Chapter 106: Changes to the Primaris Space Marine Surgery
"RAMESSES!"
It was a bright operating theater.
The surgical bay's shadowless lamps, under a quantum-coated diffuser, cast a cold, white light, illuminating the entire room as if it were day. Several sophisticated scanning instruments hovered over a mag-lev surgical table, constantly recording every piece of data.
And at the surgical table, Arthur was operating with intense concentration. Under Ramesses's direction, he was performing orthopedic surgery on the femur of a Firstborn Space Marine.
At that moment, both of them looked up in unison at Romulus, who had just kicked the door in.
"Harder. What are you afraid of? Just jam it in there," Ramesses's voice came from the side, as if he hadn't heard Romulus's roar at all.
He loudly directed Arthur, his eyes fixed on the display of the surgical table, which showed a detailed structural diagram of the Space Marine's skeleton.
Arthur nodded, his movements gentle but precise as he inserted a long pin into the Space Marine's thigh bone. As the pin was fixed in place and a restorative foam-gel was applied, the Space Marine's wound began to slowly heal. The pin would serve as the foundation for new bone growth, eventually replacing the damaged section and restoring its original function.
Seeing this relatively normal scene, Romulus didn't interrupt further and instead began to look around.
The operating room was filled with all sorts of instruments and containers, including some extremely advanced-looking devices. On the shelves along the walls were various skeletal and organ specimens from mortals, Space Marines, and various Imperial abhumans. Each specimen seemed to silently tell the story behind it.
At first glance, it looked like a museum of human anatomy.
"Hiss—" Romulus sucked in a cold breath. If another Chapter caught them with this, they'd be declared lost in the Warp on the spot.
"Excellent. Next one."
Ramesses casually used his psychic power to crush the skull of the body, creating an open wound. As the body convulsed violently, he continued to record its data.
Arthur silently picked up his surgical instruments and continued to work.
"Hiss—"
Romulus felt the temperature in the operating room instantly drop several degrees.
What is this now?
Heal it, then break it in a different place and heal it again? What kind of torture is this?
"Did he confess?" Romulus asked tentatively, leaning forward to look at the data-slate in front of Ramesses.
"Confess to what?" Ramesses asked, a look of surprise on his face.
Romulus silently pointed a finger at the Space Marine who was tightly bound to the surgical table, his vocal organs gagged, his body still twitching slightly. The gesture was filled with a deep, suggestive meaning, as if hinting at some unspeakable secret.
"A Word Bearer?" Romulus asked, trying to recall. He was certain they had captured some Word Bearers.
"How could that be—" Ramesses shook his head, a hint of helplessness in his voice. "I've told you, there are lines that cannot be crossed," he reiterated his principle. "How could I use a human? Even a traitor Space Marine is still a human. Don't mess with them. If you make that exception, it's easy to lower your bottom line further and further."
"I stuffed a daemon in there," he explained. "I just synchronized the daemon's senses with the body. And Arthur's ability can cancel out the daemon's special properties, so the neural feedback data is completely genuine."
The biology of this universe was truly bizarre. Without a Warp-presence, the bodies were like corpses, their bio-electricity and neural feedback completely fake.
"Right." Romulus nodded, indicating he understood, but his expression was still incredibly strained. He reviewed the surgical records and found that before today's orthopedic surgery, thousands of other types of surgeries and dissections had been performed.
This was what was so absurd about the transmigrators. They had no shortage of materials. They could pull out hundreds of Astartes on the spot for dissection and data collection. And Ramesses was on another level. He was squeamish about using humans, so he just used daemons for feedback instead.
So this is the other meaning of having a bottom line, right? As long as you don't touch it, you can do whatever you want.
Although Ramesses's logic was somewhat laughable, Romulus had to admit—a series of data results flashed in his eyes—this "flexible" bottom line did provide them with a great deal of convenience.
"Why the sudden research into this?" Romulus asked, having collected all the data to look at later.
"Dora-Cawl got some new stuff on this planet. You've seen it, right?" Ramesses opened another record and brought up the latest version of the Primaris Space Marine surgery.
"Yes, I've seen it."
Archmagos Cawl's use of the Pierdra system for his calculations hadn't just completed the technology for the Armor of Fate, giving the transmigrators a nice bonus. He had also used the opportunity to optimize the Primaris Space Marine modification surgery, making the three additional implants even more effective while also making the upgrade's mortality rate abnormally low. According to the data compiled by the daemons, as long as the individual had no genetic defects, the risk of upgrading a Firstborn Space Marine was zero.
"This, the Sinew Coils—" Ramesses pulled up a structural diagram and pointed at the screen. It was a thumb-sized, bi-lobed implant, one side larger than the other, connecting to the right and left brain hemispheres respectively. During the surgery, it would be implanted in the middle of the brain. Its primary function was to amplify the existing organs of a Primaris Space Marine, increasing muscle and bone strength. And after the upgrade, it also significantly increased a Primaris Marine's resistance to psychic powers, allowing them to insulate themselves from their own Warp-presence and be less affected by the Immaterium.
"Take a look," Ramesses said, enlarging the structural diagram and adding his own annotations, motioning for Romulus to observe closely.
Romulus leaned closer to the screen, his gaze lingering on the image for a moment. He recalled information from before he had transmigrated, then said thoughtfully, "I remember this is an organ from a Primarch's brain?"
"Correct." A light of wisdom began to shine in Ramesses's eyes.
"What have you thought of now?"
"This organ only retains half of its function in a Primaris Marine. In fact, it can greatly increase the connection between the implanted individual and their own Warp-presence. I seriously suspect that Curze just activated this function and then forgot to turn it off."
"So?" Romulus asked, looking at Ramesses out of the corner of his eye. What did strengthening the connection to one's Warp-presence have to do with their next wild scheme?
"In other words, this thing can, for a short time, become an anchor for the soul. Do you know what that means?" Before his partner could answer, Ramesses continued, "It means that if the individual is killed, a simple ritual spell can store the soul inside it, preventing it from returning to the Warp. And as long as the soul doesn't enter the Warp, re-housing it in a new body is much simpler."
"Or, when a Warp-soul binds to this organ, it can more easily break through the barrier of reality."
Hot damn. Cawl replicated this thing to ward off Warp-influence, and you're just going to reverse it?
"Just tell me the result. What can we use it for?" Romulus really didn't know a thing about so-called Warp-knowledge. It was mixed with ritual and other metaphysical stuff that was hard to understand with a scientific worldview.
"Theoretically, if a non-'Stormcast' Space Marine who has undergone this set of rituals is killed in action, as long as we recover this organ from his brain and implant it in a cloned body in time, he can continue to fight for humanity, completely intact."
"As for the 'Stormcast,' as long as this organ is not destroyed, they can also repeat the above process, without needing to restart the summoning ritual."
"And one more thing. Because it can strengthen the connection to the Warp, you can treat these people as artificial psykers. As for the effect, you just have to look at the situation on Pierdra to see what Warp-influence can do. Then we can unilaterally open the projections of these warriors to the Emperor."
A glint appeared in Ramesses's eyes as he sent a PowerPoint presentation he had written to Romulus.
"If I can complete this research, every Space Marine in our legion will have three lives."
One of their own.
One from the Belisarian Furnace, one of the twenty-two surgical implants, which had now been optimized to the point where it could bring a Space Marine back from the brink of death.
And one, when they were on the verge of death, through the warrior's own will, they could directly strengthen their connection to the Warp, allowing the Emperor to project his power and instantly turn them into a member of the Legion of the Damned. After the battle, they would just have to go and work for the Emperor in the Warp, and then wait in line for Ramesses to start the ritual to pull them back.
"...How many souls will it cost?"
To be honest, although this whole series of ideas was still just a PowerPoint presentation, Romulus was genuinely tempted.
(End of Chapter)