Chương 221: Chapter : 221

The subordinate bowed and hurried off to marshal the mind-controlled villagers. They obeyed without question, their bodies moving in eerie, perfect unison as they were herded toward the eastern edge of the village. Near the base of the great tree, Chief Paul Dimitri lay crumpled against the trunk where the skeleton had thrown him. He was still conscious. Barely. His vision was blurred and his body screamed with pain every time he tried to move.

The gash on his forehead was still bleeding, and his left arm hung at an angle that meant it was broken. His right leg was pinned under a fallen branch from the great tree. The tree had dropped it during the battle, as if trying to shield its protector with its own body. But the worst pain was not in his body. The worst pain was in his chest. It was the heavy, crushing, suffocating weight of absolute failure. He could see his people. His people. The men and women he had sworn to protect with his life.

The children he had watched grow up, taught to track and hunt and sing the old songs. The elders whose wisdom had guided the tribe for decades. They were all walking like the living dead, their eyes glowing purple, their minds stolen from them. And he could do nothing to save them. Paul tried to reach for the broken shaft of the RabbitKing Spear. His fingers stretched toward it, trembling, straining. But the shaft was just out of reach, and his body would not cooperate. A low, broken groan escaped his cracked lips.

"My people," Paul whispered. His voice was raw and broken, barely more than a breath.

"I failed you. I failed all of you." A Hollow magician noticed him trying to move and strolled over. The man crouched down, tilting his pale mask to look at the fallen Chief.

"Still awake? Impressive. Most people pass out after a hit like that." He tapped Paul's broken arm with the toe of his boot. Paul gritted his teeth but did not cry out. He would not give them the satisfaction. Not a single scream. Not a single beg. He was still the Chief of the Dimitri tribe, even if his body was broken and his people were lost.

"You should be honored, Chief," the magician said, standing back up.

"Your tribe will serve a greater purpose now. They will help bring about the return of the Great Black Soul Sovereign. Their bodies, their mana, their very souls will fuel the ritual that changes this world forever." Paul stared up at him with burning, defiant eyes.

"You are monsters. You will not get away with this. The Empire will find you. Someone will stop you." The magician laughed. It was a flat, hollow sound, completely devoid of warmth.

"The Empire? The Empire does not even know this jungle exists. Nobody is coming for you, Chief. Nobody even knows you are here." Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. He turned and walked away, leaving Paul broken against the tree. The Chief's head dropped forward. His braids fell across his face, hiding the tears that leaked from his eyes. The great tree above him seemed to sigh, its glowing moss dimming to almost nothing.

In the clearing to the east, the enslaved Dimitri tribesmen were already being put to work. Under the direction of the Hollow magicians, they began clearing the dense undergrowth and hauling massive stones from the riverbed. They were building something dark and terrible. The foundation of a great altar was taking shape. It was made of blackened bone and twisted jungle vines, arranged in a pattern that hurt the eye to look at for too long.

The lines and curves seemed to move when you were not watching, shifting and writhing like living things trapped in stone. The air around the construction site hummed with a low, oppressive energy that made the hair on the back of the neck stand up. Small animals refused to go anywhere near it. Even the insects, which filled every corner of the jungle with sound, were completely silent within a hundred meters of the altar. The altar was not yet complete.

There were gaps in its structure where key components were missing. Strange, carved slots waited to be filled with objects of power. And at the very center of the altar's base, there was a large, empty depression, like a bowl carved into the black stone, waiting to receive something precious. Waiting for blood. A Hollow magician approached the leader as he watched the construction.

"Sir, the scouts have confirmed the Glayin deer was spotted near the weeping waterfall two nights ago. The trail is fresh." The leader's mask tilted slightly, as if a smile had formed behind it.

"Good. Send a retrieval team at dawn. I want the beast alive. Its blood must flow on this altar while its heart still beats. That is the only way the Sovereign will accept the offering."

"And the tribe?" the subordinate asked, gesturing toward the mind-controlled villagers.

"Use them until they break," the leader said coldly.

"That is what they are for. Fuel for the ritual. When the Sovereign rises, their sacrifice will be remembered as the first step toward a new world." The subordinate bowed again and left. The leader stood alone at the edge of the clearing, the purple miasma pulsing gently around him like a heartbeat.

"Soon," he murmured to himself, his voice soft and hungry.

"Very soon." The Silverleaf Jungle had always been a place of deep, ancient magic. It had sheltered the Dimitri tribe for centuries. It had kept their secrets safe and their people hidden from the dangerous world outside. But now, the jungle's magic had been violated. Its protectors had been broken. Its deepest secret, the legendary Glayin deer, was being hunted by the very darkness the tribe had spent generations keeping at bay.

And somewhere, far to the west, in a small bedroom in the capital city, a girl with blue veins burning under her skin slept a fevered, restless sleep. Her life was draining away with every passing hour. Her only hope was the very creature these monsters were now hunting. The clock was ticking. The jungle was falling into darkness. And two paths, one from the capital and one from the shadows, were slowly converging toward the same desperate destination. Chief Paul closed his eyes.

The tears continued to fall, silent and steady, disappearing into the soft earth beneath him. He thought of his father, who had passed the RabbitKing Spear to him on his deathbed. He thought of his wife, who had died three winters ago from a jungle fever. He thought of his two sons, who were somewhere in that line of purple-eyed slaves, their young faces blank and empty. He prayed. Not to the Empire. Not to any Royal family.

He prayed to the forest itself, to the ancient spirit that the Dimitri tribe had worshipped for centuries. The spirit of the Silverleaf Jungle, the great guardian that slept in the deepest roots of the oldest trees.

"Please," Paul whispered to the silent, darkening jungle.

"Send someone. Anyone. Before it is too late."