Night Feast

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Arya Kamandhanu and that assassin had exchanged a couple of moves, and the result would soon be out. Actually, Kamandhanu could end this fighting in a second even without moving. But as he wanted to conceal his power, he didn't want to do it. He had been enduring it and keep his power in the dark, that even his teacher, Elder Ranubaya, only knew him was about to breakthrough to the Sixth Stage, Nascent Soul, advanced level.

His cultivation on the surface was only at the middle level of Nascent Soul, whereas in reality he was on the verge of breakthrough to the Void Connoisseur.

The assassin, using unknown skill, suddenly moved to the back and launched a powerful attack to stab Kamandhanu on the back. But, it was at this moment that Kamandhanu used 'Blink', he was disappeared for a moment and moved at the fastest speed to strangle the neck of the assassin. The assassin's sword fell down to the ground and produced a 'Clang' sound.

Just as he wanted to give that assassin to the two Princes, so they could check this masked-man together, there was a sound of 'Swoosh!', and another man in black robe appeared behind Kamandhanu, ready to kill him.

"Sh*t!" Marissa cursed, but she didn't dwell even for a second. She instantly teleported to the right side of the second assassin, and manipulated the sword on the assassin's hand and stunted him with the help of Mr. Angel, so that it will be thrown off to the side. But, instead of dropped off to the side, the sword was flying upward toward the direction of Prince Tohjaya.

"Freeze..." Kamandhanu who was still strangling the first assassin saw the situation and instantly uttered a 'Freezing Mantra', a spell that could freeze many things on the spot. The sword that was about to stab at Prince Tohjaya, abruptly stopped and fell down to the ground after Kamandhanu uttered another word, 'Fall'.

Right at this moment...

[Ding! The Gandring Sword has been detected]

[Would the Host retrieve the sword?]

[Yes or No]

Marissa was surprised. There was a Gandring Sword nearby? It was the legendary sword of Elder Gandring, the one which Ken Arok used to stab Tunggul Ametung to death when he was sleeping. In the real History of Nusantara's Ancient Kingdoms, Ken Arok put the blame on 'Kebo Ijo', or 'Green Cow' if it was translated into English.

Kebo Ijo was his 'friend' when he was still a guard in the Kingdom of Kadiri. They were both guards of the palace at that time. Ken Arok befriend Kebo Ijo so that he could frame him for killing Tunggul Ametung when in reality, he was the one who killed that King of Kadiri, before he, Ken Arok, proclaimed himself as the King of Singhasari and married Ken Dedes, the most beautiful girl ever in the Legend of Nusantara.

"Yes, yes, retrieve it! Retrieve it stealthily, please. Don't make them suspect me or Kamandhanu as the culprit." Marissa shouted through telepathy with Mr. Angel.

[Alright]

One second later...

[Mission completed]

[The Gandring Sword has been retrieved and being put on the system's storage]

[Ding! Congratulation for the Host to complete the...]

[...]

[...]

Hearing that the mission had been completed, Marissa let out a sigh of relief. There were still the other notifications from the system, but she got no time to pay attention to it at the moment.

Marissa then looked at Kamandhanu, telling a few words for him through the telepathy tool. Kamandhanu, who was being taught by Marissa to say a few words, was feeling so frustrated. He usually doesn't like to speak too much and only say at most three words in any occasions, but now, he was ordered to say so many lines. And the most strange thing was, why should he obey that chicken's words so willingly? Is there something wrong with his brain?

"You say it yourself." Arya Kamandhanu grunted

"Are you kidding me? I'm a chicken." Marissa responded lazily.

"Fine. I'm going to have a talk with you after this." Arya Kamandhanu said while gritting his teeth.

"I'd love, too." Marissa answered without caring a bit, and only stared at the man as if she was saying that she wasn't afraid at all.

Looking at the appearance of the little black chicken, Kamandhanu felt an abstract impression hit him on the head. He felt like the little chicken was instead very happy to talk to him and even gave him a cheeky and mischievous smile.

Realizing his absurd thoughts, he shook his head silently and try to calm his heart down. He then thought about the words Marissa taught him a few moments ago, and he instantly felt like he wanted to spank that chicken for being so mischievous.

'I don't want to talk.' He thought inwardly, but still, he was going to do it in the end.

"Heh, I see you two are really gutsy. Because you know your partner couldn't finish Prince Anusapati, you two decided to just kill the both of them, right? The one over there..." Kamandhanu glanced at the second assassin who was being stunted by Marissa on the spot when she was trying to make that sword thrown off from the hand of the assassin. Now, that second assassin had already been paralyzed on the ground like a dead pig.

"You even try to kill Prince Tohjaya with your sword? If I'm not fast enough, the Second Prince would be..." Kamandhanu didn't continue his words, but everyone had already understood what he meant by those sentences. The meaning was, if Kamandhanu wasn't fast enough to freeze the sword on the air, Prince Tohjaya would be as good as dead.

"Your Highness, please instruct what should be done with this two. Should we search their bodies to find some clues?" Arya Kamandhanu turned his gaze to the two princes, and asked for their opinions as a formal and polite gesture, while Marissa was climbing then hopping to the shoulder of Kamandhanu in a very smooth manner, as if she had been doing it for so many times.

Looking at the little black chicken acting intimate with Arya Kamandhanu, those two princes were speechless. They even forgot to react and neglect the two paralyzed assassins on the ground.

'Did they really just meet a while ago? Why do I feel that this pair of human and chicken had known each other since a very long time ago?' The two princes had the same thoughts.

"Search their body first." Prince Anusapati said.

And thus, they started their investigation and other than the swords that they used in the battle, they found several things inside their pockets, such as pills, small knife, 512 coppers in total, 1000 silvers each, and 2 gold coins each. So the total money on both of them were 6 golds and 512 coppers. And the last thing was a black token. This token was found on the body of the second Assassin.

"This...!" Prince Anusapati and Prince Tohjaya were bewildered.

"Your guess are right, Your Highness. This is the token from the Gelang-gelang sect. It was an evil sect. The leader of the sect was Elder Tong Bajil." Arya Kamandhanu confirmed the speculation of the two princes with a solemn voice.

"This is a confidential information and an important clue we have. We should seek Imperial Father for further instruction." Prince Anusapati said solemnly.

"Hmph! How dare they tried to kill the prince of Singhasari Kingdom. Do they want to rebel? We must eradicate that evil sect so that there wouldn't be calamity in the future." Prince Tohjaya declared righteously. He was feeling very indignant.

"Ah, Brother Kamandhanu. If not for your timely arrival. We are afraid that we would be death without knowing anything. What will happen to Singhasari if the news of two princes died at the same time? Wouldn't it create an uproar? Peoples from outside the kingdom will look down on us." Prince Tohjaya continued to grumbled.

The trio listening to the blabbering of Prince Tohjaya, while Marissa commenting inwardly. "What do you expect your Father Emperor will do when he was the one who send that assassin? Would he be willing to eradicate a sect which had became his ally? If he eradicate them, I'm afraid, the rumour about the immoral conduct of the Emperor would be spread far and wide. Just because Anusapati wasn't his son, he want to kill him?"

"I wonder what the reaction of the Emperor when his assassination attempt was failed? I wonder what will Anusapati do in the future when he knows he isn't the bilogical son of the emperor, but the son of Tunggul Ametung, the previous Emperor of the Kingdom of Kadiri with the current Empress, Ken Dedes? Would he do the same thing with what the current Emperor does to him? Or react the same just like in the real history of Nusantara?" Marissa mumbled the questions, but she didn't realize that the telepathy tool which connected her with Kamandhanu was still active.

"What did you say?" Arya Kamandhanu was very surprised. Is that for real? Is what she just said true? "How did you know all of that information?" He asked.

"Ah!" Marissa suddenly came back to her sense. 'Darn it! I forgot to deactivate the tool.'

"I...well, I just knew it. I couldn't tell you right now. Heheh... Did you forget? Our relationship is not there, yet. But if you become my boyfriend, I could consider to tell you about the information I have. What do you think?" Marissa said cheekily as she winked her chicken eyes a few times, intending to flirt, but the scene became hilarious, instead.

Hearing that respond, Arya Kamandhanu almost choked. What kind of answer is that?

"This woman..." He groaned while unknowingly his ears had became red because of embarrassment. 'Can she talk in a normal way?' He thought. Although he found the term 'Boyfriend' was strange and unfamiliar, he could related it with the word 'fianceé'.

"Hahahahaha... Did you just blush? Have you been in love with me?" Marissa teased and softly pecked the cheek of Kamandhanu with her chicken beak.

"Get lost!" Arya Kamandhanu almost lost his temper and glared at the little black chicken which was perching atop his shoulder.

Meanwhile, the mind of the two princes has been churned furiously at the sight of the human and chicken, who looked like they were staring at each other and flirted.

The two princes glanced at each other and immediately understood the meaning of their glances.

'It can't be right? Young Master Dhanu, and that little black chicken...? Has the brain of Young Master Dhanu got damaged because he had been failed at a love relationship for twice?' They thought inwardly, but immediately shook that notion. It was impossible! It didn't seem that Young Master Dhanu had became crazy. He still looked normal, right?

"Well, let's bring this two evils to the palace first. We still need to attend the Big Feast tonight." Prince Anusapati reminded.

"Alright."

...

The night sky was so 'bright'. A lots of stars were twinkling merrily, while the moon was hanging elegantly atop a single cloud on the sky. The paper lanterns were hanging everywhere. Many wooden chairs, tables, and benches were put in a scattered but neatly way at the huge land in front of the palace.

Strong and huge pillars were planted firmly inside the ground, while peoples were sitting, walking back and forth, picking some cakes or wine, talking merrily to each other, teasing, laughing, and even gossiping in a low voices.

...

Inside a secret chamber of the palace...

"Useless trash..." The voice of the Emperor, Ken Arok could be heard as he threw something like a porcelain pot to the floor.

Two man in a complete black attire were kneeling, trembling profusely. They both lowered their head, afraid to aggravated the anger of that son of heaven.

"Tell me, how can't you fail to finish a brat who only at the level of Third Stage, Grand Master Warrior? While you two, one is the early level of Core Formation, while the other is at the middle level." The Emperor asked, full of anger.

"My apologize, Your Majesty. Please forgive this subject. We didn't know that Arya Kamandhanu would appear out of nowhere. I was caught of guard at that time when the little black chicken jumped on me, giving a chance for that Kamandhanu fellow to paralyse me. Brother Yan was also defeated by him easily." The second assassin explained with a trembling voice.

"Did they knew who you are and who ordered you to assassinate that little b*stard?" The Emperor asked again.

"They only thought it was Master Tong who plan this assassination because of the token." The second assassin responded.

"Stupid! How come you brought a token that show your identity when you want to kill? You are so full of yourself, heh? Thinking that everything will be going smoothly." Emperor Ken Arok was getting angrier as time passed. Especially when he thought that he had lost that Gandring Sword. It was a miscalculation on his side.

He only wanted to break that curse that plagued him by using that sword to kill Anusapati based on the words of the Great Oracle. But now, that sword had gone missing. He had asked the trio previously, but they said they only found the common swords, money, and pills. How could he not angry at all?

"I will give you one more chance. I don't care what method you would use, but you could only bring success, not a failure. I will only give you three days at most to do this. Kill that Anusapati brat for me, so you can redeem yourself. Find that 'sword' first before finishing his live with that 'sword'. If that Kamandhanu fellow comes to meddle in your way, just finish him as well. If you fail again, don't blame me for being rude." The Emperor then waved his hand, indicating that those two could withdraw from the room.

After receiving the permission, the assassins duo withdraw from that secret chamber.

"Arya Kamandhanu..." The Emperor took a seat and beat that wooden table beside him with his fingertips. "Will you become an unstable variable in my plan? Is it okay to kill you? But that three old men behind you are a bit troublesome. Sigh, no matter. Anyway, even if you die, that three old men could only blame it for that stupid Tong Bajil, or that 'person'..." He muttered.

~~~~~

Quizz:

What would happen next on the 'Night Feast'?

A. There would be assassination once again

B. A group of evil peoples would make a ruckus

C. Important characters would show up

D. There would be interesting show, such as dance, games, sparing contest, etc

E. Nothing will happen. The feast is gonna be very plain and boring.