Old Rivals New Life

The power of example was boundless.

At first, some people might have been furious. Seeing the Sage Akumali they revered get hurt, they wanted to strike back.

But as Akumali soothed them, and they watched him calmly face the person assaulting him, their hearts gradually settled. They simply watched.

At first, the entire park square was somewhat noisy, but by the end, only silence remained.

The anger in their hearts was dissolved by a force they did not even know the source of. They suddenly understood the tolerance Akumali had always spoken of. They understood what true tolerance was.

Tolerance was not something spoken with the mouth, but something demonstrated through action.

Smack! Another slap landed. One side of Akumali's face had already swollen, the skin seeming almost transparent. Blood vessels continued spreading across it, as if half his face would split open with just a little more force.

He remained perfectly calm. The pain did not alter his expression as he looked at his attacker as ordinarily as ever.

He did not tremble, but his attacker did. When everyone watched him with such calm eyes, he felt a kind of fear.

If these people had been angry or attacked him, he would not have been as frightened as he was now. He would have mocked their beliefs as nothing but dogshit.

But they did nothing. They did not seek revenge or stop him. They did not even curse him. They merely watched, and the pressure on him grew heavier and heavier, until the hand he had raised could no longer come down.

This was a confrontation on the level of the mind, a contest between souls. Without firm conviction and the desire to destroy everything, he could never defeat someone who had completed his own redemption.

Under Akumali's calm