Chapter 79: Saint Hilarius Hospital (11)
"No!" I roared.
I ignored the acid burning my leg. I ignored the torn muscles in my side.
I pumped gravitational energy and propelled myself through the air like a bullet, lunging toward the Surgeon to intercept it before it reached Aiden.
I don’t care about Aiden’s life as a friend—he’s nothing but a trivial pawn. But... he’s my pawn.
No being in this cursed universe has the right to touch my pieces or break my toys in front of me!
I reached the Surgeon midway between me and Aiden.
We collided midair.
A close-quarters clash between a gravity transcendent and an S-Rank cyborg.
The scene was bloody, destructive, and horrifying.
The Surgeon used its steel spider legs like spears to impale me.
I deflected them with my bare hands, coated in condensed gravitational ether.
Each collision produced an explosive boom that tore apart the tiles, walls, and ceiling of the lab!
Kraaaaaaash! BOOOOOOOM!
We slammed into one of the hospital’s supporting concrete pillars.
The pillar—designed to withstand earthquakes—crumbled like a biscuit under the force of our impact.
"Stop moving, my patient," the Surgeon said in its calm voice as we tumbled through the debris.
One of its pointed spider legs broke through my defense... and drove straight into my right shoulder!
The black steel pierced flesh and bone—and burst out from my back!
"Aaaargh!" I spat hot crimson blood onto the laser lenses of its dead human face.
The pain was overwhelming, drowning my consciousness in darkness.
But the anger... the demonic pride that refused to submit to a medical tool, ignited like hell in my heart.
While its steel leg pinned me to the shattered ground, and its saws closed in to tear me apart...
I raised my uninjured left hand—not toward it, but toward the laboratory ceiling! The thick ceiling separating us from Floor B2: the Blood Farms.
"If you love surgery so much..." I growled, blood streaming from every pore of my face, a sadistic, insane, blood-smeared smile splitting across it.
"...then let me show you how I dissect this cursed building!"
"Meteor Fall!"
I didn’t increase gravity downward.
I reversed absolute gravity in a fifty-meter radius above us, turning it into an "upper crushing point"!
The Surgeon tried to retreat—it sensed the danger—but I grabbed the leg embedded in my shoulder with both hands to keep it from escaping, ignoring the agony tearing through my flesh.
The reinforced concrete ceiling, strengthened with titanium and transcendent enchantments, groaned like dying gods.
Then... it began to tear apart.
Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!
The titanium framework twisted, the concrete shattered—and the entire massive ceiling... fell!
Tons of debris, metal, and reinforced concrete blocks weighing hundreds of tons descended like a catastrophic meteor... directly onto me and the Surgeon!
This was no ordinary collapse.
The gravity I applied accelerated the fall and multiplied the weight of the debris a thousandfold!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The explosion was greater than anything B3 had witnessed.
A massive shockwave swept through the lab, shattering all glass containers, pipes, and what remained of the dead chimeras.
Aiden was thrown like a rag doll, landing far from the collapse zone.
The entire hospital—from Floor B1 to the surface—shook violently as if struck by a devastating earthquake.
A massive cloud of dust, black smoke, and electrical sparks covered the impact zone completely.
Silence fell again. The silence of death.
Amid the massive piles of collapsed concrete and twisted steel that had buried us—
I lay beneath a heap of rubble I had compressed with my gravity to create a small pocket of survival.
I breathed with extreme difficulty.
A bloody rasp escaped my chest.
My coat was completely destroyed.
The silk shirt was torn.
My left leg was burned by acid, exposing pink muscle, and my right shoulder bled heavily from the steel puncture.
Blood covered every inch of my body.
The transcendent elixir coursed madly through my veins, trying to repair this total devastation—but the rate of depletion nearly matched the rate of healing.
I was experiencing absolute agony in every cell.
I moved my hand with difficulty and pushed a chunk of concrete off my chest, trying to rise amid the suffocating cement dust.
I told you... the cosmic entity whispered in my mind with triumphant mockery. You are weak. Your flesh is tearing. Your blood is spilling. You will be slaughtered here—and you will take me with you. Let me take control!
"I’d rather die... than be your shell..." I spat blood onto the rubble and rose onto my trembling knees.
The dust cleared slightly.
I looked ahead.
Was it dead? Had the concrete meteor crushed that mechanical nightmare?
From within the tons of rubble—
A chilling metallic scraping sound echoed.
Kliiiiiick... khssssshhh...
Tons of concrete were shoved aside by immense hydraulic force.
And "The Surgeon" emerged.
It was damaged.
Its black spider frame was completely dented.
Three of its eight legs were broken and severed, leaking black oil.
Two of its surgical arms were crushed.
Its dead human half was covered in dust, and one side of its medical glasses was shattered.
Its blue mechanical heart beat irregularly, emitting electrical sparks.
But... it was still standing.
Still alive.
"Severe external shock. Structural damage at 40%. Impairment in locomotor limbs," the Surgeon stated, its mechanical voice now distorted and glitching due to damaged speakers, making it even more terrifying—like a corrupted recording from hell.
It fixed its cracked laser lens on me.
Me—kneeling, bleeding, barely able to summon even a spark of gravity due to extreme physical exhaustion, despite the elixir’s desperate efforts.
The Surgeon raised the arm holding the "rotating bone saw," which still whirred with a terrifying buzz.
"The patient is still breathing. Error in medical procedure..." it said, advancing toward me with limping but lethal steps.
"Final diagnosis: radical, immediate excision."
I watched it approach.
In that bare moment, I understood with absolute clarity what "S-Rank" truly meant.
These monsters are not erased by luck.
They are not crushed by a collapsing ceiling.
They are nightmares designed to persist and tear apart everything until their last circuit dies.
I closed my eyes, preparing to rise—to continue this slaughter until my flesh completely melted, refusing to surrender to the dark entity, and refusing to die under the scalpel of this deranged scrap.
The battle was not over. The chimera slaughterhouse still demanded more blood—and the transcendent’s body still had a few drops left to give.