I Can Copy And Evolve Talents

Chapter 1395  The Hideous Doctor

It took Northernʼs hard voice to jack the Owl Doctor back into the room and what was happening in front of him.

”Hey!!”

He flinched and staggered back.

”Commander General, ar...are you...”

”Do not worry about me. I need you to open him up and put all these organs into him. Tell me whatever you need, and I will give it to you.”

Northernʼs gaze hardened.

”He must not die in your hands... if he does... youʼd wish he hadnʼt.”

Hervath swallowed. His large round eyes flickered, darting between Northernʼs face and the carnage behind him, but then his gaze straightened and he placed his clawed hands on his chest.

”I pledge to you. Once I lay my hands on someone, they never die.”

He turned back to the table, sweeping his gaze across the organs scattered around the raised platform where the hairy beastʼs body lay, barely clinging to life.

ʼAll this to save a beast?ʼ

Hervathʼs brow twitched. He had watched Northern across enough encounters now to form an impression, and the impression had been consistent: a man who had climbed so far past ordinary feeling that emotion simply could not reach him anymore. Hervath had lived a life surrounded by such people. In his experience, every being that touched true power eventually cut those strings. The heart became dead weight, and they discarded it like old flesh.

But here Northern stood, jaw clenched, fists tight at his sides, watching a dying beast the way a man watches a dying friend.

Hervath had been wrong about him.

He raised his hand and his claws sprang out with a silvery glow, then he fixed a sharp gaze on Northern.

”Donʼt worry, Commander General. I will take this opportunity to show you my true worth. I need all the organs here, nothing more. What I need right now is for you to step back. I will be performing something of a miracle, and Iʼd rather not get distracted.”

Northern hesitated. His eyes lingered on Mr Fluffy, on the shallow rise and fall of the beastʼs matted chest, and something flickered across his face that he buried before it could take shape.

But he stepped back and allowed the Owl Doctor his space.

Hervathʼs feathers spread, and what looked like wings fanned out from his body.

They werenʼt wings.

This was a grotesque amalgamation of hands. The feathers covering his body had always served one purpose: to hide the hideous limbs Hervath had sewn into his own form. An ugly thing beneath the plumage. Three hands on each side, arranged in a skeletal fan, curving through sinew and surgical thread. Hervath used his primary claws to tear into these secondary hands, and instruments began emerging from within them. Scalpels. Clamps. Thin tubing.

As he drew the instruments free, another hand was already steadying Mr Fluffyʼs body. Another gripped a scalpel and prepared to cut. At the same time, a lower arm produced a thin pipe and mask connected to anesthetic fluid, pressing it over the beastʼs muzzle in one clean motion.

The man was singlehandedly performing what a whole team of surgeons would need to do. And he was doing it with flawless speed, his focus undivided. His eyes never left the patient. Every other part of his body moved like an automaton that already knew its task before being told.

Northern watched from behind, oblivious to his own healing limbs and the chunks of ruined flesh across his body that were already knitting themselves closed.

Minutes bled into hours. Hervath stood in the same position, his extended limbs sweeping through the air around the table, all operating on the beast, taking the organs one careful beat after the other and fitting them into place with surgical thread and essence.

At some point, Northern almost opened his mouth to ask if the man needed a hand. But he watched Hervathʼs back, the absolute stillness of his concentration, and swallowed the offer. This was the doctorʼs craft. Northern understood what it meant to be in the middle of something that required every fragment of your attention. He would want to be left alone. So he gave Hervath the same.

Several more hours passed. Northern stood. The Owl Doctor stood. Neither showed signs of stopping. The organs on the platform were disappearing one by one, and the surgery was progressing smoothly.

The day star transitioned into multiple dark stars, and still Hervath operated on Mr Fluffy.

In the meantime, Northern pulled away all his need for essence expenditure and stood there, leaving his entire base defenseless.

Or so one would think.

***

At the edges of the dark forest, three people cut through the undergrowth.

One was a dark-haired man with a weathered face and rags for clothes. Leading them was a pristine young man with jade skin and brown hair, blue eyes bright above a suit of silver armor. The last was a young lady with short black hair and black eyes, a fierce set to her jaw as they marched forward.

Several monsters leapt into their path, but the lady was already moving. She surged from behind the other two and lunged forward, drawing her sword and cutting them down with barely any applied effort.

Her sword pattern was flawless, each stroke flowing into the next with a polish that made it look effortless. The barbarian watched and smiled.

”The Clear Tide Path of the Wager House is as glamorous to look upon as their structures.”

Adelaide, the fine young man in silver armor walking beside him, responded without looking at him. His tone dripped with loathing.

”What do you know about glamor? All you know is despicable dirt.”

The barbarian sucked air through his teeth, a low threatening hiss. Adelaide didnʼt flinch. He stopped walking and turned to face the barbarian with open indignation.

”I could kill you right here and report to your master that you made a careless decision while fighting the target and lost your life for it.”

The barbarianʼs expression didnʼt change.

”You praise yourself too much, all because the sixth prince recommended you. Youʼre assuming you can defeat me and that you will walk out of this alive.”

The barbarian chuckled. There was a lazy light in his eyes that made Adelaideʼs jaw tighten, something unbothered and measuring that sat behind the amusement like a blade resting in its sheath.

He shrugged.

”I will finish this easily. Perhaps teach you the meaning of strength through it.” His voice dropped the humor. ”Barbarian this, barbarian that. You lot can shut your mouths and give us the respect we deserve.”

Adelaide raised his head and scoffed.

”Respect you deserve? After the ungratefulness shown by your tribe after the Guirrand Duchy took in your kinds?”

”How is three hundred years of history my fault?”

Adelaide fixed him with a disgusted glare.

”Itʼll forever be a blemish that you and your kinds will carry. Youʼre not even deserving to be called humans. Animals, all of you. Animals.”

The barbarian opened his mouth to respond, but stopped. His body shifted, weight dropping low.

The lady caught it at the same time. Her sword was already half-drawn, her stance changing as she faced a particular tree where a young man with ivory skin crouched on a branch, watching them.

His eyes glinted with empty light. His long pointed ears flickered, as if responding to the soft breeze.