1281: Spreadeagle

Spreadeagle

He was spreadeagled and completely immobilized, confined in a dark sludgy place while being pushed and shoved from every direction simultaneously. 2

Hao Xuan could feel thousands of thin slimy strings moving all over his body. And when he opened his mouth to speak, those hair-like protrusions tried to immediately crawl inside of him.

"Mmmf!"

'Baracus!'

[Central Matrix Offline]

'You useless trash, restart!'

[Restart Unavailable for 380 Standard Seconds]

'Kill yourself!'

He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate but it wasn't easy. Every single nerve ending on his body was being attacked by these hair-like threads and as a result of that Hao Xuan felt like he was being submerged in a vat of acid while being burned alive.

It was a horrible sensation like no other. And if he wasn't already accustomed to being subjected to such a high degree of pain at every other step then it might have proven fatal.

But he pushed through and managed to send out two golden threads of Spiritual Sense that quickly created an image of his surroundings in his mind.

Hao Xuan's entire body overlapped with another- or rather, he was halfway inside a creature that took the rough shape of a human but was made mostly of long strips of scales being held together by countless black extensions (strings).

It did not have a mouth but the scales on its body had opened up halfway and the black strings were pulling Hao Xuan into the creature. In fact, he was almost entirely inside the beast with only a small portion of his back still left uncovered. (Reference Image posted in Discord and in Authors Notes)

The creature itself stood rooted to the spot and from the looks of it it wouldn't be able to move even if it wanted to. But knowing that wasn't very helpful given the current circumstances.

'It's trying to digest me alive! The burning is from the acid in its body trying to break down my cells! If I can just-'

Hao Xuan tried to move his arms and legs but they had been completely immobilized. Far too many of the black strings had invaded his internal organs and they were cutting off all communication between his brain and the rest of his body.

'-Just one hand, that's all I need! I can feel how weak this thing really is. Casting the illusion must have drained it dry and now it can't even move while it's trying to digest me. Just one fucking arm and I can rip its head clean of-'

*pop*

A wave of intense pain shot through his spine as a small cluster of strings penetrated the base of his skull. The creature must have sensed that he was trying to fight back so it had doubled its efforts.

Hao Xuan felt nauseous and light-headed. All kinds of sounds and voices began echoing in his ears, events and people that he had neither had the time nor the luxury to think about for years now.

"AAAH!"

'I-It went in! I can feel it poking inside my brain!'

It was not much different from being plugged into a computer. The things he was feeling were very similar to events that had gone down within the underground lab of the Sagax.

The only difference was that instead of information being downloaded into his brain he could feel things being taken out one by one. And as they were leaving his brain he could see them playing out in reverse.

From his earliest childhood memory to the death of his grandfather, from the first time he opened his eyes in the Beast World to the last time he saw the Khan family. All of it was being picked clean, one precious irreplaceable memory at a time.

Hao Xuan's eyes began to lose their luster the longer this went on. He wasn't just losing his memories but parts of himself, parts that made him the flawed man he was today.

The strings pushed in deeper, from the most precious core memories to the ones that landed him here, the ones related to his combat skills. And it was in one of these memories where his salvation lay.

Hao Xuan saw himself standing in front of an interface scrolling through a list of various techniques, scriptures, and battle manuals. He clicked on one and began reading through it, registering every other word that would normally be lost deep within his subconscious mind.

"Heart-blood...god...summoning...999 arms...arms...arms..." (Ch 20)

The one word that he had been stuck in his head kept repeating itself, jeering at him maliciously. It was there all along.

***

Author's Notes:

All images are posted in the Official Discord.

Link: https://discord.gg/AHdSBFQ

___

Reference Image Link: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/7a/9f/a7/7a9fa7979483dae3d63c4cd6eb14b4a4.jpg

Shortened Image Link (case sensitive) : https://urlzs.com/qJMbm

pqdm.com