The air in the Ponorogo square that afternoon was thick enough to choke a man, as if the very oxygen had been incinerated by the mounting tension at the center of the arena. Thousands of pairs of eyes were fixed on the two figures who had become the absolute center of the universe: Liu Ko and Jaka Pradana. The rapid, rhythmic thrumming of Chinese drums clashed with the frantic heartbeats of the spectators, creating a symphony that was as intoxicating as it was terrifying.
"Begin!" the referee shouted, and in an instant, the heavy silence shattered into a storm of violence.
The duel exploded with a terrifying intensity. Liu Ko moved like a bolt of white lightning; his stiff Kung Fu uniform snapped and billowed with every surgical strike he launched. His flurry of punches was aimed with lethal precision at Dhana’s chest, forcing the young man into a layered, desperate defense. But Dhana was no easy prey. As a left-handed fighter, he possessed an unusual angle of attack—a tactical surprise that left Liu Ko momentarily overwhelmed in the opening minutes.
Dhana utilized the legendary Langkah Silat Ponorogo—low, fluid, and explosive. He glided across the hardened earth, ducking beneath the sweep of Liu Ko’s palm before launching a counter-strike from a blind angle.
"You think your peasant techniques are enough to take her away?" Liu Ko snarled amidst the cacophony of their exchange.
Dhana offered no reply. He focused entirely on his opponent’s shifting weight, though deep inside his mind, a warning bell began to toll. Exactly as the fight entered its tenth minute, the disaster he had feared finally arrived. The agony he had tried to suppress in his left wrist erupted like an inferno, searing through his nerves all the way to his shoulder. Every time he attempted a parry, his vision blurred from the blinding pain, and his unshakeable foundation began to falter.
Liu Ko, with the keen, predatory eyes of an eagle, did not miss the shift. He saw Dhana’s left shoulder drop and his movements lose their explosive edge.
"What is the matter, Pembarong? Is the weight of your sins finally too much to bear?" Liu Ko hissed, before raining a barrage of strikes specifically targeting Dhana’s weakened left side.
Dhana staggered. His body was drenched in sweat and grit, his breath coming in ragged wheezes, and his defense was shredded to ribbons. In the front row of the crowd, Liu Mei gripped the fabric of her dress so tightly her knuckles turned white. She wanted to scream for the fight to end, but the sound remained trapped in her constricted throat.
THE BLOODSTAINED TRAGEDY
Liu Ko saw his opening. He leaped high into the air, his right hand forming a lethal tiger-claw, preparing to deliver the final, crushing blow that would end this duel and Dhana’s life forever. Dhana could only brace himself, attempting to intercept the strike with the last of the strength in his right arm.
But history would not allow the duel to end with honor.
DARR!
A deafening explosion ripped through the afternoon air. The sound did not come from the collision of flesh and bone, but from the cold barrel of a rifle. A musket ball hissed from a concealed location on the balcony of the colonial building, piercing the air and burying itself deep within Liu Ko’s chest.
Liu Ko’s body was jerked backward in mid-air. His eyes widened as he stared at the Ponorogo sky, now beginning to blush with the hues of twilight, as if questioning the blatant injustice that had just transpired. He hit the ground with a sickening thud in the center of the arena, his life-force vanishing even before his body came to a complete rest.
Chaos erupted instantly. The hysterical screams of the crowd clashed with the arrogant thud of marching boots. Before the survivors could comprehend the horror, more than twenty Dutch soldiers emerged from the shadows of the colonial buildings, their rifles leveled and ready.
"Fire!" a cold voice commanded.
Without a single word of warning, the colonial troops unleashed a volley of lead into the front ranks—directly toward Liu Mei’s family. Liu Lai, the patriarch who had spent his life trying to bridge the gap between two worlds, was killed instantly in his seat alongside the rest of his kin. Blood sprayed, soaking the vibrant red lanterns that now fell to the ground to be trampled into the mud.
Through the suffocating haze of gunpowder smoke, Sergeant Van Den Bosch walked slowly past the sprawling corpses. He did not look surprised; on the contrary, his face radiated the cold satisfaction of a victor. He stopped directly in front of Dhana and Ki Sumo, who remained paralyzed in shock. Van Den Bosch offered a sharp, piercing look, accompanied by a cunning, triumphant smile and a small, provocative nod—as if they were partners who had just completed a grand task together.
THE SHATTERING OF TRUST
"KO! FATHER!"
Liu Mei ran into the center of the arena, screaming hysterically until her voice cracked. She fell to her knees, cradling her brother’s blood-soaked body. Her world had been pulverized into dust in a matter of seconds. The hope of uniting two cultures was now buried under a mountain of her family’s corpses.
In the midst of her soul-crushing grief, Mei looked up. There, she saw a sight that destroyed the last remnants of her spirit: the Dutch leader standing so close to Dhana, wearing a secret, knowing smile as if they were old comrades-in-arms. In Mei’s mind, fractured by trauma and grief, only one logical conclusion remained: Dhana had betrayed her.
She became convinced that Dhana had conspired with the Dutch to annihilate the Liu bloodline so that no one would remain to block their path—or perhaps to seize control of the town entirely. Mei stood up slowly. Her face was as pale as a shroud, but her eyes blazed with a rage so pure and frozen it made Dhana shiver with primal fear.
"Mei... this is not what it looks like..." Dhana’s voice trembled as he tried to take a step toward her.
But his movement was halted by a gaze of absolute hatred. Without a single word, Mei looked at Dhana for the last time—a look that incinerated every sweet memory they had ever shared at Lake Ngebel. She turned and walked away, leaving the field that had become a mass grave for her tradition and her love.
Dhana could only sink to his knees in the blood-slicked arena, while Van Den Bosch let out a soft, mocking laugh behind him. He had lost his love, and in that moment, he realized with a sickening clarity that he had been nothing more than a pawn in a game far larger and more foul than he could have ever imagined.
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