Chapter 75 25:
The awakening was a slow, fragmented process, akin to gradually emerging from the deepest and darkest part of the ocean toward the surface, where the light was only beginning to filter through a thick haze.
Korr did not remember having closed his eyes, probably because the darkness seemed to have stolen his vision, and he thought it was death.
He did not remember the precise instant when consciousness had abandoned him, dragging him into a bottomless abyss where the passage of time had lost all significance.
Then he saw the fogged reflection of his body through the glass.
The burning in his chest, the burns, the unbearable pressure in his shattered muscles... all of it had vanished, replaced by a strange, almost unnatural stillness, an incomprehensible one.
Korr's mind returned with clarity. He blinked once, twice, three times.
Everything was white, a color he had begun to hate as time passed. He was still in the Empire.
He glimpsed the curved, smooth ceiling, barely half a meter above his face. The walls, if they could even be called that, were a translucent surface that allowed a dim, filtered light to pass through.
Korr tried to move an arm, but felt pressure in response.
Then he remembered that he was submerged in a gel, that thick, warm gel that enveloped every inch of his body, his face connected to a black mask.
His memories piled into his mind like a furious swarm.
The fight against the Lithari leader, Nul-lam attacking the stranger, the children crying around him, the darkness dragging him into oblivion. And then he felt those memories begin to blur extremely quickly, to the point that he could not even reflect on them. He simply did not want to and... could he not? That last realization had been unexpected.
Korr was certain that he had died.
But he survived.
Korr forced himself to calm the beating of his heart, which threatened to accelerate more than it should. The pod's sensors, those small points of light blinking at the edges of his vision, would register any change in his vital signs.
And the last thing he needed was for some doctor to come check on him before he could properly organize his thoughts.
He inhaled all the enriched air filling his lungs and exhaled it with equal calm.
His eyes swept across the interior of the pod, scrutinizing every detail meticulously. If he remembered correctly, he had already been inside this very pod only a few hours earlier.
At his sides, connectors were attached to his body at strategic points: his neck, wrists, groin, and ankles. Small metal spikes pierced his skin, supplying him with some kind of drugs or nutrients he did not know.
A monitor embedded in the upper wall of the pod displayed a torrent of data that his eyes could barely follow.
Heart rate: Stable. Blood pressure: Average. Tissue oxygenation: 98%. Neural activity: Recovery in progress.
Korr read the figures, processed them, and filed them away in some corner of his superhuman memory. And only then did he allow himself to feel relief.
Unfortunately or... fortunately! he had not died, nor had he reincarnated again.
Indeed, Korr had survived.
In essence, that final realization settled upon him in such a simple yet comforting way that Korr felt the tension leave his shoulders. He remained floating in the gel for what must have been several minutes, though time inside that liquid bubble felt different.
The monitor flickered between the changing readings of the sensors that recorded each one of his heartbeats, and Korr, for the first time in what felt like an eternity, did nothing more than exist.
Korr decided to ignore everything that had happened with the Lithari. He did not think about the children he had left behind, nor about Nouwl-an or Vexa. He mentally erased the existence of the Empire, and even his near death.
For this one time, he simply existed.
Eventually, the first monitoring check came when Korr had already lost track of time.
The sensors lining the pod emitted a soft beep, barely an electronic whisper filtering through the thick gel. The lights, which until then had remained a faint amber hue, blinked once, then again, turning a deeper blue.
Korr, for his part, did not move.
He remained still, his eyes half-closed, pretending to be in a deep sleep that his Viltrumite body imitated perfectly. His breathing remained slow and methodical. His vital signs, recorded by the sensors, showed no variation beyond what would be expected in a state of profound rest.
Then, on the other side of the glass, a humanoid figure appeared like a ghost. He was tall, upright, dressed in an immaculate white uniform accompanied by a yellow toga representing the Imperial Medical Caste.
Colors were important as well.
Red belonged to the Empire's ruling caste, gray to the military caste, yellow to the medical caste, and sky blue, though rarely seen, to the "Viltrumite Makers." As for white, it was the most basic color, but at the same time the most important. It represented the identity of the race itself.
The single stripe on his chest indicated a low rank, probably a duty doctor assigned to supervising recovering patients, though it was the first time Korr had seen him.
The doctor, with black hair and narrow eyes, bearing distinctly Asian features purely by coincidence, stopped before the pod and began moving his fingers across a control panel at its base. The blue lights blinked more intensely, and a flow of data updated the monitor embedded in the upper wall.
The doctor worked in silence for what seemed like several minutes, showing no emotion that might betray interest or concern. Every so often, his gray eyes lifted toward the monitor before returning to the control panel.
At no point did he look directly at Korr, and for him, that was more than a relief.
When the monitoring ended, the Viltrumite doctor merely exhaled, jotting something down on a portable device he pulled from a fold in his uniform, before disappearing beyond Korr's field of vision.
Silence returned once more, though there had never truly been any sound. Korr simply closed his eyes completely, allowing himself to relax as much as possible, knowing that once he left the capsule, he would rarely have the opportunity to find such peaceful silence again.
The second monitoring occurred when Korr had already begun thinking about how to leave the pod without attracting attention, though he knew perfectly well that such a thing would be completely impossible.
This time, the same doctor returned to monitor him, though he was far more thorough. He checked each tube and connector linking Korr's body to the external machinery, adjusted several parameters, injected a transparent liquid through one of the lines, and once again recorded the data on his portable device.
This time, Korr stopped pretending to be asleep. He felt the liquid flow through his veins, cold at first, almost freezing, but after a few seconds, warmth spread from the injection point throughout the rest of his body, as though an invisible blanket were wrapping itself around him from within.
He felt better because of that unexpected sensation. As for the doctor, he did not seem to care that Korr had awakened. He simply continued his work.
After finishing, he remained standing for a few seconds, looking at Korr's face. His cold gray eyes traveled across the young man's features in a way that would have frozen the blood of any human from his previous life.
Then, without saying a word, he turned and left.
That night, or what Korr assumed was night due to the dimming of the external lights, he fantasized about Syra-Vel.
In the fantasy, she sat upon a crystal ledge, her feet dangling over the void, her bioluminescent hair waving with a blue light that seemed determined to illuminate all the darkness of the universe. She never spoke to him, but she watched him. She watched him with that smile of hers that Korr had come to know so well during the cycles they had spent together.
And Korr awoke once more. There was no taste of bile in his mouth, nor did his body convulse from clenched-fist spasms. He simply felt nothing beyond that melancholy that had become omnipresent for an indeterminate amount of time.
This time, the doctor was not alone. The Imperial medical figures stopped before the pod. There was a murmur of voices, too low for a normal human to distinguish the words, though even if he wanted to, he would not have been able to hear them.
However, he could interpret their words through lip reading.
"He has exceeded all recovery projections."
Those had been the words of the doctor he already knew.
"Give me numbers."
Those were the words of the other, his authority evident through his particular gestures and the second rank stripe on his chest.
"His muscle tissue has regenerated by ninety-seven percent. The internal organs show complete healing, with no adhesions or aftereffects. The skeletal system, although it still presents microfractures in the ribcage and left femur, has recovered eighty-three percent of its structural density. The burns on the skin have been replaced by new tissue without keloid formation."
"And the intelligent atoms? You told me they were behaving abnormally, didn't you?"
"Yes. His atoms are stable, and more pronounced compared to what would be expected from someone of his class. His neural activity index suggests accelerated synaptic reorganization. If he maintains this pace, his post-recovery physical capacity could exceed his pre-incident levels by as much as one hundred and fifty percent."
Korr felt his heart skip a beat.
One hundred and fifty percent?
He had improved. By a tremendous amount.
Viltrumites were capable of adapting to the damage they experienced.
And he had experienced a great deal of damage.
His Viltrumite body was a biological war machine that he still did not fully understand, despite mastering the theory, and during his convalescence it had used that damage to adapt, defend itself, and protect others.
"He is awake. Remove him from the recovery chamber. I want to see him."
"Sir, recovery protocols establish that..."
"I establish the protocols, soldier... and the Regent demands his presence. It is the least we can do. Remove him."
The doctor, who seemed nervous and reluctant, remained silent. Korr watched his fingers move across the control panel, and a moment later, he felt the gel begin draining from the pod.
The liquid descended slowly, forming eddies that licked against his exposed skin. The cold became apparent as soon as the gel left his body, and Korr had to suppress a shiver that seemed to sink all the way into his bones.
He remained still even as the gel level dropped below his chin, then his chest, then his waist.
"Korr-add... it is time to leave the capsule."