,” Shen Danshi weighed her words, hoping to find a more elegant way to put it, but failed. “It is cruel and wicked.”
Lu Rong continued to watch Feinier without blinking. “So, is there no possibility at all?”
As he asked this, he felt a hollow space in his heart. Perhaps it was because Feinier was the first person he had known in this universe, or because he had observed Feinier for a long time. Perhaps it was because Feinier had saved him. He did not want Feinier to die like this.
He had seen a living, vibrant Feinier—fierce, decisive, and ruthless—to the point where he could hardly imagine Feinier looking so lifeless.
Shen Danshi frowned in thought. After a moment, she looked up at him. “Fine. If we aren’t considering euthanasia, then let’s formulate a treatment plan.”
Lu Rong smiled, appearing as if a weight had been lifted. “Tell me whenever you need anything.”
Shen Danshi looked down at the analysis report from X01 for a while. “Before that, I must tell you that the treatment fluid currently has a negligible effect on him. This only happens to people who are on the verge of death. Therefore, even with treatment, hope is slim. The most likely result is that he will pass away naturally during the process, or even if he is saved, there will be some degree of brain damage. You cannot place too much hope in the treatment, but as long as you don’t give up, I will cooperate fully.”
Lu Rong stared intently at Feinier. “I won’t give up. We have to try.”
“Alright.” Shen Danshi circled two spots on the analysis report. “There is an anti-tamper structure inside here; we need an engineer to look at it. This linked structure next to it looks like some kind of slow-release drug delivery device. Since his wounds are healing so slowly even in the treatment fluid, I suspect this might be a slow-release drug meant to interfere with treatment.”
Lu Rong beckoned to X01. The ‘engineer’ X01 automatically began a more refined scan and inspection of Feinier’s tail.
Shen Danshi put away the report and said, “Given his current condition, I can offer two treatment plans. The first is conservative: increase the dosage of the treatment fluid. If the treatment takes effect and he gains some level of endurance, we move to the next step. The second is aggressive: remove the bionic prosthetic from the tail first to activate the Winged Serpent’s own self-healing ability. If the second one succeeds, the outlook will be very optimistic.”
After careful consideration, Lu Rong said, “Let’s do both. Increase the treatment dosage, and simultaneously, I will attempt to remove the prosthetic.”
Shen Danshi gave a helpless smile after hearing this. “There might be some bad news.”
Using her gloved hand, she lifted Feinier’s tail and pressed against the interface, shifting the position of the joint to show Lu Rong. “The design of these ‘Everlasting Flowers’ is very malicious. These areas are usually locked tight. The anti-tamper structures likely go beyond what we can see now. Removing it directly is almost impossible. If you want to take the prosthetic off quickly, the only way is to amputate the entire section from a point further up.”
Shen Danshi glanced at Feinier’s real-time vital signs. “The problem is, in his current state, he probably cannot survive such an operation. I suggest we wait and continue conservative treatment in the chamber for a while to see how things go.”
Lu Rong’s fingers gripped the stiff tip of Feinier’s prosthetic tail and gave it a squeeze. “There isn’t necessarily no way to remove it. I’ll find a way for that part. You start him on plan one.” He tapped his finger against X01’s metal torso. “I want a detailed model of the entire prosthetic and a breakdown of every detail.”
The signal light on X01’s head flashed, indicating he understood.
Shen Danshi said no more and began mixing a higher concentration of treatment fluid.
*
X01 spent three standard cosmic days reconstructing the model of Feinier’s bionic tail. Just as Shen Danshi had said, the structure of the prosthetic was rigorous with no blind spots. Every interface was connected; tampering with even one would trigger a chain reaction, causing a massive amount of stored drugs within the prosthetic to be released instantly.
As for the drugs stored within the delivery device, Shen Danshi had already deduced the specific components through blood tests. It was a fast-acting agent that antagonized the Winged Serpent’s repair genes, linked to a disassembly alarm. Once someone attempted to dismantle the prosthetic, it would instantly release all the drugs. The excessive drug load would destroy the body’s repair capabilities, leading to immediate death.
The good news was that the person who designed all this perhaps never imagined that one day someone would insist on removing the prosthetic, let alone that someone would want to save a dying Winged Serpent. Although there was no antidote for the drugs already circulating in the blood, they were not molecularly hidden and could be removed through hemodialysis and filtration.
A dialysis machine was set up in the treatment room the next day. Shen Danshi adjusted the components of the treatment fluid to accelerate metabolism and promote the discharge of the original drugs from Feinier’s body.
The bad news was that the original intent of the ‘Everlasting Flower’ was to preserve beastmen specimens for hundreds or thousands of years. The device controlling the drug release was a concentration-controlled type, and the dosage within the device could last for at least five hundred years. If they followed the original release rate, they would have to wait five hundred years for the next step of treatment.
Fortunately, the drug delivery device had a flaw that wasn’t quite a flaw. The concentration-controlled device would monitor the drug concentration in the blood at all times. Once it detected that the concentration was lower than the maintenance dose, it would release a large dose of drugs to maintain the effect.
Based on this principle, Lu Rong designed a deception device. The drug concentration within the device was molecularly processed to make the detection results always indicate a concentration of zero. As long as it was installed where the delivery device entered the bloodstream, it would trick the monitor into thinking the concentration was insufficient, causing it to continuously release more drugs.
With this device, it would only take one month to empty all the drugs. Once the drugs were fully released, dismantling the prosthetic would be much safer.
After the deception device was implanted into Feinier’s body, the treatment officially entered its first phase. The treatment process stabilized, and Shen Danshi no longer stayed in the treatment room all day. She switched to fixed rounds once every morning and evening.
Lu Rong, however, stayed in the ward every day. Because dismantling the prosthetic required a lot of preliminary work and he did not want to leak the news of Feinier being here, he had to do everything himself. For example, before officially removing the prosthetic, he had to strip away the scales and bionic skin attached to the exterior of the prosthetic bit by bit to expose the metal body of the device.
Wearing the white medical uniform Shen Danshi had found for him, along with goggles and isolation gloves, Lu Rong lifted Feinier’s tail out of the treatment fluid. He began processing from the tip of the tail. X01’s claws converged into a spotlight, shining on Feinier’s body, while Lu Rong used tweezers and pliers to peel away the scales and bionic skin one by one.
“These scales don’t look fake,” X01 remarked.
Lu Rong placed a scale into a nearby tray. He looked at the sharp lower edge of the scale. “They should be his own.”
“The person who did this, that ‘Wanderer’…” X01 lagged slightly. “Why would he do this? If he wanted to interrogate him for the location of the Star Core, doing this makes no sense.”
Lu Rong’s movements in peeling the bionic skin were very slow. He peeled off a piece and tossed it into a yellow medical waste bin nearby. “An insignificant person. What he thinks doesn’t matter.” He glanced at the waterline of the treatment fluid. “Refill some treatment fluid for him.”
Four legs flew off X01’s body, forming a claw that grabbed a refill pack of treatment fluid from nearby and poured it into the mixing chamber next to the treatment tank.
The capacity of this mixing chamber was very large. Ordinarily, it could last a long time once filled. But because the treatment fluid Feinier used was freshly mixed by Shen Danshi every day, it had to be replenished in small doses—refilling only as it was used.
After X01 finished pouring the fluid, he flew back to Lu Rong’s side and tapped Lu Rong’s shoulder with a metal claw. “Don’t you think this scene is very similar to when you first met? You were also adding treatment fluid for him, and then you two…”
Lu Rong stopped his work, rested his hands on his knees, and looked up at him. “And then we?”
X01 sensed a hint of danger in the air and shut his mouth. The claw immediately turned back into four legs and returned to his body.
Lu Rong appeared calm and indifferent, continuing his work without reaction. In truth, his thoughts paused for a moment. A few minutes later, he came back to his senses and rapped X01’s flat head with his knuckle, making X01 tilt to the side.
“Should I cut off your power supply?”
X01’s free legs rose to cover his eyes in a crying gesture. Unfortunately, the body he had designed for himself was truly unrelated to cuteness. With eight eyes carrying tears, looking like eight commas hanging from his head, it was impossible to feel any pity for him.
Lu Rong pulled a medical towel and draped it over X01’s head. Out of sight, out of mind.
But he could not deny that X01 had indeed stirred some memories. These memories seemed like falling feathers, insignificant, yet they formed a massive loop that trapped him, leaving him still unsure how to evaluate the experience of his first encounter with Feinier.
At that time, it felt as if he had suddenly fallen into a giant blender, encountering a bizarre world. Before he even had time to feel grief over what he had lost, he was hit by a series of new problems.
In fact, the very first “problem” he encountered was Feinier himself. This “problem” was extremely difficult and wouldn’t listen to reason at all.
Fortunately, he was used to solving problems.