Chapter 215: Puppet on a String

But his hand froze as a thin red thread pierced through his wrist. 

Yang stared at it in disbelief as he attempted to pull his hand back, but his strength paled in comparison to the thread. It came from behind and speared through his wrist before darting forward and merging into the blood mist.

Instinctively, he reached out with his other hand, attempting to grab the thread and pull it free, but he didn’t get the chance. Before he could even raise his hand, another red thread shot out of the mist from the opposite direction and impaled through his other wrist. 

For one brief moment, he simply stood frozen, staring at the threads piercing both of his wrists before panic set in. 

His muscles tensed as he thrashed, attempting to break free of the thread restraining him. Pulling and twisting his wrists as he tried to use his qi to tear the red strands apart. He stumbled forwards as another red streak went through his thigh, pinning his leg in place. This time he was able to see where it came from. It was condensing from the blood mist covering the entire area. 

Then the mist seemed to awaken fully, and it became a free-for-all, as dozens and then hundreds of these blood threads solidified right in front of his eyes, some from the mist and some from the corpses staring at him. They all shot towards him, going through his body. Passing through his arms, legs, elbows, shoulders, chest, neck, and even his face was not spared.

His every attempt to move was met by another barrage of threads, making a pincushion out of him.

And these threads weren’t simply piercing him; they were also tightening and pulling at him.

With a sudden jerk, he fell to the ground on his knees as his arms were dragged behind his back with his legs bent and drawn back until they were practically touching his hands behind his waist. His head was pulled back tightly, leaving him unable to even turn his head. 

The threads pierced through and invaded every part of his body, not even allowing him to twitch. 

He was like a puppet on strings. 

Then the threads went fully taut, pulling him up from all directions until he was suspended in the air by thousands of red lines. 

Suspended, immobilized in the air, his heart skipped a beat as he watched in horrified silence as two more threads condensed and darted towards his eyes in slow motion. Leaving him to entertain the unpleasant thought of whether this was how those two cultivators he had killed felt when Yang used his needle to pierce their eyes and made a smoothie out of their brains.

Is this karma?

He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. Cultivators had carved a bloody path through history in pursuit of ascending, and here he was ironically getting the exact same treatment he had dolled out to others a couple of hours ago.

Why? He only killed them because they intended to kill him first. 

He watched with bated breath as the threads finally reached his eyes and stabbed into them. 

It felt like an eternity before he realized something was wrong.

There was no pain.

And he could still see. One would assume that getting poked through the eye would be a tad painful and affect vision. But nope. He wasn’t having any such issue if he ignored the blurry red thread he could see coming out of his eyes.

Now that he thought about it, from the moment the thread had pierced his wrist till now, he realized he hadn’t felt any pain. 

He was so shocked by the sudden initial attack and the sheer number of threads flung towards him that he hadn’t put any thought into the lack of pain.

Now that he was thinking more clearly, since it wasn't like he was able to do anything else, he let his mind wander to the bead. Which had so far remained completely quiet. No struggle, no effort exerted to make a buffet out of the threads or fight off the foreign strands skewering his body. 

Even now it was still giving no warning or showing any panic. Yang was aware that the bead, while not fully omniscient, was perfectly able to gauge and act when he was in danger— Correction: mortal danger. 

With that thought, he relaxed and tried to think of a way out of the literal bind he had gotten himself into.

While the beads' lack of alarm eased much of Yang's worries, he still couldn’t help but rue the decision to come here. Being strung up like a piece of meat was no fun. 

Especially with his latest optical accessories, which prevented him from even shifting his gaze.

But he did feel the threads still constantly poking through his body. With the number of threads making a sieve out of his body, he doubted even a speck of his skin was left free.

It was then that he felt a chill go through him as he felt them invade his Sea of Consciousness, making him realize these things were far from simple. He hurriedly peered within as the threads, which were thinner than the webbing of the bead that encompassed all the area of his Sea of Consciousness, crossed and met each other.

There was no merging or absorption, not even an attack by either the bead or the threads towards each other. He watched as the threads, after the first interaction, slowly started retreating from his Sea of Consciousness.

All except one.

This thread, instead of retreating along with the others, continued forward, intertwining with a thicker strand of the bead’s webbing until they were both twisted around each other, forming a tight spiral. 

He watched in fascination as the twisted gold strand of the webbing and the red cord started to melt and seep into each other, turning the now single strand into a beautiful rose gold, which soon started fading as the pink color dispersed through the rest of the bead’s network, leaving the webbing the same golden as it had started out as. 

But amid all this, Yang was sure that the bead had gained something from this exchange. It had absorbed one of the threads. 

What actually confused Yang was why only one thread? 

Why only that specific thread?

He had seen the bead consume, but this was unlike anything he had seen it do before. The bead had its preferences, he thought as his mind went back to the difference in how it preferred the energy of Sivlar or pure qi as opposed to what the bead had needed to consume to protect him from the statue, but this was different.

He gave it a few more moments, but once he saw no new change, he retreated back to the present and observed with detachment that he was still suspended in the air by the thread in the same uncomfortable position. One would think if they were retreating from his Sea of Consciousness they would also leave his body, but no, he was still strung up.

Suddenly Yang dropped down as the threads slackened and then suddenly pulled taut, tighter than before, forcing Yang's body to contort even more. The tight tension on his head felt like it would snap his neck. The pulling continued, straining his whole body, bending his body backwards until his bones seemed ready to pop out of their sockets. With a sudden jerk, it all ended, and Yang was snapped apart. Shattering into pieces.

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