BLOOD OF BORNEO

Chapter 3: The Painful Ritual

The roar of the storm outside the Baram cave sounded like a giant machine tearing the sky apart. Inside the damp stone alcove, the raw, metallic scent of fresh blood mingled with the sharp aroma of upas tree sap. Damang lay rigid on the stone slab. His severely wounded back scraped against the rough surface, sending constant signals of agony to his brain.

Indung Inan sat cross-legged beside him. Her wrinkled hands stirred a thick, black liquid inside a coconut shell. The liquid reflected the torchlight with an eerie, bluish glow. Beside her lay a row of hornbill bone needles and a small wooden mallet with a blackened tip.

"Are you sure about this, Damang?" Indung Inan asked. Her cataract-clouded eyes stared straight at the burn scars on Damang’s abdomen. "Once these needles go in, there is no way to pull them out. You will be bound to this forest until you die."

Damang gritted his teeth. "Just do it. I have no other choice if I want to kill Thorne."

"Thorne is a man who uses the technology of gods," Indung Inan countered, lifting a bone needle. "You will become a man who uses the curse of nature. The price is high. Very high."

"I have already lost everything," Damang hissed. He took the piece of ironwood the woman offered and bit down on it hard. "Hurry, start."

Indung Inan wasted no time. She dipped the tip of the bone into the ink, then positioned it directly over Damang’s collarbone.

Thwack!

The wooden mallet struck the base of the needle. Damang’s eyes widened. The bone tip pierced his skin, carrying a cold liquid that suddenly turned as hot as molten lead inside his flesh. His body jerked violently. The muscles in his arms tensed until the veins looked as if they were about to burst.

"Don't hold your breath, you fool!" Indung Inan snapped. "If you hold your breath, your heart will stop from the shock."

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

Every strike of the mallet felt like a sledgehammer hitting his central nervous system. Damang tried to use the pain dissociation techniques he had learned in the special forces, imagining himself outside his own body. But this pain was different. It wasn't just a physical wound. He felt as if thousands of fire ants were crawling under his skin, chewing through his nerve endings one by one.

"Why... is it so hot?" Damang groaned through his clenched teeth. Cold sweat poured down his forehead.

"Because your blood is fighting back," Indung Inan answered calmly. "Your body is full of military chemicals. Vaccines, muscle enhancers, synthetic supplements. This tattoo is burning away all that filth so the power of Borneo can enter."

"How much longer?"

"It has only just begun, boy. Don't be a crybaby."

Indung Inan continued to work with consistent speed. The needle moved from his collarbone toward his solar plexus, right over the scar left by the Paladin’s thermal blade. As the needle touched the sensitive scar tissue, Damang could no longer suppress his voice.

"ARGHHH!"

His scream echoed off the cave walls, drowned out by the thunder. His body arched upward, with only his head and heels touching the stone. The pain was so intense that his vision began to fade to white.

"Focus on your rage!" Indung Inan shouted over the sound of the storm. "Don't focus on the needle. Think of the man who killed your father!"

Damang squeezed his eyes shut. The image of Elias Thorne appeared. He remembered the man’s cold face as he ordered the execution of the villagers. He remembered how his father had been dragged away like an animal. That rage exploded in his chest, giving his mind just enough room not to surrender to the pain.

"Good. Let that anger be the fuel," Indung Inan muttered.

Suddenly, Damang felt a strange sensation. The ink, which had felt hot, began to pulse in rhythm with his heart. The geometric patterns being carved—the sharp lines of protection and the symbols of the fangs of vengeance—began to crawl on their own beneath his skin. He watched with his own eyes as the black lines moved toward his arms, wrapping around his biceps like strong tree roots.

"What is happening? Why are the lines moving?" Damang asked, his breath ragged.

"That is the sign that nature accepts you as a vessel," Indung Inan replied. "But remember, this is not a free gift. There is a flaw in this ritual for a man like you."

"What flaw?"

Indung Inan paused, looking at Damang with a rare flicker of pity. "I have shut down your fear receptors. You will never feel doubt or fear again, even when death is right in front of your eyes. But in exchange, those nerves have been converted into pure pain receptors."

Damang fell silent, trying to digest her words. "You mean?"

"Every time you use the power of this tattoo to attack, you will feel pain just as intense as when I inserted these needles. The greater the power you unleash, the more your body will feel like it is being destroyed. You will be a weapon that tortures itself."

Damang clenched his fists. Instantly, excruciating pain pierced his joints, making his fingers tremble. Yet, at the same time, he felt a surge of power he had never possessed before. He felt he could crush stone with just his grip.

"I can take it," Damang said firmly. "This pain is nothing compared to my vengeance."

"Easy to say now," Indung Inan replied, wiping the excess ink from Damang’s chest. "We shall see how long you last before you beg for death."

Indung Inan stood up and took water from another coconut shell, then splashed it over Damang’s entire body. The cold water felt like razors slicing into his newly tattooed skin. Damang jerked and tried to sit up, but his whole body trembled violently from extreme exhaustion.

"It is finished. Rest."

"Indung... why are you helping me?" Damang asked, trying to steady his heavy breathing.

Indung Inan packed her tools without looking back. "Because I want to see if scrap metal like you can break their arrogant technology. And because your father once saved my life. Now, my debt is paid."

The next morning, the cave felt deathly quiet. Morning sunlight streamed through the cracks in the rocks, illuminating the dancing dust motes. Damang woke up with a stiff body. He looked down at his chest. The tattoo patterns were now jet black, contrasting sharply with his pale skin. The lines looked incredibly deep, as if carved into ironwood.

Indung Inan was gone. In the spot where she had sat the night before, there was now a bundle of dull yellow cloth. Damang reached out to take it. As his fingers touched the bundle, the tattoo on his arm suddenly pulsed red. The piercing pain made Damang nearly drop the object.

"Damn it," he cursed. He forced his fingers to keep their grip.

He opened the cloth and found an old Mandau. The hilt was made of deer horn carved with eerie detail—an ancestor’s face with bulging eyes. The blade did not shine like modern steel; instead, it was a dark gray with a pattern of pamor that resembled the flow of a rushing river.

"Father’s Mandau..." Damang whispered.

He tried to lift the weapon. Instantly, his arm felt as if it were on fire. His nerves screamed, sending warning signals to his brain. His body tried to drop the mandau as a defense mechanism, but Damang refused. He gripped the hilt tighter.

"Ugh... stop fighting it!" Damang growled at himself.

He stood up with great difficulty. His legs trembled, but every step he took felt firmer than the last. He walked toward the mouth of the cave. In the distance, in the valley below, he could see smoke rising from Thorne’s company camp. The noisy sound of logging machines and patrol helicopters could be heard faintly.

Damang looked at his tattoo-covered arm. He tried to think of Elias Thorne’s face. Instantly, the tattoo on his neck pulsed with heat, sending pain into his jaw. The fear that usually arose when facing a massive military force—the anxiety of death—was completely gone. All that remained was intense physical pain and a pure desire to destroy.

"They think they have won," Damang muttered.

He swung the mandau through the air. The wind generated by the swing felt heavier and sharper. Damang realized he was no longer a mercenary or an elite soldier. He was something else. Something created by the pain and vengeance of this land.

"Thorne, you will pay for every inch of this land with your blood," Damang said, his voice soft but filled with emphasis.

He stepped out of the darkness of the cave toward the lush forest. Even though every step now had to be paid for with an aching in his joints, Damang kept walking. He was no longer afraid of death, because for him, pain was the only proof that he was still alive to exact his revenge.

Under the shade of the Baram trees, a ghost had just been born. And this time, he would not stop until his mandau blade tasted the neck of the man who had destroyed his world.