Chapter 46

Chapter 46

There was even a gloom in his voice now. He commanded in a low voice that was incomparable to before.

“Let go of this right now.”

With those words, incomparable tension lingered on the faces of the men who were holding him down. Tarhan commanded once more in a clear and powerful voice.

“If you want to save your life, let go now. You will not be held responsible for what happens next.”

There was no focus in the eyes of the man who said that.

It seemed that the reason he had let go of the men who had pressed on his body until now was only to maintain a sliver of reason for the trial.

Sweat began to appear on the backs and napes of the necks of the men who heard the ghastly words. They looked frightened, as if Tarhan, who had remained still, would amputate their limbs at any moment.

Eventually, the bodies of the men who had been pressing down on the Aquilea’s deputy chieftain fell off one by one.

At the same time, the people in the temporary tribunal watched Tarhan’s body being freed with horror on their faces, like a beast coming out of a cage. Most of the people backed up and stepped back at the same time.

The hand of the last soldier who touched Tarhan’s body dropped, and his body slowly rose from its seat.

No one present could dispute the strength of the man who raised his body at that moment.

The man who made their whole body feel like being crushed just by watching him slowly began to move his steps. Then, standing tall in front of Enya, he approached Kiyan and raised his big eyes as if to cut off of the head of the chief of Nervana Forest.

“RIght now, in front of me, do you dare assert rights to her? In front of me?”

Tarhan twisted one eye and let out a muffled voice. His eyes were burning fiercely, like sparks. Enya felt like she would pass out on the spot at any moment. She had never seen him venting his anger in such a way.

However, Kiyan’s boldness was no less.

Even though the muscles in her face contorted with tension, she never changed her steps in front of Enya, looking straight up at Aquilea’s deputy chieftain.

“Exactly. She is a descendant of the daughter of the forest we lost more than twenty years ago. I want to get her back. This is the fate of not only me but the fate of all Nervana bloodlines…”

“To hell with such incomprehensible things…!”

Tarhan roared with a sharp voice like the claws of a beast. The wind made the arms of the soldiers holding the torches tremble, and all the lights in place shook mercilessly.

Cold sweat began to flow on Kiyan’s temples as well.

Showing that he would not tolerate any more brazenness, Tarhan moved his steps while tracing the faces of the people of Nervana Forest one by one with a burning gaze. Then, from behind Kiyan, holding on to Fiarca’s arm, he approached Enya, who was barely standing.

He shouted as he roughly took her arm away from Fiarca.

“This woman is my woman. That is the unchanging truth, whether this woman is Nervana or the woman of the forest or the goddamn daughter of the forest!”

Her whole body was tense. Even with Tarhan right in front of her eyes, Enya couldn’t move.

“She has been living with me in my house for a very long time and will always be, even if her insignificant bloodline suddenly appears and claims her rights over her! She won’t go anywhere but by my side…!”

Enya felt her heart break as she watched him roar like a wounded beast. As soon as Tarhan finished speaking, he lifted her body up.

Even when she was unconscious, she could feel his arms around her body as if they were wrapped around feathers. As she hurriedly put her arms around his neck, Tarhan looked down at Enya as she buried her head in his chest, groaning softly like a strangled person.

Someone approached him fearlessly.

After dismissing the Perugia handmaids that were holding her back, Avisak strode forward in front of Tarhan, who was roaring like a beast.

“Wait.”

Avisak’s expression as she opened her red lips and spoke was unusual. Like she was possessed by something, her unfocused eyes were focused not on Aquilea’s tribal chief but on the woman in his arms.

“…Is she the daughter of the forest?”

It wasn’t just her who was agitated.

Aquilea’s elders and all the people gathered at the brief trial began to move, trying to give a word. Avisak’s expression, which was burning with agitation among them, stood out even more. She cried out loudly, hushing those who were making a fuss with the sound of her mouth.

“Wait! Why didn’t you say earlier that she was the daughter of the forest? For the allied forces, this is a very important matter that cannot be overlooked!”

Suddenly, the tide of the situation began to turn.

Tarhan shouted while holding Enya in his arms.

“Didn’t you even listen to what I was saying?! This has nothing to do with her! Whether she is the daughter of the forest, whether she is the daughter of a woman named Eireke, what will happen to her will not change at all…!”

“Wait, wait, everyone here, listen to me!”

Avisak started screaming like a distraught woman, even as Tarhan threatened her with a loud voice.

“We are facing a great war with the Argon Desert! In three months. Sooner or later, the allied forces will set out for the Argon Desert. This is a matter of life and death for the sixteen tribes. Winning or losing a war is a matter of everyone’s life here.”

Her face, as she shouted, was illuminated by the torch and looked red like the remnants of a blazing fire.

“Victory against war, that is all we hope for! For that, my kinsman Perugia even prepared to merge with Aquilea! Only to fight the Argon Desert that threatens our fertile land!”

As the words fell from her mouth, she made everyone in the room pay terrifying attention. Avisak opened her mouth in her characteristic pleading voice.

“But she is the ‘daughter of the forest,’ what an unexpected windfall…!”

Something similar to madness began to flow on Avisak’s face.

“This is a unique opportunity to secure the power of the Skull Spider, a catastrophic monster in Nervana Forest!”

The heads of all the tribes and the elders of Aquilea stood in awe at her words.

No one there would be able to deny that what appeared on their faces at that moment was the sparkling expression as they discovered a possibility.

However, Enya’s body went cold at the word ‘skull spider’ that came from Avisak’s lips. She remembered what she had heard from Kiyan the other day about the natural enemy of the Nervana Forest.

‘The ruler of the forest, the apex predator. The only nemesis to stand up to Garganta’s hole vipers, also known as Argon’s endless hole.’

Avisak turned her direction this time and walked towards Aquilea’s elders and Servia, who couldn’t keep her mouth shut.

“Elders! Don’t you think so, too? This is a heaven-sent opportunity! Skull spiders in the Nervana forest, hole vipers in the Argon desert, and scorpion whales in the Ratelú Strait… The apex predators that have ruled this land for centuries! The legendary beings who were able to lead them enjoyed power by controlling them in the name of daughters of nature until they disappeared into the dark side of history! Now that the one remaining blood is here, there is no reason not to take advantage of this golden opportunity…!”

Someone came before Avisak.

Servia murmured as she ran her hand through her sprawling hair with her eyes bloodshot red.

“…It’s not something that doesn’t make sense. The reason why Argon’s forces were aiming for the Great Plains in the first place was because they did not have the ability to control the vipers of Garganta, as the seed of the daughter of the desert they neglected had already dried up in the first place.”

Haraibo, Aquilea’s elder, also stepped forward and opened his mouth. Haraibo’s temples, with a thick beard on his chin, were dripping with cold sweat, red from the shadow of the fire.

“I totally agree with Perugia… It’s definitely something worthwhile. Right now, I’m going to communicate with the heads and elders of the 16 tribes of the allied forces. I think we need to have an urgent meeting.”

As soon as the words fell, a commotion began to arise around them.

At the same time, Enya’s body trembled relentlessly. She knew in her head what was going on, but her body couldn’t seem to accept it. As a person from the Great Plains, she was also unaware of the ripple effect of the three catastrophic monsters.

Countless times since ancient times, countless tribes whose names are unknown have disappeared and reappeared as a result of war over the dominion and control of those monsters, which are no different from weapons of destruction.

And now that the blood of these daughters of nature had been diluted and disappeared, the forces of the monsters that had been meticulously and finely tuned were also running amok. Forests disappeared, holes formed in deserts, and straits widened.

It was as if the afterimages of that past were now being recreated in a nightmare.

Whiip, tak—!

At that time, something flew over Haraibo’s head, the elder of Aquilea, who was trying to contact the heads of each tribe.

“Hooh, huooh…!”

Had it not been for one of Haraibo’s soldiers to quickly bow his head, the arrow would have grazed and wounded him.

Haraibo, stunned, clenched his teeth and shouted at Kiyan in Nervana Forest, who was standing in the direction the arrow had come from.

“What is this…… what are you doing…… ! This crazy woman…!”

The members of Nervana Forest were already in line, fully equipped for battle, and surrounded the members of Aquilea.

Kiyan cried out coldly as she attached another arrow to her bow.

“How dare you use a member of our Nervana Forest to satisfy the Allies’ self-interest! It is unacceptable…!”

Regardless, Aquilea wasn’t just sitting still. Haraibo’s beckoned to the Aquilea soldiers who were surrounding them and drew their swords in unison. The Perugian soldiers guarding Avisak were also prepared for battle.

Avisak shouted, pointing at the daughter of the forest being held by Aquilea’s deputy chieftain.

“If you don’t let that woman cooperate, this alliance in Nervana Forest will be null and void! Grab that girl…!”

The situation escalated in an instant. All three forces were confronting each other without retreating.

At that moment, Enya, who was in Tarhan’s arms, felt her body suddenly go down.

Tarhan lightly placed her on her ground and, without a moment’s hesitation, grabbed the torch from a soldier standing directly in front of them and swung it around. He strode forward to Avisak, holding a burning torch and overpowering without a single hesitation the group that stood in his way.

It happened so quickly that she couldn’t even escape it.

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