The Silent Guard (mxm)

Chapter 26

How am I not dead...?

He had lost the fight against Lee Shaan rather quickly, considering how badly his energy had been drained previously, but when his right eye cracked open the slightest amount and he took in a strangled breath, Huang couldn't understand how he was still alive.

His vision was nauseatingly blurry, and when he tried to move at all, a heavy weight piercing through his chest easily held him pinned in place on a large stone slab. It didn't take his throbbing mind long to realize that he was still run-through with Lee Shaan's large sword.

That made him even more confused. There was absolutely no way he should still be alive, yet the horrific pain coursing through his bloody body did not lie. His heart still beat... somehow.

His mind slowly began to turn to more reasonable subjects, simply accepting the illogical fact as it were, and trying to figure out a way to make his broken body move well enough to escape a second attempt at being killed.

Not going to happen.

He just didn't have the energy. Not a single drop remained that wasn't being automatically directed to somehow keeping his heart pumping. He wasn't even sure he had enough blood left to sustain his body.

Perhaps I'm just at the end of my life. Waiting for my system to finish succumbing.

It made the most sense out of any of his other guesses. Either way, if it would stop the horrific pain radiating through every inch of him, he'd gladly close his eyes for the last time. He'd done as much as he could to help Han Qi and Zen. Of course, he wished that he could have done so much more, but that was clearly not meant to be.

"Life... is a fickle thing," he rasped, surprised that his whispered voice was even audible enough for his ears to pick up.

The sound of something rustling stole his attention a moment later, but he quickly gave up trying to locate where it was coming from. It wasn't like he could see much of anything, let alone be able to react to an attack. So, he waited in silence.

A cold, gloved hand soon found its way to the side of his face. Its thick fingers moved to grip his chin tightly, turning it this way and that, as if trying to figure out the same question he wanted an answer for.

How on earth was he still alive?

"What do you make of this?"

Lee Shaan...

Having an enemy so close made him want to attack, or cast a defensive barrier, or simply push his right eye to fully open enough to see well, and yet, he could do none of those things.

"I've not seen something like this before," came an unfamiliar, awed voice.

The owner of it came closer, his warm, nervous hands fiddling with Yuen's face and checking the pulse at his neck and wrists.

"He should truly be dead, and yet he clearly still lives," the unknown voice said as Huang felt the man's hands wander to his chest and begin cutting away at his torn clothing there.

"Ah, there is our answer, my lord," he said as he brushed something away from Huang's bare, bloody skin right where the sword pierced his flesh.

"His soul cannot leave. This body owns less than half, somehow. It cannot leave unless it has the majority."

There was tense silence for a long moment before Huang felt Lee Shaan grab hold of the hilt of his massive blade. The slight motion it caused within his chest made him unable to hold back a muffled cry.

"That is a sound I have dreamed of hearing for many, many years," Lee Shaan said as he abruptly yanked his giant sword from Huang's chest.

Blood pooled in the back of his throat, making him cough constantly or risk suffocating on it... if he could actually die. He wasn't really sure how, because he knew that he couldn't move himself, but he suddenly found himself being turned onto his side, allowing him to let the blood run freely from his slightly parted lips.