Krafft's Anomaly Notes

Chapter 393 Snake Saliva
"The sphenoid bone is located in the center of the base of the skull. It is named for its resemblance to a butterfly with outstretched wings. In some earlier documents, it was also called the cuneiform bone. The two names are sometimes used interchangeably now, with the former being more common."

"However, some anatomical researchers still insist on using the latter term, believing that the word 'wedge' better reflects the special status of this bone."

"It connects to the frontal and ethmoid bones in front, the occipital bone in back, and the temporal and parietal bones on both sides. It participates in the fixed connection of almost all the major bones of the skull, like a carpenter's wedge that firmly locks many parts together."

"So in terms of function and location, the latter is easier to understand as its central position, while the pituitary gland is located in the center of this wedge, in a saddle-shaped depression."

Kraft sat with his back to the window behind an old desk, his upper body submerged by stacks of books.

Field could hardly remember when the pile had grown so high. He had delivered most of them himself, but perhaps because he had been too busy lately, he didn't have much of an impression.

The heavy paper slipped through my hands like quicksand, leaving nothing but weight.

"The pituitary gland is where Dominic's problem lies; perhaps this helps you understand how dangerous his condition is. Fortunately, we have successfully removed the lesion; now we only have to deal with some vague and uncertain things."

Despite some attempts to simplify the lengthy technical descriptions, Field didn't actually listen; he only grasped the "central" and "dangerous" aspects.

He nodded as if he understood, and was about to leave when he was called back.

"Wait, what's that in your hand?"

"Oh, sorry, I almost forgot about this." Field picked up the heavy object wrapped in straw, feeling embarrassed. For some reason, it felt surprisingly comfortable in his hand, and he almost took it back to his lodgings.

"Kup found this at the foot of the mountain. I heard that the original owner was a stonemason who had worked for a monastery. So he had the prayer he received carved on the plaque. The content is a bit strange."

Did you see it?

"No."

If someone is living a life of leisure, they might take a curious glance, but for a resident physician, it is absolutely impossible to have the energy to care about anything outside their scope of responsibility.

He found a suitable empty space among the scattered books, stuffed his things in, and hurriedly closed the door and left.

Peace returned to the study.

A hand reached out from behind the pile of books, pulled away the decorative panel, and untangled the layers of tangled straw, revealing the still-fresh inscriptions on the rock.

Yes, this is exactly what's needed. The moment someone is qualified enough to read it, they will realize it naturally, like someone feeling their way along smooth glass and suddenly touching a crack, knowing that the entrance is nearby.

"found it."

Kraft couldn't quite describe his feelings. Was it surprise, relief, or uncertainty?

It seems like neither.

Looking back on the experience of being disturbed, he saw a blinding beam of light shining through the crack. He felt as if he were in a dark and cramped environment, with a thick liquid covering his face and obstructing his limbs, making it impossible for him to grasp it.

Unlike the side effects and backlashes of severing one's mental and sensory senses, it is closer to a certain natural state, driving him to move according to his exploratory instincts—not with his limbs, but through understanding.

The more you see, the closer you get, and the closer you get, the more you see, until you come to a barrier and can't get any further.

However, at that moment, the gaze from outside the membrane shifted away. This was incredibly frustrating; he was already aware of the other side's existence, but whether it was nothingness or something real remained to be seen until the membrane was broken.

However, without external guidance, they face the predicament of having nowhere to start.

Fortunately, Kup provided him with a breakthrough opportunity.

Just to be on the safe side, Kraft activated his senses and read the text over as quickly as possible.

The profound language, seemingly a variant of religious stories, uses the metaphors of "knight" and "dragon" to demonstrate an understanding of a certain concept.

It is concise, yet exceptionally moving. It seems as if extra vivid sentences overflow from between the lines, filling in the omitted descriptions and making the reader feel as if they are there, as if there are endless, enormous things floating in the sky, like clouds pushed by the wind, heavy yet light.

His eyes were sore, and the strokes of the stone carvings seemed less sharp. He shifted his body, turning to one side to let the light pass.

Beyond its ethereal and elusive nature, the allegory presents entirely new imagery—an unimaginable vastness. If it were to coil and entwine, it would be enough to block out the sunlight and darken the world; the friction of its scales would be like the collapse of mountain rock layers.

The image involuntarily came to mind: a continuous, deafening roar rolling across the vast sky and earth, falling from the clouds, crossing peaks and valleys, approaching slowly and deeply.

Just as the imagined sound reached the window, a loud bang suddenly exploded in my ears, and a rumbling vibration rolled in my chest, showing that it was not a hallucination, but a real occurrence.

He paused for a moment, then looked out the window.

The leaden-gray sky had descended at some point, with thick clouds swirling and gathering, almost touching the mountaintop opposite.

In the mountains, autumn showers come suddenly, without any warning.

Deep within the clouds, lightning outlined the churning water vapor. The movement was uneven; in some places it moved so slowly it seemed to solidify, while in others it surged ceaselessly, forming vortices of immeasurable scale.

We've seen this kind of massive rainfall many times before.

This time, however, was different. In those surging silhouettes, the eye captured a rhythm that didn't belong to the wind. It was as if the back of something extremely long arched in the shadows and then slowly disappeared, each time causing a vast sea of ​​clouds to surge and churn like waves crashing against the mountain range.

My eyes froze, my mouth shut. My consciousness was frozen inch by inch, unable to distinguish between illusion and reality.

The hand resting on the windowpane froze, the limbs momentarily stripped of their commands, nailed to the spot. If this was an illusion, it couldn't truly harm him; if it was reality, locking the window or making any attempt to escape was pointless.

He looked at everything before him, letting the scene linger in his vision.

In contrast to the rigidity of the body and mind, the emotions were exceptionally intense, like the surface of water being pounded by a torrential rain, with schools of fish leaping up from all directions, so chaotic that it was impossible to distinguish whether it was fear, excitement, anger, or sorrow, or a combination of all of them.

They collided with each other and then instantly shattered. After reaching a certain limit, their intensity transcended the distinction between reality and illusion, creating a small ripple within the spiritual body.

The minute rhythms spread along the mental body, originating from the temporal and frontal lobes, meandering through the grooves of the surface of consciousness, penetrating the neural folds of the hippocampus, and sliding over the cross-linked projection fibers of the corpus callosum, without moving an inch.

Only when the fluctuations descended and seeped towards the central area at the base of the skull did consciousness realize its target:

【pituitary】