Thousand Years Cultivator

3 Gods Named Kevin

In his heart, Wiro wondered. He had always imagined that the Deity living in this cave must be an old man in a white robe with a long beard and a face full of wisdom. But the young man before him looked so young. Too young. How could a Deity be eighteen years old?

But the young man did not answer the astonishment reflected on Wiro's face.

'I have lived for seven thousand years,' the young man thought as he gazed at the rubble of his cave wall with an unreadable expression. 'An event in my youth changed everything. Since I was eighteen years old, my body stopped aging. And for the last hundred years, I chose to seclude myself in this cave, distancing myself from a world that keeps changing. When people happened to come and pray, I helped them. I gave them pills from medicinal plants I cultivated myself in here. The gold I gave came from a mine deep within the bowels of the earth, dozens of kilometers beneath this cave. A mine that no one could ever reach through ordinary mining.'

But he kept all of that to himself. Wiro did not need to know.

"Deity, please forgive me!" Wiro was still prostrating. His voice was hoarse. "I am not responsible for this explosion! This is all the doing of Young Master Gito and his men! I tried to stop them, but they would not listen!"

The young man bent down and touched Wiro's shoulder gently. "Rise. My name is Kevin. And I know you are innocent."

Wiro lifted his head, his eyes wet.

Kevin smiled again. "I heard everything from behind that wall. I heard you repeatedly trying to thwart their intentions. I heard you warning them. And I saw them tie you up and leave you here to die with the explosion. I do not blame you, Wiro."

Before Wiro could respond, the sound of footsteps came from the cave entrance. Many footsteps.

The thugs were coming back in. They had come to see the result of their explosion, and as soon as they entered the cave, their eyes immediately fell upon the destroyed inner wall and the vast chamber stretching out beyond it.

"It worked! The wall is destroyed!" One of the thugs shouted joyfully.

But in an instant, their expressions changed. They saw Wiro, who should have been dead, sitting there, alive and whole. And beside him stood a strangely dressed young man they had never seen before.

"How can he still be alive?" A thug approached Wiro with a look of disbelief. "And who is this person?"

The thug reached out to grab Wiro's collar, but before his hand could reach, Kevin moved.

The movement was so simple. Just an ordinary punch, like the playful punch of a child. But the impact was tremendous. The large-bodied thug's body lifted off the floor, flew across the room, and slammed into the stone wall with a sickening crunch. He slid down and did not move again. His eyes were open, but there was no life left in them.

The other thugs froze.

At that moment, Gito stepped inside. He saw the scene within the cave, saw the secret chamber behind the wall, saw the strange young man standing in the middle of it all, and immediately understood that something was wrong.

"Who are you?" Gito asked in a defiant tone, though his feet retreated half a step by reflex. "Kill him!" He ordered the thugs.

The remaining thugs drew their knives and firearms. Three of them advanced at once with blades drawn. The first shot was fired.

But Kevin had already moved.

He moved like the wind. No, faster than the wind. He moved like a shadow darting between light and darkness. Each of his strikes was just once, and each strike ended a life. The thugs fell one by one like dry leaves battered by a storm. None of the bullets fired hit him. None of the blades thrust at him ever touched his skin.

In a matter of seconds, eighteen thugs lay sprawled on the cave floor. None of them moved.

Gito trembled. His once arrogant face was now pale as a corpse. With a shaking hand, he pulled a pistol from inside his jacket and aimed it at Kevin.

"Don't come closer! I'll shoot you!"

Kevin walked toward him. His steps were calm and certain. Gito pulled the trigger. The bullet flew, but Kevin was no longer in that spot. He was already right in front of Gito. His hand gripped Gito's wrist and twisted.

Crrraaack

The sound of breaking bone echoed through the cave.

"AAARGH!" Gito screamed. The pistol fell from his limp hand. He collapsed to the floor, clutching his broken wrist.

Kevin stared down at Gito with a cold gaze. His hand lifted, ready to end it all.

"Kevin, don't!"

Wiro's voice stopped Kevin's movement. Wiro, who had managed to free the bonds on his hands and feet, ran closer with a panicked face.

"Please, don't kill him," Wiro pleaded. "His family is very powerful. If he doesn't return home, his family will investigate what happened. They will destroy our village. They will kill my family, my neighbors, everyone I know."

Kevin looked at Wiro for a long moment. He could feel the genuine fear in Wiro's eyes—not for himself, but for the people he loved.

Finally, Kevin lowered his hand. "Because I respect you, Wiro, I will follow your request."

He turned to Gito, who was still writhing in pain on the floor. "Go. And never return to this mountain."

Gito did not need to be told twice. With his broken wrist clutched tightly to his chest, he rose and ran out of the cave without looking back. The sound of his hurried, stumbling footsteps grew fainter until silence returned.

Kevin stood in the middle of his chamber, now wide open. The wall that for a hundred years had been the boundary between his world and the outside world was now destroyed. His place of seclusion was no longer hidden. He stared at the rubble for a long time without saying a word.

Wiro stood beside him with immense guilt. "Deity Kevin, I am truly sorry. I..."

"There is no need to apologize," Kevin interrupted calmly. He let out a long sigh. "Perhaps it is indeed time for me to leave this place."

Then Kevin did something that left Wiro stunned. Kevin stretched his hand toward the large cauldrons lined up in the corner of the chamber and touched one of them. In the blink of an eye, the cauldron vanished. Just like that. As if swallowed by the air.

Kevin touched the next one. It vanished too. He walked to the plant pots and touched them one by one. All of them disappeared. The bottles filled with medicinal liquids. Gone. The piles of pills stored neatly in a stone container. Gone. One by one, everything in the chamber vanished when Kevin touched it.

Wiro blinked repeatedly. 'Where did all those things go? This is truly the power of a Deity.'

What Wiro did not know was that none of those things had disappeared into nothing. Kevin was putting everything into the spatial storage ring encircling his ring finger. Inside that ring was stored a dimension spanning one hectare in size, and although Kevin had put all the contents of the chamber into it, the space inside the ring was still vast.

After the chamber was empty, Kevin turned to look at Wiro. "From now on, inform all the villagers that the Deity who lived in this cave is no longer here. I will go far away from this place."

Wiro nodded sadly. "I understand, Deity Kevin."

Kevin paused for a moment, then asked, "Wiro, what year is it now?"

"The year 2026."

Kevin nodded slowly. His face showed no expression, but inside his heart, he was counting. A hundred years. He had secluded himself in this cave for a hundred years. The world outside must have changed much. Very much.