Cold.
The first thing that leaves me is not my breath, nor the fiery pulse of my own qi, but the simple, mortal warmth of my own blood.
I can feel it pooling beneath my back, a sticky, suffocating lake of crimson that seeps into the porous obsidian floor of this endless, uncaring arena.
Every jagged edge of the five shadow swords impaled through my flesh radiates a freezing, corrosive malice that eats away at my meridians, dissolving my spirit like acid dripped onto raw silk.
The blade driven through my right palm has shattered every delicate bone, pinning my hand flat against the stone in an agonizing, grotesque splay.
My left arm, already snapped at the elbow, throbs with an unbearable burning agony where the second sword holds the mangled limb to the earth.
The blades through my thighs have torn through muscle and sinew, severing the circulation to my legs until they feel like heavy, useless blocks of rotting wood.
