"Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth." -Albert Einstein.
I didn't expect this scenario whatsoever. The abandoned house was on fire and hundreds of assassins had surrounded me. They already knew where I was, they were gathering forces to block my escape path completely. They had thrown torches into the building, forcing me to confront them in an open field. Not to mention that I still need to carry the wounded assassin on my back. Just what is happening right now? How come they brought so many personnel just to kill one person? Worst of all, they are not rash whatsoever. They observe my every move, waiting to strike at the right moment. Should I just kill them all? But I haven't had any answers at all, what if they turned out to be good people and I was just being an idiot? I tied the wounded assassin on my back and I pulled out my staff. The assassins surrounding me entered their battle stance. I am not sure if I can keep her alive if they all charge at me. I am hoping they have some human decency to actually not kill their own people.
"Lower all of your weapons." A calm but charismatic voice shattered the silence of the night. From among the black robes, white robes led by the golden robe made an appearance. "That applies to you too, foreigner," Asal demanded. Wanting a peaceful resolution, I decided to withdraw my staff and hear what he had to say. The golden man walked closer and closer to me without an inch of fear whatsoever. Either he trusts me, which I highly doubt, or he is strong enough to fight me. The man eventually stopped, about arm's length in front of me. The golden mask asked, "Why are you here, traveler?" Oh... so he does know who I am. "I am not sure myself, I was merely planning on gathering enough information first." The golden man seemed confused, "What makes you think you and your false god are welcomed here?"
I am trying really hard to come up with any response that wouldn't prompt a fight. "I am not here by my own will, but fate's, so you would have to excuse my visit."
"Is that so? Then I am here to tell you that you have no place in this city. Your false god doesn't give you any authority over this city. Leave now and never return."
"Trust me, even if I tried, fate will not let me leave this city until I resolve whatever problem lies in this place."
The golden man thought to himself for a while before finally speaking, "There is no problem that is your concern in this city, as for your fake god..." he grabbed my shoulder, "It is nothing compared to my Dewa." He then proceeded to throw me to the sky. I was caught completely off guard. I am still airborne, seemingly about to fall outside of the city. Normally, it wouldn't be a problem, if there wasn't someone else on my back. Out of my bag, I pulled out the levitation cloth. As cool as it may sound, it is actually not big enough to levitate me, let alone me and the wounded assassin. But it is enough to slow our descent. However, I still crashed my leg first, completely demolishing my legs. Needless to say, my landing was not graceful at all.
I recreated my legs and put down the assassin on the ground. Who would have thought that this actually worked in my favor, now I don't have to worry about ambushes. Although, now I am forced to set camp in the middle of a desert. I pulled out some tent equipment from my bag and began building the tent. After everything was nice and set, I put the wounded assassin in the tent and sat beside her. Well, hopefully, she will recover soon, I need that information as soon as possible before deciding what's next. I too closed my eyes and began to let my mind wander.
"You are wasting time, traveler." A shadow of a man approached me. "You may pretend to hold on to your humanity, but the more you do, the more will die because of your inaction." I looked straight at the familiar figure. "If I knew back then that by taking your power, I will be stuck with you in my mind, I might have thought twice."
The figure scolded me, "You are being too conservative with your power, you don't need the woman, kill her."
"I need information from her."
"The crows will give you all the information you need."
"I will only use your power when fighting a champion, no more than that."
"Why?" The shadow asked, "Are you still sentimental of what happened?"
"Not sentimental, rational. I am aware that the more I use your power, the more I will become just like you."
"Is that such a dreadful thing?"
"Considering the things you did, yes."
The figure stared at me with disgust.
"I see, I thought that after all this time, you would have grown mature enough to see the bigger picture, and yet, you are still looking through a doorknob."
"Well, maybe you and The Third of All should have chosen someone else back then."
"If the decision was ours, we would have. However, it was fate that chose you. Thus, we settled to guide you."
"Then stick to it, you may give me your advice but the final decision is still mine."
The figure was silent for a while. "How many more centuries will it take for you to stop thinking like a human? I wonder if you are ready."
"Ready for what?"
The figure seemed to be hesitant but eventually answered, "You are not here to defeat that man, you are here for something else. That something will play a major part in altering the course of the future. Moving forward, your every decision would determine the fate of all things in existence." The figure began to slowly disappear into the shadows. "If you do not change the way you think, I am afraid chaos will be the one to prevail in the end." The figure said as he left me alone in the darkness. Thus, I was awakened from my dream, only to find the assasin was missing from the tent. You have got to be kidding me. I ran out of the tent and the sun have risen. I spotted the assassin in a distance, running towards the city. I ran straight at her, full speed. She noticed me and began to sprint even faster. However, she was still wounded, thus was slowing down. When she realized she cannot outrun me, she began to take a battle stance. Wow, she really is a fierce fighter. I pulled out my staff and proceed to beat the ever living crap out of her. Well, she is wounded and weaponless so... what do you expect? It is like taking a candy from a baby... That doesn't sound right.
I tied her up and began to question her. "Tell me, what happened to the city? How does a city which have the reputation of being poor ended up being incredibly prosperous? Who is the golden guy?"
The assassin refused to answer. "Are you silent because you don't want to answer or you simply don't know the answer?" The assasin wouldn't budge. Well this is going great.
"Would you at least tell me what your religion is? You wouldn't happen to be shy about it, would you?" I teased her.
The assassin thought about it for a while before finally speaking, "We are the loyal follower of Dewa, the golden god, our lord and saviour, who have gifted us the long awaited champion, Asal Rukun."
"Oh, when does Asal Rukun arrived to the city? Is he a newcomer?"
"Dewa's champion arrived about a year ago, as the prophecy had foretold."
"Prophecy? What prophecy?"
"The 1000 year old prophecy, that spoke of a saviour in gold that will liberate us from the evils of this land. The warrior that will crush our enemies and brought true peace to the land."
"Why would you need a saviour? I thought the Arkindo had managed to fend of all kinds of invasion on its own, even went as far as to participate in other wars for money."
"Arkindo fought valiantly indeed, but there was no denying that we are merely a small city, surrounded by empires and kingdoms. Soon or later, a large invasion will inevitably be the end of us."
"But what about the loots and riches you brought from your wars, can't you just buy mercenaries."
"We need not outsiders to fight our battle."
"So what are the riches for? I know you didn't use it for your people, because if you did, the city would be covered in gold already considering how much money you guys have."
"Such a materialistic mind you have, demon. We, for one, consider riches to belong only to our god, Dewa. We live merely out of the scraps of Dewa's riches."
"Let me guess, the riches were given to religious leaders?"
"No, as I have said, they were presented to our Dewa, who in turn, gifted us our saviour."
Wait... Oh my buttocks.
"You are telling me, that all of the gold and riches you have, were used to summon Asal Rukun? You starved yourself, just to call that guy?"
"It is only right that in exchange for our salvation, we must given up all of our materialistic needs. Something a demon like you could never understand. Now that Asal Rukun has arrived, Arkindo only knows prosperity."
I see now, so back then, Darren was bringing all of those gold and treasury to help gather enough gold to summon the champion. Well, if Asal Rukun really is a champion of a god, then I suppose it would be difficult for the other nations to invade Arkindo without risking mutual destruction.
"So... did you guys melt all the gold and Asal Rukun just popped out of there or what?"
"We had a ritual where we presented all of our riches and gold exactly 500 elephants in weight."
"Wow... with that amount of gold, I am pretty sure I can bribe even fate."
"Even with that amount of gold, it wasn't enough to summon Asal Rukun. After all, Asal Rukun is a spiritual champion as well."
"What does that mean?"
"Hundreds of us were chosen by Dewa to be sacrificed for the arrival of Asal Rukun, burn in the glory of the flames in his name."
"That is terrible."
"It was the greatest honor one could have hope for in this life. I cried blood when I wasn't worthy enough to be sacrificed."
Woah... this is getting a bit too extreme.
I rested my hand on my hip, contemplating my next move, when I noticed smokes coming from within the city. I pointed at it and asked the assassin, "What is that?" The assassin seemed to be indifference to it. "I assume you know what it is?" The assassin looked at me and spoke, "It is the burning of the heretics."
".... What?"
"The heretics, the people you influenced, you touched, you interacted with, they are most likely what is being burned at the moment."
"..."
"If you had let me return to the city, I would most likely be burned as well."
"..."
I quickly tried to activate my teleportation spell but the assassin charged at me, interrupting the procedure. She managed to break free and snatched my staff. I punched her in the face, but she got up quickly and kept on disrupting the process. I am running out of time. She swung my staff at me and I caught it. I pulled her close, grabbed her head and snapped her neck. I immediately resumed the teleportation process and teleported back to my previous check point and ran as fast as I could towards the smoke. A huge crowd once again gathered around the center of the city. I pushed through the crowd, alerting the assassins of my presence. They began to approach me but I swiftly punched my way through them. However, the crowd noticed what was going on and began holding me back. They began to grab on to me, puncing me, and even stabbing me. I used the Mirror Blade to move myself through reflections just to pass by the crowds. I can hear the screaming of men, women, and... children... lots of them. Please.. No...
Despite my wishes, my worst fear has come true, I watched as the group of children I encountered yesterday were being burned alive on stage. I was too late, they are beyond saving. The assassins in black robes, surrounded me, arming themselves, preparing to attack, when the golden figure arrived before me once more.
"It seemed you do not understand our language very well," Asal Rukun spoked. "You are not welcomed..." My mind drifted apart. Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? Is fate telling me to kill Asal Rukun? If I do, then Arkindo will fall under other nation's invasion. Am I supposed to destroy this entire city? There was incredible silence in my mind. It was then I heard the faintest of breathing, coming from the stage. I gazed to where the sound came from, and it came from one of children's burning body. Wait.. Is he... Is he alive?
The body was scorched till its flesh fall apart, and yet, it is still breathing. Asal Rukun noticed my gaze and turned his head to see what I saw. He immediately caught up and shouted, "Kill that boy!" The assassins moved quickly but I killed all of them using the Wind Tiger. I reached the boy's body and freed him from the burning pole. He is alive indeed. Before I could escape with the boy, Asal Rukun's fist exploded my head to pieces. I quickly recreated my head and swung my halberd at the golden man, hitting his afterimage. He proceeded to punch through my gut, making me dropped my halberd. I grabbed his arm and headbutted him. That proved to be a blunder as my head cracked open. He threw me off the stage where the other assassins stabbed me with spears and swords. I was incapacitated as they pinned me to the ground. Asal Rukun took the Wind Tiger and brought it down upon the boy. Before the halberd could hit the boy, Asal Rukun's face was hit by a speeding crow. Asal Rukun's was taken aback by what just happened until the sky began to turn dark. Thousands upon thousands of crow began to plague the city, as the assassins were overwhelmed by them. I took the opportunity and broke free from the assassins' grasp. The crows were pestering Asal Rukun, leaving him unable to react on time to my purple lightning rod. He was thrown away by the attack, which left him with a burned back. Considering that he took the hit from point blank, that is an incredible feat.
Asal Rukun then shouted with the authority of Dewa, "Leave..." His voice echoed throughout the entire city, shaking the ground and scaring away the crows. He struggled to stand up but was met with a halberd to the face. The Wind Tiger destroyed half of his golden mask. I swung the halberd once more at him, but he caught it with his hand. His fist exploded half of my body away, but I quickly recovered. He lifted my halberd along with me and threw me towards the boy. Once again, I used the levitation cloth to slow my descent only for him to speedblitz towards me and punched through my chest. I swung my halberd at his face, breaking the other half of his mask. He grabbed my head and tore it from my body. He continued by tearing my body in half before I could recovered and proceeded to run towards the kid. However, perhaps due to his injuries, he fell down on his knee, seemingly exhausted. He tried to crawl his way to the boy but I stabbed him from behind with my trident. I took out the trident from his body, his golden blood began to spill to the ground. The assassins seemingly hesitant to attack me as I held Asal Rukun hostage. "It is over, Asal Rukun. I have found out why I am here." I looked at the boy, who was healing from his wounds at miraculous rate. "Let me and the boy go, and you may resumed your lives as you see fit. But may this be a lesson, your god is not almighty, Dewa is not invincible, you may find refuge under them, but you shall not harm others under their name. If your god will not punished you for it, others will."
Asal Rukun laughed while coughing gold blood, "How ironic, a man without faith, ended up being a slave to a false god. You may have defeated me today, but faith only grew stronger through defeats. Arkindo has suffered for a thousand years and yet it stands. Your victory here means nothing, faith persists as long as the people will it."
I stared at the man's golden eyes, eyes that only crazy people have. When a mortal has been consumed by their faith, it is hard for them to differentiate reality from wishes. I do not wish to be consumed by this faith to a higher being. I stared at the flying crows at the sky. I wished to view the world as it is, from the eyes of a human, not a god, simple and complicated at the same time. Enduring an everlasting suffering for the sake of a 1000 year old prophecy, sacrificing their own people, and fearing the outside world to the point of isolation seemed to be terrifying things that can only be accomplished by irrational beliefs. Burning their own people for simply interacting with an outsider... is unimaginable. And yet, as Asal Rukun said, as long as the people wills it, faith will live on.
I walked over to the boy and grabbed him. I thought of saying something, but I realized that nothing can change any of their minds. Perhaps it is for the best that I do not interfere more than I have. I teleported back to the check point and escaped from the city quietly. I went back to where I left the dead assassin and gave her a proper burial. I carried the boy to the tent and cared for his wounds. When his conditions have stabilized, I carried him on my back as I continued my journey.