The boost provided by the Milky Way largely increased his cyborg cat's spiritual foundation. It became dramatically more powerful and resilient, allowing it to resist the escalating lightning strikes for a long time.
The boost provided by the Red Ocean partially strengthened the spiritual foundation as well, but also induced many spontaneous upgrades to the organic and mechanical halves of the cyborg cat.
Many points that Ves previously considered to be rough and crude were gradually becoming smoother and more refined.
As Ves paid closer attention to how the changes were not only improving the existing parts of his cyborg cat, but also spawning new components in a spontaneous manner, he suddenly came up with a radical idea!
"I got it! It will be risky and crazy, but as long as it works, who cares?!"
Ves transmitted the command to disengage his body from his Unending Regalia.
Once he hopped out and tried to maintain his balance on one foot by leaning onto his hollow armor, he waited until he got struck by another lightning bolt to confirm that he wasn't incurring more damage.
Now that he confirmed that his situation hadn't changed all that much, he proceeded with the next steps.
He first retrieved a backup knife from one of the hidden weapon holsters of his Unending Regalia.
Now that he had a sharp blade in his hand, he carefully dropped his body to the temple floor and lay in a prone position.
He activated a command to his smart uniform that caused it to part in the middle and expose his torso.
At this time, he transmitted a silent command to his Unending Regalia that prompted it to activate a projection of the current state of his body.
This was no ordinary mirror image, though. It was a wireframe model that showed exceptional detail of all of his internal organs. Tiny information panels showed various essential pieces of data.
Ves studied the wireframe model and the data carefully. The enormous upgrades that he had already received massively increased his analytical capabilities, so it hardly took any time for him to perform the necessary calculations and formulate his plan to excruciating detail.
Though he would have wanted to spend more time setting up this operation, time was ticking.
He lifted his backup knife and pointed the tip on his chest at a predetermined angle.
"Here goes nothing!"
He plunged the knife into his thick flesh, trusting his sharp blade to cut through his reinforced and augmented flesh.
"AAAHHHH!"
The pain of stabbing his own chest was greater than enduring the lightning strikes, but he could not afford to get overwhelmed by the pain.
He gritted his teeth and continued to observe the projection of the state of his body. He coordinated his movements as best as possible to use his knife to widen the initial incision and continue to dig deeper into his chest.
Soon, he could see that the tip of his knife was closing in on the Jutland organ that occupied the place where his heart should have been.
This was where he needed to be more careful. Even as a copious amount of blood leaked from the awful-looking wound in his chest, he did not rush his next move but minutely adjusted the angle of his backup knife until he was satisfied.
"Now!"
He plunged his knife deeper, causing it to tear into his Jutland organ!
The spike of pain that surged from his chest was so great that he almost lost consciousness right then and there!
It took a lot of willpower and determination for him to maintain his wits under these circumstances.
The Jutland organ was too important to his current body. Damaging it in any way had major repercussions and might actually cause it to stop functioning entirely!
The only reason why he built up the courage to operate on himself like this was because his body received a regular influx of creation energy.
Even now, the remnant power of the lightning strikes were working hard to stem the bleeding and close up the wounds that he had just made.
Of course, the severity of his current wounds meant that his injuries couldn't be solved right away, and that gave Ves enough time to complete this operation.
Ves made another painful stab and finally managed to slice off a small but significant slice of his own Jutland organ!
He wheezed a lot harder. His body weakened considerably after sustaining such major wounds, but Ves was confident it would be able to pull through under these exceptional circumstances.
He had to wiggle his knife at different angles in order to pull out the slice of his own Jutland organ out of his own body.
As soon as he pulled out his blade with a part of his own organ resting on the blade, he raised it up as if he was presenting a plate.
"Bon appetit!"
His cyborg cat dove down and ate the Jutland organ piece in a single bite!
Ves had designed his cat so that anything it ate would enter his biological belly, where it could break down any organic matter and either use the nutrients to upgrade its biological components or void it all out of its backside.
Fortunately, his cyborg cat did not consider his own flesh to be a waste product.
Soon after eating its first meal, the living divine product began to glow brighter as his heart underwent a substantial transformation.
With the help of the massive amounts of creation energy that it was receiving from the lightning storm, the cyborg cat was rapidly able to grow its own Jutland organ that was completely adapted to its own biology!
Meanwhile, Ves continued to wheeze as his wounds were being mended at an accelerated pace due to the energies he received.
As his flesh began to mend, he could even see that they were changing into another form that made his body a lot more compatible with phasewater.
The galactic energy originating from the Red Ocean was beginning to make its mark on his being, causing him to resemble the indigenous alien races to a much greater degree than before!
Ves had mixed feelings about these changes. Though he could definitely sense that his body had grown a lot stronger and capable of surviving grievous wounds like the one he had just inflicted upon himself, he also feared what might happen if others found out about his radical physiological mutations!
"I've gone native!" He complained!