For a long heartbeats she waited for him to answer. But the boy, lost somewhere between memory, trance, and confusion, did not react. She nudged his shoulder once. No response. She nudged again, harder. He blinked suddenly, like someone pulled back from drowning. "Ah—yes, yes… what did you say?"
She exhaled through her nose, half-annoyed, half-amused. "I asked… did you meet that great man?"
"Oh—ah… you mean that Wooden Sage." He scratched his cheek. "Yes. I met him. Learned wood carving from him and also about previous path. He's an incredible wood-carver and very wise." Her expression shifted. "Did he give you something other than hat and sword? Anything…?" His hand quietly moved to the front of his robe. "Yes. It's here."
She leaned closer. On his chest, half hidden by skin and shadow, a small circular imprint mark in black faintly. Her breath hitched. "That's a… seal. Did you know about this seal?" Boy nodded in no. But then he said from his previous thoughts, "I died many times in that village… and on the cliff, I actually died. But that thing saved me. Attached itself to me like a seal. It was done by a—"
"—red-cloth woman." she finished for him. He looked sharply at her. "You saw her? She had a terrible story too. Just like you."
"Yes," she murmured. "I saw her from here. But she was very weak. Far weaker than me in my current state" The boy's eyes widened a bit. "Then… what about me? Was I strong in that state?" She tilted her head, remembering the image of his previous form "Strong? If you had used your last strike first… I'd have fallen in a single blow. Probably before I even understood what you were doing."
Her casual honesty stunned him into silence. Then, unexpectedly, he straightened, closed his eyes, and folded his legs beneath him. with a calmness spread across his face. A faint tremor passed through the ground.
Behind him, a translucent shape began to surface. His breath deepened, in meditative state a small lotus of pale light bloomed above his head. She jerked backward in shock. "An… enlightenment?"
His aura swelled, rippled, and for a brief moment she saw the outline of his previous form, those strange marks on his skin, the ancient patterns, the death-glow dancing around him like coiled mist.
And then -
Dhupp!
He fell straight from mid-air onto his backside. He clutched his bum, face twisted in pain. "Ow—ow—ow…" She burst into laughter, one hand covering her mouth. "After witnessing your previous power, I thought a flick of your finger could send someone alive and dead at the same time. But this, this sudden enlightenment fall..."
"It's not that," he muttered, rubbing the spot. "You said it, if I reverse the cycle, death comes first. Then I can use any strike in any order. I don't have to follow the sequence. I can disrupt it."
His gaze fell onto his palm. For a second he simply stared, as though expecting something to appear. There was a thin, faint, nearly invisible palm-lines were slowly returning. He said with still staring "But I don't have any interest in revenge," he said softly in sudden. "When I defeated that god… I realized I already had more power than her."
She turned back toward the idol, finishing the part of her prayer. After a while she spoke again. "He told me we must perform an oblation… for all the souls wandering here. Their bodies were burned, yes, but they were killed before their destined time. Premature deaths… trap souls in the cracks between realms. We burned their bodies," she continued, "but he said they will still linger. They cannot cross the bridges of earth or death."
Her eyes lowered. "I used to think he was a strange, wandering monk. But his words… they tore open something in me or, maybe it was an illusion, formed by grief and memory. My ears accepted it, my eyes believed it."
She whispered, "He showed me all of their their unsatisfied souls day by day. Their anger, their sorrow, their clinging attachments. The children who waited for mothers who would never come. The mothers searching for bodies of sons already burnt. The men who died without answering and the call of their homes."
She continued after little stop, "I had a beast companion once. A friend. I can't even remember his name anymore… nor his shape, nor his colour. Too much time has passed. Only a feeling remains, like the warmth of a fire long extinguished."
She looked toward the idol as though searching for a memory half-buried beneath the earth. "He lived in a small wooden house I built beside the old well. But one day… he vanished. I didn't understand at the time. I only understood later, on the day of the oblation, that that bastard fake monk tricked my friend into leaving. He couldn't defeat it, couldn't kill it… so he removed it from my side."
Her hands clenched on her prayer beads. "And I… I didn't even see it anymore." She inhaled slowly, painfully. "Before all of this started, I was already falling under his influence. His gentle words… his tender behaviour… the sudden change in his nature. He spoke as if he cared for my people, as if their pain was his burden too. From that day onward, something… changed in me."
A bitter laugh escaped her. "But I'm a fool. My heart also didn't melt instantly, first it resisted but slowly, drop by drop, his words softened something inside me. He worked hard, harder than me even, for those wandering souls or, so I believed. I watched him with suspicion in the beginning, but… something inside me shifted. Eventually… we agreed on many things."
She lifted her gaze toward idol. "But that agreement was the beginning of the end."
She parted her lips to continue, but suddenly her breath caught. A sharp pain seized her chest. Her body trembled. She clutched her prayer beads and pressed her palm against her heart. Her breaths became shallow, broken. The boy immediately leaned forward. "Are you okay?" She lifted her hand, stopping him. "I'm fine… it happens. I don't have much time left. Let me finish this."
Her lips trembled as she inhaled deeply, forcing stability into her voice. "For a long time, I couldn't understand his heart. Maybe… I couldn't understand mine either. All I wanted was to help those souls pass peacefully. But I forgot something crucial, humans can be worse than demons and his demonic nature finally surfaced… on the oblation night."
"You know what he did?" she whispered. "He made me, Forced me to call their souls also made my memory forget. He dug up animal bones from the graveyard. I didn't understand it even on oblation night but I remember we had a dog buried there. But… That was from before the war. The one who stayed with me after the carnage… was different and everyone loved it very much."
Her voice cracked. "But he took the skull and on that skull… he called their souls with my help. He made me forget all of my past. He carved a demon idol out of those bones before I even realized what he was doing. He wove illusions around me and then… he used my blood as the sacrifice. Only when he needed me, he lured me back here."
Her fingers moved faster over the beads, as if to keep the memories from consuming her. "When I realized it… it was already too late. Far too late. When I learned that his gentle behaviour was all part of an illusion. It was already very late."
She pressed her hands together and began chanting again. After a while she stopped, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. "Are you annoyed?" she asked softly. "I stop… and chant… again and again."
The boy shook his head. "No. You're trying to cleanse your sin. Why would I complain about that?" A ghost of a smile brushed her lips. "Thank you… for understanding." She resumed her chanting.
The girl's voice trembled as if every word scraped against old scars.
"At that night when I was unconscious," she whispered, "I heard them again. Their agony… their begging… their voices that should never have existed twice." Her fingers dug into her own sleeves. "I heard my father. My brothers. Even my master, someone I never thought I would hear in such a place. He said to me, 'You made them suffer. Your own emotions invited this. You will bear the curse.'"
Her breath cracked. "I shattered. Even in sleep I cried."
"When I woke up," she continued, lifting a trembling hand to point deeper into the cave, "I found myself lying over there. In that corner."
The dimness of the cavern flickered irregularly. Five tall soil columns jutted from the earth like crude grave markers, each one stained with dark, dried streaks. The faint orange glow of spirit-flames clung to them, as if feeding on grief.
She swallowed. "He was standing in the middle of those five columns but they were not there at that time…." Her voice dropped to a shiver. "I saw him tying my beloved's souls… into talismans. One by one he hung them on thin thread stretched across the ceiling. They swayed like dead leaves, whispering, writhing."
Her throat tightened. "I grabbed a broken wooden shard nearby to free them. But before I could even step, he appeared behind me. He kicked me hard on my lower abdomen. I folded and collapsed. Before I could even gasp, he threw ashes over me again. I chanted everything to stop the ritual. But he sealed my voice, movement except my eyes. And then… I heard it. His non-human laughter."
The cavern suddenly felt colder around them. "I saw, he began creating more talismans, for every remaining soul and fed the extras to the Oblivion Fire. Each soul twisted as it burned, their screams melting into a shrill ringing. I wanted to close my eyes, close my mouth but I couldn't close my eyes. I couldn't scream. I just watched."
The boy's eyes stung. He rubbed them and muttered, "…Strange. I haven't cried in five years. My emotions… I don't know if they're real. Maybe the water..." The girl grabbed his chin softly, stopping his sentence. "It's all right," she murmured. "Just listen."
She exhaled shakily. "After he finished the souls, he dragged me across the cave floor." She turned her head toward the cave floor behind them.
"He dragged me to that place where five columns are there. He put me in the middle of the pentagon." she whispered, " at that time, I saw his face clearly for the first time." Her eyes widened, reliving the horror.
"One half was freshly burned. The flesh still oozed… orange. Like molten wax dripping from a candle. His skin on the other side was torn by long strips, revealing muscle that pulsed as if it remembered the fire. His arms… pieces missing. Some parts glowing like heated metal. His robes soaked in a red so deep it looked… alive."
She now pointed at those five pillars again, "and from there… the Hanri-Kaths woke up."
At each corner of the pentagon, the ground tore open. Long, wooden constructs, like skeletal totems carved from ancient tree trunks, rose with slow, grinding movements. Their surfaces were painted with decayed prayers, and each had a mouth-like crack that opened as if tasting the air. "I understood then," she said, "I became the sacrifice lamb."
"Each Hanri-Kath grabbed a limb. One clamped around my left arm. One around my right. One around each leg. The last one hovered above my neck. Their grips tightened…. He sealed me on there. I could neither look away nor move. My heartbeat… felt like someone else's heartbeat inside me."
Then she whispered, voice sinking: "And then he came to me tore all my clothes and raped again and again until he satisfied himself, he washed me with his pee. Then he threw red and yellow dust on me. It covered every inch of my forehead."
She brushed her arm unconsciously.
"Then his finger touched my forehead… and drew a white line." The air of the cave trembled around them. "The wooden logs on the Hanri-Kaths closed by themselves… locking me in place. He placed five human skulls beneath each Kath. And beneath me… He placed the Woman-of-Empty-Womb idol. The one carved from bones. Its eyes… were hollowed."
The girl's voice wavered as she continued, her fingers unconsciously twisting the beads around her wrist, making them click like distant bones tapping together.
"He laughed at seeing this, like a insects chewing inside the stone walls."
Her throat tightened as she mimicked the sound:"Hhhaha… aaahha… Ready… ready… all offerings are complete. Only the last flame of immolation remains. Ah… immortality, I can touch it. And you—"Her face twisted in disgust."—you will become my goddess's obedient vessel… hahahahah…'"
"As I looked up above me, I saw the talismans were no longer random. They were bound together by red threads woven into a second pentagon with a star hovering upside down. Anyone who looked closely would see the symmetry: the threads cutting across one another but never entering the centre. The middle was untouched, like an empty womb waiting to be filled."
Her voice dropped to a whisper of horror.
"At the five points of the hanging pentagon… dangled head-shaped palm fruits and on the centre thread hung a small, crude doll, suspended by rope. No torso. Only a head, two stiff legs, two stick-like arms… exactly like me."
The boy swallowed hard. "The doll's body was wrapped in yellow papers," she continued, "inscribed with smaller, sharper, violently twisted with symbolic talisman that glowed like diseased fireflies."
She closed her eyes. "And suddenly… his laughter stopped. He began murmuring. Low. Almost tender. But every word writhed, like the language itself hated being spoken."
She clenched her fists. "Then he walked to the blood pool, one near the Oblivion pit. He reached inside… and pulled out the Khadga. Something look like it was born from that blood."
Her breathing hitched.
"With one swipe, he severed my legs first."
"I didn't feel pain first, or, I already forgot the pain itself" she murmured. "My body had already gone numb from fear. But the warmth of the blood… I felt that. Spreading. Pouring and I realized… his next cuts would be my hands. Then my head. But then, something inside me sparked. I remembered that root. The last thing Master gave me before leaving."
She swallowed. "I whispered to myself, 'Did Master not say… he would help me? Where is he? Why isn't he coming?' I searched the cavern ceiling as if heaven hid behind the rocks. 'Is it my fault? Did I fall too deeply into illusion? Did heaven abandon me too?' I did as my master said." Her voice cracked. "Then… I thanked him. For everything he had taught. And I closed my eyes."
"He laughed again when he saw my root didn't activate immediately. 'See? Your root is worthless!' he shouted. 'Four sacrifices complete!'"
The cave trembled with her imitation of his booming voice. "Below me, the 4 skulls were drinking my blood and purifying themselves. Each skull began glowing with marks, different symbols on their foreheads, growing brighter with every drop they took."
Shadows shifted along the walls.
"Every single one talismans above began dissolving. Turning into blue dust and they slowly drifted into each skull. And then he raised his arms and screamed, 'Mother! Accept this final oblation! Come into this mortal world! Grant me power beyond death!'"
The cavern shook at that time as if remembering that moment. "But I… I didn't let hope die. Not yet. When he was screaming… I spat. I spat on the offering. On the last skull beneath me and also on idol. The moment my spit touched the ritual circle… everything twisted."
"My body fell on the idol and it's sharp part tore my belly and went passed it. My blood smeared across its stone face. The Oblivion fire rose violently, then sank."
The ground trembled under them. "The Hanri-Kaths began to dissolve. Their wooden skin rotting in seconds. Their roots turning into dust. The ritual… was being contaminated. But the idol beneath me still drinking my blood. His laugh stopped. His voice turned into a gasp. Then fear. A fear so intense even a demon couldn't hide it."
Yellow talisman papers all around the cavern suddenly fell from where they had been hanging. "They fluttered toward him like hungry insects. Sticking to his burned flesh. Crawling up his arms. His chest. His face. Each one glowing brighter and the idol beneath me… grew hot. So hot it burned through air. The idol's bones started to glow red. Then again white. I felt its eyes open. Then from the idol's mouth something black erupted. Dozens of shapes. Like shadow-fingers. They flew upward and wrapped around the doll above."
"That doll… changed. It became a devil-toy. Its grin stretched unnaturally too wide and in its hands, another Khadga appeared from nowhere. In the sky above the cliff I saw… something. A silhouette of a woman forming out of red light from that hole. Her hair long, drifting like smoke."
She swallowed. "But she vanished instantly. A golden light rose from the far side of the sky. The girl closed her eyes as if reliving the moment, her body trembling as though the cavern air itself had turned colder. When the sky silhouette died," she whispered, "his rage erupted like a beast's roar. It was… like something cracked open inside him."
She pressed her palms to her temples. "He screamed inside his own mind, so loudly I thought the cave stones would crack apart. 'Mother came and vanished… others came and vanished… aaahhh… AHHH… Mother!'" The boy felt the echoes of that fury rattling his bones.
"Then," she continued, voice barely audible, "one of the skulls spoke." She quoted the skull's words, her voice deepening unnaturally:
'Finish the rite before the lunar eclipse ends. End her life. Soak the remains. We will plead to Mother for your godhood. You may not gain immortality… but you may beg Mother again later. Quickly, complete the oblation.'
"That command… broke something inside him. He roared like a demon or better to say something worse. A hungry tiger with its throat full of dying souls."
She swallowed. "Because the talismans stuck to his body were glowing. Burning him. Twisting him. His body began demonifying, his limbs contorting, bones cracking backward, skin splitting into molten-orange patches. From the rents in his flesh, I could hear them, hundreds of souls screaming… crying… writhing."
The boy's nails dug into his knees.
"He thrashed. Destroying everything near him. Rocks. Ropes. Talisman chains. Even the shadows fled from him." Her voice grew small."And I was only a broken woman without limbs… fallen across the idol's head."
"He grabbed the idol and me with it. Lifted both with his monstrous strength, then hurled my body upward and in the same motion, with one demonic hand… he tore off my head, throw my body towards top and I was floating there."
In meantime he placed my severed head on top of the idol like a crown," she said, voice thin. "He forced it onto a spike embedded at the centre. My veins spilled down the stone face. My blood soaked the idol, and the bone began to pulse beneath me."
Her fingers shook violently. "He shouted some words that no human could understand. His throat had mutated too much. But I understood the meaning behind the noise."
She inhaled, mimicking his spite-filled rage: 'You destroyed my holy oblation! Not even a thousand deaths can cleanse your sin! How dare you defile my mother's ascension?'
The walls of the cave seemed to shudder as she relived it. "And then… the doll above itself from the ropes and it fall. It moved."
Her voice faltered. "It dropped with the Khadga in its tiny hand. And it cut my body in half in a single vertical slice."
She closed her eyes as if forcing back tears.
"My halves fell onto the drawn pentagon… like two slabs of rotten meat."
"From my head, blood poured first over the idol. Then dripped onto the last skull he held. As the blood touched it, like before it glow with marks. The souls trapped on those talisman, were pulled out one by one. Their forms shredded into blue dust. And that dust entered the skulls All five skulls ignited with fire. Runes spiralled across their surfaces on the pentagon. The pentagon lit up. Lines of light running across the earth."
"On the ritual pentagon, the doll pulled both halves of my body together. Pressed them. Sealed them. And from that obscene joining, limbs began sprouting. Growing. Like tree branches forcing through flesh."
"That doll, no, that twisted thing, stood upright. Almost human-shaped now. He kicked my reformed body aside and placed the idol, now wearing my head onto the centre of the pentagon."
Her eyes glazed with terror. "And then… my dead eyes moved. Not like human eyes. They rolled mechanically in their sockets. Clicking. Turning too far. Then the pupils ignited red… with a green ring around them."
A chill swarmed the cave. "Both the body and he began to dance around the idol. They did not dance like humans. Their bones popped at wrong angles. Their limbs bent too far. Their steps sounded like wet cloth hitting stone." She mimicked the sound: shlep… thud… shlep… crack…
"And from their mouths," she continued, "a sound poured out. It shook the cave, shook the air and then from the sky past the cave roof, past the stone, past reality, a woman's voice descended."
Her face twisted, remembering that cosmic tone. It said: 'I am pleased by this sacrifice. Your soul shall bear my new life. Betray me, and hell will peel you open. Remember, she spat upon me. Hellfire shall spit upon her. But she will not die. She will feel agony without end.' But that voice continued: "You honoured my companions my five devotees. Their wishes are satisfied. You will not have immortality. That reward you destroyed by your carelessness. But I grant you a fragment of my power.'"
The girl exhaled shakily. "His eyes, burning, molten eyes, widened at her words. Shock. Awe. Greed. And… hatred. Hatred aimed at me. He reached toward my soul. His fingers like claws of dripping gore. He wanted to crush me. Consume me. End me. But that bitchy goddess said, 'Stop.' and he froze mid-motion. I grant you one more chance,' the goddess said. 'Leave her. She will be… useful in the future. Here is your fruit of oblation.'"
To be continued...