Chapter 38: The Hundredth Death

Chapter Warning: Death, Extreme violence, Suffocation, Potentially sensitive content to readers with aquaphobia.

Deverus couldn't believe what he was hearing, he knelt down and touched Jian Li's neck to check the latter's pulse. There indeed was a faint pulse that was getting stronger each second. His voice raised quickly: "What?! How could this be?!"

The two hitmen had never seen anything like it. No one had ever survived a six feet fall without breaking their neck from the impact. In fact it was their first time in their ten years of serving as an executioner that they saw prisoners live another day after their set date of execution.

How he survived it was miraculous and unreal that it gave them chills at the same time.

Deverus jolted as he felt something trickle down his back, he was sweating at Jian Li's perseverance to exist. Staring at the boy's knocked out face made him gulp, feeling a moment of unsettling stress.

He felt irked at how his plan shifts away when it comes to this boy, he grips his temples and massages them, giving him a last glance. "T-take him away!"

Having him alive would mean another execution. What face would he wear by the time the citizens know that he failed at assasinating a threat? Distrust must not have place in their hearts if he wanted to sit on the throne. Thus making up his mind to rid of Jian Li without the kingdom knowing.

"Take his body back to the palace. No words must get out. Speak your tongue and i will hang all of you. Everyone who is present and hears will be expected by dawn tomorrow on the north-west pond."

He sighs. "We will be having the second execution."

The moment Jian Li came to be aware of his surroundings, the first thing he saw was a black giant figure in front of him. The blocked noises inside his ears started being clear little by little. The gentle clanking of metal armors, mumbles and soft ripples of water. As blood was bothering his eyeballs, his vision remained unstable but he could make out a face from his slightly blurred eyes, the face infront of him spoke: "Have you finally come to consciousness?"

Once his eyes cried the blood away, his sight was finally clear. Both the voice and face was Deverus's. 'Its his face.' he sighs internally. 'ah, i'm in hell.'

Deverus didn't liked how Jian Li remained silent and didn't show movements of his shock to be alive. He thought that perhaps Jian Li planned beforehand how he could survive that fall and remain alive after. These thoughts made him have anxious leading to assumptions that maybe Jian Li has other plans that could make him look like a fool in front of everyone. He must finish this boy immediately.

Not wasting anymore time, he leans back and walks away to watch from a distance. He motioned his fingers up, commanding: "Strap him in."

"Yes sir!" Two soldiers acknowledges the command and obeys, running over where Jian Li's body was curled up and carried him up. His body thudded down and he was seated to a metal stool, both his arms and feet was tied unto it.

'Right when i finally thought i'd be living with butterflies and flowers. what are they doing? my body hurts..' Jian Li laughs inside his head, even after death he was unable to find peace, his expectations to die was broken.

The soldier who was tying his ankles looks up at him and grins. "Thought ya died? heck son, unfortunately- you did not."

'What is he saying?'

Jian Li's heart beat thumped.

'How could i not die?' His eyes raced to the soldier's but it didn't connect as he went away already, leaving him alone, tied tightly on a stool.

His head flips around, seeing big numbers of soldiers around him and Deverus, then beside him was a wide pond with lotuses floating. 'Undoubtly, it is reality. it is not vague like my dreams. I could feel the pain as well. Hell or reality, its makes no difference.'

Deverus now sees the boy's expression. 'Wishing you died already? don't worry, I'll make your prayers come true.'

He clears his throat. "Let's get this thing over with."

A thick metal chain was connected on the stool that Jian Li was sitting on, and the other end of this chain was tied to a horizontally wooden plank up in the air, with its end sticking out to the pond. The image of it was plainly just a upside down ' L ' Jian Li eventually know what will happen. This strange chain will pull the stool and him up in the air, then they will be loosened down the pond causing him to drown underwater in suffocation.

He gulps, his shoulders started moving, the feeling of fear was already down his spine. He will be executed again.

Alarm was written in his eyes, and Deverus seeing these expressions of him made him finally contented thinking that the boy do not have a plan against an underwater assassination.

As this was a private execution, Morfran wasn't informed of it but only Deverus, the executioners and soldiers plus the Elite knight leader Abercon Obbier were the only ones to know of this secret event.

Five soldiers lined up and grabbed the chain, the rattling noises of it freaked Jian Li out, its beginning. The sound of death, again.

When the soldiers felt comfortable with their grip, they started pulling harder, finally lifting Jian Li up in the air. The boy in the chair couldn't speak in shock, his mouth only hang open, despite of it hurting so much because of his dried lips that cracked and bled. The blood that was covering half of his face was washed away by his tears, he's so afraid, he keeps on shaking and hiccuping. When he looks down his reflection on the water and sees his face and his terrible state, he couldn't help but sob harder. These pitiful sobs made the soldiers wince, feeling somewhat guilty for the poor boy.

Jian Li keeps day dreaming the image of him underwater, a boy who couldn't breathe and who was screaming for air.. that he couldn't break out from the ropes and his dead body sinks down with the metal stool down to the abyss.

His hiccups never stops, his hands became colder and colder. He couldn't think of a way to get out of this.

When Jian Li heard Deverus finally giving the last order to lower him down, he could only shudder and look at the cloudy skies to suck his fears. His blue crystal-like eyes weep rivers and he moans in fright. His thighs shakes from the sight of the water below him that was slowly coming closer and closer. He could only hear his sniffs and the slow rattling of the chain to lower him down.

Then the soldiers finally released the chain, the water splashed loudly and the body disappeared under the water with a loud plodding.

Jian Li doesn't have that much air that he saved from being up in land, his chair quickly slammed down to the pond's muddy floor. Even though he tries to release himself from the rope, he finds his wriggling of no use. The rope around his wrists was so tight that even if he tries to pull his thin wrists out from it, he wouldn't succeed.

His time underwater was running out, he couldn't think of anything but wanting to gasp for air, the tiny bubbles coming from his mouth floats to pop at the surface of the water, signalling the soldiers that it was working.

Jian Li couldn't hold it anymore, he was already undewater for thirty seconds. His lungs was deflated out of air to the lowest level and his body's urge to inhale won him over.

His eyes popped out when his mouth took in large amounts of muddy water, in feedback of his body, he tried to spit it out with a cough but water seeped in inside of his nostrils instead, making things worse.

The pain multiplied, his heart beats faster and faster and his head wasn't thinking anymore, panicking with his useless eyes wide open to see nothing but blurry sight.

No more bubbles appears above the pond's waters.

Deverus sighs mentally. He was relieved that the Prince finally had stopped breathing.

Meanwhile Jian Li's body that was in sheer panic continuously kept on having spasms all over his muscles especially on his airway. The lack of oxygen circulating around his body made it harder for his body to function. When water slides deeper to fill his lungs to half, he felt like his insides were burning, like a boiling lava flows down his pipes and fills his body with it. It was extremely agonizing and painful that this affects his eyes's vision to start pulsing and turn darker bit by bit, and then passes out.

A moment after Jian Li completely stopped breathing, Deverus commands them to pull the chain up again to check if he's finally dead.

When the stool was brought up, they saw his body dripping with water, his empty eyes half closed and his head was carelessly tipped back while his jaws hung open.

Deverus was still suspicious over him. He squints his eyes and crosses his arms unsatisfied. "Check him."

"His heart is no longer with him sir-" The soldier stopped in the middle when he felt a sudden burst of pulse, it shocked him.

"....." He took a few seconds to process and confirm, his eyes was widely open and his two fingers that was touching the boy's neck trembled both in fright and surprise.

The soldier lands on his butt and stares at his commander. ".....i-it beats!"

"Haaaah!!!!" Jian Li gasped for his life to come back. As he regained consciousness once more, his ghostly eyes brought life inside it again and looked very glassy as he kept on coughing and puking the swallowed water back to the pond.

"He's still alive?!" Seeing how the boy was breathing again, Deverus roared away loudly, then in a split second he became embarrassed by how he showed his shaken self to his soldiers.

Conscious with his actions, he clears his throat, bellowing angrily. "Lower him again!!"

The soldiers was petrified by the commander's orders, even though it was an absurd and a brutal command, they had to do it.

The five men that was holding the chain pulled it up high again, lifting Jian Li's stool back up in the air. Their anxious eyes looked at each other, sighing and agreeing without a choice.

Regardless to the guilt of how they turned a deaf ear to Jian Li's pleads, they nodded to each other despite of their commander's orders that was hurting their hearts. Their emotions are very frail, afterall, they were not the merciless executioners for the job.

The revived Jian Li was lowered under water again, the coldness and shock of his fall crawling into his skin for the second time.

He's in terror and panic, his eyes was in a blur and his ears was clogged with this blocked noise from being under the water. He is scared to feel that sensation of dying again.

'I don't want to!'

'No!'

'No stop!'

'Please!'

'I don't want to die again!!'

'no!!!'

"AAAAAAAAAAA!!!" His rough screams blubbered underwater making hundreds of bubbles float up. His saved air was gone and the burning water started filling his lungs again from both his nose and mouth.

'No!!!!! Noo!!!!'

'No! No no no noo!!!!'

'no!!!!!!'

'n-no...'

After five minutes of him being under the water and the pond being quiet, he was pulled up again. But as soon as the soldiers pulled him up,

"Haaaaahhh!!!" He gasped and came back to life again.

'You've got to be kidding me?!' Deverus's head was in a total chaos of how to kill this boy, he shook and was furious. Yelling and ordering them to leave him under in a longer period of time.

"Again!"

The soldiers lowered the prisoner for the third time which actually does drowns him.

When he was pulled up again, he coughs uncontrollably. "Koff koff koff—" Jian Li still went up alive, like getting resurrected the minute after he dies. How the events was leading was getting horrifying for all of them, getting terrifying with how they see Deverus's eyes was getting darker.

Deverus grits his teeth. 'How is he doing this?!'

"Again!"

Jian Li comes back from being drowned for the fourth time, his eyes was dripping in tears despite it not being entirely visible since his face was also wet by the water. "stop—!"

"Again!"

"Urghhaaaa!!!!" Jian Li shots open his eyes, bringing himself back from the dead.

"Again!"

"Again!"

"Again!"

"Again!"

"Again!"

"Again!"

When they lowered me under the deep pool of water, I think it was the time that i've felt most alive.

I have finally known fully what they call 'life' was. It is understanding what it was to lose everything.. to be infront of the line of death would you truly see that you are alive.

There is no way to know what living is if you do not acquire pain.

Everytime i drown, i resurrect. I constantly experience death at a nonstop rate. Then i thought that this is what being dead feels like, this is hopping between the worlds of living and dying... this is a continous death.

Being immortal is a curse, this cycle never ends, once they find out i breathe, they would never stop on drowning and murdering me again and again.

Death is the simplest way to end a story. However, the process to do so is the cruellest.

I too, wish that i, could have ended my life as simple as normal people could.

I wonder how much I've changed.

While Jian Li was drowning underwater for the twelfth time, his thoughts only flew to a certain person. 'There is no one to wait on but you..'

'wait for whom?' A voice similar to his countered his thoughts.

'you really think he'll come?' it continues to oppose his idea, adding: 'after all the years you've waited? i think its more than enough.'

'get your head out of the sky!' it cried out to Jian Li.

His eyes stares at the light of the sky from under the water. He started feeling peace, letting death claim him again. 'im not going anywhere, so all i could do is bide past the times.'

He clenches his palm tightly that was behind his back. 'So for you, i will fight on to wait in this hell loop to see your hand reach out to me once more.'

Jian Li's brows was drawn closer.

He mouths as he drowns: "Even if it means death everyday, i will stay here and still wait for you. So come to me, save me again, thief."