BLOOD OF BORNEO

Chapter 13: The Ritual of the Flying Mandau

           Sali crushed the dark red roots inside a stone mortar with a steady rhythm. The sound of stone striking stone echoed throughout the cave chamber. Smoke from burning agarwood and incense began to fill the air, making the view slightly blurry and breathing feel heavy. In front of them, a stone altar whose surface had been hollowed out by age stood proudly. On top of it, Panglima Nyarung’s sacred Mandau lay motionless.

            “Take off your shirt, Damang. Sit cross-legged in front of that altar,” Sali ordered without turning around. His voice sounded lower and more authoritative than usual.

           Damang removed his tactical vest and his torn black shirt. His body, covered in scars and the Rajah that had recently turned black, was exposed to the cold cave air. He walked slowly, feeling the rough stone beneath his feet, then sat cross-legged facing the Mandau.

           “What exactly are we going to do, Sali? I need a medical explanation or at least a technical one about this,” Damang asked. His hands trembled slightly, the lingering effect of the nerve gas he had inhaled in the forest.

Sali stopped grinding. He brought a stone bowl filled with thick dark red liquid in front of Damang. “You’re still asking about medicine. Do you see the Rajah on your body? It’s not just decoration. It’s an additional neural network implanted by your ancestors through ink and prayer. This ritual will activate the signals in your brain so you can control the metal frequency of this Mandau.”

            “You mean, I’ll control it with my mind?” Damang frowned.

             “Not only with your mind, but with your blood. This Mandau was forged from iron ore taken from the deepest riverbed, where the earth’s energy is strongest. It has immense weight for ordinary humans, but it will become as light as air if it recognizes the genetic mark of its owner,” Sali answered while smearing the red liquid from the bowl onto Damang’s chest, right above his heart.

            “It feels cold,” Damang muttered as the liquid touched his skin.

             “That’s because this liquid contains corpse flower extract and ulin sap. It will lower the surface temperature of your skin so the nerve sensors in your Rajah become more sensitive to vibrations outside your body,” Sali explained while continuing to apply it. “Now, take the Mandau. Hold the hilt with your right hand, and the blade with your left.”

             Damang took a deep breath, then grabbed his father’s weapon. The metal felt extremely cold, almost freezing his palms. Its weight still felt real, around three or four kilograms of dense solid iron.

           “Now, the hardest part. You must give blood from your heart directly to this blade,” Sali stared into Damang’s eyes seriously. “Not from your finger, not from your arm. But from your chest, right above your heart.”

             “Are you insane? That could kill me if I stab too deep,” Damang protested.

              “If you hesitate, then you’ll die at the hands of Paladin Thorne. Those are your only choices,” Sali challenged him. “This Mandau needs acknowledgment. It needs a pure blood contract. Press its tip against your chest, just enough for the blood to flow and cover the engravings on the blade. Don’t miss a single inch.”

             Damang stared at the gray blade of the Mandau. The image of Elias Thorne looking down on him appeared in his mind. He also remembered his father, now turned into a monster inside the underground laboratory. His anger surged, and at that moment, the Rajah on his arm began glowing red.

             “Do it, Damang! Don’t think like a soldier, think like a son who wants to bring his father home!” Sali shouted.

            Damang reversed the Mandau’s position. Its sharp tip now pressed against the skin of his chest. He could feel his own heartbeat pounding behind the muscles of his chest. With one sharp breath, he pushed the blade in.

             “Argh!”

Fresh bright red blood seeped out, soaking the tip of the Mandau before immediately crawling down along the dragon engravings across the blade. Damang felt something strange. His blood was not merely coating the metal, but seemed to be absorbed by the pores of the iron itself.

            “Close your eyes! Don’t resist it! Go inside!” Sali ordered.

Instantly, Damang’s consciousness seemed to be ripped out of his body. His vision turned pitch black for several seconds before he found himself standing inside a vast empty void. In front of him stood a man wearing a full special forces uniform, complete with an SS2 rifle in his hands.

           “Who are you?” Damang asked.

The figure turned around. The face was Damang’s own face, but without the Rajah. His eyes were flat, cold, and filled only with military tactical calculations.

            “I am your logic, Damang. I am the part of you that says all of this is nonsense,” the soldier’s voice sounded like a stiff digital recording. “You cannot win a war with a flying sword. You need bullets, you need tactics, you need calculations of mass and energy.”

            “My bullets are useless against the Paladins!” Damang shouted.

             “That’s because you lack accuracy. You should aim for the gaps in their armor instead of stabbing your own chest inside this dark cave,” the soldier raised his rifle and aimed directly at Damang’s forehead. “Surrender to this superstition. Go back to being a rational human.”

           Damang clenched his fists. “Rationality didn’t save my father! Rationality didn’t stop Thorne’s missiles! I need something more than bullets!”

           “Then you must kill me,” the soldier pulled the trigger.

In the real world, Damang’s body convulsed violently. Sweat mixed with blood poured across his body. Sali continued chanting prayers in the ancient Dayak language while scattering incense powder toward Damang.

           “Leave your ego behind, Damang! Throw away that uniform! You are Nyarung’s blood!” Sali shouted even though he knew Damang could not physically hear him.

Inside his subconscious realm, Damang moved with a speed he had never possessed before. He did not dodge the bullets with tactical movements, but with pure instinct. He charged forward, ignoring the rifle that kept firing. Every bullet that struck his spiritual body felt like an electric shock, yet he kept advancing.

            “I am no longer a state mercenary soldier!” Damang roared. He grabbed the soldier’s throat with both hands. “I am the Mandau itself!”

            The moment Damang spoke those words, the soldier in front of him shattered into silver dust. The void around him exploded into blinding light. Damang felt thousands of neural pathways in his brain instantly connect to the Mandau blade still pressed against his chest in the real world.

           One second. Two seconds.

Damang opened his eyes. But his pupils were no longer dark brown. Now, his entire eyes had become metallic silver, emitting a dim glow.

            “Damang?” Sali whispered, stepping back several paces in shock.

             The Mandau that Damang had been gripping tightly slowly slipped free from his hands. However, the weapon did not fall to the ground. It floated in the air, remaining directly in front of Damang’s chest. Its blade vibrated at a high frequency, producing a buzzing sound like a swarm of bees ready to attack.

             “I... I can feel it, Sali,” Damang’s voice sounded layered, as if another voice echoed behind his own words. “This iron... it has a heartbeat.”

            “Move your eyes, Damang. Don’t use your hands,” Sali instructed with a trembling voice.

           Damang glanced toward a stone pillar on the left side of the cave. Without any delay, the Mandau shot forward like lightning.

Sraakk!

           The stone pillar, as thick as an adult man’s thigh, was sliced cleanly in half. The cut stone crashed onto the floor with a heavy thud, while the Mandau had already returned to floating beside Damang’s head, as though waiting for its next command.

            “Incredible,” Sali whispered. “You’ve successfully passed the high-level neural synchronization. The Mandau is now an extension of your optic nerves and your intent.”

            Damang slowly stood up. The wound on his chest had miraculously stopped bleeding, leaving behind a scar shaped like the same symbol engraved on the Mandau’s hilt. He tried moving his hand forward, and the Mandau followed the movement like a shadow made of steel.

           “What about the invulnerability? You said this ritual would also protect me,” Damang asked. His voice now sounded calmer, almost emotionless.

           Sali pulled a dagger from his waist. Without warning, he slashed Damang’s arm with all his strength.

          Ting!

          The sound of metal clashing rang out. Sali’s dagger bounced away, and its blade chipped as though it had struck the hardest steel in the world. Damang’s skin was not even scratched. Only a thin white line remained before disappearing within seconds.

          “Your Rajah now emits a static electromagnetic field that compresses the molecular structure of your skin whenever sudden physical pressure strikes you,” Sali explained while staring at his damaged dagger with both awe and fear. “But remember, it drains your energy. If you endure too many impacts, your heart could fail from exhaustion.”

            Damang stared at his hands. He touched his own skin, which felt ordinary, yet he knew beneath that layer existed a power beyond human logic. “How long can I maintain this condition?”

            “Depends on your focus. If your mind becomes chaotic, the Mandau will fall and your protection will weaken,” Sali answered. “You must remain cold. Like forged iron.”

             Suddenly, the cave shook again with a stronger tremor than before. Several chunks of stone fell from the ceiling, smashing some of the skulls on the shelves. The sound of the Harvester machine above roared like a starving giant.

            “They’ve almost breached the final granite layer,” Sali looked upward anxiously. “One more hour, and this cave will collapse.”

Damang looked toward his Mandau. With a single glance, the weapon spun in the air, creating a small vortex of wind around it. “One hour is more than enough to make Elias Thorne regret ever coming here.”

           “What’s your plan? We can’t launch a frontal assault when they’re already on full alert,” Sali asked.

            “We’re not launching a frontal assault,” Damang walked toward the cave exit, his flying Mandau faithfully following beside his right shoulder. “Bara and the others will create a distraction on the surface. I’ll enter through the air ventilation route you showed me earlier. I’ll use Halimun to reach the main control room.”

            “Halimun in your current condition will be extremely painful for your nerves, Damang,” Sali warned.

           “Pain has been my companion ever since I fell into the Baram, Sali,” Damang glanced back slightly, giving a faint smile that never reached his silver eyes. “Tell Bara to detonate the sound mines in ten minutes. I want all their sensors focused on the forest.”

“Be careful, Damang. If you die, the Mandau will lose its master and destroy anything nearby, including us,” Sali said.

          “I have no plans to die today,” Damang replied shortly.

          He leaped out through the waterfall crevice, piercing through the rushing curtain of water. The Mandau beside him spun rapidly, splitting the waterfall apart so Damang’s body remained dry when he landed on the rocks below. His movements were now lighter, faster, and almost completely silent.

           Within the darkness of the Baram night, Damang moved like the shadow of a predator. Through his silver eyes, he could see the energy flowing through Thorne’s underground cables buried beneath the earth. He could see the heat signatures of the Paladin guards in the watchtowers as though they were beacons in the darkness.

           He stopped near the laser fence perimeter. With a single thought, his Mandau shot forward, severing the main power cable buried beneath the fence post without causing an explosion. The fence died instantly.

          “Target identified... wait, what is that?” a guard’s voice sounded from the distance as he realized their laser fence had shut down.

Damang did not wait. He activated his Halimun ability. His body began fading away, blending into the night mist and the vapor from the waterfall. The nerves in his head started throbbing painfully, but he suppressed it with cold anger.

           The Flying Mandau beside him also vanished from human sight, yet Damang could still feel it clearly within his mind. The weapon seemed to breathe alongside him.

He passed through the first line of guards effortlessly. When he reached the outer wall of the laboratory facility, he saw a ventilation opening guarded by two automated drones equipped with motion sensors and machine guns.

            Damang only needed a glance.

The invisible Mandau shot forward, piercing through both drones consecutively in less than a second. The sound of shattered metal was drowned out by the thunderous roar of the Harvester machine still operating nearby.

Damang crawled into the ventilation shaft. Inside, the passage was narrow and packed with blue-pulsing fiber optic cables. He crawled slowly, heading toward the data center that served as the heart of Thorne’s operation.

          Through the gaps in the ventilation grates above a corridor, he saw Lieutenant Vargas giving instructions to a group of Paladins. Vargas appeared to be holding a bottle filled with glowing golden liquid.

           “Make sure the Harvester pressure stays at ninety percent. Elias doesn’t want any fluctuations when the extraction ritual begins,” Vargas’s voice sounded cold and sharp.

          “What about the disturbance in the eastern sector, Lieutenant? Our sensors detected human activity there,” one of the Paladins asked.

          “They’re just forest rats trying to bite an elephant. Let the drone units deal with them. Your focus is the Earth’s Heart security,” Vargas replied. He then glanced toward the ventilation shaft, as though sensing something strange.

           Damang held his breath. He shut down all the energy flow within his Rajah so it would not be detected by whatever biometric sensors Vargas might possess.

          Vargas narrowed his eyes, then walked away again. “Move out. The time is almost here.”

          Damang waited until the sound of their footsteps disappeared. He slowly opened the ventilation grate and dropped silently onto the corridor floor. He stood upright, allowing his invisibility ability to cloak him once again.

          His silver eyes stared toward the end of the corridor, toward the massive steel door leading to the Earth’s Heart ritual chamber. He could feel an enormous energy beyond that door, an energy both familiar and terrifying.

          “Father...” Damang whispered.

The Flying Mandau beside him vibrated softly, as though sensing its master’s sorrow. Damang clenched his fist, allowing the Rajah on his palm to pulse intensely. He began walking forward, no longer as a soldier carrying out a mission, but as an executioner coming to claim justice.

           Every step he took sent dust swirling across the corridor floor, pushed by the aura now overflowing from his body. Damang knew that beyond that door, he would face a truth that might shatter his heart. Yet with the Mandau floating beside him, he no longer felt alone.

           He arrived before the massive steel door. Two Paladin guards in heavy armor carrying energy shields stood there. They could not see Damang, but they sensed the sudden change in air pressure.

           “There’s something here...” one of the guards had just begun raising his shield.

Damang deactivated his Halimun. His body appeared instantly before them, his silver eyes glowing brightly in the darkness of the corridor.

          “Good evening, Thorne’s dogs,” Damang said coldly.

           Before the guards could even react, Damang’s Flying Mandau had already shot forward, slicing through their energy shields and titanium armor as though the metal were nothing but wet paper. Blood sprayed across the corridor walls as both headless bodies collapsed onto the floor.

           Damang stared at the steel door before him. He raised his hand, and the Mandau returned beside him, its blade now drenched in blood yet still gleaming sharply. He took a deep breath, preparing himself to open the gate to the true hell.

          The steel door began sliding open, releasing a golden light so blinding that it illuminated the entire corridor. Damang stepped inside, and the Flying Mandau beside him spun even faster, ready to cut down anyone who dared stand in the path of Borneo’s last Panglima.