"Please don't kill me! I have a daughter!"
The Colonel's voice cracked as he screamed, his body paralyzed on the floor. The stoic military officer who had walked into the clinic with dignity was gone, replaced by a terrified old man begging for his life.
Nox stood over him, his black plague doctor mask staring down impassively. The tentacles holding the Colonel's ankles twitched slightly.
Where should I put him? Nox thought.
In the center of the sacrificial circle, obviously.
You even call it a sacrificial circle?
What else would I call it? The Happy Fun Time Medical Platform?
You could call it a patient stabilization field like you said before!
That's boring. Sacrificial circle has much better dramatic impact.
I HATE YOU.
You keep saying that. I'm starting to think you don't mean it.
I mean it with every fiber of my being.
Aw, you do care.
Nox grabbed the Colonel by the shoulders and started dragging him across the blood-stained floor toward the center of the room. The Colonel's good eye rolled in terror, trying to see where he was being taken.
"No, no, no! Not the circle! Please, Doctor! I'll pay triple! Quadruple! Whatever you want!"
Nox slammed the Colonel's body down in the middle of the circle. The symbols seemed to pulse faintly as the old soldier's weight settled onto them. The Colonel screamed, his voice echoing off the blood-covered walls.
"I'M TOO YOUNG TO DIE! I'M ONLY FIFTY-THREE!"
Now I feel kinda wrong. It's just aesthetic, okay? Just decoration.
Keep telling yourself that. Maybe one day you'll actually believe it.
The black mask on Nox's face began to shift. The porcelain split open mechanically, segments sliding apart like flower petals. From the opening, ten black tentacles bloomed out, each one tipped with that familiar circular mouth. Four more shot out from his back, raising up like cobra heads.
"OH GOD, IT'S HAPPENING! THE RITUAL IS STARTING!"
"Now let's start with surgery to cure a broken ankle first," Nox said calmly, his voice slightly distorted by the tentacles emerging from where his mouth should be.
.
.
.
The Colonel lay paralyzed in the center of the summoning circle, staring up at the flickering fluorescent lights. One of them sparked again, throwing strange shadows across the blood-stained ceiling.
Nox reached into his inventory, and a flash of light materialized a black leather case in his hands. It was long and rectangular, with brass clasps that looked tarnished with age. He set it down on the floor next to the Colonel and opened it.
The Colonel's good eye widened in horror.
Inside the case, resting on velvet that seemed to absorb light, was a complete surgical set. But these weren't normal instruments. Each tool was crafted from some black material that looked like obsidian but moved slightly, as if the surface was liquid frozen in place.
"What the fuck are those?" the Colonel whispered, his voice hoarse.
"The Outer God Surgical Set," Nox replied matter-of-factly, picking up the first instrument. "I got it from the System shop. Standard equipment for grafting procedures."
"STANDARD FOR WHAT? DEMON SURGERY?"
"Close enough."
Nox's tentacles began selecting tools from the case with disturbing familiarity, as if he'd used them a hundred times before despite this being his first grafting procedure. The knowledge from the Grotesque Gospel guided his movements, each tool's purpose clear in his mind.
The first tool he selected looked like a scalpel, but the blade curved in ways that defied normal geometry. It could cut through flesh without resistance, following the natural lines of muscle and tissue rather than forcing through them.
"Let's start with your ankle," Nox said, positioning himself near the Colonel's feet.
Two tentacles gripped the Colonel's broken leg at the thigh and calf, holding it perfectly still. A third tentacle held the geometric scalpel, pressing it against the Colonel's skin just below the knee.
"Wait, what are you doing?" The Colonel's voice pitched higher. "Why are you cutting there? The break is in the ankle!"
"I need to access the entire bone structure," Nox explained, his tone patient. "Can't fix it properly if I can't see the whole thing."
The scalpel sliced cleanly through skin. There was no blood at first, the Awakening Anesthesia keeping everything numb and preventing normal bleeding responses. The blade followed the muscle lines perfectly, separating tissue layers with surgical precision that seemed almost supernatural.
"OH GOD, I'M WATCHING YOU CUT MY LEG OPEN!"
"Try not to move," Nox suggested.
"I'M PARALYZED! I CAN'T MOVE!"
"Good point."
Another tentacle selected a different tool from the case. This one looked like spreaders, but instead of simple metal bars, they had organic-looking curves with small teeth that gripped tissue without tearing it. The Tissue Parting Clamp, the knowledge in his head supplied. Used to hold flesh apart during deep procedures.
The clamps were inserted into the incision, and the tentacle squeezed the handles. The flesh peeled back smoothly, held open by the teeth that bit gently into the muscle. The Colonel could see straight down to his own bone now, the white of his tibia and fibula visible through the red of exposed tissue.
"No, no, no, no," the Colonel chanted, his voice getting higher with each repetition. "This isn't happening. This is a nightmare. I'm going to wake up any second now."
"You're already awake," Nox said. "That's the point of Awakening Anesthesia."
"I WANT THE REGULAR KIND! THE KIND THAT MAKES YOU UNCONSCIOUS!"
"Too late now."
A third tool was selected. The Osseous Extraction Rod, a long instrument with a grip at one end and a split tip at the other. The tip could expand inside bone joints, creating secure grip points for removal. Nox had never seen anything like it before the System gave him this set, but now he knew exactly how to use it.
The tentacles inserted the rod into the Colonel's leg, positioning the tip at the knee joint where the tibia connected. A slight twist, and the tip expanded, locking onto the bone.
"AHHHHHHHHH! WHAT IS THAT? WHAT ARE YOU PUTTING IN THERE?"
"Extraction rod. I need to pull the bones out to fix them properly."
"THAT'S NOT A REAL MEDICAL PROCEDURE!"
"It is in eldritch surgery."
The tentacles began to pull. The Colonel's tibia and fibula started sliding out of his leg, the extraction rod providing perfect grip and leverage. Ligaments stretched but didn't tear, the tool's design somehow accounting for the need to keep everything connected.
"AHHHHHHHHHHH! YOU'RE PULLING MY BONES OUT!"
"Yes, that's the procedure."
"THAT'S NOT A PROCEDURE! THAT'S MUTILATION!"
"Semantics."
The bones emerged fully, the extraction rod still gripped at the top. The Colonel's leg looked deflated now, just a tube of skin and muscle with nothing inside to give it shape. Nox held the bones up to the light, examining them carefully. The break in the fibula was visible, a clean fracture about halfway down.
"Hmm. Not too bad," Nox observed. "Could be worse."
"COULD BE WORSE? MY BONES ARE OUTSIDE MY BODY!"
Another tentacle reached into the surgical case and pulled out a small brush with bristles made from something that looked like crystallized starlight. Next to it was a bottle of viscous, glowing blue liquid. The Eldritch Osseous Adhesive and Application Brush, designed specifically for repairing supernatural bone damage.
The tentacle unscrewed the cap and dipped the brush into the liquid. It began applying the adhesive to both sides of the fracture, painting it on in smooth, even strokes. The liquid glowed brighter wherever it touched bone, seeping into the microscopic cracks and pores.
"What is that?" the Colonel managed to ask between hyperventilating breaths.
"Eldritch bone adhesive," Nox replied. "Very effective. Stronger than the original bone, actually. The brush ensures even distribution at the molecular level."
"WHERE DO YOU EVEN GET THAT?"
"System shop. They have everything. Cost me 50,000 dollars for the adhesive alone."
"YOU'RE USING FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLAR GLUE ON MY LEG?"
"You paid two million. I'm using quality materials."
The tentacles pressed the broken pieces together. The blue liquid glowed brighter, and there was a faint sizzling sound as it bonded. Within seconds, the bone was whole again, the fracture line barely visible. The adhesive had fused it at a level deeper than normal bone structure.
"See? Good as new. Better, actually."
"MY LEG IS STILL OPEN! MY BONES ARE STILL OUT!"
"Working on it."
The extraction rod was released, and the tentacles carefully threaded the bones back through the leg. It was like watching someone thread a needle, except the needle was made of living tissue and the thread was human bone. The rod had left everything connected properly, so the bones slid back into place along their original paths.
Another tool came out. The Suture Needle of Seamless Integration, a curved needle that could pierce any biological material without causing trauma. The thread it used wasn't normal surgical thread but something that dissolved into the flesh after healing, becoming part of the tissue itself.
The Tissue Parting Clamps were removed, and the flesh began to close. The suture needle went to work, piercing through muscle and connecting fibers with impossible precision. Each stitch was perfect, pulling tissue together at exactly the right tension.
"Just putting everything back together," Nox said conversationally. "The needle automatically aligns cellular structures. Much better than traditional suturing."
"I DON'T CARE HOW GOOD IT IS! I CAN SEE MY LEG BEING SEWN SHUT!"
The muscle was reconnected, layer by layer. Then the fascia. Then the subcutaneous tissue. Finally, the skin. The suture needle moved in a blur, the stitches appearing so fast they were almost invisible. Within thirty seconds, the incision was closed, the stitches neat and evenly spaced.
"Ankle fixed," Nox announced. "Now for the ribs."
"NO! NO MORE! THE ANKLE IS ENOUGH!"
"You paid for full healing. You're getting full healing."
The tentacles selected new tools from the case. The Thoracic Precision Blade, designed for opening chest cavities without damaging internal organs. And the Rib Stabilization Framework, a set of temporary braces that could hold bones in place while they were being repaired.
One tentacle held the precision blade against the Colonel's chest, right at the sternum.
"Please," the Colonel whimpered. "I'm begging you. Just let me go. Keep the money. I don't want treatment anymore."
"Too late. Already started."
The blade cut downward, creating a long incision from the Colonel's collarbone to his navel. The skin peeled apart like opening a jacket, revealing the ribs underneath. Three of them showed clean breaks, the fragments held together by membrane alone.
"Oh God, I can see my own ribcage," the Colonel whispered, his voice breaking. "I can see inside myself."
"Interesting, isn't it?" Nox said, inserting the Tissue Parting Clamps again to hold the flesh open. "The human body is really quite beautiful when you look at it like this."
"BEAUTIFUL? IT'S HORRIFYING!"
"Again, semantics."
The Rib Stabilization Framework came next. It was a series of small metal braces that could be temporarily attached to bone, holding fragments in perfect alignment. The tentacles positioned them carefully on each broken rib, tiny clips snapping into place.
Unlike the leg bones, these had to be fixed in place. Nox couldn't just pull ribs out of the body, not without causing catastrophic damage to the lungs and heart. The framework let him work around that limitation.
The eldritch adhesive brush came out again, painting the glowing blue substance onto each fracture. The ribs were inside the body, surrounded by organs, but the brush's design let it reach into tight spaces without touching anything it shouldn't.
The Colonel sobbed quietly, tears running down the sides of his face into his hair. He'd stopped screaming, having realized it didn't help. Instead, he just lay there, watching the tentacles move his organs gently aside to access the damaged ribs, watching them piece him back together like a puzzle.
"Almost done," Nox said. "Just need to remove the framework and close you up."
The stabilization braces were carefully unclipped now that the adhesive had set. They disappeared back into the surgical case. The Tissue Parting Clamps were removed. The suture needle began its work again, faster this time, more confident.
The skin was pulled back over the ribs. The needle flashed in and out, creating a line of perfect stitches. The incision sealed itself, leaving only a thin red line that would probably fade to nothing within hours.
Nox stepped back, examining his work. The Colonel lay in the circle, his body whole again. His breathing was ragged, his good eye unfocused and glassy with shock.
"Now the body is clear. Let's move on to the main course."
The Colonel's eye focused again, fixing on Nox with renewed terror.
Nox reached into his inventory, and there was a flash of light. The Skinless King's skull materialized in his hands, frost still clinging to its surface. The empty eye sockets stared at nothing.
"Let's see how this will go, my first lab ra..." Nox paused. "I mean, grafting patient."
"You were gonna say fucking lab rat, right, you sick cultist fuck!" The Colonel somehow found the energy to sit up slightly, pointing a shaking finger at Nox.
Splash!
Another syringe embedded itself in the Colonel's neck. More green liquid emptied into his bloodstream. The Colonel's body went limp again, falling back onto the circle.
"Because you were moving so much earlier, I could only inject half of it into you," Nox explained. "But now that's the normal dose. No, actually, 1.5x dose."
"Whatever," the Colonel mumbled, his speech slurring. "Just kill me already. Get it over with."
"Prepare for your magnificent transformation, my lab rat."
"Fuck you."
.
.
.
Nox set the skull down on a metal tray that one of his tentacles had produced. He stared at it for a moment, his mind going through the procedure that the Grotesque Gospel had implanted in his memory.
The process was complex. Delicate. And completely insane.
But he'd paid a million dollars for this room. He was going to use it.
The tentacles returned to the Outer God Surgical Set, selecting new tools. The Essence Extraction Scalpel came first, its blade designed to cut not through physical matter but through the metaphysical connections between body and soul. It could peel away the fundamental nature of what something was, harvesting its power directly.
The scalpel pressed against the skull's surface and began to carve. Not cutting bone, but pulling something out of it. Essence. Memory. The fundamental nature of what the Skinless King had been.
Ice-blue mist began seeping from the skull as the carving continued. The mist coalesced into shapes, fragments of power given semi-physical form. The tentacles caught the mist, gathering it carefully in the Ethereal Containment Sphere, a crystalline orb from the surgical set designed to hold non-physical materials.
More tentacles worked with the Neural Filament Extractor, a tool with dozens of hair-thin wires that could pull out traces of brain matter and nerve tissue that shouldn't still exist. The wires inserted into the skull's interior, pulling out optic nerve fragments that had been frozen at the moment of death, brain matter that retained memory of sight.
Then came the Bone Carver, a tool specifically designed for shaping skeletal fragments into viable transplant material. One tentacle used it to carve out a small piece from the skull's eye socket, a fragment of bone in the rough shape of an iris.
The tentacle's tip opened, revealing the circular mouth. It swallowed the piece whole, the bone fragment visible through the semi-transparent flesh as it traveled down toward Nox's neck.
The Colonel watched in horror, his mouth hanging open.
Nox's hands came together, forming a seal. His fingers interlaced in a pattern that looked wrong, like his joints were bending in ways they shouldn't. The knowledge was there in his head, implanted by the skill book, and his body moved automatically.
"Contort," Nox intoned. "⍝⊬⎔⏁⍜⍀⏁"
Behind his back, eldritch characters appeared in the air, glowing with a faint blue light. The symbols writhed and twisted, impossible to read with human eyes. Each character was composed of angles that shouldn't exist in three-dimensional space, lines that curved backward through reality itself.
His hands shifted, fingers rearranging into a different pattern.
"Condense. ⌰⍜⋏⎅⟒⋏⌇⟒"
More characters appeared, overlaying the first ones. These symbols compressed inward, folding reality around themselves. The shapes hurt to look at, making the Colonel's good eye water. The ice-blue mist held in the Ethereal Containment Sphere began to compress, drawn together by invisible force. The orb glowed brighter as the essence concentrated.
"Shape. ⌇⊑⏃⌿⟒"
New characters formed, these ones geometric and precise in ways that violated natural law. The angles were all wrong, creating impossible triangles and squares that existed in more dimensions than should be possible. The mist inside the container responded, forming into a perfect sphere that rotated slowly. The bone fragment inside the tentacle began to change, reshaping itself in response to the gathered power.
"Materialize. ⋔⏃⏁⟒⍀⟟⏃⌰⟟⋉⟒"
The characters solidified, becoming almost physical themselves before fading with a sound like breaking glass. The sphere of compressed essence became something tangible. The tentacle's mouth opened, and the transformed piece emerged. It was no longer just bone. It was the foundation of an eye.
"Frozen. ⎎⍀⍜⋉⟒⋏"
Characters made of crystallized concepts appeared, each one radiating absolute cold. The symbols themselves seemed to lower the temperature in the room, frost forming on the blood-stained walls. Ice spread across the surface of the forming eye, crystallizing in geometric patterns. But this wasn't normal ice. This was the absolute cold that the Skinless King's race had used to survive, the temperature that allowed them to live without skin.
Nox's hands formed the final seal. His fingers locked into a pattern that looked almost painful, joints white with strain. The position was fundamentally wrong, as if his hands were trying to grasp something that existed outside normal space.
"Destruction. ⎅⟒⌇⏁⍀⎍⌰⏁⟟⍜⋏"
The final characters appeared, and they were wrong in a way the others hadn't been. They hurt to exist near. They were symbols that represented the end of things, the unmaking of reality. Looking at them directly made the Colonel's nose bleed. The word hung in the air, heavy with power that pressed down on everything like a physical weight.
Then the tentacle convulsed, and something emerged from its mouth.
An eye.
It was beautiful in a terrible way. The iris was ice-blue, so pale it was almost white. Within that blue were patterns, fractals of frost that seemed to go infinitely deep. The pupil was black, but it wasn't empty darkness. It was the void of absolute zero, the cold that unmade things at a molecular level.
And embedded in the sclera, visible beneath the surface like veins of ore in marble, were fragments of bone. The skull of the Skinless King, integrated into the eye itself, giving it structure and power.
Nox held the eye up, examining it. The frost patterns shifted slowly, responding to the light. The pupil dilated and contracted on its own, as if the eye was already alive.
A System notification appeared in his vision.
╔═══════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ITEM CREATED ║
╠═══════════════════════════════════════╣
║ ║
║ [Eye of the Skinless King] ║
║ ║
║ A relic torn from the last monarch ║
║ of a race that once survived in a ║
║ realm of Absolute Zero. ║
║ ║
║ Their skins were stripped in a ║
║ cosmic calamity, forcing them to ║
║ wander until they found a world ║
║ warm enough to live without skin. ║
║ ║
║ This eye retains the cold that once ║
║ sustained their skinless bodies. ║
║ ║
║ Effect – Transplantation Rite: ║
║ Grafting this Eye into a conscious, ║
║ willing host grants one random ║
║ A-S Rank Skill born from the ║
║ Skinless King's frozen anatomy and ║
║ eternal cold. ║
╚═══════════════════════════════════════╝
Is this because I devoured a Skin God? Nox felt a surge of guilt looking at the eye, thinking about the cosmic forces he'd consumed.
But the guilt died down quickly.
So what? Blame the laws of the cosmos for being so broken that they let that psycho bitch hold the law of skin. I had to kill her to survive too.
He turned toward the Colonel, who was staring at the eye with his one good eye.
And then Nox smelled something.
The strong, unmistakable scent of urine.
The Colonel had pissed himself.
I feel bad now. I made grandpa piss himself.
But what choice did he have? This was for survival. For power. For...
It can't be helped, right? It's for my survival, Nox reassured himself.
Yeah, keep consoling yourself. Maybe one day you'll become a real psychopath who can enjoy terrifying people.
I'm not a psychopath!
You just made a decorated military colonel piss himself in terror, and your first thought was 'can't be helped.' That's at least psychopath-adjacent.
That's different!
How?
I feel bad about it!
Ah yes, the guilt makes it better. That definitely means you're not becoming a horror movie villain.
I'm a doctor!
You're standing in a blood-covered hallway with a summoning circle on the floor, holding a cursed eyeball you just crafted from a dead king's skull while your patient lies in a puddle of his own urine. You're a doctor the same way Dr. Frankenstein was a doctor.
Frankenstein was the name of the scientist, not the monster.
Exactly my point.
Nox wanted to argue more, but the Colonel's whimpering brought him back to the present. He walked over to where the old soldier lay in the center of the circle, the Eye of the Skinless King held carefully in one hand.
The Colonel's good eye was wide open, staring at Nox with a look of pure horror. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly, trying to form words but failing.
"Sorry, Colonel," Nox said quietly, kneeling beside him. "I have to break the scar tissue to transplant it."
He reached up to his face and pulled off his plague doctor mask. The Colonel flinched, expecting to see something monstrous underneath.
But it was just Ren's face. Young, human, almost apologetic-looking.
Somehow, that was worse. The monster had a human face.
Nox's tentacles selected one final tool from the Outer God Surgical Set. The Scar Penetration Probe, a thin needle-like instrument designed to break through old tissue and create channels for transplantation. It was thinner than the tentacles themselves, but infinitely sharper.
One tentacle shrank down to grip the probe properly, becoming thinner and more precise. It moved to the Colonel's face and gripped the edge of his eyepatch, pulling the leather away. The scarred socket was revealed, the tissue thick and white from years of healing.
"This is going to feel uncomfortable."
The probe penetrated the eye socket, pushing through layers of scar tissue with controlled pressure. It rotated as it advanced, drilling through the blockage without tearing anything important.
"ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"It'll be over soon! Don't scream too much. You don't even feel the pain."
"I CAN FEEL THE PRESSURE! I CAN FEEL SOMETHING IN MY FUCKING HEAD!"
The probe pushed deeper, breaking through the tissue, creating a channel. Blood and clear fluid leaked from the socket as the scar tissue ruptured. The instrument twisted, widening the opening, making room for what was to come.
Then it withdrew, pulling back out in one smooth motion. The tentacle set it back in the surgical case gently.
The Colonel gasped, his breathing rapid and shallow. His good eye rolled back slightly, consciousness wavering.
Nox held up the Eye of the Skinless King. The frost patterns swirled faster now, as if sensing its destination. The ice-blue iris focused on the Colonel's face.
"Ready?" Nox asked.
"No! Wait! I changed my mind! I don't want it! Take it back!"
"Too late."
Nox pushed the eye into the Colonel's empty socket.
"ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The eye settled into place with a wet squelch. And then it bonded.
Blue light exploded from the socket, so bright it filled the entire room. The summoning circle beneath the Colonel lit up, every symbol and rune glowing with matching blue radiance. The blood on the walls seemed to shimmer, reflecting the light in patterns that hurt to look at.
A System notification appeared.
╔═══════════════════════════════════════╗
║ GRAFTING COMPLETE ║
╠═══════════════════════════════════════╣
║ ║
║ Patient now in the progress of ║
║ Evolution. ║
║ ║
║ Estimated time: 3 hours ║
╚═══════════════════════════════════════╝
The Colonel's screaming cut off abruptly. His body went rigid, back arching off the floor. The blue light intensified, and frost began spreading from his new eye socket across his face, down his neck, covering his skin in crystalline patterns.
Nox stepped back, watching as the transformation began.