"Heart bypass surgery?"
When Elizabeth heard those words, she felt like her brain was about to short-circuit.
She looked at the man before her, holding a chainsaw and wearing a fanatical expression, looking as if he were about to rush forward and perform a chest-opening surgery on the ancient god at any moment. For the first time, she felt from the bottom of her heart...
Compared to the monsters he had driven mad during treatment, her own Director seemed even more far gone.
"Director! Calm down!"
Ignoring the soul-shuddering pressure, Elizabeth grabbed Victor's arm.
"That's not a tumor! That's the heart of an ancient god! It's a legendary thing capable of destroying the world! We should retreat immediately! We need to seal it back up!"
However...
Before Victor could respond.
"Thump-thump——!!!"
A muffled boom, ten times heavier than before—like ten thousand drums beating in unison—exploded from that massive heart!
The entire underground space trembled violently. Fleshy pillars hanging from the dome snapped and fell like rain.
Clearly, Victor's "surgical declaration," full of profane intent, had thoroughly enraged this slumbering ancient existence.
"Roar—(Tiny insects...)"
The crazed whispers echoing in the air instantly transformed into a roar of boundless fury.
That roar didn't travel through the air; it exploded directly within the depths of everyone's souls. Elizabeth and Mia both took a step back, their faces turning deathly pale from the shock.
Immediately after.
Under everyone's terrified gaze...
The heart, which had originally been beating weakly, suddenly saw the rotting tissue on its surface begin to writhe and proliferate frantically!
Puff! Puff! Puff!
Countless pitch-black tentacles, thick as giant pythons and covered in barbs and suckers, tore through the flesh from all directions of the heart and stabbed out wildly!
They danced manically in the air. Every swing carried a piercing whistle, whipping the hard rock walls and leaving deep, bone-chilling gouges.
That scene was simply an abyss descending—a hellscape of the apocalypse!
"Get back! This is the divine might of an ancient god! We'll be crushed!"
Elizabeth screamed, pulling the dazed Mia as she tried to run back.
An existence of this level was completely beyond their capacity to resist.
Never mind them; even if a dragon king were present, they would likely only be able to turn and flee in the face of these hundreds of dancing world-ending tentacles!
"Wow..."
Only Alice, as she watched the tentacles flying across the sky, felt no fear at all. Instead, an unprecedented light of excitement erupted in her red eyes.
"So many... so many strings to cut."
She even raised her great scissors, looking eager to try.
"Don't be nervous."
However, Victor, standing at the center of the storm, was abnormally calm.
He adjusted his helmet, looking at the scene before him that resembled a dance of a thousand demons. His face bore the professional expression of a doctor seeing a patient having a sudden seizure.
"It's just a typical pre-operative stress response."
"It seems this patient's mental state is even more unstable than I imagined, resulting in large-scale muscle spasms and abnormal tissue proliferation."
"This only strengthens my resolve to perform the surgery!"
Victor didn't retreat. Instead, he took a step forward against the fierce wind that was strong enough to tear steel apart.
"Seeking death!"
The heart seemed to be completely enraged by Victor's arrogance.
The dozen or so tentacles closest to him lashed out at him from all directions like arrows released from a bow, carrying an aura of absolute destruction!
"Director!" Elizabeth screamed in despair.
However...
Victor merely gave a cold snort.
"How amateurish."
He didn't even use the chainsaw.
With just a thought...
"Come forth, my assistants."
Whoosh——!!!
The space behind him suddenly tore open!
Twelve Abyssal Tentacles—blacker, slimier, and more... "professional" than those of the ancient god—slithered out silently like venomous snakes from hell!
If the ancient god's tentacles represented madness and destruction...
Then Victor's tentacles represented... order and control.
Facing those dozen giant tentacles lashing toward them, Victor's "assistants" didn't engage in a head-on collision.
They acted like a team of top-tier surgeons performing a high-difficulty joint separation surgery.
Zip!
One tentacle moved like a ghost to the side of an ancient god's tentacle, the suckers at its tip snapping open to precisely latch onto the weakest point of its "joint."
Zip! Zip! Zip!
More tentacles coiled up.
They didn't use brute force to strangle; instead, they wound themselves tightly along the muscle fibers of the ancient god's tentacles at extremely tricky angles.
Locking the joints!
Compressing the nerves!
Blocking the energy conduction!
"Oooooh——?!"
Those dozen world-ending tentacles that had been so aggressive just a moment ago suddenly froze in mid-air. Like venomous snakes grabbed by their vitals, they instantly became weak and powerless.
"You want to play with tentacles in front of me?"
Victor pushed his glasses up, a disdainful sneer appearing on his face.
"I'm a professional."
"Hold... it... down!"
At his command...
The twelve Abyssal Tentacles behind him suddenly erupted with terrifying power, lunging back at the massive heart like predatory pythons!
It wasn't a brawl.
It was an organized, disciplined, and tactical...
"Surgical suppression."
Victor's tentacles had clear divisions of labor.
Four were responsible for the main attack, coiling around and locking down the still-dancing tentacles of the ancient god, tying them together like knotted ropes.
Four were responsible for defense, forming an airtight wall of tentacles around Victor to block any stray attacks.
The remaining four...
Like four of the most elite special forces soldiers, they bypassed all obstacles at inconceivable angles and headed straight for the main body of the massive heart!
"Puff! Puff!"
The ends of the four tentacles stabbed into the wall of flesh surrounding the heart, like four sturdy steel nails, firmly "fixing" Victor and the heart together.
"Good, pre-operative fixation complete."
Victor looked at the ancient god's heart before him, which had been bundled into a "mummy" by his tentacles, and nodded with satisfaction.
Elizabeth and Mia were completely dumbfounded.
They stared wide-eyed at the man who had, with his own strength, suppressed an ancient god using tentacles.
So...
The Director's tentacles weren't meant for massages?
【Ding!】
【Detected that the host is engaged in "intimate interaction" with a divine creature...】
【Triggered S-rank hidden quest: Godly Biopsy!】
【Quest Objective: Successfully collect a living tissue sample from the ancient god's heart.】
【Quest Reward: Clinic points +50,000, unlock hidden function 【Godhood Ascension Path】!】
"Godhood ascension?"
When Victor saw this reward, his eyes instantly lit up.
Though he didn't know exactly what it was, the name alone sounded incredibly impressive.
"It seems I have no choice but to perform this surgery today."
Victor rubbed his hands and took out his sampling tool specifically designed for "tough nuts."
It wasn't some delicate syringe.
It was a three-meter-long giant puncture needle with a spiral drill bit at the tip and a high-pressure gas cylinder connected to the back...
The 【Bone Biopsy Sampler (Magic-Modified Edition)】.
"Come here, my heart darling."
Victor carried this "sampling needle," which was comparable to a siege bolt, and walked step by step toward the still-shuddering heart of the ancient god.
"Don't be afraid, I'm not some monster."
He wore that specific, deceptively kind smile that adults use when giving a child a shot.
"I just... want to take a tiny bit of your tissue to test it back at the lab."
"To see if you have any... hereditary diseases."
The heart seemed to understand his words, as its beating became even more violent.
The black chains wrapped around it creaked under the strain, and the golden runes on them flickered, clearly sensing the thick "malice" emanating from Victor.
"It'll be over quickly."
Victor aimed the giant puncture needle at a relatively intact, slightly pulsating section of muscle on the heart's surface.
"It'll feel just like a mosquito bite."
He took a deep breath.
He channeled all his strength into his arms.
"Just bear with it."
"A biopsy... will be over in a flash!"
As soon as he finished speaking...
Puff——!!!
The giant puncture needle, gleaming with a cold light and sharp enough to pierce steel plating, was driven in with all his might!
"ROAR——————!!!!!"
A soul-shattering roar of boundless pain and fury, not belonging to this world, instantly swept through the entire underground space.
That roar was so terrifying...
That even the holy chains wrapped around the heart, amidst this roar...
With a "crack."
Developed a microscopic fissure.
"Oops."
Victor pulled out the puncture needle, which carried a small piece of dark-gold flesh. Looking at the fissure, his brow furrowed slightly.
"I used too much force. It looks like I accidentally broke the seal."
"Director! What on earth did you do?!"
Elizabeth watched the heart that had begun to beat manically and let out a scream of despair.
"Quiet."
Victor carefully placed the precious sample into a preservation box, his tone calm.
"What if the sample gets contaminated?"
Rate on N.U.
