Pandora Unchained: B1C7 - Fighting Poison with Poison

The flesh melting demon spider crouched as Sorin approached. Venomous secretions oozed out of its fangs and coated the dozen or so spikes on each of its legs. Approaching the spider and applying the first batch of poison would be tricky from any angle.

But Sorin had no choice but to fight. His freedom depended on it.

He advanced until the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Any further, and the spider would attack him without mercy. In that moment between life and death, Sorin wondered whose poison was stronger, his or the spider’s? A brief consultation with the Ten Thousand Poison Cannon quickly answered his question: it was definitely the spider’s.

Mana infused blood pumped through Sorin’s body, delivering energy to his legs and uncoiling them like a spring. He approached the flesh-eating demon spider from the side and swung out with his dagger.

The spider was agile, and it was far easier to rotate on an axis with eight legs than to take the long way around with two. Its mouth opened and shot a web out at Sorin, missing his torso by a bare millimeter. Then it blinked just in time to deflect three poison needles Sorin had stealthily sent its way.

Sorin hadn’t expected his trick to work, so he moved onto plan B. The spider’s blink meant temporary blindness, and he used the opportunity to cut at the creature’s foreleg with his poisoned knife. The knife cut a shallow gouge in its joint between two thick layers of chitin. But unlike the demon wolves, the spider was unaffected by the poison. The tell-tale marks of poisoning didn’t even appear.

There were two possibilities: one was that the spider was completely immune to his poison, and the other was that the spider’s anatomy made it difficult to spot whether or not the poison was working. If it was the former, Sorin was dead, so he assumed it was the latter and continued fighting with all he had.

He jumped back as the spider’s leg swept forward but was unable to avoid getting nicked by the barbs on the spider’s leg. A shallow gash appeared on his forearm, and the spider’s black poison attempted to melt its flesh, succeeding for about half a second before his own poisons moved to negate it.

I can’t be cowardly, thought Sorin as he sliced at the retreating leg, leaving another small nick on the spider’s flesh. I need to take every advantage I can to win this. If he plaid things safe, he would die. The only chance he had at life was to take some risks.

The spider dove in to bite him with its two venom-laced fangs, but Sorin avoided them it by rolling beneath the spider’s belly. Eat poison! he thought as he slammed up with a poisonous palm. The spider shrieked as his palm hit and jumped up from the ground.

Sorin dodged as best he could but was unable to avoid getting nicked by the barbs on the spider’s legs once again. It’s a good thing Haley was exaggerating, thought Sorin. Maybe it’s a direct bite from the spider’s fangs she was talking about? Little did he know that Haley had almost run in to save him several times already. In her vast experience, even poison masters wouldn’t be able to resist this spider’s venom for so long.

The fight with the spider made Sorin appreciate the Ten Thousand Poison Cannon so much more. The cannon’s strength didn’t lay in its ability to control poisons, but in its ability to assimilate other poisons. He wasn’t quite resistant to poisons, as they would still affect him, but their effects would gradually decrease as his body got used to them, and finally, began to secrete them.

Sorin’s dagger moved ceaselessly. It was one weapon against two or three potential legs at a single time. That wasn’t even mentioning the creature’s deadly pincer-like fangs.

It was only when the spider nicked him a first time that Sorin realized there was something wrong. His surroundings began to spin, throwing off his reflexes, which caused him to get cut two more times.

Too slow, thought Sorin, backing up. He tumbled to the ground but managed to avoid the spider’s descending leg just in time. At this rate, it’ll corner me and land a bite. Then I’ll be as good as dead.

The main issue, Sorin immediately identified, was the difference in their cultivation and the sheer quantity of mana the spider had to draw on. The herbs in his pack and the healing ointments he’d brought were useless. In fact, it was questionable whether Haley could even save him.

The only way I can win is to take a risk, thought Sorin. My mana isn’t assimilating the poison quickly enough, so I need to speed things up. The spider moved in to bite him once again, but this time, Sorin didn’t roll beneath it but stepped back. At the same time, he ran his dagger along the spider’s tough fangs and collected a bit of venom.

The spider retreated when it saw the venom-coated dagger. Why would it… ah, thought Sorin. It doesn’t have full resistance to its own poison. This was often the case for wild creatures. Their poisons were concentrated into sacs and only released on less sensitive parts of their body or directly into their prey.

Sorins’ dagger could theoretically cause it a lot of harm. But he would only get a single chance. It remained to be seen if that chance was enough.

Once chance is too few, Sorin quickly decided. He took out a handful of needles and dipped them in the poison. Then, to everyone’s surprise, he stabbed three needles into his right thigh and several into his torso. He then did the same again with his left side until there were a total of 14 needles in his body.

Flesh melted where he’d stabbed himself, leaving large skin-less welts that were expanding rapidly. Red veins spread out form these initial points as his blood carried the poison to the rest of his body,

“Are you insane?” shouted Haley from afar.

“This isn’t your fight, so don’t interfere,” snapped Sorin. He used his spiritual strength to urge his mana into his clogged-up liver meridian and used the spider’s flesh-melting poison to help it along.

The spider was confused by Sorin’s actions. It was likely the first time it had ever seen its prey intentionally poison itself, and wanted to see where this was going. Its cautious nature was what gave Sorin the opportunity to not only fully clear a meridian channel leading down to his legs, but also further fuse his combined poisons.

“You shouldn’t have waited,” he said to the spider. “Patience isn’t a virtue in a case like this.”

Sorin burst forward with a speed that was 50% faster than before. His movements became more elusive, and he was now able to turn much more rapidly.

“What just happened?” Lawrence asked Haley as Sorin’s battle entered the next stage. “How did he suddenly get faster?”

Haley frowned. “It seems his footwork technique isn’t so simple. His meridian channels were blocked, so he wasn’t able to fully bring out their potential. But now, thanks to his suicidal move, he’s able to keep up to the spider and even out-do it in terms of speed. At this rate, they’ll both drop dead once this is over.”

“Both?” asked Lawrence. “It seems he can probably outfight it.”

“He’s clearly taken a lethal dose,” said Haley, shaking her head. “I have half a mind to send him to the temple for examination if he survives. Because only Madness or Violence’s influence explains any of this.”

“Can you save him?” asked Janice.

“Of course I can save him,” said Haley. “I might have a reputation for being a hard ass, but I’d never legitimately endanger one of my charges.”

Sorin naturally knew nothing of this conversation. He was fully focused on defeating the spider before it could defeat him. At this rate, I won’t be able to outlast it, thought Sorin. Moreover, I’ve just taken a fatal dose of its poison. That means there’s only one way for me to get out of this alive.

So he strengthened his resolve and charged at the spider with his dagger. The spider obliged him and bit at him with its fangs. And to everyone’s horror, Sorin stabbed his dagger just beneath its mouth, but in doing so, suffered deep gashes on his arms.

His skin began to melt away, exposing muscles, nerves, and bones. Sorin’s own poisons were doing the best they could to counteract the sudden infusion of flesh-melting poison, but there was only so much they could against such a terrifying opponent.

“Sorin, you idiot!” shouted Haley. She appeared beside Sorin and took out an anti-venom potion. But to her surprise, Sorin slapped it out of her hands and charged at the stalk of iron-melt cloud grass.

Iron-melt cloud grass was extremely effective against metal weapons items; the moment he entered its range, the buckles and buttons on his pack and clothes melted. Even his dagger began to corrode from the fierce poisonous mana the herb gave off.

But it won’t melt flesh, thought Sorin as he grabbed it with his bare hands. And it won’t melt stone or crystal. He took out a mortal and pestle and quickly made a paste using a small amount of water. He then shoved a handful of crystal needles into the paste and then inserted 19 of them into his arms.

His poisonous mana cycled through his three open meridians and forced their way towards a fourth obstructed meridian. Doing so melted a great deal of dead flesh, thereby neutralizing a poison of the spider’s venom.

The two poisons also happened to neutralize each other. Sorin knew this because he’d looked it up in the Ten Thousand Poison Cannon. The spider had clearly wanted the herb because it could use it to temper its venom and nourish itself to the two-star state.

Sorin’s body shook as both poisons, initially resistant to assimilation, became docile lambs. They fused with his mana, then his blood, then his flesh.

His dormant blood awakened from the tempering of the two poisons, thickening it by not one but two stages at once. In an instant, he reached the fourth stage of blood condensation.

His body transformed. His muscles regained a portion of their lost life. The two meridians he’d cleared were the spleen meridian, a yin meridian, the small intestine meridian, a yang meridian. Two new organs were cleared out from the addition of two meridians, and the large intestine and lung were further cleared out.

But Sorin didn’t stop there. There was still an excess of external poison in his body that needed to be consumed. He took a handful of needles and ran them along his arm to coat them in his own poisoned blood, then proceeded to pierce 27 points on his kidney meridian and 44 points on his gallbladder meridian.

The direct infusion of poison shook up the debris that had accumulated in his once completely open main meridian channels. By using a sudden surge of mana from every cell in his body, he was able to force open a tiny channel and force away obstructions in two additional meridians.

The channels widened as he circulated his mana, slowly but surely neutralizing the aggressive poisons in his blood. Minutes later, he’d fully neutralized the poisons. What remained was nourishing his blood and his starved body. His damaged muscles and nerves began to repair themselves at a steady rate, and his internal poisons, now the product of four poisons, slowly replenished themselves.

It was several hours later when Sorin opened his eyes. His clothes had rotted away, as had his pack and his dagger. The others were sitting by a fire just at the outskirts of the glade, a fair distance from what was left of the iron-melt cloud grass. A small pack had been placed not from his location.

Sorin grabbed the pack and donned a fresh set of clothes, courtesy of Lawrence. He then grabbed what remained of the cloud grass and sucked up its poison, then did the same to the demon spider before cutting out the one-star demon core on its head.

Only then did he move towards the campfire where his companions were roasting what seemed to be demonic wolf meat over an open flame.

“Stop right there,” said Haley as he reached the outskirts of the camp. Sorin swung his dagger out by instinct, shattering a vial she’d chucked at him. To his surprise, a cleansing cloud erupted around him and melted away the blood and grime from his skin. “If you’re going to continue being that disgusting in the future, you should probably carry some clearmist vials on you. Otherwise, there won’t be any teammates willing to take you on.”

“You mean…” Sorin started.

“You obviously passed,” said Haley. “You did something incredibly stupid and risky, but you didn’t put anyone in danger. And most importantly, you won. Sometimes, adventuring is about making the right gambles at the right time. You sought an opportunity to break through in battle and then used the fact that you were lethally poisoned to absorb a second poison and make yourself stronger. Who can fault you for that?”

Sorin relaxed when he heard her words. “And here I thought you were going to punish me for slapping the antidote away.”

“Oh, I’m still going to punish you for that,” said Haley. “You like messy and dirty things? How fortunate. The guild’s outhouses happen to need a heavy cleaning. Unless you’re not up for the task?”

Sorin shuddered but resigned himself to his fate. “I’ll accept the punishment.”

“Smart lad,” said Haley. “Now come on over and eat up. We collected those wolf corpses and roasted one of them while you were cultivating. You ever had roast wolf before, rich boy?”

Sorin wanted to say he wasn’t rich, but he was so hungry he directly dove into the food. The rest of the group began to pester him with questions about the fight. That included Vetner and Janice, who’d failed the examination. It was during this conversation that he learned that his eyes, which were once blue, had turned bright green.

It was evening when they finally returned to the Adventurers Guild. The streets were dim, and an eerie silence clung to the city like a wet blanket. A few of the city guards patrolled the streets, but they were just a formality; the outpost was practically lawless at night.

The door to the guild opened as they arrived. “G-Guild Master?!” Haley exclaimed as a large man with a stern gaze and a chiseled jaw walked out. “I thought you were on vacation this week.”

“I was,” said the guild master. “But unfortunately, one of your charges has given us a great deal of trouble.” He pointed to the five other examinees aside from Sorin. “You five, please come back tomorrow to collect your scores and your badges, assuming you’ve earned them. As for you, Sorin Kepler, someone from your family decided to pay us a visit. I’d very much appreciate it if you tagged along and cooperated with the guild on this matter.”

Sorin’s fists clenched and relaxed. He steadied his breathing and calmed his mind. “Of course, Guild Master” said Sorin. “Please lead the way, and I’ll do my best to clear up this misunderstanding.”