Thousand Years Cultivator

5 Killing the Thugs

Wiro immediately turned pale.

"Impossible," he whispered. "This quickly?"

Kevin stood calmly and walked to the window. Outside, four large cars had stopped in the yard of Wiro's house. Dust flew from the sudden braking. Car doors opened and dozens of people emerged noisily. Large-bodied thugs, far more than those at the cave earlier. Wiro quickly counted. Their number was roughly three times as many as before.

But that was not what made Wiro grow even paler. Among the crowd of thugs, he saw Gito. His broken wrist was now supported by a sling, and his face radiated blazing hatred. Beside Gito stood a man around fifty years old with a large belly and an expensive black suit. That was Gito's father. And behind them, seated in a wheelchair pushed by a servant, was a thin old man with eyes as sharp as an eagle's. Gito's grandfather.

But there was more. Among the crowd stood four people who were different from the other thugs. Their bodies were lean and muscular, their movements controlled, and their eyes vigilant. They wore neater clothes compared to the other thugs. Two wore karate uniforms with black belts, and the other two wore pencak silat attire.

"Wiro!" Gito's voice thundered from outside. "Come out! And bring that person with you!"

Wiro's mother, hearing the commotion, immediately trembled in fear. Wiro held his mother's hand and tried to calm her, but he himself was also afraid.

Kevin turned to Wiro. "Sit here with your mother. Let me go out."

"Kevin, be careful. There are so many of them. And those people in martial arts clothes, they must be masters deliberately brought here."

Kevin smiled faintly. "No need to worry."

Kevin stepped out of Wiro's house and stood on the porch. The afternoon sunlight fell upon his face, and for a moment the crowd in the yard fell silent at the sight of the young man standing there with an odd calmness.

Gito reacted first. He pointed at Kevin with his unbroken hand. "That's him! He's the one who broke my hand! He's the one who killed my men!"

Gito's father stepped forward. His eyes narrowed as he looked at Kevin. "So this is the brat you were talking about?" He snorted. "You were humiliated by a skinny boy like this?"

"Don't underestimate him, Dad!" Gito said in a raised voice. "He's no ordinary person!"

Gito's grandfather, seated in the wheelchair, raised his hand, and everyone immediately fell silent. His hoarse and raspy voice broke the silence. "Whoever you are, boy, you have dared to oppose our family. Do you know who we are? We control all the villages around this mountain. We have connections with officials and police in the city. You think you can do as you please and get away with it?"

Kevin did not answer. He simply stood there and stared at the three generations of the family with a flat gaze. But behind that flat gaze, Kevin was reading them. Reading their souls. This was an ability he possessed after seven thousand years of life. He could sense a person's intentions just by looking into their eyes.

And what he saw in the eyes of this grandfather, father, and grandson was the same thing. Greed. Cruelty. And not a shred of remorse for all the evil they had ever committed.

'This family,' Kevin thought, 'has been giving loans to villagers with suffocating interest. When they cannot pay, their land and possessions are seized. They also log the forests around this mountain to sell the timber to the city, destroying nature without a care. During the hundred years I stayed in the cave, I heard many things from the villagers who came to pray. Many of them came in misery precisely because of this family.'

That was why Kevin had never been willing to give medicine when Gito's grandfather came begging at the cave.

"If you won't talk, then let my fist do the talking!" Gito's father waved his hand. "Finish him!"

The two karate masters advanced first. Their steps were steady and their posture perfect. One was tall and large with a bald head and sharp eyes. The other was shorter but stocky, with arms as thick as an ordinary person's thighs. Both assumed fighting stances and approached Kevin from two different directions.

The tall karate master attacked first with a spinning side kick that moved swiftly. The air hissed from the speed of his kick. But Kevin merely tilted his body slightly, and the kick passed by him harmlessly. Before the master could retract his leg, Kevin had already touched his ankle with a single finger. The ankle bone broke with a clearly audible sound.

"AAARGH!" The master fell to his knees clutching his leg.

The second master immediately attacked without pause. His fists rained down on Kevin from all directions with a speed impressive by ordinary human standards. But for Kevin, who had lived seven thousand years and mastered martial arts from various eras, the attacks appeared very slow. Like watching people move underwater.

Kevin caught the master's final punch with one hand, then twisted it. The sound of breaking bone was heard again, and the second master screamed in pain before collapsing to the ground.

The two remaining pencak silat masters attacked simultaneously. Their movements were more fluid and unpredictable than the karatekas before. Sickle kicks, leg sweeps, rapid combinations—all were launched with good coordination. But the result was the same. Kevin moved between their attacks like water flowing between stones. Every time he touched a part of an opponent's body, a bone there broke.

In less than a minute, all four martial arts masters lay sprawled in the yard of Wiro's house with broken hands or feet.

Kevin stood among them and stared at the four with cold eyes. "You are martial arts experts. You possess skills that should be used to protect the weak. But you chose to become hired hands for criminals." His voice was calm but piercing. "I broke your hands and feet so that you have time to reflect on your life choices. Never again become accomplices to people like them."

The four masters could only groan in pain.

Seeing his strongest men defeated so easily, Gito's father retreated several steps. His once arrogant face now began to show fear. But Gito, whose hatred had blinded his reason, instead shouted at the thugs.

"What are you waiting for? Shoot him! Shoot him now!" Then Gito pointed his trembling finger toward Wiro's house. "And shoot Wiro and his mother too! Kill them all!"

Dozens of thugs raised their firearms. Some aimed their muzzles at Kevin, others aimed at the window of Wiro's house where the silhouettes of Wiro and his mother were faintly visible.

The sound of gunfire split the air.

Kevin moved faster than the bullets. His hand rose into the air and in an instant a silvery cloud appeared between Wiro's house and the shooters. The cloud expanded and hardened, forming a kind of giant shield floating in the air. Bullets aimed at Wiro's house struck the shield and fell clattering to the ground, powerless.

Wiro and his mother, who had been embracing each other with closed eyes, slowly opened their eyes. They were still alive. Not a single bullet had penetrated the shield.

After ensuring Wiro and his mother were safe, Kevin lowered his hand and the shield vanished. His eyes were now truly cold. For a hundred years he had lived in peace in his cave, distancing himself from the violence of the world. But that violence had now come to him and threatened the lives of innocent people.

"You have chosen your path," Kevin said quietly.

Then he moved.

What happened next occurred so quickly that ordinary human eyes could not follow it. Kevin darted from one thug to another like lightning striking the ground repeatedly. Each time he stopped, a thug collapsed. There were no screams. No time to shout. They fell in eerie silence, one by one, like dominoes toppled by an invisible hand.

In a matter of a dozen seconds, all the thugs lay lifeless in the yard of Wiro's house.