A good story is fascinating to follow, often makes people swept inside of it. But the story of life, this life, when will it be ended?
Will men be always swept away in his life, with desires that pulls them to every direction to find satisfaction? Until when will it continue?
Jaime slowly awoke from his sleeping. Slowly he heard voices from people speaking not far from him.
"s.h.i.+nse1, how is his condition?"
"General Liu Wen, I apologize, I really cannot do anything to him."
"Why?" General Liu Wen asked. "Are the injuries too severe?"
"General, the wounds…. The wounds…." A long sigh was heard. "The wounds are closing by themselves and even the destroyed heart slowly grew by itself. I am as a physician can only observe his own healing ability. I really am useless. This is my first time seeing things like this. I doubt that he is even human."
Jaime looked at the hole on his chest has closed and left a scar on the skin.
"I am not human," Jaime said weakly surprising General Liu Wen and the physician. "I am the messenger of G.o.d and I could not be killed."
"Jaime, Are you fine?" General Liu Wen asked while moving quickly towards Jaime.
"With the help from Father-in-law, I am in excellent condition." Jaime rubbed the scar on his chest. "But perhaps I need some time to rest."
"Alright, alright, alright." General Liu Wen repeated it three times. "You need rest. You also need some time alone; I will bring s.h.i.+nse out and let you have some rest. If you need anything, you can call me or the servants."
"Thank you, Father-in-law." Jaime stared as both of them walked out from his big room and immediately after all became quiet. A big room, king size bed, an unfamiliar place.
Slowly, Jaime moved his hand to touch the scar on his chest and felt his heart beating. Suddenly his tears fell.
"Ye Xie, all I need is you and a peaceful place for us to live quietly and peacefully. Why everything is so hard?"
He was only an ordinary human; the near death experience more or less scared him. The truth, he never feared death, his biggest fear was to never meet Ye Xiu.
He stared at the ceiling with empty eyes and thought about his life. From the place he was born, he was sent to a whole new place called Dragon and Phoenix Continent. Everything was to find Ye Xiu.
Not for Ye Xiu but for his own selfishness.
To find his own happiness; and the only happiness for him was Ye Xie, without Ye Xiu his life would never be complete.
A green size talisman with the size of a coin that usually hang on his belt made a buzzing sound. Jaime took the talisman that was lying on the small table beside the bed. The talisman has complicated carving and had a function as communication tool.
"Master, I had tried to reach you few times," An Li's, the wood wizard, voice was heard shaking in fear. "Are you okay, Master?"
"There is no big problem. I just need time to rest." Jaime answered.
"Master, there is a huge problem."
"Every half-Asura had already moving toward White Eagle City to take back the head of their King, Angi It, and to kill you and all the citizens."
"Are you sure?" Jaime asked with his face became pale.
"Since they hung Angi It's head, I… I… I saw death everywhere." An Li was crying. "What shall we do now?"
"Run!" Jaime replied quickly. "There is no question about it, we have to run away! Sooner we run the better, the further the better."
"Master…" An Li's voice filled with sadness. "You cannot escape anymore. One of the candidates of the King of three realms had already used the power to change your Karma."
"What do you mean?"
"In seven days, you will die, master."
Jaime quickly opened his Book of Karma and tried to read information about his own karma. Suddenly under the information screen about him, there's writing.
Die in seven days
***
Indra or his other name was Zeus, sat upon his throne and looked to his advisor. "Do you think that my decision was correct?"
"Your Majesty the Might G.o.d Indra," the advisor bowed. "When your Majesty finally created the technique to change Karma and made G.o.d pointed your Majesty to become one of the candidates to be King of three realms, of course your biggest rival are those four other candidates. Even though the technique to change karma can only be used once every ten years. Within one hundred years, Your Majesty can use ten chances to take life of the other four candidates, by doing so, the throne of the King of three realms will certainly be yours."
"Correct"
"In the opinion of this humble servant, your decision to change the karma of the candidate to be King of three realms Jaime from the mortal realm was a very good decision. It has become our luck that we could know about him from the death of Angi It. It could be said that there are only three candidates left." Added the advisor. "There is only one thing that this humble servant regrets, that his death took seven days. Anything could happen within that time."
Indra nodded his head. "I want him dead this second too. Unfortunately his time is still long and this affects the time of his death. The longer the time one has, the longer the time it takes to kill. Die in seven days was the limit. Beside there is none within these three realms that can change karma like myself. Whatever he does, he will surely die. No one can save him."
***
A few days later.
General Liu Wen opened the door to Jaime's room that was so dark. In front of him was seen Jaime who was sitting with empty gaze to the ceiling.
"Jaime, I bring a thousand years old ginseng soup. Eat." A servant girl who was following General Liu Wen put a bowl of soup that was still hot. "Locking yourself inside the room is not good for your health, beside, you haven't eat anything in these four days."
Jaime's gaze was still empty. He took a breath slowly and whispered weakly. "I know everything, but I cannot escape this time. Why should I prolong my life if in the end I will still die?"
In these four days, Jaime used his Book of Karma to find everything about Angi It, Prime Minister Ang, the army of half-asura and the reason behind the change of his karma.
"I… I should not take the attention from the candidates of King of three realms before I got stronger. Now, when their attention was directed on me, what chance do I have beside died before I even bloom? I did not realize that I have made one big mistake. I should have just hid myself before I have the power to fight against them on equal ground."
"Jaime, I don't know what are you thinking, but don't give up. As long as a man does not give up, there will always be a way out." General Liu Wen was trying to lift up his spirit.
Jaime smiled wryly. "If Father-in-law thought so, it better to just spill it. In the next two days, one million half-asura army that will come to the White Eagle City to raze the city to the ground and to kill every living being inside the city."
General Liu Wen was surprised and looked at Jaime and tried to find the truth from Jaime's word, "Are you serious?"
"The creature that head was hung on the city wall was the king of the half-asura called Angi It. Now, every half asura is coming to this city to take revenge."
General Liu Wen could feel his nape hair stood. Jaime's word made him strangled with fear. "Son-in-law, don't you have a way to deal with everything, including the attack of one million daemonic beasts. Don't we still have million people inside this White Eagle City who could help us?"
"General Liu wen, what I was talking about was only the first wave of the half-asura. In the next four days, there will be around ten million of them, and in the next seven days every half-asura that numbered hundreds of million will arrive in this city. No matter what we do, even with our best strategy will be destroyed by their number alone. Even if we gather everyone from this Dragon and Phoenix continent, we still could not fight them."
General Liu Wen felt like he was chocked.
"And I will die in the next three days." Jaime whispered.
***
The next day, in the middle of the night, Jaime secretly came out from his room and went to the center of the White City Eagle.
Because the tournament was still continue, the center of the city that night was filled by the light from thousand lanterns. People were hanging around to find entertainment. Restaurants and entertainment area were filled by people.
Jaime came to and open bar and sat on a chair. "Bring me the strongest you have."
"Right away, sir" said a small stature old servant who went and came back with a gla.s.s of liquor.
Jaime quickly drank the liquor in front of him and he smiled wryly after. His body that was resistant to poison made even the strongest liquor felt like water, it could not make him drunk and forgot about his problem.
Jaime saw people laughing with their friends. Some even bring women to have fun. People sold their food and drink in high spirit. Not one of them realized that death would come to them tomorrow.
If he could choose, he would choose to not know about anything and face his death tomorrow. Sometimes not knowing something is bliss. At least he could have fun for one day longer.
"Hey, you," a man suddenly shouted beside him and hit the table. "Young master wants your place. Take this one gold coin and leave."
Jaime stared at those five men who was standing not far from him. A haughty rich young master was looking down on him.
Even when he wished of a peace, some still bothered him.
"Take this ten spiritual stone and find another place." Jaime said and took out 10 spiritual stones and put them on the table.
"You….." the man beside him was surprised.
"Is it not enough?" Jaime asked and took 100 spiritual stones.
The face of that man became pale and looked at his young master.
"You…." The rich young master felt insulted, but before he could finish his words, Jaime had thrown 1000 spiritual stone to them and waving his hand to chase them away.
"Do you know who am I?" said the young master angry. "How dare you to insult me!"
"Do you know who am I? Jaime asked him in return. "How dare you to insult me!"
This scene made people gathered to watch for excitement.
"Good… good…" the young master was laughing, he saw Jaime has no cultivation while he has elder cultivation level and came from a big school in the capital. "what power behind you that make you think you can use to insult this young master!"
Jaime while sitting took out a million spiritual stones in front of a lot of people. "If any of you can take that dog's head, I will give this million spiritual stones. If you can kill his whole family, I will give you one hundred million spiritual stones."
The people who were gathering there became excited. The face of the young master became pale. Jaime himself could only smile wryly, he could not bring his wealth to the afterlife, so why not spent them all. Everything would be over tomorrow anyway.
Inside the crowds, many stares directed to the young man with killing intent. The White Eagle City Tournament that promised a lot of wealth had become a place where the warrior gathered. Some are bloodthirsty people who would not hesitate to kill to add coin into their pouch.
The arrogant wealthy you master suddenly felt himself was targeted from every direction, he felt his cold sweat was starting to flow, his heart was weakened, it seemed that this time he face a very big trouble.
Notes:
s.h.i.+nse is a traditional doctor from Chinese. In the raw it was said as tabib, so I tried to find the closest thing to it. Since it really close to Chinese tradition, I chose s.h.i.+nse to translate Tabib. Well.. I am not a chinese myself, so correct me if I am wrong.