If death was a reprieve, then life was the cruel seduction that kept the living from it's final gift. All the while being the very siren song that drags it victims ever closer to their inevitable end. Unbiased, unflinching, unfeeling of whatever noble quest or concern mortals had decided to bear upon their shoulders. It's the greatest trickster that holds malevolent gods and malicious demons in contempt for even trying to play with fate, for their grand schemes they eventually concede to the grand scheme of things.
It's the ultimate comedy how the two aspects were always present yet so fickle in the minds of mortals. Some could believe that they were fine with death, even wishing for it at some moments. But when they meet the ferryman, they are dragged struggling, squealing for even a few seconds of air once they'd met their butcher.
Some fight to live, to achieve the greatest accomplishments ever conferred on the shoulders of one man. But all the while, that fervor for life was the very thing that was draining theirs. In their end, they come to accept death, realizing that they no longer had any life to give in trade for the life they wanted. There were arguably worse ends, they could have come to realize that though they sought for a life, they had never truly lived. And yet again they were dragged kicking and screaming to meet the butcher.
And in the end, whatever they had decided to disguise themselves, whatever belief they thought had changed them, differentiate them from the other livestock. All were pigs traveling the same fenced path from the barn to the slaughterhouse.
As he awoke from the reeling split second where his consciousness had been ripped away from his body by the impact. It was the most horrible sensation he'd ever felt in his life... Maybe. Or maybe it was just the pain in the moment being so fresh and his brain being scrambled beyond recovery at this point. Either way, for now this was the worst sensation he'd ever. Another sign his brain was probably hurt was the fact that he was thinking about these things at all at this time.
In two days he'd spent every waking moment in the field of battle, wondering if it was worth it. What he found most hilarious was that such thoughts came to him as he was driving his foot into the chest of an ape to get it off his body and switching to send a another onto the neck of one of the chimps. Due to his state of constant battle, he could only think while he was delivering blows or avoiding them since it was the only time he found himself conscious enough to give them any thought.
Zhao Wei found himself, indifferent to these sides. In the span of a year or so he'd met the reapers scythe almost everyday and found it redundant. He'd been jumping between living life for his goal of finding what he lost and just quitting before that fight became obsolete.
If life and death were living, he'd be their greatest entertainment. His contradictions compelling them to watch. How despite wanting to live, he had thrown himself against every conceivable danger he found, and despite wanting to die he had blocked the reapers claim on his life with his own two hands far too many times.
Every time his flesh was rendered from his body and his bones bend in ways they were never meant to. For every time he had to drag his sorry figure back into the fight and for every time he finished just to fall into another moment of battle and pain. It was completely ludicrous how much life had decided to throw down the path he had decided to go.
As he thought so, he ducked under an incoming claw. His own fingers reaching out to hold onto the passing arm as he brought his elbow up into a gorilla's armpit knocking the arm from his socket. The big oaf screeched in pain and yet it didn't stop it's assault, catching his arm with it's other hand. Facing a weakened opponent Zhao Wei easily brought the beast into the ground by pummeling it in it's face as well as on the injured arm. Then again despite the success of the maneuver, he'd already lost.
Yes his adversary right now was down, but he'd taken more than 6 seconds to do it, and now 9 attacks were already coming his way. He might've still survived it if the gorilla had actually let go of him, but even until now it hadn't released it's grip on him. With all his faculties, he was able to block one perfectly and parry two of the attacks, redirecting them to the attack path of the others. Somehow, he was able to stop 5 attacks from hurting him. The other four broke him in every part of his body which he required to fight.
The move didn't finish him off, but his knees had been broken, his lungs perforated by a snapped off rib cage, his left hand and the last one clocked him in the back of his head. At this point even if he wanted to stand up and continue, his brain had become too discombobulated to even get his body to respond to his comands.