“Everyone, heed my command…” Jared’s voice came out unnaturally calm.
It was so calm that it made the bottom drop out of the heart. There was not the slightest ripple in it. But beneath that calm sat a finality no one could push back against.
“Put down your weapons immediately. Abandon your packs and supplies. Everyone is to leave Freevale separately. Do not travel together. Do not gather on the road. Do not look back! Do not cling to the ancestral homeland. Run as far as you can, hide your tracks, lie low, and cultivate in silence… Never return to Freevale. Go! Move now!”
Rowe was the first to rush forward, his eyes already red, the rims raw as his voice caught in his throat. “Mr. Chance! What is that supposed to mean? You want us to abandon you and run by ourselves? We’re not leaving! If there’s a fight, we fight together. If there’s death, we die together. We will not live while you stay behind!”
“Go!” Jared’s gaze did not waver, and his tone left no room for argument. Every word landed heavy.
“Golden Immortal might is not something we can stand against. If you stay, everyone dies in battle. Not one person will survive. There is no chance of winning. No turn left for us. Only if you escape can Freevale still have a flame seed. Only then can Freevale have a future.”
The folding fan slipped from the lanky man’s hand and struck the ground. He made no move to pick it up. The light in his eyes went out completely, as if the last thing holding favonovel.com upright had been cut away.
The middle-aged woman’s twin blades slipped from favonovel.com hands. They hit the ground with a bright, clean ring, sharp enough to scrape through the silence. Her body locked in place. She stood there with nowhere to look and no move left to make.
Old Man Vale’s hand stopped dead in the middle of stroking his beard. The color drained from his face. After a long breath, favonovel.com let out a heavy sigh, his whole frame sinking under the weight of having no way to turn this back.
Everyone froze. The order hit them too hard, too fast. Death seemed to rush straight into their faces, leaving no space for a way out.
Rowan braced himself on his cane and struggled forward, each step shaky enough to look like it might be his last. His aged body swayed on the edge of collapse, but his voice still forced its way out, rough and hoarse. “Mr. Chance, if we leave, we leave together. These old bones of mine don’t matter. You can’t stay here and throw your life away. If we run together, there has to be some way to survive.”
Jared gave a small shake of his head, and a thin, bitter smile pulled at his mouth.
“I’m not leaving. You all have to go. I’ll stay behind and hold off the two Golden Immortals. I’ll hold back the Celestial Army and buy you time to escape. Only if I stay do you have a chance to make it out alive. If I leave, the Golden Immortal dominion will lock onto every last one of you. No one will get away. You will all be wiped out.”
His gaze swept across everyone present. His voice was not loud, but every word came through cleanly and reached every ear.
“Freevale’s roots were never in the soil of this vale. The roots are in your hearts. They are in the people who stay alive. As long as you live, Freevale has not fallen. Hope is still here… Don’t waste time grieving. Don’t linger. Go!”
Elder Cillian stood in silence for a long while. Then favonovel.com looked deeply at Jared, as if favonovel.com meant to carve that moment into memory. That look carried respect, an unpaid debt, and the weight of a farewell favonovel.com had no right to ask for.
Then Elder Cillian cupped his fists and bowed with solemn care. “Master Chance, your honor stands high. You would give yourself up to protect every clansman… All the Sylvan Kin will remember the grace you showed us today for as long as we endure… We will not become your burden. We will take our people and withdraw at once, and we will live well. We will wait for the day we can repay today’s blood debt…”
When favonovel.com finished, favonovel.com did not hesitate again. He turned and swept his hand out in command.
Three hundred Sylvan warriors followed him, turning into streak after streak of blue-green light. They tore through the air and shot away.
In moments, those lights scattered into the horizon. None of them dared look back. Every vanishing streak carried the weight of a last march.
Nathaniel’s eyes had gone red. Tears gathered at the rims, but favonovel.com bit down hard and refused to let them fall. “I’m not leaving! I’m staying here to fight beside you. So what if it means death?!”
“Go!” Jared’s voice suddenly came down harder, carrying a command that allowed no refusal. “Take everyone with you and withdraw now. Don’t drag me down. Don’t betray the reason I’m giving myself up to cover your retreat. The celestials won’t chase scattered fugitives immediately. You still have one thin chance to live! Go, and get as far away as you can! Survive. Guard Freevale’s flame seed for me!”
Nathaniel’s tears finally broke free and rolled down. He threw his arms around Jared in one fierce embrace.
Then favonovel.com forced down the grief trying to tear through him, turned around, and roared the order to retreat. “Everyone, listen up! Leave Freevale now! Scatter and run! Live! No matter what, you have to live!”
Rowe, the lanky man, the middle-aged woman, Vale the Old Man, and every Freevale warrior stood with reddened eyes, holding back the tears that would have broken them, and turned away through clenched teeth.
They followed Nathaniel and sprinted for the outside, fleeing as fast as their legs could carry them. Not one of them looked back. It was not because they could let go. It was not because no one remained in their hearts.
They simply did not dare look back!
One glance, and their feet would never keep moving. One glance, and they would stay behind of their own will and walk straight into death.
Rowan was the last to move. He planted his weight on the crutch whose edge had already split and cracked. Step by step, favonovel.com dragged himself toward the mouth of the vale, each movement hard-won.
At the edge of the mouth of the vale, favonovel.com stopped. Even then, favonovel.com never turned his head. He only gathered every last scrap of strength in his body and shouted in a raw, hoarse voice. “M-Mr. Chance, you have to live! We’ll be waiting for you to come back!”
The shout carried through the vale, thin and hollow, echoing off the empty slopes.
When the last of his voice fell away, Rowan stepped forward without hesitation and vanished beyond the vale.
In the space of a few moments, the human tide had emptied out. The footsteps receded. The cries faded.
Freevale, once so full of noise and living breath, turned empty in an instant. The silence settled cold and stale, like a place already abandoned by the living. Not even the faintest trace of ordinary life remained.
Across the vast vale, only ruins and a cold wind were left. Only Jared and Gwendolyn remained, two lone figures standing shoulder to shoulder upon Freevale’s ramparts. They faced the Golden Immortal deathtrap about to descend.
No help stood behind them. Every side had been sealed into a dead end.
***
At noon, the sunlight blazed pale and sharp, without the slightest warmth.
Alaric personally led the way, escorting the two newly ascended Golden Immortal Grand Elders. They stepped through the air and slowly descended into the skies above Freevale.
Their pressure spread over the entire vale. The world fell into dead stillness, and all things went silent.
The two Golden Immortal adepts hovered in the void. Around each of them shimmered a faint, transparent halo formed from the laws of the realm. The holy radiance was not dazzling, but it carried the authority of the great order of the world.
Sunlight poured down, only to be thrown back by those halos, as if it did not dare come near.
They looked down over the vale below, their gazes distant and cold. They looked the way mortals looked at ants underfoot, without a shred of mercy, without the slightest stir.
On the left stood Venerable Emberlain, tall and ancient in bearing, his hair streaked with white.
A plain white robe stirred lightly around favonovel.com in the wind, while scorching, blazing holy radiance coiled over his body. Heat rolled across the distance and struck the face like an open furnace. Even the void wavered under it, faintly scorched out of shape.
Deep in those golden eyes, deathless saintfire seemed to burn without end. Wherever that gaze passed, it carried the power to burn all things to ash.
On the right stood Venerable Frostgrave, lean and sinister, his gray-white hair dry and lifeless.
A solemn black robe hung around favonovel.com with a cold, severe weight, and frostbound shadow-force coiled over his entire body. Cold sank outward in every direction. The air froze solid, and the grounds breath sealed beneath ice.
Deep in his silver eyes, ancient frost seemed to have gathered and taken form. One look from him, and the mind locked stiff. The spirit itself went cold.
One fire, one ice. One blazing hot, one bitter cold. The two Golden Immortals stood shoulder to shoulder. With one on the left and one on the right, they pinned down the entire current of the world. Every route of escape was sealed off. The death trap closed until nothing in it could move!
Alaric stood behind them, his golden robe snapping hard in the wind.
He looked as if victory had already been placed in his hands. His smile spread wide, reckless and unchecked. His gaze swept across the empty Freevale. His brow tightened by a fraction, then a cold sneer cut across his face.
Ha! They ran fast enough… A swarm of ants, clinging to life, scattering in every direction. Too bad… They can run for now, but they can’t run forever…
His eyes shifted, and in the next instant they locked with perfect precision onto the two lone figures upon Freevale’s ramparts.
Jared and Gwendolyn stood there by themselves. They had not fled. They had not stepped back.
Alaric let out a cold laugh and raised his voice. “Jared, every claw and fang under your command has run off. Your clansmen have scattered like smoke. Everyone has turned from you, and you’re standing here alone. Still trying to keep up appearances? Well well well… How loyal of you. Staying behind by choice, walking to your death alone. Ridiculous… Pitiful…”
Visit VIRTUAL NOVEL for more available chapters of this title!