Thick, deep-red blood dripped one drop at a time from the end of the mori-cloth sash tied around Raden Said's waist, staining the sharp limestone rocks on the southern slope of Tuban. Dawn had not yet fully burst over the eastern horizon, but the sky had already turned a cold, gloomy purple. The young man's steps were unsteady, dragging as his dwindling strength gave out. His left ribs throbbed violently from the slash of Ki Tumenggung Banteng Yuda's Dragon Sword, while the traces of the Blood-Palm Technique's poison that had not yet been completely neutralized felt like icy needles driven straight into the core of his spinal marrow.
Said leaned his back against the cold limestone wall. His breath came fast, spilling out as white vapor in the chill coastal air. Far away, he could faintly hear the baying of tracking dogs and the heavy footsteps of the duchy's soldiers following his blood trail.
I must not fall here... Said whispered to himself. His voice was hoarse, his throat dry as though it had been scorched in the desert.
With trembling fingers, Said pressed down on the wound in his chest, channeling the last remnants of Suryakanta's pure energy to seal the ruptured blood vessels. The unbearable pain turned his vision blue, but his consciousness refused to collapse. He knew all too well that if he were captured in this condition, Patih Sasrabahu would execute him on the spot or use him as a tool to intimidate Duke Wilatikta.
Enduring the burning pain, Said crawled toward a small cave hollow hidden behind a clump of thorny bamboo. In the damp darkness of the cave, he tore the remains of his shirt into strips and bandaged his own wound. Every pull of the bindings felt like a razor slicing through his exposed flesh, yet not a single complaint escaped his deathly pale lips.
When the sun finally rose above the land, the soldiers' footsteps outside the hollow began to fade. They had lost Said's blood trail where it broke off across the expanse of hard limestone. Alone in the silent cave, Raden Said closed his eyes and let his body enter a brief state of spiritual penance to restore his damaged physical tissues.
Meanwhile, inside the Palace of the Duchy of Tuban, a tremendous shock like an earthquake suddenly swept through every corner of the magnificent building.
Word that Lokajaya the Outlaw—the masked criminal who had distributed dozens of tons of rice and thousands of gold coins to the poor—was none other than Raden Said himself, Crown Prince of Tuban, had reached Duke Tumenggung Wilatikta's ears.
The Grand Audience Hall, usually magnificent and imposing, was now shrouded in a suffocating aura of fear. Every official, district chief, and military commander stood in silence with his head bowed deeply. In the middle of the room, Ki Tumenggung Banteng Yuda knelt on the stone tiles, placing his Dragon Sword, still stained with dried blood, before the throne.
Duke Wilatikta sat on a golden throne, his face carved in deathly pallor. His eyes, which usually radiated the authority of leadership, were now red, holding a mixture of blazing fury, profound disappointment, and the inner devastation of a father.
To the right of the throne, Patih Sasrabahu stood with a sly face touched by a faint smile. The opportunity he had waited years for—to eliminate the crown prince and cripple the duke's influence—had finally appeared before him.
“Repeat what you said, Banteng Yuda,” Duke Wilatikta said in a very low voice, but every word struck like a sledgehammer shattering the silence. “What was the name of the criminal you encountered in Kencana Teak Forest last night?”
Banteng Yuda bent so low that his forehead touched the cold tiles. His voice trembled violently. “Forgive me... forgive me a thousand times, Your Grace. I... I witnessed it with my own eyes. When his mask came off during the battle... the man behind Lokajaya the Outlaw... was indeed Raden Said, the son of our revered lord.”
CRACK!
Duke Wilatikta slammed his hand against the armrest of the golden throne, and the carved teakwood eagle split instantly. Every official in the room recoiled in shock.
“My own flesh and blood...” Wilatikta whispered, his voice trembling with fury that held back profound anguish. “The only son I raised to succeed me and rule the land of Tuban... becoming a highway robber? Becoming a thief who disgraces his own ancestors?!”
Patih Sasrabahu stepped forward and bowed, feigning concern. “My honored Duke. This event is truly the blackest disgrace in the history of the Duchy of Tuban. The people in the countryside have begun hailing Raden Said as a hero, while the officials and our allies at the central court have begun questioning Your Grace's authority. If this matter is not resolved in accordance with the law, the authority of the Palace of Tuban will be utterly destroyed.”
“Then what do you propose, Sasrabahu?!” Wilatikta snapped, fixing his chief minister with a sharp stare.
“According to the Kutaramanawa Law Code in force throughout Java,” Patih Sasrabahu said in a cold, merciless tone, “anyone who commits an act of defiance, steals the palace's wealth, and wounds the duchy's soldiers must be sentenced to death or expelled from the duchy's territory forever, stripped of all inheritance rights and noble titles. Even if he is the son of a duke.”
At the words “death sentence” and “exile,” the atmosphere in the Grand Audience Hall froze even further. Ki Demang Jalak, Said's elderly silat teacher standing in the back row, stepped forward and bowed in supplication.
“Forgive me, Your Grace!” Ki Jalak cried in a ringing voice. “Raden Said is indeed guilty under the written law, but his actions were driven by compassion for the suffering common folk! Please reconsider his punishment, Your Grace! Do not let the duchy's only son be cast out!”
“Enough, Ki Jalak!” Duke Wilatikta cut him off as he rose from his throne. The old man slowly walked toward the large window facing the town square. His back appeared bent, as though decades of power had suddenly crushed his shoulders overnight.
Wilatikta squeezed his eyes shut. Memories of Said's childhood—when the boy first learned to hold a kris, when he laughed joyfully while running through the keputren courtyard—clashed violently with the reality that his son had now become a masked robber hunting royal wealth.
As a father, his heart screamed to protect his flesh and blood. But as a duke bound by his oath of office before the law and the central ruler, he had no other choice. Forgiving Said would destroy Tuban's entire legal order and provoke rebellion among the officials.
“Gather every soldier in the town square,” Wilatikta said after a long silence. His voice now sounded flat, stripped of all vitality. “Find Said. Bring him back to the palace... without violence. I will be the one to pass judgment on him.”
Three days passed in a tense, oppressive atmosphere.
On the fourth night, Raden Said stepped out of his hiding place in the limestone hills. His wounds had closed thanks to his extraordinary physical endurance and the restoration of his inner power through Suryakanta, though his body looked much thinner and his eyes showed profound spiritual exhaustion.
Said did not flee Tuban. Instead, with courage forged from his steadfast heart, he walked back into the Palace of the Duchy of Tuban in the dead of night. He was no longer wearing his black mori clothing or face covering. He wore a simple striped batik garment, torn in several places—without gold jewelry, without his heirloom kris, and without an escort.
When Said's figure appeared at the palace's main gate, the guards were startled and immediately surrounded him with raised spears. But Said did not resist. He walked calmly with his head held high, allowing the soldiers to escort him to the Grand Audience Hall, where his father had waited for him all night.
In the Grand Audience Hall, dim beneath the torchlight, Duke Tumenggung Wilatikta sat alone on his golden throne. No other official had been permitted to attend this deeply personal meeting between father and son.
Said walked to the center of the room, then knelt and bowed until his forehead touched the cold floor before his father.
“I have come before you, Father,” Said said in a soft yet steady voice.
Duke Wilatikta stared at his only son for a very long time. The slash wound on Said's chest was clearly visible beneath the torn striped batik, as was the gauntness of his face. Wilatikta's heart lay shattered, but he forced his expression to remain as hard as limestone.
“Why did you come back, Said?” Wilatikta asked hoarsely. “You know every soldier is hunting you. You know Patih Sasrabahu is demanding your head.”
Said slowly raised his head and looked straight into his father's tear-filled eyes.
“I did not return to ask forgiveness for my actions, Father,” Said replied firmly. “I returned to take responsibility for what I have done. I am not guilty of helping hungry people, but I realize that my actions have stained your good name and placed you in a difficult position before the law.”
Wilatikta clenched his fists on his thighs. “If you knew your actions would stain my name, why did you do it anyway?! Why didn't you speak to me as a son speaks to his father?!”
“Because you have been blinded by the walls of this palace!” Said shot back, his voice trembling with suppressed emotion. “Whenever I spoke about the people's suffering, you talked only about the duty to pay tribute and political stability! I couldn't stand by and watch people starve to death before my eyes while we wasted food inside the keputren! If this palace's law considers the people's hunger acceptable, then I would rather become its enemy than obey that law!”
“Said!” Wilatikta roared, rising from his chair with labored breaths. “You are too young and too narrow-minded to understand how difficult it is to govern a territory! Do you think stealing a few sacks of rice and handing out gold coins has made you a hero?! You have only created chaos! You have driven the district chiefs to oppress the people even more to make up their losses, and you have given Patih Sasrabahu an excuse to strengthen his forces!”
Said fell silent. His father's words struck deep into his consciousness. He began to understand the bitter truth behind them: although his actions had always been founded on pure intentions, they had created collateral consequences that brought new suffering to others.
Seeing his son silenced, Wilatikta let out a long sigh that seemed to torture his aged chest. The man stepped down from the throne's dais and approached Said, who was still kneeling.
“I have made my decision, Said,” Wilatikta said in a voice that suddenly became very soft and hollow. “To preserve the legal order of the Duchy of Tuban, and to save your life from the execution stake demanded by Patih Sasrabahu...”
Wilatikta paused, squeezing his eyes shut as a father's tears finally slipped slowly down his wrinkled cheeks.
“Starting tonight... your noble title as Raden Said is revoked. All your inheritance rights to the Duchy of Tuban are abolished. You are expelled from Tuban forever. You may never set foot in this territory again, and you may no longer call yourself the son of Tumenggung Wilatikta.”
A deadly silence descended upon the Grand Audience Hall.
Said lowered his head deeply. There was no shock, no regret, and no anger on his face. He had expected this decision from the beginning. Exile was the price he had to pay for the freedom of his soul and the safety of the people he had defended.
“I obey, Your Grace,” Said replied in a resigned voice filled with dignity. He deliberately no longer called his father “Father,” addressing him instead by his formal title—a sign that the blood bond between them had now been severed by law.
Said bowed in supplication before his father one last time. Then he slowly rose. Carrying no provisions, no heirloom kris, and without looking back, the young man turned and walked out of the Grand Audience Hall.
Duke Wilatikta stood frozen in the middle of the empty room, watching the back of his only son slowly disappear into the darkness of night. When Said's footsteps could no longer be heard, the duke sank weakly onto the cold tiles, covered his face with both hands, and wept without a sound—a ruler who had upheld the law, yet lost his own soul.
That same night, word of Raden Said's exile spread throughout every corner of the Duchy of Tuban.
Along the road to the southern city boundary gate, thousands of common folk—poor farmers, elderly widows, and small children who had once received rice and gold from Lokajaya the Outlaw's hands—stood in lines along the roadside beneath a cold drizzle. They carried neither torches nor weapons. Instead, they knelt on the wet, dusty earth.
When Said walked among them in his torn striped batik clothes and bare feet, sobs of emotion erupted from the ranks of the common people.
“Raden... don't go, Raden!” an old farmer cried, trying to kiss Said's dusty feet.
“May Gusti bless you, Angger Lokajaya! You are our savior!” a young mother sobbed as she hugged her child, who could now eat his fill thanks to Said's stolen rice.
Said paused, gazing at the faces of the common folk mourning his departure. In their eyes, he saw neither a criminal nor a robber; he saw pure love and boundless gratitude.
The pain of being cast out by his own father suddenly melted beneath the warmth of these people's love. Said gave a faint smile in the drizzle and pressed his palms together against his chest in a final gesture of respect for the people of his homeland.
“Keep living,” Said whispered gently to the people surrounding him. “Never let poverty rob you of your dignity as human beings. Pray for me...”
With steps firm once more, Said pushed through the grieving crowd, crossed the stone marker at the boundary of the Duchy of Tuban, and walked into the darkness of the highway stretching toward the southern coast of Central Java.
Month after month passed since that night of exile.
Raden Said's name was erased from the official genealogy of Tuban's ministerial compound, yet the name Lokajaya the Outlaw soared ever higher, like a legend that could never die. Along the roads of his wandering through new regions such as Rembang, Pati, and Kudus, Said continued his deeds.
He lived as a wanderer without a home or possessions. His black mori clothing had been replaced by the shabby all-brown clothes typical of a wandering danyang, but his spirit of resistance never died. Wherever a wicked official extorted the people, Lokajaya appeared in the middle of the night, drained their wealth, and distributed it to those in need.
Yet in the deepest place in his heart, Said began to feel a terrible emptiness.
Whenever he finished distributing the gold he had stolen and sat alone beneath the shade of a banyan tree in the middle of the forest, the question from his old teacher, Ki Demang Jalak, always returned to haunt his thoughts: A pure intention carried out by wrong means will ultimately give birth only to a cycle of vengeance and endless bloodshed...
Said witnessed for himself how the robberies he committed triggered new hunts by the local strongmen. Many wicked officials, after being robbed, took out their anger by doubling the people's tax burden. His thefts, though intended for good, had merely patched over the wounds without truly curing the disease of oppression gnawing at Java from its roots.
“How long must I live like this?” Said whispered one night, staring at his reflection in the clear river water beside Sekar Teak Forest.
In those still waters, he no longer saw the face of an arrogant prince or a fierce robber. He saw only the soul of a young man thirsting for the truth—a truth that could not be found at the tip of a sword or inside sacks of stolen gold.
Without realizing it, his wandering as Lokajaya the Outlaw, filled with bloodshed and tears, was leading him toward a new destiny far greater than anything he had ever imagined. A destiny no longer written in blood and anger, but in wisdom, purity of soul, and spiritual teachings that would one day change the face of the Nusantara forever.
It was on the banks of the Sekar Teak Forest river that destiny began weaving its grand meeting. An old man carrying a simple wooden staff was walking slowly along the riverbank, bearing a great secret ready to burn through and remake the entire soul of the outlaw Lokajaya.
His journey as an outlaw had reached its peak, and the door to his destiny as a great Wali of Allah now stood wide open before him.