Chapter 5 - Venom and Survival
"Cough..Cough..cough"
A series of rapid and intense coughing rang out in a crater tens of meters wide.
Then followed by a painful howl and groans.
Opening his eyes only for them to be greeted by the silvery glow of the moon, Apolo felt a strange mix of relief and dread wash over him.
"So I'm not dead?"
He thought.
Moving seemed impossible because none of his body was responding to him at all, his arms felt stiff and just trying to turn would cause unbearable pain to wash over him.
Resigning to his fate, he could only lay down with gritted teeth.
"Is this the power of a bronze-ranked hybrid?"
Apolo thought as memories of how the village chief had punched him resurfaced.
"If bronze-ranked hybrids are already this powerful then just how powerful are platinum rank or even silver ranked hybrids? Won't those existences be capable of flattening big cities to the ground?"
With his body paralyzed, Apolo could only look at the silvery glow of the moon hung up in the sky. Then memories started flooding him even more causing him to choke.
"All I have ever wanted was to make my parents proud by inheriting either of their bloodlines. I thought if I could become a hybrid I could stand with my parents and assist them, but it looks like that would not be the case anymore."
Apolo could vaguely recall a few words the village chief spoke when he punched him into the wilderness "Anyone that can bring his head would be rewarded a city to rule."
Back then he didn't think much about it because of how badly he was injured and also he was losing consciousness.
"Is there a bounty on my head or what?"
Apolo thought, his breathing rapid.
"Or is there some kind of conspiracy going on or was I mistaken for another person? No, I mentioned my name to that old man and immediately he attacked me."
Apolo was in a mess, he had a strange thought swirling at the back of his head but he didn't want to even imagine it.
"Rustle...rustle...rustle..."
A series of rustling sounds snapped him out of his thoughts, looking towards the direction his eyes shrank in horror and disgust.
Slowly creeping towards him were a group of dark brown centipedes each almost a foot long. Being propelled by almost a hundred legs with two modified front legs that looked like piercing claws dripping greenish goo.
"Soldier centipedes!" Apolo's breath caught. One drop of venom could kill a hundred humans. There were dozens crawling toward him, and he couldn't move.
Twenty feet...fifteen feet...ten feet...
Apolo could only watch in horror as the centipedes crept closer and closer. Totally forgetting about the pain, he started rolling, forcing some barely closing wounds to reopen, giving himself and the centipedes more space.
Just imagining those piercers entering his body was sending shivers down Apolo's spine. Feeling something and with a bit of difficulty, he raised his head up and was almost scared to death.
Above his head was another centipede and it seemed to have been there for some time without him noticing it.
"How did this thing appear here? I must have rolled on i----"
"Arrgh..."
Apolo's thought was interrupted by a painful sting to his neck.
Before he could even process the first centipede sting, more and more centipedes started stinging him.
"Arrgh!" He screamed out loud not caring about his previous injuries reopening.
Apolo's scream echoed for hundreds of meters alerting all the nearby beasts and even some adventurers lurking within the vicinity.
The more the centipedes injected Apolo with their venom, it all passed through his veins causing them all to turn green.
Looking at Apolo's body, it was covered in green veins all over and the green venom was also visibly rapidly moving towards his head as it passed through his veins like little snakes.
"So this is how I finally die?"
Apolo thought in anguish.
"I wish I never stepped foot in that godforsaken village, all this wouldn't have happened."
Just as his body was beginning to turn green because of the venom, something strange started happening to him.
Red visible energy started moving from his abdomen through his veins and straight up to his head.
It was as if red flames were lit in his abdomen and they started rapidly moving through his veins, burning the green venom.
The result was Apolo's body shaking as if he was having some kind of seizure. He couldn't even open his mouth to scream. His body started twitching involuntarily even when he was already injured and had been previously paralyzed because of the injuries, but this time his body was not in his control as it kept convulsing and twitching.
The pain was so unbearable, it was as if the red energy was lava flowing through his veins. Losing consciousness was not possible at this time because the pain would immediately wake him up.
"God! I promise to die in any way you want but not like this. Please make this pain stop..."
Apolo's scream echoed within kilometers around him.
"The pain isn't just in my body - it's spreading to every limb, my nails, my toes. Like my insides are melting from within. This pain should stop, let it stop!"
Apolo screamed aloud as he thrashed around, knocking into the terrified and already fleeing centipedes, squishing them into paste in his wake.
The pain continued for a few more minutes before the night silence and the rhythmic creaking of the crickets took over.
Apolo passed out from exhaustion.
Meanwhile as he passed out, something strange started happening to him. His veins that were filled with molten red energy began to change as all the red energy started receding, leaving a milky white energy behind.
This energy spread to every ounce of his body feeding his cells and strengthening them. All his injuries that by now were life threatening even to powerful hybrids started healing.
His caved-in chest became normal, the wound on his back started healing bit by bit.
By now Apolo and the creaking crickets were the only ones in the crater - all the surviving centipedes had disappeared.
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An unknown amount of time later, approaching footsteps woke Apolo up.