I Die to Rise: Resurrection System-Chapter 67: Blood, Bikes, and Bad Timing!

Lizzie approached Kurt in the living room, where he sat slumped on a chair, his blood bucket resting between his feet. It was nearly full now, the crimson liquid sloshing gently with every slight movement.

She held up a blood transfusion kit, containing a clear plastic tube connected to a needle on one end and a sterile collection bag on the other. "Alright, give me your wrist."

Kurt extended his arm wearily, and Lizzie rubbed the inside of his wrist with an alcohol-soaked cotton swab, cleaning the area in small circles.

The sharp smell of antiseptic filled the air, and Kurt watched as she expertly inserted the needle into his vein. Blood began flowing immediately, traveling through the tube and into the bag.

She worked quickly, securing the needle with medical tape, then carefully bandaged his other hand, the one he’d been bleeding into the bucket with. The wrapping was neat, professional, and when she finished, she stepped back with a satisfied nod.

"Wait," Kurt said, his voice weak and his face pale. "You mean to tell me you could’ve done all that from the beginning?"

Lizzie shrugged, grinning. "I mean... why waste a good bucket?"

Kurt stared at her, mouth opening to protest, but before he could get a word out, she shoved a chocolate chip cookie into his mouth.

"Here! That should help."

Kurt mumbled incoherently for a moment, chewing reflexively, and then the taste hit him. His eyes widened. The cookie was warm, soft, with just the right amount of chocolate, and melted perfectly on his tongue.

He swallowed. "That’s fucking good. What is it?"

"Chocolate chip cookies," Lizzie said cheerfully. "Found them in the fridge with a label that said ’Don’t Touch.’"

Kurt’s brain caught up a second later with a thought. ’Cassandra bakes?’ The thought of her: blade-wielding, ice-conjuring, sadistic Cassandra, standing in an apron, carefully measuring flour and sugar, crossed his mind, and he cringed visibly while shaking his head. "Yeah, I can’t see it."

From across the room, Rook’s voice cut through his thoughts. "Once that bag’s filled, we move. We’ll be driving through three cities to get to the outskirts of the D-district. We need to get a move on quickly."

Kurt glanced at the slowly filling blood bag, then back at Rook. "Yeah, almost done here," he said weakly, munching on the cookie.

Rook began pointing to specific people. "Emma, Zaza, Kurt, you three are with me. Our job is to scope out the barn and set the sigils."

Emma immediately crossed her arms, her eyes narrowing. "Why the hell is she coming?" She jerked her thumb toward Zaza, who stood quietly in the corner, adjusting her glasses.

Rook’s tone was calm as though he anticipated her question. "Isn’t it better to keep her in your sights at all times?"

Clearly satisfied by his response, Emma’s scowl shifted into a predatory grin. "Fair point."

Meanwhile, Lizzie finished collecting the blood, carefully removing the needle and sealing the bag. The bucket’s contents were transferred into additional bags, and everything was loaded into a cooler packed with ice.

Rook turned toward Cassandra, who was leaning casually against the wall near the door. "Cassandra?"

Without breaking her relaxed posture, she pulled a set of keys from her pocket and tossed them to him in a smooth arc. "Not one scratch."

Emma reached out in front of Rook and caught the keys mid-air with a smirk on her face. "We’ll try."

***

The drive took four hours. Four long, uncomfortable hours of tense silence and an unmistakable I’ll-kill-you aura radiating between Emma and Zaza.

Emma sat in the passenger seat, arms crossed, staring out the window. Zaza sat in the back, hands folded neatly in her lap, staring at nothing in particular. Beside her, Kurt shifted uneasily, occasionally glancing between the two women, silently wondering if he would survive the trip ahead.

At the wheel, Rook maintained a stoic focus born from years of experience, expertly navigating the tense atmosphere and keeping volatile personalities from clashing.

After what felt like an eternity, they finally arrived.

The barn stood at the edge of an empty field, weathered and sagging under decades of neglect. The wood was grey and splintered, the roof half-collapsed, and the surrounding area was overgrown with dead grass and brittle weeds. It looked like it could collapse with a strong breeze, but that was exactly why it was perfect.

Kurt pulled up the countdown in his vision.

[REAPER BANISHMENT DURATION REMAINING: 32:21:13]

He exhaled slowly. "Thirty-two hours. No pressure."

They stepped out of the car, boots crunching on gravel, and approached the barn. The interior was dim, lit only by slivers of daylight streaming through gaps in the walls. Dust hung thick in the air, and the smell of rot and old hay permeated everything.

Zaza walked to the center of the barn, her voice quiet. "We just have to lure the Reaper into the sigil’s diagram, and it immediately serves as a prison that neutralizes their power."

Emma kicked at a piece of rotted wood, her tone skeptical. "And what if the Reaper gets so pissed off it breaks free?"

Zaza adjusted her glasses, her expression blank. "As powerful as they are, several texts show they’re still bound by certain rules and orders. These sigils exploit those rules."

Kurt crouched near the entrance, tracing his fingers over the ground. "That must explain the shackles we saw on the Reaper when it took its true form. The chains weren’t just decoration, they were representations of their binding."

He closed his eyes, focusing on the image the Keeper had burned into his mind. The diagrams were still there, etched into his memory. He opened the cooler, pulled out one of the blood bags, and began to draw.

The first sigil went directly at the entrance, obvious and impossible to miss. He poured blood in careful lines, forming concentric circles and interlocking runes.

Once the entrance sigil was complete, Kurt moved deeper inside. He climbed a rickety ladder to the loft, testing each rung carefully, and began drawing another sigil on the ceiling.

Kurt climbed down from the ladder and drew one more a few feet away from the ceiling sigil, covering it with loose hay once he was done.

While Kurt handled the imprisonment sigil, Emma and Zaza worked on the walls, painting banishment sigils in case the imprisonment failed. Backup plans on top of backup plans. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Rook stood near the entrance, arms crossed, watching everything with a calculating eye. "That should do it."

Kurt stood straight, wiping blood from his hands. "Yeah. Now we just have to hope the bastard takes the bait." They loaded back into the car and drove away.

***

On the drive back, the tension had eased slightly. Emma still glared at Zaza occasionally, but the murderous aura had dimmed. Kurt leaned his head against the window, exhaustion weighing on him.

With no warning, Rook slammed on the brakes. The car screeched to a halt, tires skidding across asphalt, and Kurt lurched forward, catching himself on the seat in front of him. "What the hell—?"

Ahead of them, stretched across the road, was a tire spike strip, sharp metal teeth glinting in the fading light.

"You’ve got to be kidding me," Rook muttered.

But it was too late. The car rolled forward, momentum carrying it over the spikes. POP-POP-POP-POP! All four tires burst simultaneously, and the vehicle stopped violently.

Rook fought the wheel, but the car spun, skidded, and slammed into a light pole with a deafening crash.

Kurt’s vision swam, his head ringing, and when he blinked the stars away, he heard them: Laughter. Loud, overconfident, manic laughter.

A group of bikers rolled up from the shadows, chains swinging, engines revving. There were at least a dozen of them, circling the wrecked car like vultures.

The leader dismounted, a burly man with a shaved head and a scorpion tattoo running down his face.

He grinned, revealing gold teeth. "RIIAAAHAHA! Nice ride you’ve got there! A Tengen Muscle. Sleek, expensive..." He tapped the hood with his knuckles. "You should’ve known driving this here would get you in trouble."

The bald biker was clearly a talkative, because he kept running his lips. "We set these out every evening. You just happened to be tonight’s lucky winner."

The glass was tinted, so they couldn’t see inside. That was their first mistake.

Their last mistake was stopping them at all.

Kurt groaned, rubbing his forehead. "Bad timing, mate. Really bad timing."

The biker leader kept grinning, oblivious as he reached out to open the car door. "So here’s how this works—"