Spiders, I Hate Spiders

Kantan was not in a good mood. His punch against the spider had carried considerable strength, and while it had indeed been sent flying it was mostly uninjured. Not only was there only a slight indentation on each of the blade like legs, his own skin had been cut along his knuckles. A black brackish blood was leaking slowly from the wounds which were shallow yet painful.

If it had only been a small cut, then it wouldn't have been a big deal. The problem was how fast the spider was. It had recovered after slamming into the wall almost immediately, firing a shot of metallic webbing at the still prone Lyra. Kantan could tell that the spider wanted to take care of the easier prey, and he could almost feel a sense of frustration from the spider's mannerisms.

The feeling was weird, but Kantan chose to ignore it in the face of the present danger. With a flash of his normal strength he reached out and latched onto Lyra before pulling her over his shoulder. He was quick to dodge, dashing away from the spider as the webbing cracked the stone on impact. Veri's concern flashed through his mind, and he pulled back on the amount of chi he was using.

Anxiety began to grow in his mind, both his own and Veri's combining at the circumstances. Her presence was weakened by his usage, but not impaired like it had been before. While Veri's anxiety stemmed from their usage, Kantan's stemmed from the lack of options he had. He could tell that as long as he was empowered with his chi, he could keep up with the spider's speed. With Lyra in tow though, he was inevitably slowed down by her weight and awkward form. At the same time he had to lower his chi usage while fighting something faster than him.

Options and possibilities flashed through him as the spider dashed toward him, causing him to dash to the side behind one of the pillars. The demonic spider was well versed with the terrain though, and quickly adapted with a few of its legs to counteract its inertia. Just as he rounded the corner of the column he was met with a blinding fast strike of the spider's legs. Kantan was able to bring his forearm up to block one, but the second came at the side where he was holding Lyra. He was unable to black and felt the bladed appendage sink into his side a few inches.

Pain flared up his torso, but he knew that his options were limited with the creatures speed. His grandfather's countless lessons flashed through his mind before an idea came to him. Out of necessity he shrugged Lyra off his shoulder to the ground behind him while his newly freed arm clamped onto the leg that was impaling his side. With his opposite leg, he flashed a kick at one of the spider's stabilizing limbs with a sickening crunch. The arm in his side jerked with a searing pain as he completed the movement, leaving him stunned for a moment. If he hadn't had chi running through him, he might have passed out from the pain right then.

The adrenaline would not let him fall asleep though, and while the spider screamed in pain at its deformed limb Kantan threw a punch at the leg stuck in his side. Unfortunately the spider anticipated another strike, and moved another of its limbs to block the strike. As he saw the spider bringing a limb up to block, the plan of his attack shifted. Hand to hand combat was some of the hardest martial arts to perform, as the variety of attacks you could make were near countless. The spider was blocking a punch that was aimed at a specific angle.

If Kantan continued with that punch he would meet the flat side of the bladed leg, which would not hurt the spider. With this new plan in mind, Kantan shifted his hand to a blade with his nails as the razor's edge. The surface area was much harder to cover due to it shrinking in size, and the small rotation at his shoulder easily changed the course of his strike. The change was minute, but the impact was large. His hand flashed over the top of the spider's leg and into the side of its head. His pointed claws tore into the chitinous shell of the spider, slashing one of its many eyes.

It was not easy to puncture the metallic exoskeleton, which is why he had aimed for the weaker section around its eyes. His clawed fingers sank a few inches into its skull, causing the spider to wail crazily. It abandoned any semblance of planning and jumped towards Kantan, planning to tackle him to the ground. The force and weight of the creature, when paired with the blade that was still in his side made it impossible for him to dodge. As they fell to the ground together, he felt a few sharp slashes of the spiders legs as they attack with reckless abandon. Even the leg he had snapped at a weird angle earlier was trying to strike him.

Instead of defending, Kantan tried to press the advantage he had. With his fingers lodged in the demon's skull, he flooded his hand with chi and pulled on the exoskeleton. The spider wailed and screamed in pain as his claws ravaged the internals of it's head, its limbs moving too fast to see clearly. It was doing anything it could to dislodge Kantan's hand, but it was unable to.

After many cuts and an intense struggle that left Kantan physically exhausted, the spider's movements began to wilt and spasm. The amount of force it exerted became pitiful as its brain became a minced paste before his claws. Eventually the spider stilled, its remaining chi began to disperse out of its body. Kantan let out the breath in his lungs with a long sigh, the creature's heavy body still atop him. He attempted to move, but the creature was incredibly dense and in his exhausted state it was immovable.

His blood had created a smeared puddle of darkness on the stone floor, the oldest of his wounds had already begun to heal due to his enhanced body and chi. He did a quick mental check, and a dark look spread across his face. Veri's presence was almost non-existent in the back of his head. The pressure she exerted was almost nothing, and the lack of chi in their core was alarming. That fight had taken much more of his capabilities than he would have liked, but there wasn't much he could do.

The combination of blood loss and exhaustion made him want to sleep, but he knew that his body would continue to use their chi to fuel his recovery, so he forced himself to stay awake by tapping the spider leg in his side. Pain fueled his thoughts, and he directed his will to the ambient chi in his surroundings. After a deep breath, he pulled on the essence around him. Small black mist began to condense onto his skin, some of which leaked from the spider atop him. As it permeated his skin and entered his chi channels he also began to run his cultivation technique.

The mental effort was almost too much after such an intense fight, but he knew that it was essential. He would likely end up this way in the future, so he wasn't going to half ass it now. Once enough demonic essence filled his channels, he began to cycle it in order to purify it. The spider's chi was a mix of some type that he wasn't able to tell, but it contained the demonic aspect that he needed as well. After around 3 cycles through his meridians the chi was pure enough to begin funneling into his core.

It took a long time for Veri to recover enough to form coherent thoughts, but once he heard her sleepy voice he felt relieved. "That was not very pleasant, not at all." She sounded like someone who had drank too much the night before and was dealing with the after effects the next day.

Kantan maintained the technique to continue recovering their chi. Now that Veri had awakened, he directed some of the chi he was purifying to go to the worst of his wounds to help him recover. Each of his wounds had mostly stopped bleeding, and any that were still bleeding were only minor flows that would heal on their own. The only wound that still posed the greatest threat was the one on his side, which was unable to heal due to the spider's leg. He knew that removing it would rapidly speed up how fast he bled, and his current amount of chi was still not enough to fix the damage.

Eventually though, he needed to get out from underneath the spider. With a small amount of chi empowering his hand, he used his claws to rake across the joint of the limb that had impaled him. It took some time, but he eventually severed it and was able to slide the spider off of him. The bladed-limb was around a foot long, with about three fourths of it hanging outside of his body. Kantan slowly shuffled across the ground to the nearby wall and sat against it while he cultivated. The act of gathering chi was not fast nor slow, simply consistent.

The toll of his wounds and the battle were beginning to catch up to him though, and he knew that his was overtaxed. "Veri, I don't know if you are ready or not, but you'll need to take over and cultivate." He could feel that she was unsteady, but he could feel the darkness of unconsciousness pulling at his eyes. With the last of his strength, he leaned on the opposite side of his wound, and yanked the blade out. The pain was unbearable in his current state and darkness claimed him almost instantly.