Chapter 140: The Greenskin's "Standard" Surgery

"Zhang Mingyu! Where is the backup?"

The transmigrator kicked a green-skinned scrap metal can to the ground, then sprinted toward the next scrap can, using the internal communicator of his helmet to question the transmigrator of the nearest squad.

"Coming, damn it, there are too many greenskins."

Zhang Mingyu and the auxiliary troops rapidly converged in the direction of the transmigrator. While speaking to him, Zhang Mingyu hacked down a greenskin that lunged at him.

"Hurry up, I won't last much longer if you don't get here. Half of my body is practically gone, and damn it, this hurts like hell!"

Gritting his teeth and holding a power sword, the transmigrator stared at the greenskin scrap cans and various greenskins ahead of him. He was reaching his breaking point.

"Waaagh!"

A greenskin charged straight toward the transmigrator, running wildly while firing its gun erratically.

"Zap!"

Just as the transmigrator prepared to run the greenskin boy through with a single sword stroke the moment it closed in, a laser beam directly evaporated its head.

"My Lord! Fall back quickly, our weapons are ready!"

Muhatar roared at the transmigrator. The transmigrator looked over and saw that the auxiliary troops had indeed prepared their weapons; the plasma guns had cooled down, and the melta guns had been reloaded.

"Good..."

Looking at the auxiliary troops, the transmigrator felt a wave of relief wash over him, and his body involuntarily collapsed to the ground. His mission was basically complete; he needed to resurrect, as his body could no longer hold out.

"My Lord!"

Seeing the transmigrator fall, Muhatar and the mortal auxiliary troops rushed over anxiously. They could not let an Astartes lord die on this battlefield.

"No! I have to wait until Zhang Mingyu gets here before I die!"

The transmigrator had already lost consciousness upon hitting the ground, but at death's door, he heard the shouts of Muhatar and the auxiliary troops and recalled a few things. Jamming his power sword into the ground, he forcefully braced his body and stumbled back to his feet.

"Do not come over! That is an order! Hold your ground, reinforcements are arriving immediately!"

The transmigrator stood up. Although his figure was swaying and on the verge of collapse, he roared at the auxiliary troops with the loudest voice he could currently muster.

Hearing the transmigrator's roar, the auxiliary troops hesitated and halted their steps. Though they still harbored a strong desire to come forward and retrieve the transmigrator, they were bound to obey an Astartes lord's command.

"Damn it, it hurts so much! No matter how many times, it's always like this... the feeling of death, no matter how many times..."

Staggering for a moment, the transmigrator finally fell down for good. His consciousness gradually faded. He had experienced this sensation many times before, but no matter how often it happened, the feeling of death remained deeply distressing.

"Finally here, let Leman Russ pave the way! Keep the laser fire going! Hey! Hey! Qi Lu, where the hell are you? I've arrived!"

Looking at the mortal auxiliary troops fighting the greenskins, Zhang Mingyu used his communicator to call out the transmigrator's name, failing to spot him among the mortals.

"Stop shouting, I hear you. I'm dead, currently chilling next to the company captain, heading over right now."

Qi Lu's voice came through Zhang Mingyu's earpiece, the helplessness in his tone practically overflowing.

"Ohh~, I see. Sigh~, I found your corpse!"

Hearing Qi Lu's words, Zhang Mingyu searched the battlefield and quickly spotted Qi Lu's remains.

"Oh my~, my brother~, Battle-Brother Qi Lu~, why did you have to die so miserably~"

He immediately dashed over to Qi Lu's corpse, scooped it up in his arms, and spoke into the communicator.

"Your damn granduncle..."

Qi Lu listened speechlessly to the voice coming through the communicator, truly at a loss for words regarding this squad of battle-brothers.

"Get serious... I'll be right there, protect the auxiliaries."

Qi Lu said to his unreliable battle-brother.

"Got it, the combat situation is basically stable, and surrounding squads have moved in to reinforce us. Everything's fine."

Hearing Qi Lu, Zhang Mingyu instantly straightened up. After observing the surrounding battle situation, he reported back.

Once the two squads merged forces, the battle stabilized significantly. The auxiliary troops held the advantage against the greenskins; laser rifles could easily kill Ork boys, but the greenskins' scrap-metal cans rendered the auxiliaries' lasers completely ineffective. Neither the auxiliaries nor the transmigrators could comprehend how a plate of scrap-metal armor could withstand laser fire.

"The battle line is pushing forward steadily. There aren't many greenskins left."

Inside the command post, Wang Ming looked at the sand table on the data-slate and said relaxedly.

"Yes, My Lord. The remaining Orks have been concentrated in the eastern part of the island. They have nowhere left to run now."

Colonel Andreas also stared at the sand table on the data-slate. Deliberately pressured by human forces, all remaining greenskins were now cornered in a single sector with zero escape routes.

"Alright, the clearance operation for this island's greenskins is essentially complete. Transfer command to the Second Company's Third Company Captain; I need to move on to the next island now. By the way, where is this world's Planetary Governor?"

Wang Ming put down the data-slate in his hand and asked Andreas.

"Understood, Primarch Lord. The Planetary Governor of this world is on another island. The battle on that island is being handled by Captain Hu Jin leading the First Company."

Upon hearing Wang Ming, Andreas replied.

"Mhm, right, one more thing: have the Third Company's Apothecary (the transmigrator who knows a bit of surgery) go recover the gene-seed from the battlefield."

Walking toward the command post's exit, Wang Ming suddenly remembered something and instructed Colonel Andreas.

"Understood, Primarch Lord."

Hearing this, Andreas gave a respectful bow and answered.

On the battlefield, snow had begun to fall at some point. In an empty clearing, beside the wreckage of the colossal stinking junk that Wang Ming had blown up, among countless snowdrifts formed by heaps of greenskin corpses, a tiny grot was frantically shoveling snow next to a bulging snowpile, attempting to unearth whatever object was buried within.

"Found it! Boss Dakla!"

Spotting a greenskin corpse with only half a skull left buried in the snow, the grot shouted in excitement. It then resumed digging furiously until it managed to unearth the entire greenskin boy from the drift.

Dragging the greenskin boy's corpse out of the snow, the grot strained to haul it toward a secluded cave.

"Mad-Doc Ayala! I brought the boss back!"

With tremendous effort, the grot dragged the greenskin corpse into the cave. Upon entering, it shouted to a greenskin wearing a white lab coat inside.

"I told you! Don't call me a mad-doc! Call me a doctor! I am a doctor!"

The greenskin in the white lab coat turned its head angrily and roared at the grot. It was a "legitimate" greenskin doctor, completely different from those back-alley mad-docs.

"Okay, Mad-Doc Ayala, no problem, Mad-Doc Ayala."

The grot dragged Dakla's corpse onto a makeshift operating table crafted from stone while replying to Mad-Doc Ayala.

"You fungus! I should turn you into a test subject!"

Mad-Doc Ayala glared angrily at the grot, fuming. However, despite saying this, it would never actually do such a thing.

This grot was its only friend. Ever since it was just a big mushroom, this grot named Ruwen had taken care of it. Even after growing into a boy, Ruwen continued to support its experiments and medical research—pursuits that other boys sneered at. The greenskin corpses Ayala used for research had always been dragged back from the battlefield by Ruwen the grot.

"Forget it! Let me see if this boss can still be saved. It actually fought the golden-skinned big guy; as long as I cure it, it will definitely become a proper, super-waaaagh! boss."

Gazing at the greenskin boy with only half a head left on the operating table, Mad-Doc Ayala muttered to itself excitedly.

"But, Mad-Doc Ayala, it doesn't even have half its head, it's thoroughly dead. How are you going to bring it back to life?"

Grot Ruwen asked, looking at Mad-Doc Ayala who was staring with uncontainable excitement at the greenskin boy on the operating table. It could not understand why Mad-Doc Ayala wanted this boy brought back. Clearly, this was a totally dead greenskin boy, yet Ayala had made Ruwen risk its life to drag it back—especially when the outside was swarming with stunties and stompa bosses.

"What do you know! I am the greatest doctor in greenskin history!"

Ayala shot a glance at grot Ruwen, then spoke in a deliberately profound and mysterious tone. As it spoke, it pulled a pair of white gloves onto its hands.

These gloves had been found on a local PDF medic on the battlefield. Wearing them now was a bit of a tight squeeze, tightly binding its massive greenskin hands.

"Mad-Doc Ayala, do we really have to go this far?"

The grot looked at Ayala while slipping into a white lab coat of its own size, complete with a face mask improvised from a piece of white cloth.

"Of course. That's what we saw those stunty doctors doing earlier. We must study 'legitimate' medical techniques."

Saying this, Mad-Doc Ayala placed a makeshift face mask made of white cloth over its own face.

"And another thing! Assistant Ruwen! Please call me Dr. Ayala!"

Suddenly remembering something, Ayala corrected the grot. It had long been studying human medical science, hoping to make its own medical skills "legitimate" and yearning to become a healer who "saves lives and heals the wounded" just like human doctors.

Tragically, despite all its efforts, not a single injured boy had ever come to it for treatment; they all went to that other mad-doc's clinic instead.

That other greenskin mad-doc had always been a thorn in Ayala's side, a thorn in its flesh. Ayala looked down on that rival, deducing that the other mad-doc's surgical and medical procedures were utterly illegitimate.

Fortunately, that rival mad-doc had now been hacked to death by the stunties and their bosses, leaving Ayala with zero competition.

With that, Mad-Doc Ayala extended its tightly constricted, gloved hands toward grot Ruwen. Understanding immediately, Ruwen handed over the surgical tools Ayala needed. Having completed many "operations" together with Ayala, Ruwen naturally knew what was wanted.

"Assistant Ruwen, you've done wonderfully. You are already a qualified medical assistant!"

Taking the tools from Ruwen, Ayala offered a word of praise.

Having praised Ruwen, Ayala commenced the "surgery." First, using a scalpel from the toolset retrieved from the local PDF doctor, it painstakingly and carefully plucked the bolter shrapnel out of Dakla's brain fragments one by one.

With all the shrapnel removed, Ayala tossed the blood- and tissue-stained scalpel into a cup filled with clear water.

Next, it retrieved a small cup from a previously prepared iron tray and meticulously poured its contents directly into Dakla's exposed brain cavity.

Having finished this step, Ayala produced a prepared greenskin skull-cap, traced a circle around the remaining portion of Dakla's head, and fitted it snugly onto the patient's cranium.

"There. Surgery is a complete success."

Finishing up, Ayala removed its white gloves, sat down on a stone block, and picked up a roly-poly little squig to take a bite out of it.

"And then? Will this actually bring it back to life?"

Grot Ruwen stared dubiously at the greenskin boy on the operating table, questioning Ayala. It simply couldn't believe that this procedure could resurrect a thoroughly dead boy.

"Of course! With my 'legitimate' techniques, it will definitely come back to life, and then it will become a great warboss, leading us in a magnificent waaaagh!"

Stuffing the squig into its mouth and chewing, Ayala spoke with total confidence to Ruwen. It had absolute faith in its own skills, firmly believing itself to be the finest doctor among all greenskins, and that the boy on the table would surely wake up.

And so, Dr. Ayala and assistant grot Ruwen waited in the cave, awaiting the results of the surgery and the awakening of Dakla.

"Aah!"

Just as Ayala and Ruwen were growing so bored they were about to doze off, a roar suddenly erupted from the operating table, instantly snapping the two big fungi wide awake.

Ayala and Ruwen hurriedly looked toward the operating table. What met their eyes caused the two big fungi to display completely different expressions.

The greenskin boy, previously thoroughly dead on the operating table, had actually sat straight up and was now blinking blankly at Dr. Ayala and grot Ruwen.

Dr. Ayala wore a face of unadulterated excitement and thrill—its "legitimate" medicine had finally succeeded! Grot Ruwen, on the other hand, wore an expression of utter shock, astounded that Ayala's medical miracle had actually worked.