Nine Paths of Asura-Original Wuxia

Chapter 5- Redline

Lineir felt his lifeblood draining away for the second time this day and grew enraged. How much crap did he have to put up with? He was already a nobody who was going to die with only his sister to mourn him. His arms bent back at the elbow, trying to grasp at his back and rip the fangs out, but the strange parasitic spider was latched on tight. At such an unnatural angle he was helpless. Eventually his heartbeat grew so slow that he felt like he was close to passing out again. However, as he was about to close his eyes, the wrenching suction coursing through his veins stopped.

"Finally full are you? Maybe you can screw off so I can die in peace? I hope I come back as an undead just so I can squeeze my blood out of you!" The spider didn't seem to care in the least about his shouts. It retracted its fangs and made off. The sack on its back was once again bulbous and red with Lineir's blood. Like a water bug, it scuttled off on top of the carpet of black blood, and Lineir was once again taken by the flow of the pulsating tide towards the beating undead heart. With no blood or strength left in him, Lineir couldn't even flail and rapidly neared the pulsing mass of undead. At the end of his patience, he screamed out, "Take me already! Stop toying with me and finish me off!"

At that moment, however, as he was mere inches away from the undead hands reaching out from the massive heart to seize him, Lineir felt a spike of pain once again in his back and his body stopped moving. Instead it drifted aimlessly in the black goop as a pulsing heartbeat swept through the waters. He just barely managed to turn his head and spot that he had been impaled through his shoulder by a finger wide crimson spear. It appeared to be made of... blood!

A bloody line, like a fishing hook, trailed out from the spear, into the distance, and attached to it was the odd spider, floating on the black tide. It began to wriggle its legs as if spinning silk, and Lineir was slowly dragged back towards it. He sighed inwardly, "This thing really refuses to let me go, well go ahead! You can't squeeze much more out of me before I'm dead."

But when he reached the spider, for once it didn't bite into him. Instead it wrapped its front legs around him, and clutching him tightly, began to swiftly run away with the blood red fishing line, pulling him ever further from the undead heart. "This line is made of my blood...it saved me from being consumed by the heart, but where is it taking me? Perhaps it wants to bring me to its lair as a snack for later?" He snickered, slightly delusional from blood loss, "When I die, at least I'll make for a terrible meal!"

Lineir must have closed his eyes sometime while being winched away, and he drifted in his mind, rather resigned to his fate. No matter how much he wanted to survive, with this much blood loss nobody could live for long. At that moment though, a confident voice filled his mind,

"Kid, I've been stuck in here for too long, I want to go out and have some fun again. But you're going to have to get up for that. Wake up, I've already returned your blood to you."

The gasping boy surged up, and then fell back down, his back flaring with pain from all the abuse. He was much more clear-headed than he had any right to be, and actually capable of moving again. Somehow, he was alive and had recovered after those mysterious words. The spider from before was no longer on his back but instead strutting away, the sack on its back conspicuously empty of blood. Lineir was in a huge pit, above the only thing he could see was the dark night sky and stars twinkling mischievously. The Heavens cared little about the struggles of a mortal boy.

The black substance was pooling at the edges of the pit but couldn't get in, flowing around and around endlessly. An invisible barrier kept it out. Inside the pit was only one other thing, a thin straight black sword embedded into the ground which was even darker than the goop outside. No runes were visible on the surface of the blade, but lines of yellow would occasionally arc around the sword like lightning in a night storm.

The spider went up to the sword and impaled itself on the tip, collapsing in on itself until it miraculously turned into a metallic hilt with its fangs twisting round and round the smooth handle.

Lineir didn't feel any particular pull towards the sword, but it was the only thing in the pit, and there was no way he was climbing out of the sloping cavernous walls. He knew that whatever had drawn him here had only one purpose in mind. Steeling himself, he rose slowly, and placed his hand on the handle to draw it out of the ground. Inch by inch, the beautiful blade rose out of the wet dirt, and as it did, the invisible barrier around the edges of the pit ceased to function. Instantly, the black substance came in. As it did, Lineir heard an immense grumble in his mind,

"Could you be any slower?"