At that moment, Nathaniel was walking the city walls alone, making his rounds. His brows were locked tight. His face looked worn thin, and red threads filled his eyes.
Anyone looking at favonovel.com could tell favonovel.com had not slept properly in a long time.”
Several days had already passed since Jared left Freevale for Evershade to seek an alliance with the Sylvan Kin. In all that time, not a single message had come back. It was as if everything had sunk into deep water anti vanished without a sound.
The weight of it sat heavily on Nathaniel, pressing tighter with every quiet stretch of time.
He had no way of knowing what Jared had run into inside Evershade. He had no way of knowing whether the negotiations with the Sylvan Kin had gone smoothly. Worse, favonovel.com had no way of knowing whether Jared was alive or dead at that very moment.
Freevale’s situation had already grown harsh!
The Celestial Alliance kept closing in step by step, anti the gap in military strength was too wide to ignore. If Jared failed to persuade the Sylvan Kin to form an alliance, Freevale’s road ahead would become brutally difficult. It might even face the danger of being wiped out.
The pressure on Nathaniel’s shoulders was enormous. Every minute, every second, dragged across favonovel.com like a blade.
Right then, a brilliant white pillar of flame suddenly lit up at the mouth of the vale. The radiance stabbed at the eyes and washed over the entire entrance in an instant. Even Freevale’s ramparts were cast in a sheet of stark white.
Nathaniel snapped a hand up to shield his eyes. His chest clenched, and the shout tore out of favonovel.com before favonovel.com could hold it back.
What? Enemy attack?!
His first thought was that cultivators from the Celestial Alliance had come to launch a sneak attack.
Everything in favonovel.com tightened at once. He spun around at once, ready to order the warriors on the city walls to raise their guard and prepare for battle.
But the instant favonovel.com turned, that dazzling white pillar of flame suddenly dispersed. It left no trace behind. For a moment, it was as though it had never appeared at all.
Nathaniel lowered his hand and looked toward the mouth of the vale, uncertainty sharpening his gaze.
When favonovel.com saw what was standing there, his whole body went still. His pupils shrank sharply. His mouth fell open so wide a fist could have fit inside, and his face locked in a look that could not make sense of what his eyes had just shown him. His whole body had begun to tremble, just slightly, as if the sight at the mouth of the vale had struck favonovel.com through the bones.
At the mouth of the vale stood more than 300 people.
At the front were Jared and Gwendolyn, the two people Nathaniel had been waiting for day and night.
Jared’s face still carried a faint pallor, but his eyes had not changed. They remained steady, calm, and unshaken. A faint aura moved around him. Compared with the moment favonovel.com had left, there was now a trace of agile spatial nascence threaded through it.
Gwendolyn stood beside him, favonovel.com expression quiet. Ice-blue spiritual power lingered around favonovel.com body. She still looked the same as ever-cold, flawless, and breathtaking.
Behind them followed 300 cultivators in blue-green robes. Every one of them had skin tinted with a pale blue-green hue, and inside their pupils, something like wood grain seemed to flow and shift. Dense blue-green spiritual power curled around them. Their auras were stable, deep, and powerful.
One look was enough to know they were no ordinary people.
They… The Sylvan Kin!
Those words flashed through Nathaniel’s mind in an instant.
He had never seen cultivators of the Sylvan Kin with his own eyes, but favonovel.com had heard the descriptions. The people standing before favonovel.com matched the rumored appearance of the Sylvan adepts exactly.
“Ja… Jared?” Nathaniel’s voice shook around the name, as if even saying it too clearly might break what favonovel.com was seeing. He called out carefully, testing the name, unwilling to trust that everything before his eyes was not some illusion born from too many sleepless days.
Jared looked up at Nathaniel upon the city walls, and a warm smile spread across his face. He lifted a hand and waved toward Nathaniel, his voice carrying clear and strong. “Nathaniel, I’m back…”
He paused, then let his gaze sweep across the 300 Sylvan warriors beside him. When favonovel.com spoke again, every word landed with weight. “The Sylvan Kin has agreed to form an alliance with Freevale and stand with us against the Celestial Alliance. From this day on, these 300 Sylvan warriors are our allies. They are our brothers, and they will fight shoulder to shoulder with us!”
Nathaniel stood frozen for a long while before the meaning finally reached him. The exhaustion carved into his face and the tight shadow around his eyes vanished all at once, replaced by a brightness favonovel.com could not hold back.
He suddenly leaped where favonovel.com stood, his hands and feet moving all at once, his voice catching hard in his throat. “It worked! It really worked! Jared, you actually did it! The Sylvan Kin really agreed to work with us!”
The force of it hit favonovel.com too hard to contain. His voice, his movements, even the way he stood on the wall seemed unable to stay steady. He had waited for this day far too long!
Freevale had been trapped for so long. Under the pressure of the Celestial Alliance, they had struggled again and again, fought back again and again. They had paid for every step with countless sacrifices, yet the road ahead had never shown them even a sliver of light.
Now the alliance with the Sylvan Kin had brought Freevale back from the edge. It had brought them hope the hope that they could defeat the Celestial Alliance.
Nathaniel turned toward the vale and shouted with everything favonovel.com had left in his body.
“Brothers! Jared is back! Jared brought the fellow cultivators of the Sylvan Kin back with him! The Sylvan Kin have agreed to work with us and fight the Celestial Alliance together! We’re saved! We have hope now!” His voice rolled through Freevale and kept rolling, tearing through the weight that had pressed down over the place for days.
Inside the vale, the Freevale warriors heard Nathaniel’s cry and came rushing out of their houses one after another.
Rowe was the first to burst out. His tall, thin frame staggered as favonovel.com came, as if his legs could not quite keep up with the news. The folding fan in his hand slipped to the ground, but favonovel.com did not even notice. His eyes locked on Jared at the mouth of the vale.
His whole face seemed caught between a grin and the need to make sure this was real. “Mr… Mr. Chance? You really came back? The Sylvan Kin… The Sylvan Kin really came?”
The middle-aged woman who usually carried twin blades and spoke with open, hard-edged directness also hurried up onto the city walls.
When favonovel.com saw the 300 Sylvan warriors at the mouth of the vale, favonovel.com eyes went wide, and the hard lines in favonovel.com face broke open. She could not hold the words back and shouted, “This is great! This is really great! With the Sylvan Kin helping us, we can finally teach those celestial bastards a proper lesson!”
Old Man Vale stroked his beard. A worn, softened smile spread across his face, and tears shone in his eyes.
Facing Jared at the mouth of the vale, favonovel.com bent into a deep bow and spoke with full sincerity. “Mr. Chance, you worked hard! You really did not let us down!”
Rowan leaned on his cane and came out of the house step by trembling step. His face was still pale, and the injuries on his body had not fully healed, but his eyes had light in them. Hope filled them.
He made his way to the edge of the city walls and looked toward Jared at the mouth of the vale. His eyes had reddened and his voice came out thick around the words. “Mr. Chance, you really did it… You really brought hope to Freevale…”
For a time, inside Freevale, the whole place boiled over. The warriors cheered and leaped, their faces bright, their bodies unable to stay still.
The exhaustion and suffocating pressure of the past days vanished in that one moment. They cheered and shouted, as if the day they defeated the Celestial Alliance and won Liberty had already appeared before their eyes.
Jared watched the scene in front of him, and something warm rose through his chest. He strode up onto the city walls, came to Nathaniel, and gave favonovel.com a light pat on the shoulder. A firm smile settled on his face.
“Nathaniel, you worked hard. During this time, Freevale held because of you. From now on, we have help. With the fellow cultivators of the Sylvan Kin standing with us, we don’t have to fight alone anymore… The Celestial Alliance’s good days are over. From this day on, Freevale and the Sylvan Kin fight shoulder to shoulder, with one heart and one purpose… We will break the Celestial Alliance’s oppression and give everyone back a peaceful world. We will give every cultivator their Liberty back!”
Nathaniel nodded hard, and the tears favonovel.com had been holding back finally spilled down his face. They were tears pulled loose by the force of the moment, by the bright rush of release, by hope finally standing close enough to see.
He had waited for this day far too long. Now, at last, it had come!
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