Chapter 35 : weakness
When the warriors confronted these mutant beasts, they discovered something astonishing.
The mutant beasts had gained control over strange kinds of power something the warriors had never even imagined was possible.
These powers included fire, water, and other elemental abilities, along with some extraordinary skills that were impossible to fully describe in words.
Many warriors, without fully understanding the situation, tried to fight alone and were brutally killed.
In this way, many battles took place sometimes the mutant beasts were killed, and sometimes the warriors lost their lives.
Yet no solution could be found to completely eliminate these mutant beasts.
But one day, a shepherd went into the forest to graze his sheep. Suddenly, he noticed that one of his sheep was drinking a strange liquid.
When he looked closely at it, he began to sweat in fear, because it was not water at all it was demonic blood.
Before the shepherd could stop it or even think of what to do, the sheep slowly began to transform into a mutant.
Its eyes turned from black to red, the small horns grew larger and became black, and the sheep's wool changed from white to green, becoming thick like a vine, with leaves starting to grow from it. Apart from this, its entire body turned red.
Seeing this, the shepherd was trembling in fear. Because of the terror, he could not even stand properly and was shaking violently.
He was almost certain that his end was near; all he could do was pray to God, hoping somehow to escape from there. He was clutching a wooden stick in his hands.
By now, the sheep had completely transformed. It turned and looked at its master, and there was not even a trace of affection left in its eyes for him.
The mutant sheep slowly began moving toward the shepherd. From the tangled vines on its back, one vine extended and crept toward the shepherd's neck.
By now, he had almost given up. He was completely convinced that he would not survive. It felt absurd to him that the life of a shepherd would be taken by his own sheep.
He closed his eyes, yet he still clung to life, and so he held his stick out in front of him.
For some time, there was complete silence. The shepherd sensed that nothing was happening he was still alive. So he opened his eyes.
He saw that the vine that had been moving toward him had stopped in midair. It could not advance even an inch, as if something ahead was harmful to it.
The mutant sheep also could not move from its place. It stared at the shepherd with rage-filled eyes, as though warning him, "Do not come near me."
The shepherd could not understand what was happening. He looked at the stick he was holding in his hands and realized that all of this was happening because of that stick, but he still could not understand the reason behind it.
Suddenly, something came back to his mind. His mother had once taken this stick and dipped it in the water that had been used to bathe Lord Mahadev's Shiva Lingam, and it was that very stick she had given to him.
Now he understood that the weakness of all these mutant beasts was any object that had been dipped in water used for bathing the gods.
Completely fearless now, he began walking toward his mutant sheep, and the mutant sheep, terrified, started stepping backward.
There was a tree behind the mutant sheep, because of which it could not move any farther back. It had no other option but to realize that its master had come very close to it.
Without wasting any time, the shepherd touched the sheep with the stick. He waited to see what would happen next whether the mutant sheep would die, or return to its normal form.
But nothing happened as he had expected. The mutant sheep neither died nor returned to its normal form. Instead, its eyes changed from red to green, and now, looking at it, it felt as though it was no longer under the control of demonic energy.
When the mutant sheep came back to its senses, it looked at its master. Because of becoming a mutant, the sheep had become extremely intelligent, but not violent.
When it noticed the deep wound on its master's hand, it immediately understood that the injury had been caused because of it.
The sheep moved toward its master. Seeing this, the shepherd thought that even the stick was no longer working and that his end was now certain.
But nothing like that happened. The mutant sheep began licking its master's wound.
A miracle occurred green energy, filled with healing power, appeared over the shepherd's wound.
Within a few minutes, the wound healed completely. Even after witnessing this miracle with his own eyes, the shepherd could hardly believe it.
The shepherd checked his wounded hand again and again. Even now, he could not believe it, but he was forced to accept the truth.
Then he looked at his mutant sheep. In the sheep's eyes, there was shame for what it had done.
If the mutant sheep could speak, it would surely have said, "Master, please forgive me."
The shepherd embraced his mutant sheep. Feeling its master's closeness, the sheep thought that its master had forgiven it.
Suddenly, the shepherd pulled out a knife from his waist and slashed the sheep's throat.
The mutant sheep could not believe that the love its master had shown was all an act.
The shepherd kept striking the mutant sheep's neck again and again, because he was not sure whether the sheep would die in a single blow or not.
Finally, the mutant sheep's head fell to the ground. At the moment of death, there was rage in the mutant sheep's eyes.
"Ha ha ha! Today my life was saved, and this wicked sheep lost its life. One benefit of this is that I have now learned the weakness of these other mutant beasts as well. I can inform the king about this and receive a handsome reward."
Thinking about this, the shepherd began to laugh in a strange manner.
After this, taking the mutant sheep's body and its severed head in his hands as proof, instead of returning straight to his village, he set off toward the palace.
When the shepherd reached the court inside the palace, he told all these things to the king of the realm.
Hearing this, the king was greatly pleased and offered him a glass of wine.
At first, the shepherd refused, but because the king insisted again and again, he finally drank the wine.
"What is happening? Why am I having trouble breathing?"
The shepherd began to struggle to breathe, his body started turning blue, and he suddenly collapsed onto the floor. White foam began to come out of his mouth.
The shepherd realized that he had been poisoned, and that the king had mixed the poison into the wine.
He could not speak, but he looked at the king with eyes full of accusation and complaint.
The king looked at him with contempt,"Hmm, I did not want to kill you, but who told you to learn such priceless information? If you were to tell this to others, the news would lose all its value. That is why you must die."
The shepherd was now completely dead. The king summoned his soldiers and ordered them to dispose of the body somewhere.
All of this was being watched by the shepherd's soul in anger. A short while ago, his body had been there, yet no matter how hard he tried, he could not enter it again.
He was not ready to accept that he had died, and again and again he tried to return to his body.
"Don't take it, don't take it don't take my body!"
When he saw the soldiers dragging his body away, he screamed with all his might, but no one could hear him.
"Accept your death, a man's voice came from behind him, You have no other choice. If you accept it, you won't suffer any further pain,"
"Who are you?"
He turned back and saw two figures standing there, dressed in black clothes and wearing helmets with two horns on their heads.
"After death, whom does a soul see? Can't you guess? We are Yama's messengers, the Yamdoots, who have come to take you," one of them said with a smile.
"No, I'm not going anywhere. I want to go back into my body. I don't want to die,"
the shepherd refused. The two Yamdoots looked at each other. They had dealt with many people like this before, so they had plenty of experience in how to handle such situations.
"This is the last time. Come with us quietly, otherwise we will be forced to take steps that you will not be able to endure."
Both of them warned him sharply, but the shepherd did not take it seriously. He knew that he was already dead, so he believed that nothing could harm him anymore. Because of this arrogance, he ignored the two of them.
To be continued...