Chapter 31: The Rejuvenation
Rhys looked down in panic. The ash around his boots had turned into the same black ice he had seen earlier. The ash directly in front of him began to churn and move.
Two shrivelled, dried-out hands burst from the ground. They looked like the hands of a thousand-year-old mummy.
The hands latched onto his frozen ankles with a grip as strong as iron. The cold intensified. His mind accepted his fate.
’I am fucked.’
[...by a corpse?]
’Shut up.’
Then he felt a powerful, devouring force. It started to pull at his very essence. It was not his Qi; it was a deeper energy, the energy of his life itself.
He could feel years of his life being siphoned away from him. Then decades. Then centuries. It was a terrifying, hollowing sensation.
’It is absorbing my lifespan!’ Rhys calmed down a bit.
The ash in front of him began to move and heave. A full body then crawled out of the ground. It was a mummified corpse.
Its skin was like dry, cracked leather stretched tight over a skeletal frame. It had empty eye sockets. A few thin strands of long, white hair clung to its scalp.
The corpse crawled directly on top of Rhys. Its full weight pressed down on him. It was surprisingly heavy.