Chapter 130: Raian’s Surgery (Please Subscribe!)

Wakatsuki Takeshi ultimately left the rest of his sentence unsaid.

He merely led Baitang Jing out of the crowd and toward the Research Division.

Behind them, the thunderous collision of flesh between Doppo Orochi and Katsumi Orochi briefly drowned out the roar of the construction machinery.

The small circle formed by the soldiers of the United States was also forced farther and farther away by the shock waves of the battle.

After several twists and turns, the two of them arrived outside a sizable laboratory.

Through the glass, Baitang Jing caught sight of another familiar figure.

“Raian Kure?” Wakatsuki Takeshi had noticed the figure as well. He nodded and said, “So it’s him today.”

Baitang Jing asked no further questions.

Since Wakatsuki had brought him here, there was no reason to hide what was happening inside.

The moment they opened the laboratory door and stepped in, they heard Raian Kure’s signature laughter, brimming with bloodlust and madness.

“A week? Don’t screw with me, redhead! I want the operation now!”

The yellow-haired, spiky-haired man, his face twisted into a terrifying grin, casually flung away the plastic bottle in his hand.

The pills scattered across the floor.

Then the hand capable of snapping a human cervical spine with its bare strength shot forward and clamped around the neck of the pale-red-haired doctor standing before him.

The palm squeezed his throat, producing a series of creaking sounds.

“After witnessing the godlike strength of those two beasts, I’ve now discovered that this power can be harnessed by human beings…”

The corners of Raian’s mouth stretched into an exaggerated grin. The veins across his body bulged, and his skin began to shift toward a bluish-purple hue.

“And you, you piece of trash, actually expect me to wait a whole week?”

He was so excited that he unconsciously began to activate Release.

Just as Baitang Jing frowned and prepared to rescue the doctor, he noticed that the usually kindhearted Wakatsuki was not the slightest bit tense. Instead, he wore an expression of someone enjoying the spectacle.

With a faint suspicion forming in his mind, Baitang Jing relaxed his clenched hand.

After activating Release, Raian Kure possessed enough grip strength to crush a human cervical spine.

Yet just as his excitement at touching the power of a giant beast reached its peak, the savage grin on his face suddenly froze.

A sharp sound rang out.

The pale-red-haired doctor dragged his fingers across one side of Raian’s body at a speed almost impossible for an ordinary person to perceive.

In an instant, the Demon’s skin returned to its normal color, and his bulging veins subsided.

The one-hundred-percent Release rate, a state achieved by only a tiny number of people in the thirteen-hundred-year history of the Kure Clan, had been forcibly suppressed in the space of a single moment.

Ignoring the expression of astonishment that had replaced Raian’s fanaticism, the pale-red-haired doctor delivered a clean rising kick between his legs, doubling him over.

He then clenched both hands into fists and struck the back of Raian’s head without mercy. The Demon of the Kure Clan was knocked senseless and collapsed to the floor, twitching.

My Healing Game

Only after dispatching the raving Raian with that smooth sequence of movements did the doctor turn around to face the two newcomers.

“Ah, forgive the mess. These martial artists are all such unruly people, so the laboratory tends to end up like this.”

The doctor wore an apologetic smile. His features were somewhat delicate for a man, and his glossy, rosy lips made one wonder whether he was wearing lipstick.

Yet the sharply defined lines of muscle beneath his skin made it clear that he was anything but effeminate.

“Wakatsuki, is this the friend you wanted to bring for a tour?”

The doctor’s voice was gentle, making it impossible to imagine that barely half a minute earlier he had beaten a fighter of semifinalist caliber in the Kengan Annihilation Tournament into complete incapacitation.

“Yes, that’s him. Baitang, this is Doctor Momiji Gao, a miracle physician whose skills are every bit as impressive as Doctor Hanafusa’s. Doctor Gao, this is Baitang Jing, the martial artist who once crushed me completely in a match.”

Wakatsuki acted as the intermediary, introducing the two sides.

Even when mentioning his own defeat, he remained utterly calm and sincere, inspiring immediate goodwill.

No wonder people called him the Kengan Association’s social butterfly.

“Perfect.” Momiji Gao grabbed the twitching Raian by the floor and hoisted him up, then tossed him onto the operating table. He smiled at the two men. “We have a transplant operation ready to begin.”

“What?” Wakatsuki immediately grew flustered. “Doctor, don’t you have other appointments today? Why not operate on them first? Raian hasn’t taken any immunosuppressants yet. Putting him on the operating table like this…”

“Relax, Wakatsuki.”

With brisk efficiency, Momiji Gao carried Raian into a sturdy-looking enclosure inside the laboratory and strapped him to the operating table.

“For the study of how Godzilla cells interact with human beings, data has been gathered on every detail—even from a combat-specialized species like the Kure Clan, which has spent more than a thousand years refining itself. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to suppress Release, a secret technique of their family, so effortlessly.”

As he spoke, Momiji Gao changed into surgical scrubs.

“Immunosuppressants are ultimately nothing more than a chance given to those who are ‘unqualified.’ Judging from Raian’s performance just now, he is one of the qualified.”

“And besides… Hanafusa is finally busy upstairs. I’m not going to pass up the chance to have exclusive access to a Kure Clan test subject!”

At the end of his words, Momiji Gao flashed Wakatsuki and Baitang Jing a rather charming smile.

Then the sturdy enclosure sealed itself with a hiss of pressurized air, leaving only a single observation window.

Baitang Jing and Wakatsuki leaned toward the window and peered inside.

Momiji Gao truly was worthy of Wakatsuki’s claim that he was “every bit as impressive as Hanafusa.”

Under normal circumstances, removing and transplanting skin required an entire medical team. Yet he alone managed the chaotic procedure with effortless fluidity.

More astonishing still, certain steps that normally required delicate instruments could be performed by this man using nothing but his tactile sensitivity.

It seemed that, if he wished, he could even operate on himself alone, just as Doctor Hanafusa had done.

The transplant site Momiji Gao selected for Raian was a patch of skin on his wrist.

Baitang Jing, a newcomer, did not know the criteria behind the selection. Presumably, however, it had to match the shape of the Godzilla skin fragment.

At last, a patch of skin roughly half the size of a palm was cut from Raian’s wrist.

Bright-red muscle and deathly white tendons twitched visibly beneath the torn opening.

Momiji Gao had not given the Demon any anesthetic. The instant the scalpel entered his flesh, Raian opened his fierce eyes, black-rimmed with white pupils.

Even though he was restrained to the operating table, with the very man who had just beaten him cutting into his body, Raian showed not the slightest trace of caution or fear.

Although the veins on his forehead spasmed from the pain, he watched the blade peel away his skin with feverish, hungry anticipation.

When Momiji Gao produced a reptilian piece of skin that had settled to the bottom of a yellowish solution, the same hysterical, chilling laughter that had echoed during the Kengan Annihilation Tournament burst uncontrollably from Raian’s throat.

“Ha! Hahaha! That’s it!”

“This is its power!”