“Only one master has this level of skill…” Kirana’s voice was a ragged thread, her gaze fixed on Banyu as if she saw a ghoulish reflection there. The syllables remained trapped behind her teeth, hanging in the chilled air of the training room like a phantom bell tolling an ugly truth. Banyu felt the sudden, bitter clarity snap into place every piece of the puzzle he had fumbled with. Semar. His mentor. His savior. The old man who had looked at him with what Banyu had mistaken for paternal pride, who had guided his clumsy hands, who had pushed him to awaken the very power he now sought to steal.
His vision blurred for a moment, not with tears, but with a sudden, searing rage that threatened to consume him. A red haze descended, the world narrowing to the image of Semar’s calm, knowing smile. Every ‘lesson’ in the Thunder Cavern, every seemingly patient correction, every encouraging word – they twisted into grotesque parodies of what he’d believed. The subtle touch on his arm when he had first manifested his power, ostensibly to steady him, was now laid bare as the moment the parasite had been affixed. The way Semar had pushed him to embrace the volatile edge of his inner pulse, to shatter limits, to push past the brink—it had never been about mastery, but about fattening cattle for slaughter.
His mother’s journal came back to him: *“Semar says the severing is the only way to save him. I don’t trust his eyes.”* The ink-stained warning felt raw and immediate. His own parents, trapped in this web of deceit, their fears dismissed, their son marked for a slow, agonizing erasure. The bitterness in his mouth was like copper, sharp and metallic.
Kirana, her shock hardening to flint, watched him. “He wants your soul power, Banyu. He has fed that parasite and urged your core along, waiting for you to ripen. The severing… it will leave you an empty vessel. A husk.”
Banyu didn’t respond. His mind was racing, a whirlwind of anger and dawning strategy. He had to think. He had to understand. He had been so blind, so eager for belonging, so ready to trust the man who offered a path to power. He needed answers only the dead could provide, echoes only he could interpret.
“The Chamber of Ancestors,” he said, his voice flat, devoid of its usual bluster. “I need to go there. Now.”
Kirana hesitated, then nodded. “I will create a diversion. Semar’s senses are keen, especially now. He’ll be monitoring you. He expects you to lash out, to be reckless.” Her eyes met his, a flicker of something almost akin to respect crossing her features. “Don’t prove him right.”
He gave her a curt nod, then turned and strode out, his footsteps echoing in the silence of the mansion. The Pondok Sunyi felt different now, every shadow a potential hiding place for treachery, every gust of wind a spectral warning. He moved through the labyrinthine corridors, his senses attuned not to physical dangers, but to the lingering psychic residue of the past. The echoes of House Angin’s masters pressed in on him, usually a cacophony of emotions, but now, he sought a specific frequency.
The ancestral vault was as he remembered it: cool, vast, drenched in the stone-cold legacy of generations. The air thrummed with the accumulated life force of generations. Statues of past masters lined the walls, their faces carved with serene, stern, or knowing expressions. Banyu walked to the center of the room, taking a deep breath, and closed his eyes. He reached out, not just to *feel* the echoes, but to *connect* with them, to actively draw them in.
His spirit flared, a raw surge of energy that broke past ordinary bounds. He focused, seeking the distinct, firm soul-trace of Hendra Angin. He remembered the faint, protective warmth from the journal, the echo that had reacted to his presence. He needed that again, but deeper, more profound.
The world tilted in a sudden, dizzying plunge into another time, another vantage. Aged paper and bitter ink scented the cold air of a forgotten parlor. Banyu watched as a ghost, pinned in memory. There stood his sire, younger, brow carved with strain, facing Semar. Semar’s eyes, usually so placid, held an unnerving intensity, a glint Banyu now recognized as avarice.
“Hendra, you misunderstand,” Semar’s voice was smooth, almost hypnotic, but tinged with a subtle impatience. “The gift, this ‘affliction’ you call it, is unprecedented. A rare concentration of soul potential. It must be steered, brought to bloom.”
“Brought to bloom for what purpose, Semar?” Hendra’s tone was firm, carrying a distinct undercurrent of distrust. “My son is not an instrument. His mother and I have seen the instability. He needs shielding, not exploitation.”
“Shielding comes in many forms. This surge, left unchecked, will rip him apart. It will shatter House Angin.” Semar paced, drifting toward a veiled corner of the room as if sensing Banyu’s invisible presence. “The severing, Hendra. It is the sole way to stabilize his spirit, to bind it, to make it *useful*.”
“Useful to whom?” his mother’s voice, sharp with suspicion, cut in from somewhere Banyu couldn’t quite perceive. “To you, Semar? To your ambitions?”
The memory flickered, fragmented. Semar’s smile, tight and predatory. His sire’s features contorted in sudden revulsion. The sensation of being pulled, ripped away from the scene, as if a protective barrier had asserted itself. Banyu stumbled back, gasping, his eyes flying open. The stone room solidified around him once more, the air still humming, but now, he understood. Semar hadn't just *planned* this; he had obsessed over it, coveted Banyu’s power even when he was an infant, twisting concern into a monstrous scheme.
A new sound, faint at first, then growing louder, reached him. It was a familiar, clumsy shuffling, accompanied by a low, exasperated grumble. Banyu tensed, his hand instinctively going to the hilt of a phantom blade. Had Semar sent someone already? Was Kirana’s diversion not enough?
The massive door to the Chamber of Ancestors creaked open, revealing not an assassin, but a figure Banyu never expected to see here. Paijo. His best friend, looking dishevelled and furious, a sweat stain blooming on his worn shirt. He was clutching a battered styrofoam cooler, the kind they used for fresh catch at the Rembang docks.
“You really think you can just cut me off, Banyu?” Paijo’s voice was a low growl, utterly devoid of his usual cheer. He kicked the door shut with his heel, then marched towards Banyu, his eyes blazing. “You think you can just throw away years of friendship because some rich old man tells you to?” He slammed the cooler down with a thud that echoed through the room. “I told you, wherever you go, I follow. And these fancy walls ain’t gonna stop me.”
Banyu stared, utterly speechless. Paijo, here? How had he even gotten past the outer defenses? He was just a fishmonger, not a Gema Jiwa practitioner. “Paijo, you shouldn’t be here! You’ll get killed.”
“Killed?” Paijo snorted, waving a calloused hand. “The Rembang docks are lethal. Getting gutted over an unpaid crate of mackerel is deadly. This… this is just rich people brawling. And you’re my brother. So I brought you something.” He unlatched the cooler, revealing not fish, but a shimmering, coarse mound.
“Sea salt?” Banyu frowned, bewildered. “What good is…?”
“Old wives’ tales, Banyu,” Paijo interrupted, scooping a handful of the glistening white crystals. “From the *nenek-nenek* who sold charms in the alleyways. They say salt, fresh from the deep ocean, burns ghosts. Drives out bad spirits. Maybe it’ll burn the fancy echoes too.” A crooked grin tugged at Paijo’s lips. “Might not know about your soul-echo magic, but I know how to handle bad spirits.”
Banyu stared at the salt, then met Paijo’s unyielding gaze. The ancestral memory, a fragmented warning from Hendra, converged with the stubborn devotion of his dock brother. The tools he needed to fight back, to dismantle Semar’s carefully constructed betrayal, were not just within him. They were right here, in his grasp, unexpected, unorthodox, and utterly, wonderfully real. He had one chance. One chance to turn the echoes of the past and the simple grit of the present into a weapon sharp enough to shatter the mentor's mask.