Chapter 39: Go and Kill A God

Chapter Warning: Knives, Blood, Excessive violence, Death/Murder, Language.

Deverus never believed in gods nor eternal beings. But witnessing this paranomal event of someone being unable to die made his bones shake.

The whole process drove him crazy. To his desperation to kill the boy, it was almost fifty times that they drowned him, his body going in and out of the cold water. The execution started right on the crack of dawn and is continuing till the afternoon, everyone is already exhausted.

Albeit the hellish torments they were giving the boy, he never fails to open his eyes and breathe back to life once again. He wanted to withstand this suffering as proof of his faith to a certain stranger, no matter how much pain he'd feel from death.

It was already afternoon and the soldiers that kept pulling and dipping him back to the water did not even get rests nor shifts, they could already feel that their muscles being sore at bedtime.

Deverus would constantly repeat to ask himself: 'why wouldn't this boy die?' Overly mad, his eyes grew red veins from his extreme frustration over this tenacious boy.

The commander laments and clenches his jaws as he gawk at Jian Li.

The black clothed man was turning frenzy each second with how terrible the boy's shape was already getting but Jian Li who sat still at the stool kept gazing coldly at him.

His sharp eyes made the timid man sweat on his spot.

His white lips had strings of his saliva along with the muddy water that filled his lungs. How he spitted them looked hideous that the surroundings had this ominous black atmosphere.

They would gulp at the King's spine-chilling stare.

Jian Li's condition was so unbearable that he won't look like a royal ever again. His skin's complexions were already purple, and his face displayed sickness and filth. His fingertips formed wrinkles from being soaked too long in water while his body shakes from the coldness of the wind as they pull him up. The boy also faced immense headaches when his scalp bore the thorned crown, it gave him more than fifty holes on his scalp that would sting everytime he was brought at the bottom of the pond. All the pain from his head, his face, his lungs, his wrists, and his thighs emerged, in the end, his body couldn't feel anything but intense stress and fever.

Even though the soldiers do find Jian Li's state horrid, they still found a King's beauty sitting on a stool. But when they face their commander, all they see is a killing maniac and his horrendous and terrifying eyes. It gave their whole body full shivers, these soldiers wanted to get out of this area if it was even possible.

Blue dead eyes are being kept glued to Deverus'. He was freaked out more than enough. "Why are you still alive?!"

The soldiers also are already burnt out. Aside from the fact that this execution eats their time and energy that they were tired from standing and not eating, they were absolutely impatient to finish this assasination filled with suffocating horror. One of them shouts: "D-die already!"

Like a virus, their fear of Jian Li spreads, resulting them to come up to a repeated chant: "Die! Die! Die!"

"What do I have to do to get you killed?!" They flinched at Deverus' growling voice, gulping at how scary the situation is getting.

Deverus felt like a volcano that was about to explode, he was taken over with this great anger so much that he couldn't control himself, letting him be driven by his insanity.

With a swift motion of Deverus' hand, the soldiers finally placed Jian Li's stool down at land, letting the metal feet feel solid ground.

Deverus' black robes flipped quickly in the air as he paced and appeared fast in front of the seated boy while carrying a dagger on his right hand.

A glint of violet light was inside the man's eyes.

He raises the dagger up in the air and crumpled Jian Li's clothes with his other hand. Deverus' eyes was focused to the boy's chest, then he rages hysterically;

"Nothing!"

STAB

"Fucking!"

STAB

"Works!"

STAB

Jian Li shrieked and screamed deafeningly everytime the dagger plunged his right chest and made it spurt blood. His muscles would feel the blade going in and out of his chest, that he could feel the cold blade and its heaviness which pierced through his clothes and sliced open his skin to flesh as it slips inside his ribs to target his most important organ.

The soldiers were taken aback by this assasination approach, but they observed the coughing and hyperventilating wounded boy in alert.

Then Jian Li stopped moving.

Deverus shakes and laughs hysterically at what his hawk eyes were seeing. The wheezes of Jian Li quietens and his bleeding fully stopped. Deverus could see the wound being there but it was surely healing slowly.

The man doesn't know what to do anymore to make Jian Li's death happen, his fingers shakes and grips his head. "AAAAAARGH!!!!" Frenzy as he was getting, he snatches a soldier's long sword from its scabbard and rapidly thrusted its sharp blade inside Jian Li's freshly bleeding deep stab wounds.

"!!!!!!" His bloodshot eyes snaps open, his face contorted terribly and blood spurted off his mouth, shrieking at the excruciating pain from his heart.

This time, Jian Li felt the real deal. His system would completely weaken as his heart was literally cut in two by the thin but wide blade. It was a pain he felt to the tip of his head and to the last ends of the veins of his toes. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think, he couldn't talk or do anything. He was just, dead.

Deverus' face had splatters of Jian Li's blood, his chin drips the warm red substance of the boy.

The sword stays pierced to his chest, its bloody end coming out of his back.

Jian Li throws his head back in pain, his body arched while the sword was inside him looking like he was a piece of meat in a stick. Jian Li's eyes rolled back to full white.

His voice rings inside his head:

' "You will not die. So wake up." '

Jian Li's blue eyes comes back lighter and he gasps and gags, his torn lungs and heart slightly patches its tissues back so his body could function again, panicked and ragged breaths came out of his mouth, trying to adjust to his normal breathing.

This same scenario that they kept seeing all day frightened and angered the soldiers at the same time. They already want this to end, they already want Jian Li to stop reviving.

"Die! Die! you witch!"

"Insolent brat! Die!"

"Why can't you fucking die already?! Die!"

"AAAARGH!!! YOU.... YOU PERSISTENT BRAT!!" Deverus pulls out the sword out of Jian Li, making another bucket of blood blast out of his chest.

Being the only boy in the face of history to survive and cheat countless of deaths was no easy news. They're running out of ideas to dispose of him.

Deverus shouts at the top of his lungs: "YOU! ALL OF YOU! PREPARE THE LOGS." They straighten up their stances and salutes, immediately turning around and running. "Move! Move!"

He points to a random soldier, his voice blazing: "TIE HIM AT THE POLE!" The person behind the armor nods and goes to Jian Li to untie him from the stool.

The man in black clothes storms in front of the boy and would lean in. "I WILL KILL YOU." Deverus declares while his eyes clashes with Jian Li's deathly stare.

The night came in a blink of an eye. Torches was lit around the pond and then there was Jian Li, tied to a pole that was surrounded by logs and other random woods and restraints.

From his point of view, he was faced by Deverus and a few number of soldiers that was looking at him in a way he couldn't describe, maybe he looked like filth or virus for them to be looking like that. He just stared back at them, guessing this is their last resort to kill him. Burning at the stake.

He smells oil being poured down his shoulders, his white robes are stained red at the chest and dirty brown on overall, now being covered in smooth oil from head to toe which bothers his eyes way too much when his eyelashes got soaked by the oil as well.

He would wonder how this one would go. As much as he knows, he heals and revives, he could feel it but only faintly. But how will the healing happen when he's covered in fire, skin melted and burned?

Deverus cannot make this execution prolong any longer. One of the soldiers grabs one of the lit torches then looked back at Deverus who looked at him intensely. He sweats and nods, then throws the torch to the pile of kindlings that combusted as soon as the fire from the torch touched the easily burnable materials. The fire quickly travelled and followed the oil, the planks and woods was lit with fire that quickly spreads around Jian Li's pole.

The crunching of burning wood fills the area, waves of heat fans Jian Li's face and its blazes roars nearer and nearer, getting hotter as it grows.

"Koff!! Koffff!!"

He repeatedly huffs heavily, the fire blocks the cold air, in results of another suffocation, a big fire grows taller and its smoke would poison Jian Li's lungs like burning him from the inside. He couldn't breathe and couldn't see, he kept on coughing and sweating as he is trapped around a tall blazing fire. Little sparks of its particles would burn his skin and the consciousness of him are slowly getting taken away from the lack of air.

The soldiers intently watches the flames close the gap between the log and him.

Jian Li's legs trembles, he tries to move his feet away and avoid the fire to reach his body. He was frightened to what might happen next. He looks back to his hands behind the pole and tries to break it with his strength but it wasn't enough, behind him was another wall of flames so he couldn't shift his position either. He couldn't take his eyes off the nearing fire, his breath becomes rougher and harder, the second it was about to eat him alive, he tightly squints his eyes as the red flames finally crawls to his feet and climbs to his knees, thighs, around his body and to his neck.

"AAAAAAAAHHH!!!" He panicked when he felt the warmth spreading all over his body. Fear overtook him so he screams and shrieks to their ears. This is it, he's done for.

Then he stops screaming. 'Wait. Where is the pain?' The soldiers would think that he finally passed out and was currently being eaten alive by the fire when they heard him being quiet.

'But it doesn't hurt.' Jian Li blinks.

He would realize that the fire doesn't hurt him.

It doesn't burn his skin.

His hair stayed as it was and his skin remained pale and untouched. The fire had burned all his clothes but his skin was safe and unharmed. He looks down his thighs and sees this blue, thin and transparent barrier that protects his skin from the fire that he nearly laughed so loud in fascination. The soldiers jolts as they hear him quietly giggling as he was being burned inside the fire. His unknown body continues to amaze him even at these situations. As a Crown Prince, no one has ever dared to inflict pain to his very body, and so leaving him to not discover this powers he had for so long.

The fire crawling on his skin feels warm and nice, it was so refreshing like being bathed in a lukewarm pool. He felt relaxed despite the fact that people infront of him literally wants to kill him, hoping he's dead by now.

A silencing melody would play inside his head.

Jian Li felt the urge to hum along with the violin playing inside his head. The soldiers were freaked out at how they would hear a song being hummed.

"Just like this life,"

"Is over when the sun rises,"

"Up till now,"

"Your everything,"

"Is surely to be met again,"

"In the night place."

"Now you'll remember the voices "

"In your heart,"

"No one will hurt,"

"From sadness, nothing."

"Now your everything,"

"Will be saved by miracles,"

"Surely, you'll remember,"

"The nostalgic place. "

"In the marketplace."

Then he sings quietly;

"For the people,"

"You will die for the memories."

CHKK!

Jian Li noticed something strange happened behind the pole. He tries to look back but then he felt his ropes was already snapped in clean halves. He looks closer at his right wrist as he sees the rope had burns, its fibers crackling.

Then he felt his other hand clutching to a fabric.

He brought the strange object for his eyes to see, until shock painted his face. It was a piece of clothing, a long black cloak. But it was no ordinary with how the cloak was fully covered in flames yet still not melting nor burning. The red fire that was engulfing the cloak was cold with no trace of heat, Jian Li became even more confused.

He focuses on observing the cold fire, but the patterns of the cloak was getting more and more familiar to him. Then he sees a strange white paper dangling by the cloak's collar.

His eyes widens, then softens after a second of seeing a familiar penmanship, bearing the most confusing language he searched for years.

His heart jumps and his eyes turns bright blue.

The boy impetously uses the burning cloak's light to see the sentences in eager to know what he wrote. Jian Li squints his eyes to confirm the writing and read the characters:

"Wear this, little one. I've come to get you."