Silver Serpent

After dying so many times Linri started to understand Udcek's pattern. He could understand his thought process so he developed a strategy. He had to follow it step by step and second by second otherwise he would die a gruesome death.

When he was stumped about the next step of his so-called strategy he would just sit and think. After thinking and trying so many times he had arrived at an answer long ago. He can not kill Udcek no matter what. This was a dead end, the only thing he could do was prolong his survival time and that was it.

Once he confirmed this was impossible his mind birthed a new question. Simply Why?

Why was he trying so hard to kill Udcek? It was impossible so why even try? Was it worth it to suffer this much pain?

He could not answer those questions, simply put he did not know why he was trying so hard. He himself wanted to give up but he could not. He was having an internal conflict and did not even know the reason. This torment, this self-doubt was even more painful than death itself for him.

Ever since childhood he was always in control of his actions, that was thought to him by his father. His thought process was thought by him. 1- Discard your emotions, 2- Asses your situation, 3- Analyse your information, 4- Act on your solution.

Till know thanks to this quality of his, he was always able to do solve his problems. Be it a fight with his girlfriend or a brawl. He manipulated his social standing to become someone unassuming. If he acted on the principles he was thought he could always have his way. That was until now.

Now that he thought along these lines, he came to an answer to why he tried so hard. It must be because of his thought process. Even though he himself wanted to give up his mind did not allow him to. It was almost as if he was preconditioned to act this way like he was brainwashed. He had a problem in front of him and his brain needed to solve it. This was true agony.

He knew it was impossible but he still needed to fight this hopeless battle and he wasn't even given a choice in the matter.

While wallowing in misery Linri was half a second too late in one of his steps and Udcek punch through his chest, pulling out his heart. He looked at the bloody face in front of him. His chest was burning, his body felt cold and his vision started to go dark.

This was his 82nd death.

87th death; He was drowning under the lake while a bunch of skeletons were holding him down. Battered, missing an arm he did not even have the power the fight back.

91st death; Linri lay on the ground without any legs, watching the God of Death as he came to take his life.

99th death; His head was crushed under the enormous force of Udcek's grip.

100th death; A bone spike pierced his eye reaching the brain. Ending his life without any pain.

Linri looked around with dumbfounded eyes. His brain was having a hard time processing what was going on. He was in the empty room, the place where he sat foot before being tortured. He got up noticing that he was sleeping on his backpack?

Was all of that just a dream? Did he not fight Udcek?

He had countless questions plaguing his mind. That was why he had not noticed the silver serpent creeping behind him. The serpent slowly crept up to him and jumped at his right arm.

"AHH!" Because of the serpent's sudden attack, Linri gave a shrill cry. He never liked these cold-blooded creatures. It could even be said that he was afraid of them.

Contrary to his expectation the serpent did not bite him and instead just latched onto his arm. Still panicking Linri rose his arm's temperature to the utmost he can while trying to shake it off. This, however, did not work.

The serpent coiled around his arm and bit its own tail. After that, it started to shrink until it became a serpent patterned silver bracelet. The serpents head had 2 bright ruby eyes. It would have been a nice accessory if it was not a living and breathing serpent.

He tried everything he could to take the damn thing off but nothing worked. He tried to melt it, bit it and even tried to cut it but nothing happened. There wasn't even a scratch on it.

That was when another magic circled appeared beneath him. Before he could even get up he was teleported somewhere.

Luckily this time he did not crash head first into the ground but instead it was his behind. It hurt a lot but that was not important.

The important thing was he could see his parents with all the others in here. He was finally here, he made it.

He got up from the ground and ran towards his mother and hugged her. Lyra was happy to see her son after so long that's why she just hugged him back.

*Cough* *Cough*

Linri looked towards where the familiar coughing coming from. It was his father Arkady. He looked haggard and he had a dirty beard on his face. Seeing him like this Linri could not help but feel sorry for him. This had happened because of him. Then again everything was alright now.

"What? Jealous? She is mine, I am not handing her to you" Linri said mischievously, leaving Arkady lost for words. He just wanted a hug from his son too when did he become jealous? Yeah, he was jealous but he jealous of his wife. Why can't his son hug him like that?