"I would like to ask you once again nicely to undo the hex and work for our employer. Lest you want to regret your decision."
Leaning his body forward and placing one hand on his chin, Farrel nonchalantly asked, "Oh? Is this a threat?"
"Then let me give you a better one."
Putting his two hands on top of the table, Farrel leaned forward even more and stared at the man dead in his eyes.
"I'll give you 10 seconds to kick your own ass out before I make sure your soul will stay here forever to be used to empower more of the hexes I will be sending to your employer."
"And if you decide to go back, don't forget to tell your employer that he better prepare hundreds of shamans lest he want his throat to be filled with nails."
"10 seconds starts now."
"10"
"9"
…
The man didn't move a single bit even after hearing Farrel's stern warning and even when he started counting, the man just kept his body still and stared back at Farrel's eyes.
"5"
With his mouth saying aloud the number five, Farrel raised five of his fingers.
"3…"
*BANG!*
With one swift movement that almost went by in an instant, the man pulled out a gun from his pocket and shot the leaning Farrel right in the dead center of his forehead.
==========
In the midst of a tranquil forest, a clamorous sound of a gunshot echoed.
With a trained movement, the man took out his gun from his pocket and shot Farrel in just one flowing movement.
The distance between him and Farrel was basically nonexistent.
Shooting the gun at point-blank range, there was no way for Farrel to be able to dodge the bullet even if he was the strongest shaman in the world.
However, getting hit was one thing, but actually taking damage was a whole different concept altogether.
The bullet did hit Farrel right in the middle of his forehead.
But what was supposed to look like a murder scene where Farrel's head was blasted open by the bullet didn't happen.
*clink*
The sound of something small hitting the floor resounded in the silent room.
The bullet that was supposed to break Farrel's skull open had only left a red mark on Farrel's forehead before it fell on the floor beside him.
It only looked as if someone gave Farrel a flick on his forehead.
The man stayed silent, his eyes jerked open as he repeatedly looked back and forth from his gun to Farrel's forehead.
Staring at the man in front of him with a smirk plastered on his face, Farrel spoke as if nothing happened,
"Come on, you should do your research before deciding to kill someone! Even I still do that to this day!"
Mumbling a few words while putting the pitch-black coffee right in front of his mouth, Farrel said several sentences worth of words in just a second before he threw the content of the coffee forward.
The man who was still processing what had just happened was late to react to Farrel's sudden movement and although he tried to dodge, the pitch-black coffee still hit him right in the face.
The coffee wasn't anything scalding hot and it only felt lukewarm to his face.
However, the second the coffee covered the man's eyes, the man's world suddenly turned black as a feeling of dread embraced him.
The man repeatedly tried to force his eyes to open to drive away the total darkness that he was seeing, but no matter how hard he tried, all he could see was still darkness, pure darkness.
The man jerked his body up, trying to move away wherever he could and flee from the darkness.
He felt his knees hitting an object, he felt his arms crashing against something hard and rather sharp like the edge of a table, but still, no matter what kind of pain he felt when his body moved, the darkness stayed with him.
In the pitch darkness, a voice suddenly came to his ears.
"Come on now, don't make a mess of my house."
He didn't know where the voice came from since his senses had been disoriented ever since the black coffee hit him, but he knew that he couldn't just stay still.
Pulling the trigger of the gun that he still had in his hand repeatedly, the man flailed around everywhere, shooting in all kinds of directions, praying that one of the bullets would hit Farrel.
After the barrages of gunshots, silence descended once again as the man was finally able to calm down.
'Did I do it? Did I kill that crazy shaman…?' A thought crossed the man's head.
Unfortunately, a whisper that he heard right beside his ears proved him to be wrong.
"Boo!"
*Crack*
"AARGH!"
The hand that was holding onto the gun as if his life depended on it suddenly lost all strength as an unbearable pain struck him on his shoulder.
The sound of the gun hitting the floor below should be audible to the man's ears, but nothing other than his own pained screams filled the man's entire head.
However, even the screams couldn't numb what the man was about to feel next.
*Crack*
Another crack was heard in the midst of all the screams. The unending screams even stopped for a split second after the crack sounded.
But after a large thump, signaling something big had fallen to the floor, the screams continued once again, even louder than before.
Seeing the man who had one of his shoulders and shin broken currently wailing on the floor, Farrel couldn't help but shake his head.
"You should not assume that a gun could solve everything you know."
Farrel then rummaged through the man's pockets and found a simple-looking knife that was seemingly made out of pure silver.
He held it with such carefulness and wary as he put the knife on the table that had been kicked away by the man's outburst earlier.
"It really is a nasty thing," Farrel commented as he looked at the knife on the table.
'It's a strongly blessed knife, that one could hurt you real bad.' The ethereal voice resounded once again in Farrel's head.
"Yes, and it's not something that was only doused in holy water. That thing has been blessed by either an incredibly faithful religious leader or dozens of weaker ones."
"Well, fortunately, this one is stupid enough to not use them and decided to use the good old gun instead."
Farrel then walked back towards the man who had finally stopped screaming after his throat went sore.
He mumbled some words before rubbing the coffee sediments off of the man's face and sunglasses.
The man who had lost his eyesight then regained it, and he could finally see Farrel's face who stood right beside him.
With the same smile that he used to welcome the man earlier, Farrel said a different thing this time,
"This is your final chance. Either you will go back to your employer and tell him what I told you or your soul stays here to hang around with my ghosts forever."
The man didn't even budge when Farrel threatened him earlier, but after getting his eyesight stolen and his limbs broken, the man had completely turned over a new leaf now.
Without a second delay, he gave Farrel his reply.
"Yes! I will give him your message without fail!"
Without changing the expression on his face, Farrel replied before then walking back to his usual bamboo chair.
"Good. Now get out."
One of his shins was broken and his whole right hand was limp due to his broken shoulder, but the man forced himself up, very slowly and painfully dragging himself out of Farrel's house.
The pain assaulted him every second, almost dragging him back down to the ground and telling him to stop moving.
But just the thought of staying in the shaman's house for a second longer was enough to shut all the pain up and gave the man the strength to drag his broken-down body out.
"That sure felt good. I haven't exercised for a long time."
Farrel expected an answer from the giant ghost that stayed beside him wherever he went, but the ghost unexpectedly stayed silent and said nothing.
"Bahuwirya? What's wrong?"
Now that he asked, the answer soon entered his mind.
'The ghosts in the forest are fleeing. There must be something wrong.'
"Hmmm? I did feel the forest was slightly off this morning, but I don't know what happened."
After thinking about it for a quick second, Farrel commanded, "Go ahead and find out what is happening in the forest, report back to me before doing anything."
Without giving him a reply, the house-sized ghost left Farrel's side and flew away toward the deeper parts of the forest that circled Farrel's home.
He saw the limp man had finally made it out of his front door and the door had been closed tight by one of his other ghosts.
There wasn't anything strange, but Farrel had a weird nagging feeling that he didn't know the origin of.
Hence why he sent his strongest ghost out to see what happened.
If it was him, then Farrel wouldn't have to worry about other shamans using the giant ghost against him since he had a blood contract with that ghost that prevented them from betraying each other.
Farrel tried relaxing on his bamboo chair, but something just didn't feel right.
He then walked up to his window and stared at the seemingly endless towering wall of green and dark brown.
He didn't find anything, but he kept looking and his eyes darted around everywhere.
And after a quarter of a minute had passed, he finally found something.
Out of the tall trees and thick bushes, humans started to pour out from the forest.
At first, Farrel only raised his eyebrows and did nothing other than observe what they were about to do.
He even thought about causing another mass hysteria among those people with the dozens of ghosts residing inside of him.
However, when the humans came to view and he took a good look at their attires, cold sweats began to appear on his back as he froze still in place.
'That's why the ghosts are fleeing the forest… It's because of them…'
Wearing white robes that covered their upper bodies down to their ankles, holding books that made Farrel want to puke, and also a holy item in each and every one of their hands, dozens of religious leaders were now circling around Farrel's house.
Before long, murmurs, melodious sounds of praises, and a rich holy aura started assaulting Farrel's house from all directions as the religious leaders began their prayers to their god.
Farrel had his encounters with religious leaders before while he was still active in searching for the strength to become the strongest shaman, and there were some of them that he couldn't touch no matter how strong he had become.
And although the vibes that these religious leaders gave off weren't anything like that and he was sure that he could deal with them one on one with enough time, that wasn't the case right now.
With dozens of them showing up at the same, prepared with holy items in hand, there was only so much he could do.
The ghost residing within him began to stir as they felt their whole body burning from all the prayers and holy aura assaulting them.
And it only got stronger after each passing second as the circle of religious leaders came closer and closer to his house.
Farrel wanted to try and physically run from his house, away from all the religious leaders and prayers.
However, the fact that he could even still stand was already a miracle.
The dozens of ghosts that resided within him had all gone into an outrage, causing his body, both physically and spiritually, to descend into chaos.
He pushed down the puke that was threatening to go out of his throat and forced his feet to be straight even when his head was hit by a very dreadful migraine that made his world spin.
With each passing second the prayers got closer to him, Farrel's condition had gotten worse and worse and he now needed to put his hands on the wall just to keep himself half-standing.
And right when the prayers were directly outside of his walls, Farrel had already kneeled down, his stomach's content dirtied his shirt and feet as he couldn't push them down anymore.
Just a few moments before Farrel completely lost consciousness and fell face-first to his own puke, the door to his house burst open and half a dozen men wearing sunglasses and black suits ran inside.
On the very back of those men, the limp man was there, his stained sunglasses were already gone and Farrel could see his eyes staring at him still with a tinge of horror and fear.
But as the other men walked inside and nothing happened to them, the fear in the limp man's eyes started to disappear as he now dared to look at Farrel's half-opened eyes with a mocking gaze.
A bubbling rage seethed up from his being, pushing away the pain and chaotic mess his body was currently in.
He still couldn't find the strength to lift his body up, but with the anger-induced novocaine, Farrel was able to lift up his head and let out a death glare at the limp man.
The fear returned to the man's eyes when he saw Farrel's eyes and he wanted to walk away right that second.
However, the man couldn't do anything when Farrel suddenly raised his hand towards him and motioned it as if he was gripping something very tightly.
The man who wanted to run away suddenly froze as he felt a tremendous force pressing down on his neck, cutting off the air in his lungs and feeling as if his neck was on the verge of breaking.
He couldn't say anything due to his strangled neck, but the gasps and the incomprehensible sounds he made definitely alerted the other men of his situation.
"Shoot him!"
The leader of the men shouted before dozens of bullets from 6 different guns all assaulted Farrel's head and heart. And with the ghosts suppressed by the holy aura, there was nothing enhancing Farrel's body.
After the shots were fired, the limp man was finally free from being strangled albeit the visible bruised, purple hand mark on his neck.
And finally, Farrel, the strongest shaman on planet Earth, fell limp to the floor with holes both in his skull and heart.