Blood on the Altar (HuaLian TGCF)

Chapter 1

He's not going to scream.

He's not going to scream.

He's not, He's not, He's not!

Not when they force him onto the alter, not when they pin him down, not when they bind his hands.

He struggles but there are so many of them and even with all his god's strength he can't break free. Just like last time... Just like... Just like...

No, No, No, No,

Not again

Not...

And then a blade goes through his right shoulder, a slender spike of metal pinning him to the wood below and his blood flows out over the alter and the sudden memory is too much for his resolve.

He screams.

What he screams he's not sure but it hardly matters because a moment later there's fabric forced between his lips and that too is familiar in the worst way. Then there's another horrible spike of pain as a blade is driven deep into his left shoulder as well, so deep that it too sinks into the wood below him, pinning him there on the alter, unable to move, unable to escape, unable to do anything but bleed and remember.

He tries to scream through the gag, a reflex without any hope, but soon that too is silenced, as a blade slides across his throat.

For anyone else that would be the end, his body mangled, his blood spilled out on the alter, for anyone else the release of death would be waiting, the soft slipping away of a painless oblivion, but Xie Lian is the unluckiest man in the world, and he knows from bitter experience that this is only the beginning.

"Should we cut out his heart?" Asks one man.

"Maybe." Another answers and Xie Lian trembles on the alter. It's all he can do, tremble, in pain, in fear, in the knowledge that there will be no escape, that he will feel every cut, because death will not be kind enough to come for him.

"We should have done that before we slit his throat." Someone else says, his voice, like the others, coming to Xie Lian through a haze of pain and memory and the words echoing through his mind with every drum beat of his heart. 'It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.'

"Let's wait" a fourth suggests. "If Lord Crimson Rain answers us he might want to tear out his heart himself."

"I still say we should have waited to slit his throat, let the lord have him alive."

"And I still say the blood offering doesn't count unless we show him we're willing to do what it takes to earn his favor."

"We can always catch another cultivator and_"

The words trail away abruptly as the temple fills with thick choking evil, it burns Xie Lian's eyes and the back of his already torn throat and sends a wave of panic down every one of his nerves. He knows that aura, that oppressive overwhelming evil that no one can escape.

This is...

This must be...

Whoever this 'Lord Crimson Rain' is he must be a being of the exact same sort as White No Face.

"What is this?" The voice is impatient and Xie Lian could turn his head to look but he doesn't dare, not that choaking aura surrounding him and blades in his shoulders pinning him down and the binding and the gag and his blood spilled out over the alter.

Footsteps approach him, firm and confident and bringing with them the chiming like warning bells. Xie Lian tenses as they grow close and then, abruptly, they stop just before him. If he thought the aura of evil was choaking before it was nothing to what it is now. A sudden furious wave rolls over him, drowning him in a fury so all-consuming that he doubts there's a single god in heaven who could stand against that wrath. Pinned and bound and shackled as he is, he certainly can't. All he can do is lie there and except the agony that is to come.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?" When the demon speaks the fury is in his voice as well, a boundless anger breaking across all those in the temple with the force of a blow.

"L-Lord Crimson Rain, we thought..." There's a flash of silver at the edge of Xie Lian's vision and then the words are cut off in a scream.

A heart beat of silence follows and then there are more screams and the sound of fleeing feet.

"Don't bother running!" The demon, 'Lord Crimson Rain,' spits the words. "For what you have done every one of you will scream and bleed and beg his mercy!"

"Mercy!"

"Mercy!"

"Lord Crimson Rain, Mercy!"

The voices come in a chorus, a panicked echo of the demon's words.

"I told you to beg HIS mercy!" Another flash of silver, another scream. "I have no mercy!"

For a moment Xie Lian wonders who 'he' might be but then the demon is beside him and all thought leaves his mind as he bends over him, and Xie Lian tells himself to just except his fate and he tells himself that there's no point in struggling and he tells himself all sorts of things but when cool fingers brush against the skin beside his slit throat Xie Lian can't help but flinch from that touch.

Hastily the fingers pull back, and through the dimness of the temple Xie Lian can make out a face leaning over him, its expression hidden by a fall of black hair.

"Your highness, you're awake!?"

Xie Lian stiffens, his whole body going ridged as the alter he's pinned to. The demon knows who he is? How could the demon possibly know who he is? No one knows who he is anymore. No one can recognize him in broad daylight let alone in the gloom of a dimly lit temple. No one.

...Unless, could this 'Lord Crimson Rain' have more connection to White No Face then merely the feeling of his power.

When the hand reaches for him again Xie Lian tries to struggle, but bound and pinned and gagged as he is, there's nothing he can do to stop that hand as it reaches for his face and ...pulls the gag from his mouth?

"Your highness," The words shake with barely controlled emotion. "Please bear with me. This will only take a moment."

He feels the hand move lower down his body to the place where the robes bind him and maybe it's just his imagination because of how much he's shaking but he thinks those fingers are shaking too.

A moment later there's a ripping noise and suddenly the ropes are gone from around him, first the ones binding his arms, then the ones binding his legs, and he feels like he should take advantage of his new freedom to do something but the blades still pin his shoulders to the alter and panic still grips his heart and memory his limbs, and his throat is still too deeply torn to make a sound and so all he can do is lie, eyes wide and body trembling as the demon reaches for him again.

This time a hand lands on his right shoulder, pinning him in place, and through the dimness Xie Lian can see the demon's other hand grip the hilt of one of the blades embedded in him.

"Forgive me, your highness." The demon says, and again his voice shakes slightly with some emotion Xie Lian can't place, and then there's a spike of searing pain in his shoulder and Xie Lian's body arches involuntarily off of the alter as the blade is pulled free.

"You're doing well," The demon tells him. "There's just one more."

Then his hands are pinning Xie Lian's left shoulder as he pulls that blade free too, and maybe it's the living memory of the pain and bindings and blood on the alter but he feels the pain of every part of this more strongly than he has felt any pain in centuries and he would scream but his throat is still too deeply slit to allow him to make a sound.

And then, before he can recover from the shock and pain and horror of the moment, gentle arms slide beneath him and lift him and with his throat slit and his shoulders weeping blood and his whole body shaking with memory, he is too weak to struggle, and so he can do nothing to save himself as the demon carries him away.