Chapter 44

Samuel

The heavy silence in the little house felt suffocating, each passing second ticking by like a death knell. Jon could feel sweat beading on his forehead as Han's piercing gaze stayed locked on him from across the battered table.

"Ah, uh, it- it..."

Jon's words faltered into an awkward stammer, mouth suddenly dry as a desert. Goddammit. How am I this unlucky?

The frustrated thought echoed through his mind as he fought to keep his expression neutral, putting on his most hapless, innocent smile for the old man scrutinizing him. But Han didn't seem fazed, his weathered features set in an unreadable mask.

With a weary sigh, Han finally broke the tense quiet. "A few days ago, there was an attack on a hidden base of the Demonic Cult," he stated matter-of-factly. "Barely two days hike from this village."

Jon felt his stomach twist into a tight knot, swallowing hard. Han showed no reaction, continuing his measured cadence.

"I heard they were conducting some kind of research there...attempting to summon a powerful creature from what the rumors claim."

One gnarled hand absently patted the shaggy head of Big Dawg, the dog panting happily beside Han. But the old man's eyes never left Jon, watchful as a hawk.

Crap, I see where this is going, Jon thought with a sinking feeling. He could envision the trap closing around him with every word from Han's lips.

"And then, not long after that incident..." Han let the words hang pregnant in the air. "You arrive here in our humble village, seeking sanctuary."

It wasn't phrased as an accusation, not outright. But the implication hovered like a stormcloud over Jon's head regardless. He opened his mouth, some reflexive denial ready to spill out.

But he stopped himself. Getting caught in a lie now could sink him entirely with this canny old man. Han had already demonstrated an almost preternatural ability to sniff out deception - denials and excuses would only damn Jon further in his eyes before he'd even properly taken the man's measure.

No, a more cautious approach seemed wiser for now. Feel out exactly how much Han suspected about the demonic cult's activities and his own potential involvement. Let the old man dangle the bait a bit further before deciding how to steer this delicate exchange.

After all, the unavoidable truth about his otherworldly origins had to stay buried at all costs - if Han learned that revelation, the consequences didn't bear considering. Jon had already gotten a haunting preview of the Cultists' unbridled zeal and depravity first hand.

So rather than panicking into a hasty lie bound to unravel, Jon settled back with a disarming smile, hoping to project an air of honest curiosity as he regarded the impenetrable Han across the table's dinged surface.

Game on, old man. Let's see where this little game of pretenses leads...

At Jon's attempt at nonchalance, Han...smiled. A thin, humorless twist of the lips that sent a chill down Jon's spine.

I do not like this, Jon thought warily.

"Your pupils are dilated," Han stated coolly. "Respirations increased, heart rate elevated. You're perspiring despite the mild temperature."

He paused, letting the observations hang in the air as he pinned Jon with that searing stare.

"All these indicate that you are distinctly...not calm about this situation, young man. Are you testing the waters perhaps? Gauging how much I may or may not know already?"

Jon struggled to maintain his disarming facade, mentally scrambling for a way to deflect or downplay the old cultivator's unnervingly accurate read on his physical stress responses.

"Pfft, no, not at all," he replied with an uneasy laugh, aiming for a sardonic tone. "I just...you know, you're a bit intimidating is all. And the way you hit me with that grain of rice earlier? I don't wish for my face to meet your fist next time, sir. So you must understand if I'm a bit stressed here."

The attempt at self-deprecating humor fell flat. Han simply chuckled, the sound devoid of any mirth.

"That is true. Forgive my...excessive tactics. But you must understand, I needed to let you know just how trapped you were in this situation. To impress upon you the futility of any attempted lies or deceptions with me."

Jon felt his throat tighten as Han's eyes took on a predatory glint, boring into him like a hawk evaluating its prey.

"Your heart rate is increasing again," the old man observed dispassionately. "Since you seem too stubborn to simply tell me who and what you are outright...why don't we revisit that peculiar word you uttered earlier when you first awoke? This....'Fook' you spoke of?"

A tremor of unease rippled through Jon as Han deftly turned the conversational reins. He willed himself to steady his ragged breathing, fingers flexing anxiously against the table's battered surface.

What game was this inscrutable old man playing at? The relentless questioning, this prodding for any weakness or inconsistency to seize upon and leverage – it was unnerving in the extreme. Especially when Jon had only just regained consciousness after thinking he would explode in a near future.

It had been a long day.

His patience fraying, Jon sensed he would have to decide quickly – either attempt to derail this entire line of questioning through obfuscation and redirection...or perhaps take a calculated risk. A crumb of truth to Han, no matter how oblique, in exchange for a momentary reprieve from the suffocating interrogation. To buy himself some desperately needed time to gauge the true extent of the old master's knowledge and shape his own narrative accordingly.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Leaning forward, Jon met Han's intense stare with a measured one of his own, letting some of his bravado slip in a carefully cultivated display of wearied exasperation.

"Alright, out with it then, sir. What exactly do you want from me here?"

Han's gaze took on a distant cast, as if peering through the weathered house's walls and into some bygone era flickering to life in his mind's eye.

"Eighteen hundred years ago," he began in that same unhurried cadence. "I encountered a most...peculiar individual on the far side of this world."

The casual way Han spoke of such an unfathomable span of time momentarily robbed Jon of his powers of speech. He knew cultivators possessed longevity far beyond normal human capacities through their cultivation practices. But to state such an immense stretch of decades as nothing more than a curiosity?

"He was a strange man," Han continued, seeming not to notice Jon's stunned expression. "Quite powerful in his own right yet possessed of an arrogance that bordered on hubris at times."

One gnarled finger idly traced the grooved whorls in the pitted tabletop as the old man's eyes grew even more inward-focused, reliving some distant memory.

"He did not speak our language - in fact, his native tongue sounded like nothing I'd ever encountered before across all my years and travels. Yet we found ways to bridge that linguistic gulf over the decades he spent in the company of myself and my brothers-in-arms."

Jon's breath seized in his chest as realization blossomed, icy tendrils of dismay snaking down his spine. Surely Han could not be implying...?

"By the time we parted ways, I found I had come to consider him a cherished friend," Han said, his expression taking on a wistful cast. "Though even at our closeness, there remained baffling customs and idioms unique to his homeland that he would occasionally let slip."

The old cultivator's lips twisted in a rueful smile as his piercing gaze flicked up to Jon once more, holding the younger man's widened eyes with a look of terrible, profound understanding.

"Peculiar phrases and strange curses like...'Fook.' And that other word you let slip earlier at the festival – 'Temineituo' was it?" Han shook his head in bemusement. "In all my centuries, I could never quite determine the meaning behind such bizarre locutions."

A tremor wracked Jon's frame as the truth Han laid bare washed over him in an unstoppable torrent. All this time, Han had known.

"His name was Samuel," Han continued, the weight of melancholy aged loss shadowing his craggy features. "One of the fabled Five Kings of Retribution. A being of staggering power and prowess..."

He trailed off, features etched in sorrow as he shook his head slowly.

"Yet even he eventually fell in battle against this world's myriad dangers, despite all his formidable abilities. An ignoble end for one who had walked as a peer to gods and demi-gods before finding himself cast across the impassable cosmic void."

Jon could only gape wordlessly, the truth he had so desperately sought to conceal laid pitilessly bare. Han's inscrutable gaze pinned him like a vivisected insect as he leaned forward, mouth curved in a sad, knowing smile.

"Do you see now where I am going with this, child? There is no need for further deception between us. I know precisely who – and what – you are."

One weathered hand lifted from the table with glacial slowness to give a gesture of acceptance, entreating honesty in turn.

"An outworlder, like Samuel before you. Another traveler ripped from your native realm and finding yourself adrift in ours through means and mechanisms unknowable."

Seconds became small eternities in the thrumming silence blanketing the cottage's dim interior. Jon's throat worked uselessly, but no sound would emerge past the lump of mingled terror and awe constricting his voice.

At last, Han's piercing stare intensified to one final, unblinking proclamation.

"I have observed you carefully since the moment you stumbled here, outworlder. Now, at last, you know that I see you."

Jon's mouth opened, then closed, his words dying before they could escape. His eyes widened, darting back and forth as if trying to physically grasp the enormity of Han's revelation. He wasn't alone. He wasn't the first.

A glimmer of hope flickered in his chest. If others had come before, maybe there was a way back. His thoughts raced to his mother, her warm smile, the scent of her cooking. But then Han's words echoed in his mind - "1800 years ago" - and that fragile hope wavered.

Jon's brow furrowed, his fingers unconsciously drumming against his leg as he pieced it together. Samuel knew about Terminator? A movie from the 1980s? But Han had met him nearly two millennia ago. The implications made Jon's head spin.

Time. It wasn't a straight line between worlds. The realization washed over him in a cold wave. His heart began to race, thundering in his ears. He might return home to find his mother waiting, barely a day passed. Or...

Jon's hands clenched involuntarily, his nails digging into his palms. Centuries could slip by on Earth while mere moments ticked away in this realm. The uncertainty was suffocating. How did it work? How could he control it? The questions piled up, each one adding weight to the knot of anxiety in his stomach.

Before Jon could voice any of his swirling thoughts, Han's gravelly voice cut through the silence like a knife.

"You are at the center of great conflicts coming in the future, Jon Li." The old man's eyes bored into him, intense and unyielding. "For some reason, you ended up at the wrong place, at the wrong moment, arriving at the demonic cult. They think they summoned you as some sort of elixir to advance their cultivation."

Jon's head snapped up, his racing thoughts grinding to a halt. "Wait a minute," he blurted, leaning forward so suddenly he nearly lost his balance. "What do you mean they 'think' they summoned me? They weren't the reason for my presence here?"

Han's face remained impassive, but something flickered in his eyes - pity, perhaps? Or concern? "I doubt it," he said slowly, each word measured and deliberate.

A heavy silence fell between them. Jon's mind reeled, trying to process this new information. If the demonic cult hadn't brought him here, then how...?

Han's voice, when it came again, was softer, almost gentle. "Samuel arrived here in the Eastern Sea. My brothers and I were traveling to the Fenglong continent when we found him. We saved him from drowning, but we never knew how he came to be there. It was not due to a summon."

The old cultivator paused. "According to Samuel, he had been suddenly enveloped by a strange light while in his home. He spoke of a sensation of falling before finding himself in our world. We knew of no ritual involved in his coming here, no summoning circle or arcane invocation that could have caused it."

Han's gaze refocused on Jon, sharp and penetrating. "This is why I'm not entirely certain the Demonic Cult truly summoned you. While it's possible they've developed new techniques in the centuries since Samuel's arrival, the circumstances of your appearance bear some similarities to his experience."

He leaned forward, his voice lowering. "That said, the timing of your arrival and its proximity to the Cult's activities can't be ignored. It's possible they did summon you, perhaps inadvertently or through means they don't fully understand themselves. Or perhaps there are other forces at work that we've yet to comprehend."

Jon slumped back, feeling as if the ground had shifted beneath him once again. The cult, the summoning - it had been his one solid explanation in this bizarre world. Now even that was torn away.

Han's weathered face softened as he watched Jon's internal struggle. The old man leaned forward, his voice gentle but firm. "Calm down."

Jon's frantic eyes snapped to Han's, searching desperately for answers, for something solid to cling to in this sea of uncertainty. His breath came in short, sharp bursts, his shoulders tense with barely contained panic.

Han sighed. "Why don't you first tell me your story, boy?" He spread his gnarled hands in a gesture of openness. "I do not have all the knowledge about this situation, but some information about you might help us both clear the fog."

Jon's grip on the edge of his seat loosened slightly. He took a deep, shuddering breath, feeling the air fill his lungs. As he exhaled, some of the tension seemed to leave his body. Han's calm presence acted like an anchor, grounding him in the present moment.

He could be honest with Han, Jon realized. This ancient cultivator might be able to help him find a solution, or at least make sense of what was happening. Jon nodded, mostly to himself, and began to speak.

"I was just casually walking to work when I saw a guy in an alley..."