Unfortunately, the young man could not savour the spectacle of his own demise. Wisesa's head thudded, eyes bulging with the urge to burst. He lost count of how many times the Leyak had chanted the mantras attributed to the long-departed entities, Mrajapati and Durga, but each incantation only fared him worse. Now his lungs were burning, and his skin blue due to the vacuum of air.
Wisesa felt the power overflowing, but his self-control was waning. He resigned himself with a shaking head. "Never mind, fuck it. You all really have a fucking death wish!"
The ground struck by Wisesa cracked and exploded; mud and gravel scattered hither and thither. The fury of Barong within pushed him upwards and shattered the shaman's hex. The Leyaks were shocked, one of them unchanged stopped his dance. As a parting gift before he was temporarily wiped from the face of the world, Wisesa gathered his inner strength and swept everything away with open hands. The unchanged Leyak protected his head-towering comrade, resisting the lad's blow by raising his hands with open fingers as well. Now they stood motionless, locked in a deadly embrace, hands shaking to harness the most elusive of powers. For a moment, time seemed to stand still for a clash of raw strength and magic.
Barong had already planted its forefoot in the gap in Wisesa's subconscious. A threat to break free. The young lad could sense the ebbing of his inner strength.
"Barong! For once, let me defeat those two damn Leyaks!" Wisesa said in a mutter. "I'll let you run wild for the rest of the day, I swear it!"
Wisesa's face suffered a sudden change. His pupils dilated, and his demeanour was that of a hissing cat. His mouth made a few cooing sounds.
"I... want... to go out...! Kill...! Thralls of Rangda...! Prey on all humans...!"
"Damn it, Barong! Stop—"
"No...! Earth... peaceful... without... humans...!"
Wisesa was pushed back even further. He could no longer resist the influence of the Leyak's power.
The force hammered Wisesa's jaw. His face scratched the ground.
The other leyak had completed his dance. His head was now a towering spire of beauty and majesty. Filled with golden yellow, and embellished with five-hued carvings that mesmerised all eyes. At the summit of it, a coffin lay waiting, and with a bending motion of the Leyak's arms, it was opened. Nothing was inside. Nothing, but a wooden void.
No longer did Wisesa inhabit his own body as he resumed his bridge posture. Barong's spirit flared out from his navel, ready to display its might. But before it had a chance to do so, the man and the beast were swiftly siphoned into the Leyak's tower—into the waiting coffin.
With a bone-rattling roar that echoed from both body and soul, Barong clutched desperately to the earth through Wisesa’s hands, yet the pull of the suction proved overpowering. They were vacuumed upwards, entrapped within the chest that was sealed with a resounding thud!
The crate shook with a muffled snarl of the trapped Barong, but the Leyaks were not undeterred as they performed the final ritual with dance, even more ferocious yet maintaining its fluid elegance. Prayers rose like incense, and soon, the tower's pinnacle was ablaze with offering fire!
"Accept our sacrifice, Wredharaja! The Barong now rest within the grasp of ¹Adidaya Ayu!" the Leyak proclaimed with arrogance.
How the Divine had cursed them. The joy was still too early...
The sky above the tower suddenly erupted in a brilliant explosion! The two Leyaks were stunned, thinking it was the result of the remnants of the beast's immense power. But as they watched, the tower continued to burn, its once-majestic ornaments now devoured by inferno. They had been foolish to dismiss it as a minor inconvenience, a mere trivial matter.
Their confidence, however, was short-lived. Only then did the panic set in when the tiers of the tower came crashing down, tier by tier. The unchanged Leyak was crushed by the tower roof, while the other staggered away. The tower-headed leyak could not glance at anything above. Still, he could sense Barong destroying his majestic tower that was deemed hideous and loathsome in its eyes; the looming of ill repute, a thousand carvings of damned visages from beyond the grave, all worth destroying along with the very people who "built" it!
Barong slid down from the peak, rending it apart with its hooked claws and burly hands. Level by level, the tower crumbled, until finally, the Patron of Lands’ slices of doom sundered the tower keeper's body from shoulder to foot.
Barong devoured the sliced flesh of the titular Girahite shaman before the other one emerged from the fallen roof debris. This was not Barong's spirit form with Wisesa in his bridge pose. “Wisesa” was nowhere to be seen. This was but the pure, unbridled rage of the beast in flesh that had once terrorised Boko Rombeng and the rogues of Panca Gendheng in Tumaritis.
The surviving Leyak got up and ran away. Barong's huge hands scooped up chunks of boulders, crushing them to gravel as the beast charged forward. It straightened its back by force, letting out a primal roar, and with a swing of its arms, it sent crowds of pebbles darting towards the fleeing Leyak, obliterating both legs in a hail of blood and bone.
The injured Leyak stumbled and crawled, a trail of blood and urine in his wake, no longer able to perform the dances once transformed a man into a towering head of grandeur. As Barong approached, the last of the Leyaks mumbled incoherently. His eyes were already glazing over.
"H-how could you have broken the seal of Bade?" the Leyak stammered in his mother tongue.
The Patron of Lands understood all tongues. It then spat, "Despicable parasites, all of you! I am the Patron of Lands! You think you can exterminate that parasite and leave me bound? Mortal fools. More power from Wredharaja will be needed to contain me once more!"
"I thought you wanted to get out of that kid!"
"Oh, I do want out," Barong replied in a raucous voice. "But before I’ve left my mark. I'll take over his body first. I'll make him sick to his stomach with the flesh of his neighbor that I’ve swallowed. He shall bear witness to the horrors I'm about to inflict upon the earth's parasites, from newborns to the aged! I will make him broken, despondent, hopeless! His soul and mind corrupted, as you have corrupted me. My vengeance on mankind will be avenged by him, my instrument, despite his tears of blood! And when he is the last man standing, a mere shell of himself, I will leave him be…, heart and mind empty… He will be nought but a walking corpse!"
When Barong was finished with its madness-laced speech, it was time for the banquet. The colossal, monstrous tiger devoured the weeping shaman whole, and it ensured the gritty scene was seared into Wisesa's memory for all eternity.
After devouring both Leyaks, Barong retreated, biding its time until something triggered its raging temperament again. A despicable practice of black magic being performed by the remaining shamans who still lurked within the jungle.
The blazing red eyes of the giant tiger struck fear into the hearts of two nearby shamans. They felt their nerves seized as they caught sight of the beast from afar. Barong relished the sight of their frozen fear with a manic grin. The reptilian steeds all scattered in terror.
There was no need for Barong to dart about like a whirlwind. It sauntered forward with the grace of a tame cat, swaying its tail and hips with every step. Reaching the first shaman, it swiftly twisted his head off, like unscrewing a bottle cap. The second shaman regained mobility, running with haste, but his tongue was too stiff to scream for help. Barong then showcased its elemental prowess, plucking a large rock from the earth and deftly transforming it into a volley of sharp stone projectiles with its jaws. These pebbles rained down upon the second Leyak, piercing his body until he collapsed in a heap, riddled with unnatural body holes.
The Patron of Lands beheld that there was still a third shaman, unconscious from the Arcane purification, and the other, some distance away, chatting with someone near a tree trunk. Barong pummeled the third shaman until he was a shapeless pulp, yet the deafening sounds of bones breaking and flesh crunching went unheard by the fourth one. Alas, the last of the Girahite shamans had been stripped of his sense of hearing.
"On your stomach…, Leyak!" uttered Barong, already behind the last shaman.
The final Leyak spun around. His curse-weaving was swiftly penned. Kneeling, the shaman shook with fear as he pleaded for mercy, clinging to the hope that perhaps, just perhaps, there still remained a spark in the depths of the Red Tiger's soul, amidst the swirls of darkness that they themselves had conjured.
Barong gazed upon the last Leyak, who still knelt. "Are you deaf? I said, on your stomach!"
The Leyak refused. Barong lopped off his ears!
"Now you are truly deaf," Barong taunted. The shaman roared, fell down, and rolled around on the cracks in the dry leaves. After a while, he eventually stopped on his stomach, and the beast's hind leg took the ground zero. Merciless stomps by the merciless paws in merciless numbers. The constant gnashing of bones was a congenial harmony to the Patron of Land's ears.
Barong basked in the aftermath of its brutal conquest, but soon its senses picked up a familiar presence. It turned its head and found a dying lass, inching along the forest floor, pointing at the beast with a radiant sphere clutched in her right hand. Her left hand was sickly blue.
"Kalimasada Lady... No, no. Should I say, the Arcane Lady...." Barong chuckled with malicious glee.
Alicia, the lass, weakly warned, "Stay… away… from me…"
Her energy was spent. Her frail body could only crumple to seek escape. There was nothing hindering her escape. No ropes were binding her, and the forest was vast. But the teachings of the shishyas echoed in her mind: there was no escaping the Red Tiger, the Owner of the Forest, the Patron of Lands.
Before the tiger's jaws could fully open, its chest was wracked with intense pain. Its roar shook the trees as it banged itself against them, just as the Crimsonmane lady had witnessed in the past. Its claws clawed at its own flesh until they exposed flesh moist with blood! In a frantic, self-destructive act, the monster ultimately tore itself apart, until all that remained was the stillness of death.
Amidst the tattered remains of Barong, lay the blood-soaked Wisesa. Alicia's mind struggled to comprehend the scene before her. Unfortunately, she could not do anything about it—or rather, she did not want to.
With all the agony pulsing through her veins, Alica pushed herself upright. She was just about to venture forth when Wisesa's choking cough reached her ears. The young man sat there for a while, staring wide-eyed at the surrounding woodlands and the night-veiled sky, as though a newborn marvelling at the world for the first time.
"Fucking beast," the lad muttered under his breath.
Alicia decided to keep walking out of the forest. Wisesa called out to her. "Where do you think you're going?" []
Unfortunately, the young man could not savour the spectacle of his own demise. Wisesa's head thudded, eyes bulging with the urge to burst. He lost count of how many times the Leyak had chanted the mantras attributed to the long-departed entities, Mrajapati and Durga, but each incantation only fared him worse. Now his lungs were burning, and his skin blue due to the vacuum of air.
Wisesa felt the power overflowing, but his self-control was waning. He resigned himself with a shaking head. "Never mind, fuck it. You all really have a fucking death wish!"
The ground struck by Wisesa cracked and exploded; mud and gravel scattered hither and thither. The fury of Barong within pushed him upwards and shattered the shaman's hex. The Leyaks were shocked, one of them unchanged stopped his dance. As a parting gift before he was temporarily wiped from the face of the world, Wisesa gathered his inner strength and swept everything away with open hands. The unchanged Leyak protected his head-towering comrade, resisting the lad's blow by raising his hands with open fingers as well. Now they stood motionless, locked in a deadly embrace, hands shaking to harness the most elusive of powers. For a moment, time seemed to stand still for a clash of raw strength and magic.
Barong had already planted its forefoot in the gap in Wisesa's subconscious. A threat to break free. The young lad could sense the ebbing of his inner strength.
"Barong! For once, let me defeat those two damn Leyaks!" Wisesa said in a mutter. "I'll let you run wild for the rest of the day, I swear it!"
Wisesa's face suffered a sudden change. His pupils dilated, and his demeanour was that of a hissing cat. His mouth made a few cooing sounds.
"I... want... to go out...! Kill...! Thralls of Rangda...! Prey on all humans...!"
"Damn it, Barong! Stop—"
"No...! Earth... peaceful... without... humans...!"
Wisesa was pushed back even further. He could no longer resist the influence of the Leyak's power.
The force hammered Wisesa's jaw. His face scratched the ground.
The other leyak had completed his dance. His head was now a towering spire of beauty and majesty. Filled with golden yellow, and embellished with five-hued carvings that mesmerised all eyes. At the summit of it, a coffin lay waiting, and with a bending motion of the Leyak's arms, it was opened. Nothing was inside. Nothing, but a wooden void.
No longer did Wisesa inhabit his own body as he resumed his bridge posture. Barong's spirit flared out from his navel, ready to display its might. But before it had a chance to do so, the man and the beast were swiftly siphoned into the Leyak's tower—into the waiting coffin.
With a bone-rattling roar that echoed from both body and soul, Barong clutched desperately to the earth through Wisesa’s hands, yet the pull of the suction proved overpowering. They were vacuumed upwards, entrapped within the chest that was sealed with a resounding thud!
The crate shook with a muffled snarl of the trapped Barong, but the Leyaks were not undeterred as they performed the final ritual with dance, even more ferocious yet maintaining its fluid elegance. Prayers rose like incense, and soon, the tower's pinnacle was ablaze with offering fire!
"Accept our sacrifice, Wredharaja! The Barong now rest within the grasp of ¹Adidaya Ayu!" the Leyak proclaimed with arrogance.
How the Divine had cursed them. The joy was still too early...
The sky above the tower suddenly erupted in a brilliant explosion! The two Leyaks were stunned, thinking it was the result of the remnants of the beast's immense power. But as they watched, the tower continued to burn, its once-majestic ornaments now devoured by inferno. They had been foolish to dismiss it as a minor inconvenience, a mere trivial matter.
Their confidence, however, was short-lived. Only then did the panic set in when the tiers of the tower came crashing down, tier by tier. The unchanged Leyak was crushed by the tower roof, while the other staggered away. The tower-headed leyak could not glance at anything above. Still, he could sense Barong destroying his majestic tower that was deemed hideous and loathsome in its eyes; the looming of ill repute, a thousand carvings of damned visages from beyond the grave, all worth destroying along with the very people who "built" it!
Barong slid down from the peak, rending it apart with its hooked claws and burly hands. Level by level, the tower crumbled, until finally, the Patron of Lands’ slices of doom sundered the tower keeper's body from shoulder to foot.
Barong devoured the sliced flesh of the titular Girahite shaman before the other one emerged from the fallen roof debris. This was not Barong's spirit form with Wisesa in his bridge pose. “Wisesa” was nowhere to be seen. This was but the pure, unbridled rage of the beast in flesh that had once terrorised Boko Rombeng and the rogues of Panca Gendheng in Tumaritis.
The surviving Leyak got up and ran away. Barong's huge hands scooped up chunks of boulders, crushing them to gravel as the beast charged forward. It straightened its back by force, letting out a primal roar, and with a swing of its arms, it sent crowds of pebbles darting towards the fleeing Leyak, obliterating both legs in a hail of blood and bone.
The injured Leyak stumbled and crawled, a trail of blood and urine in his wake, no longer able to perform the dances once transformed a man into a towering head of grandeur. As Barong approached, the last of the Leyaks mumbled incoherently. His eyes were already glazing over.
"H-how could you have broken the seal of Bade?" the Leyak stammered in his mother tongue.
The Patron of Lands understood all tongues. It then spat, "Despicable parasites, all of you! I am the Patron of Lands! You think you can exterminate that parasite and leave me bound? Mortal fools. More power from Wredharaja will be needed to contain me once more!"
"I thought you wanted to get out of that kid!"
"Oh, I do want out," Barong replied in a raucous voice. "But before I’ve left my mark. I'll take over his body first. I'll make him sick to his stomach with the flesh of his neighbor that I’ve swallowed. He shall bear witness to the horrors I'm about to inflict upon the earth's parasites, from newborns to the aged! I will make him broken, despondent, hopeless! His soul and mind corrupted, as you have corrupted me. My vengeance on mankind will be avenged by him, my instrument, despite his tears of blood! And when he is the last man standing, a mere shell of himself, I will leave him be…, heart and mind empty… He will be nought but a walking corpse!"
When Barong was finished with its madness-laced speech, it was time for the banquet. The colossal, monstrous tiger devoured the weeping shaman whole, and it ensured the gritty scene was seared into Wisesa's memory for all eternity.
After devouring both Leyaks, Barong retreated, biding its time until something triggered its raging temperament again. A despicable practice of black magic being performed by the remaining shamans who still lurked within the jungle.
The blazing red eyes of the giant tiger struck fear into the hearts of two nearby shamans. They felt their nerves seized as they caught sight of the beast from afar. Barong relished the sight of their frozen fear with a manic grin. The reptilian steeds all scattered in terror.
There was no need for Barong to dart about like a whirlwind. It sauntered forward with the grace of a tame cat, swaying its tail and hips with every step. Reaching the first shaman, it swiftly twisted his head off, like unscrewing a bottle cap. The second shaman regained mobility, running with haste, but his tongue was too stiff to scream for help. Barong then showcased its elemental prowess, plucking a large rock from the earth and deftly transforming it into a volley of sharp stone projectiles with its jaws. These pebbles rained down upon the second Leyak, piercing his body until he collapsed in a heap, riddled with unnatural body holes.
The Patron of Lands beheld that there was still a third shaman, unconscious from the Arcane purification, and the other, some distance away, chatting with someone near a tree trunk. Barong pummeled the third shaman until he was a shapeless pulp, yet the deafening sounds of bones breaking and flesh crunching went unheard by the fourth one. Alas, the last of the Girahite shamans had been stripped of his sense of hearing.
"On your stomach…, Leyak!" uttered Barong, already behind the last shaman.
The final Leyak spun around. His curse-weaving was swiftly penned. Kneeling, the shaman shook with fear as he pleaded for mercy, clinging to the hope that perhaps, just perhaps, there still remained a spark in the depths of the Red Tiger's soul, amidst the swirls of darkness that they themselves had conjured.
Barong gazed upon the last Leyak, who still knelt. "Are you deaf? I said, on your stomach!"
The Leyak refused. Barong lopped off his ears!
"Now you are truly deaf," Barong taunted. The shaman roared, fell down, and rolled around on the cracks in the dry leaves. After a while, he eventually stopped on his stomach, and the beast's hind leg took the ground zero. Merciless stomps by the merciless paws in merciless numbers. The constant gnashing of bones was a congenial harmony to the Patron of Land's ears.
Barong basked in the aftermath of its brutal conquest, but soon its senses picked up a familiar presence. It turned its head and found a dying lass, inching along the forest floor, pointing at the beast with a radiant sphere clutched in her right hand. Her left hand was sickly blue.
"Kalimasada Lady... No, no. Should I say, the Arcane Lady...." Barong chuckled with malicious glee.
Alicia, the lass, weakly warned, "Stay… away… from me…"
Her energy was spent. Her frail body could only crumple to seek escape. There was nothing hindering her escape. No ropes were binding her, and the forest was vast. But the teachings of the shishyas echoed in her mind: there was no escaping the Red Tiger, the Owner of the Forest, the Patron of Lands.
Before the tiger's jaws could fully open, its chest was wracked with intense pain. Its roar shook the trees as it banged itself against them, just as the Crimsonmane lady had witnessed in the past. Its claws clawed at its own flesh until they exposed flesh moist with blood! In a frantic, self-destructive act, the monster ultimately tore itself apart, until all that remained was the stillness of death.
Amidst the tattered remains of Barong, lay the blood-soaked Wisesa. Alicia's mind struggled to comprehend the scene before her. Unfortunately, she could not do anything about it—or rather, she did not want to.
With all the agony pulsing through her veins, Alica pushed herself upright. She was just about to venture forth when Wisesa's choking cough reached her ears. The young man sat there for a while, staring wide-eyed at the surrounding woodlands and the night-veiled sky, as though a newborn marvelling at the world for the first time.
"Fucking beast," the lad muttered under his breath.
Alicia decided to keep walking out of the forest. Wisesa called out to her. "Where do you think you're going?" []
