Air Embolism

Lewis woke up and found Captain King standing in front of him. He immediately tried to stand up and salute but immediately winced in pain as he tried to get up. He found strength completely lacking in his body. He stared down at his body and found an IV drip was enclosed on his right arm. His left arm, which was damaged by Arnold from the prior fight, was tightly wrapped with bandages around the wrist.

Lewis' entire body was strapped against the hospital bed. Unusually, his bed was tilted backwards, with his head facing downwards and his feet facing the ceiling. The bed completely blocked Captain's King's body, only revealing his face. The captain seemed to be staring at Lewis solemnly, he said in a commanding tone, "There's no need to get up, Major Lewis. You have just had an emergency surgery. Moving around might aggravate your injuries."

Lewis furrowed his brows and asked, "What happened to me, Captain? What did Arnold do to me?"

Captain King stared at Lewis for awhile before explaining, "When Arnold sent his arm flying towards you, did you notice anything strange about the spiritual energy on that arm?"

Lewis shook his head, he thought it was just ordinarily wrapped with spiritual energy.

"Well the the arm was not only filled with spiritual energy. When Arnold concentrated the energy around his arm, instead of filling the entire arm with energy, he created tiny miniscule pockets of air, forming bubble-like substances that was enclosed with this energy."

Lewis widened his eyes and exclaimed, "How can that happen? Spiritual energy is a form of energy, not a form of matter. He can't just enclose gas particles within the energy without artificial support like my particle blade."

"He manipulated the water substance within his body to create tiny bubbles wrapping around the air molecules. He then wrapped spiritual energy around the bubbles to prevent any air resistance that may cause the bubbles to collapse."

Lewis gasped. "Being able to manipulate his body like that, it's either gotta be his esper power or a result of high Foundation Establishment."

Captain King nodded and continued, "When the spiritual energy contacted with the energy from within your body, it caused a downward flow, allow the bubbles to flow into your veins. The bubbles coalesced into an air embolism travelling to your heart at high speed. Within a few seconds, you would get a major heart attack."

Lewis nodded calmly. "That explains why I suddenly felt pain in my heart. Has my heart already been treated?"

"As your heart was irreparably damaged, we had to immediately 3D print another heart and replace your heart with the new one, hence the emergency surgery. We were afraid that the lack of oxygen in your brain might cause brain damage, so we had to put you in an induced coma until now." Captain King said in a calm manner.

"Wow, that kid really do not play around!" Lewis exclaimed. He felt chills in his spine. "If there were no health facilities nearby, I would have died."

Captain King rolled his eyes and retorted, "If you have not been acting so serious when you sparred against him, you wouldn't have gotten hurt! You got what you deserved. Besides, who told you to use your particle blade? That's a top secret weapon that can cause instant death to a person."

"He survived, didn't he?" Lewis gave the captain a playful glance. "It seems your intuition is right, Captain, that kid is a great fighter, with terrifying survival instincts. Although he is lacking some combat experience, he will turn into a killing machine sooner or later."

Captain King sighed. "Still, you were a little too hard-handed just now, Lewis." He acted slightly more familiar than usual, more like a senior talking to his junior than a commander talking to a subordinate. "You severed one of his arm and broke both his ankles! What if he gets PTSD after this and get scared away?"

"From the fact that he was still able to almost kill me after experiencing all of this, I would say that he would have no problems taking a few more blows from me." Lewis jested. He suddenly coughed. It seemed that he was a little too agitated just now, which irritated his weak body.

"Go rest for now. I'll pay for all the expenses of your operation. It was my responsibility for asking you to spar against that kid after all." Captain King announced in a light tone.

"Thank you, Captain." He subconsciously tried to salute to his captain, but since his hands were still strapped, he could not do so. Therefore, he simply nodded reverently at him. Captain King nodded back and left the hospital room. Right before he left the room, Lewis suddenly thought of something and asked, "Captain, is that kid awake yet?"

Captain King shook his head. "No. There seems to be something wrong with his body. Our doctors are taking a look at it now."

Lewis frowned and did not say anything more.

*

Captain King walked out of Lewis' hospital room and headed for the intensive care unit. There was not a whole lot of people in the ICU, since most of the army members who came back from outside injured would normally be directed to the trauma center instead. As he walked to the end of the corridor, he found a rather large room. The room can be seen through the window from the outside. However, the window was a one-way glass, meaning if Arnold was awake right now, he would not be able to see that the captain is staring at him.

The room was filled with top-of-the line medical equipment, with multiple instruments hanging close to the hospital bed. Arnold was laying unconscious on the hospital bed. There were multiple tubes inserted into him, which made him look quite vulnerable. Noticing that Captain King came, the doctor in charge came out of the room and saluted the captain.

"Captain." The doctor said reverently.

"Doctor Carmichael, how is the patient doing?" After saluting back at the doctor, Captain King asked in a questioning tone.

Doctor Carmichael frowned and replied in a slightly depressed tone, "Although we were able to deduce the root of the problem, we have no idea how to fix it."

"What is it?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"The first thing we found to our complete shock when you carried the patient back along with his severed arm was the fact that he was not bleeding at all!" The doctor exclaimed. "In fact, the entire operation of his body seemed alien to us! It seemed that instead of using blood to operate his body, the spiritual energy within his body have replaced it and its functions." Doctor Carmichael explained.

"As a result, we tried sending blood back into his veins, but his body instantly rejected the blood, causing an averse reaction within his body. We had to instantly withdraw the blood supply and stabilize him immediately."

"Then, we decided that instead of mending his inner body, we should instead reattach his arm first. Surprisingly, even though there were no blood in his system, we were able to somehow reattach his arm without any problems. Finally, we fed him a few Level 4 zombie cores in order to increase his spiritual energy level, hoping that this will cause him to wake up, but as you can see, it's not working."

Captain King furrowed his brows. He asked, "What can we do now, doctor?"

Doctor Carmichael shook his head and replied, "There's nothing we can do but wait for his body to recover on his own. Luckily, it seems that he has an exceedingly high Foundation Establishment level. I suspect that someone did some experiment on his body to cause his body to become like this. In fact, when we did a CT scan, we found that there was a zombie core attached to the stomach of his body! Which came as quite a surprise, as you know, since until now, we thought that a zombie core within a person's body would indicate that the person is dead. However, the patient's heart is still pumping normally. From the video surveillance you have given me, he seemed to act like a normal human being. From this, I can draw two conclusions."

Captain King urged him on, "Do pray tell."

"Conclusion 1: the subject is a Level 1 zombie."

Captain King immediately widened his eyes, he wanted to grab his blaster that was on the side of his hips, but the doctor immediately held his hand to stop him. "Don't be alarmed captain. We have deduced that this conclusion is inconclusive. The zombie core within the subject's body clearly exhibit the fact that it is only a Level 3 zombie core, making it impossible for the person to be a Level 1 zombie."

Captain King released his hand and furrowed his brows, "He could just be hiding the spiritual energy within his core to lower the level and confusing the sensors."

The doctor shook his head and replied, "Not possible. We have noticed an abundant leakage of spiritual energy when his arm was severed. This instantly drained the energy from his core. If the subject had a Level 1 core, it would not have affected his body at all. The fact that he's unconscious right now with his organs operating at minimal level means that he's energy defficient, and not because he's masking his energy level."

"Fine. Let's say he's not a zombie for now." Captain King reluctantly accepted the doctor's conclusion. "Then what is the other conclusion you have made?"

"About that..."