There was no magical healing in the Precursor cathedral.
There was no miraculous pill that instantly knitted shattered ribs, no sky dew that erased third-degree spark burns. No divine chant that restored torn muscle fibers. Lin Tao sat on the second black glass step of the Diagnostic Dais, his cold and exact medical satchel spread open across his knees, treating his own body and Tie Shan’s with the dispassionate, unbending rigor of a battlefield trauma surgeon.
Body permanence was the iron law of meatspace. If a wound was ignored, it festered. If a fracture was misaligned, it healed into a crippled deformity.
Lin Tao examined his right hand in the clear azure light of the restored registers.
The thumb and index finger were covered in deep, full-thickness burns where the four-inch star-white-gold metal pen had conducted hundreds of thousands of volts during the order pointer hijack. The outer skin had blackened into leathery eschar. The deep skin was pale and insensitive where the superficial sense nerves had been thermalized.
Third-degree contact burn, Lin Tao assessed, his voice steady as he spoke aloud to maintain cold, calm focus. No blister formation due to complete clotting black rot. Sensation absent in the distal finger bones. Range of motion preserved in the finger joints.
