He slowly released a wave of white gold aura, carefully sensing the structure of the dual headed salamander’s heart. Then he started to make tiny carvings on the piece of flesh with a small knife.
Only the dual headed salamander’s powerful life force and strong regenerative abilities helped it to withstand such severe damage. Any other being would have died at its first heart injury.
The knife carefully carved at the entrance and exits of the arteries and veins. For some of the internal places that couldn’t be contacted, he applied force with his martial arts to empty the flesh.
Garen closed his eyes, not looking at the piece of flesh in his hand. He relied on the white gold aura for sensing and to be his eyes for the surgery.
Heavy amounts of blood flowed through his fingers, due to large amounts of torn flesh stuck between them. As time passed by, some of the blood coagulated on the surface of his hands, forming a thick layer of scab.
Garen wasn’t sure if the plan would succeed. He intended to create a smaller heart with the tissues of the dual headed salamander’s heart, then transplant it into his body. Without doubt, it was a whimsical thought.
The Obscuro Society had provided the guidance in technique, while martial arts and the resonance stone had cleared the path forward.
After multiple experimentations on humans and animals, it was clear to Garen that even without following the resonance steps, there was still a chance of survival after the transplant. Without a doubt, that was his biggest safety net.
The heart in his hand was gradually coming into form.
Shortly, Garen’s hands gradually stopped moving. He took out a tube of ointment and applied a uniform layer on the inside and outside of the formed heart. This ointment stopped the growth of wounds. He’d experimented many times with it previously and the effect was decent. A few experiments on the inmates had succeeded because of the ointment.
As the heart stopped showing signs of regeneration, Garen crossed his legs and sat down. He took off the surgical band and placed it on the floor. He had an astonishing degree of control of his body’s blood flow.
With a shock throughout his body, the clothes on his body tore into shreds and flew apart.
Garen sat naked on the flesh-like ground. He lifted the surgical knife with one hand and plunged it into his chest.
He followed his ribline and slit across his chest. A bloody wound tore open across his chest, like a bloody, ferocious mouth.
No blood was flowing out. His elite-level martial arts and white gold aura was controlling his arteries, preventing blood from leaking out.
At the instant the wound was slit open, the blood on the surface of the wound quickly coagulated, plugging the wound.
As carefully visualized internally, he placed the salamander’s heart into the right side of his chest, symmetrical to his original heart.
Next was the vascular graft, quickly moving every blood vessel from the original heart to the new one.
Garen’s was incredibly strong in martial arts. His trained body could be commanded easily. Connecting his heart was much easier than the rest.
Under the effects of the glory potion, there was no sense of pain. Garen skillfully began to move the blood vessels. After moving an artery, he would move the corresponding veins. Then, he would control his blood flow to start circulating through the newly stitched blood vessels.
Due to his superhuman regenerative abilities, every stitched blood vessel would quickly condense together.
The process was much easier than Garen expected. The Divine Statue Technique’s self healing abilities allowed him to easily complete the stitching perfectly.
Every blood vessel from the original heart was moved over to connect to the new heart.
Garen was in deep focus, as though he was performing surgery on others instead. Without looking at his two hands, he quickly and accurately made stitches on his chest.
Not even a drop of blood from his body had been wasted.
As minutes and seconds passed, beads of sweat gradually appeared on Garen’s forehead. His hands were also becoming more skillful and fast.
The heart wasn’t linked to many blood vessels - only eight of them. But due to the structural change, it affected the smaller arterioles and venules. Some of them weren’t long enough and he had to move the salamander’s heart to compromise.
As the transplant progressed, the position of the salamander’s heart gradually moved towards the left side of his chest, closing in on the original heart.
As the beads of sweat on his face increased, some of them trickled down his temple.
The fifteen minutes that had passed wasn’t a long time, but the transplant felt like years.
Finally, Garen lightly stitched the last vein. The salamander’s heart had completely replaced the original heart at the left thoracic cavity.
However, there were no signs of beating. The body’s blood flow was completely reliant on Garen’s martial arts techniques, and his life force was depleting.
For an average person, once the heart stops beating, he would go into shock and the brain would stagnate, causing him to lose his sanity. But Garen was a zenith-level martial artist, hence he could rely on his aura that he accumulated daily to promote blood flow. In the meantime, he squeezed the salamander’s heart lightly to imitate the pumping of the heart.
It heavily reduced the depletion of aura. However, it was still depleting quickly.
After Garen’s multiple surgeries on the inmates, he knew that this was the most important stage. He quickly raised his head and slit opened a passage on the salamander’s gigantic heart with his surgical knife. His whole body then entered into the heart.
The passage quickly stitched back together, leaving only a small trickle of blood.
As he immersed himself into the dragon’s blood, an incredibly strong fishy smell surrounded his skin and body from all sides.
If he hadn’t been injecting himself with dragon blood serum for a long time and had formed some resistance, he would’ve been poisoned to death in a short while.
The salamander’s heart beat non stop. The loud, continuous beat indicated its strong life force.
The strong beat caused the heart in Garen’s chest to mildly beat, similar to its rhythm.
In the atrium and ventricle of the heart, blood flowed in and out, creating a huge spiral. It caught Garen’s body and held him in the center.
The salamander’s heart structure was totally different from a man’s heart. It had one atrium on the left and one ventricle on the right, forming two equally large spaces. It was like two balls that were closed to each other.
Garen curled his body as he was suspended in the center of the heart.
He could only see red as he opened his eyes. His nose and mouth were filled with blood, preventing him from breathing.
According to the plan, Garen quietly meditated, sensing the resonance of the dual headed salamander’s life force. He controlled the strength of his totem and started to imitate the dual headed salamander’s resonance frequency.
As the salamander’s heart agitated him, Garen barely held onto his senses. As he was immersed in the resonance frequency, he had to arrive at the same frequency in order to activate the transplanted heart.
Under the same frequency, high energy units would transfer energy to low energy units. This was a unique form of energy transfer. Garen previously learnt this on Earth, but he applied on his current world to transfer energy.
Whether it’s the salamander’s heart or the resonance stone’s nest, both seemed to be operating on this principle. It was only their frequency that was abnormally complicated.
Using his strong martial arts, Garen accurately manipulated his blood flow and totem force to slowly beat in time with the salamander’s heart.
As time passed by, Garen’s body was fully coated in blood.
He closed off his five senses, completely forgetting the flow of time as he immersed himself completely into the resonance frequency.
This form of resonance frequency was undoubtedly as difficult as a miracle to the totem users of this world. However, to Garen who has reached the zenith of martial arts, it was merely about controlling his own body. Martial artists had stepped onto this field while they controlled the usage of forces a long time ago. This resonance was just relatively harder.
Gradually, he fell into a deep state of semi-consciousness. The dragon blood continuously replenished him with nutrients and oxygen, while also taking away metabolic waste.
Garen was like a foetus in the womb, sinky slowly towards the deepest realm of consciousness as he synchronized with the resonance. He lost track of time. One hour passed, then two hours, five hours, one day, two days….
Garen was completely unaware until the resonance became a natural habit. It was initially the dragon heart which propelled the resonance, but now he’d finally achieved complete harmony with it.
He completely entered a deep state of slumber.
The sky was blood red.
Garen stood alone on the edge of a barren cliff. Below was a deserted city with broken walls and old towers with no sign of population. A layer of mist blanketed the silent city.
"Sheesh!!!!"
Garen raised his head and opened his mouth to let out a deafening scream.
He realized he was no longer human, but a gigantic, black-scaled dual headed salamander.
He couldn’t control his body. It was as though he merely a bystander within in the dual headed salamander’s body, observing the surroundings.
Between the two heads, only one had vision. The other was merely decor.
The dual headed salamander’s body wouldn’t have been considered huge. At only three metres tall, it could be only considered as a youth.
He turned around and stomped his feet on the ground as he walked towards the back of the cliff.
Behind the cliff was a black building. It was completely empty, without even a shadow within. The cold wind gusting through the holes of the building made some whimpering noises.
Among the buildings, a tall black clock tower stood silently in the middle of the dead town.
The dual headed salamander stared at the clock tower. It was in extreme hunger. Hunger pangs continuously arose from its stomach, clouding its mind.
"Food...food…" Garen felt that this was the only single thought in the dual headed salamander’s mind. It kept on repeating over and over again.
Step by step, it heavily plodded towards the back of the cliff. It was heading towards the black city on the slope.
Garen’s thinking ability felt numbed. All he could do was silently stare through the dual headed salamander’s vision.
It squeezed into a huge black metal door in the city. The door was carved with fine patterns, and had two heavy metal rings.
Entering the black metal door, there was a quiet, black plaza right in front. On the right hand side was a leafless tree. Its countless leafless branches stretched out into the sky, looking dry and desperate.
The dual headed salamander hungrily walked forward until it reached the foot of the tree. It sniffed at the trunk. The trunk gave off a dry and liquidless smell.
It was an unusual feeling. Garen felt that the salamander could actually smell the smell of water.
The salamander finally could not control itself. It reached over and landed a big bite on the trunk of the tree.
Crack.
Bitter. Waterless. After reluctantly swallowing it, the salamander felt even hungrier.
He gave up on the tree and walked towards the buildings, which looked like a temple area. They were all in black without any colors. Under the faint red sunlight, it gave off a strange feeling.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Suddenly, heavy footsteps were heard from outside.
It was as if a gigantic creature was walking around in the temple area.
They heavy footsteps could be heard from thousands of metres away.
The dual headed salamander fearfully stopped. It hesitated on the plaza. It wanted to enter but didn’t dare to move forward.
However, it could no longer hold in its hunger. He raised his head and looked at the giant, ten-metre tall black metal door with black-reddish rust stains. One of its heads strongly pushed opened the door.
Creak….
Whooo….
Garen abruptly opened his eyes.
The only thing he could see was red. He had finally regained consciousness.