His gaze finally landed in front of the crowd, on the robust figure who stood slightly behind the village chief, silent and as solemn as an iron tower.
He stepped forward, handing over the Druid’s notes in his hand.
With a complex expression, Aspen hesitated slightly, then accepted the notes and flipped them open under Xia Nan’s indication.
The air in the scene fell into deathly silence.
One pair of eyes after another silently gazed at Xia Nan and the middle-aged Hunter in front of him.
Ti ticked away, second by second.
Aspen’s brows furrowed more and more tightly, and for so reason, his actions of turning the pages quietly beca urgent, with fingers trembling slightly.
"Druid... sacrificial ritual... offering... village chief..."
Those characters that overturned understanding flashed before his eyes.
What appeared in the mind of this middle-aged man, however, was only that petite figure who had already passed away.
"Jenny..." His voice was hoarse and trembled, his face shrouded in shadow and indistinct, "I’m sorry, Dad should have persisted..."
A lie, a laughable lie.
Making countless nights woken by nightmares, the tornt in choosing between the "village" and "daughter," the blood and tears flowing in his heart...
Appear so ridiculous.
At this mont, Aspen felt himself plumting into the Abyss, remorse, pain, anger, sadness... countless emotions intertwined in his heart, forming an indescribably complex expression.
Collapse.
He stood frozen in place.
On the other side, the village chief’s gaze, at the mont Xia Nan handed the notes to Aspen, was fixated on this Hunter.
He didn’t know what the notes recorded.
But the inner turmoil after the lie was exposed left him unconsciously feeling guilty.
The village chief stared intensely at Aspen’s face, witnessing it change from initially stern and serious to gradually shocked, and finally to pained and pale.
He seed to realize sothing.
If Aspen learned the truth of that year, having once used villagers and the village as leverage to force him to send his daughter as an offering into the gorge, thereby further seizing power and establishing authority in the village, what he would experience...
No! I can never lose all this!
Panic engulfed the village chief like icy cold water.
"This is blasphemy!" he howled almost to the point of breaking his voice, "The ritual must be completed!"
The seemingly aged and stooped body suddenly displayed an explosive power far beyond the ordinary, rushing toward Lilia’s direction rapidly.
His past adventurer experiences allowed him, even though aged and frail, to still possess considerable combat ability.
With just a shake and a push of his hands, he threw Dong Shu, who was trying to block him, aside.
As he drew out a short dagger from his waist, attempting to approach further to pierce the girl’s chest with his dagger.
"Whoosh!"
A tearing sound erupted from behind.
Squelch—
Flesh pierced through.
Coldness, accompanied by intense pain surged like a tide.
Gaze lowered.
What ca into view was a blood-stained arrowhead piercing from the spine through the neck.
Further behind, Aspen continued to hold the bent bow posture, having just shot the arrow, with the taut bowstring slightly vibrating from residual force.
"Bang."
The dull sound of a corpse falling to the ground echoed in the scene.
Xia Nan silently withdrew the gravitational force swirling at his fingertips.
After shooting the arrow, Aspen didn’t glance at the corpse, only slowly turned around to face the villagers, who in their horror had lost words.
He raised the Longbow bearing his daughter’s handwriting, his voice hoarse:
"The ritual... is over."
"Forever."
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