And now that Sol stood within the very heart of the Zharun tribe, surrounded by the people who had lived through that day, he intended to verify every single word, just to be sure.
Sol walked into the central square. His heavy, steady footsteps over the gravel instantly drew the terrified eyes of the kneeling Zharun civilians.
Even though they had just saved them and all of them were very grateful to them, but still seeing Sol, whose entire body radiated that deep and thick killing intent, they all were terrified and didn’t dared to look in his eyes.
Whenever Sol’s crimson gaze swept past a group, people flinched, trembling fiercely.
Sol stopped near a row of overturned water barrels where several Zharun women were gathered under the watch of a Veynar sentry. He approached a middle-aged woman sitting near the edge, her coarse linen tunic torn at the shoulder and stained with soot, her hands trembled as she wrapped a torn shawl around a frightened child.
Seeing the towering warrior halt directly in front of her, the woman’s face drained of all color. She began to shake violently, shielding her child with both arms as she pressed her forehead to the ground. "P-Please, great warrior... spare us! We took no weapons! We stole nothing!"
"Get up," Sol rasped calmly. "I’m not here to cut you down."
The woman hesitated, her weathered tear-streaked face lifting slowly from the dust. But even then maybe it was terror or pressure radiated from Sol, her breathing was ragged, her dark eyes darting nervously toward his sapphire blade.
"I want to ask you about someone," Sol continued, his voice low and even. "Do you know a girl named Lumi?"
The woman blinked, her brow furrowing in genuine confusion. "L-Lumi? I... I don’t know that name, my lord. There is no one in our lineage named Lumi."
Sol studied her expression, noting that the name itself meant nothing to the common folk. He adjusted his question. "She wasn’t one of yours. She was the young girl brought here from the Veynar tribe by Prince Gorr."
The moment the words left his mouth, a sudden flicker of realization crossed the woman’s face, quickly replaced by a visible trace of deep, lingering pity and a shiver of ancient dread that paled her sun-darkened skin.
"Ah... that poor, fragile child..." the woman whispered, her voice shaking as her gaze instinctively drifted toward the charred remains of the ritual grounds. "Yes. Yes, I remember her. I certainly remember. I think everyone in the tribe remembers that day. We will never forget it until our bones return to the ground."
Sol leaned in slightly, his posture tightening. "Speak clearly. What happened to her?"
She looked down at the dirt, swallowing hard before looking back up at Sol.
"We all knew why Prince Gorr brought her across the border," she explained in a trembling voice. "Chief Vane and the elders were preparing a dark blood ritual to sacrifice her. They locked the poor child in the hut behind the lodge, guarded by ten of our strongest line warriors. But... she was never sacrificed."
"Tell me what happened," Sol demanded, stepping a half-step closer. "Every detail."
The woman shuddered, a haunted look entering her eyes as if the nightmare were unfolding right in front of her once more.
"It was late afternoon," she said, her voice dropping to a fearful whisper. "Just as the elders raised the ritual bone daggers... the heavens seemed to crack open.
The sky turned dark... not with rain clouds, but with a terrifying spiritual pressure that made the birds fall dead from the trees. Then came the beasts.
Hundreds of them... massive monsters from the deep jungle that we only hear of in hunting tales. They smashed through our outer wooden gates like dry twigs."
She glanced nervously around the square, her hands tightening on her son’s shoulders.
"We thought the entire Zharun tribe was about to be devoured alive. But strangely the beasts didn’t eat our meat racks, and they didn’t chase our people.
They charged straight through the avenues, trampled the guards around the ritual hut into red paste, and formed a giant, silent circle around the building."
The woman took a shuddering breath, her eyes wide with lingering awe.
"And then... the colossal horned beast appeared. It was taller than the great canopy, walking like a god. And riding atop its head was that alien girl... the one with glowing lavender skin, long purple hair, and curved black horns, terrifying divinity. "
Sol stood completely still, his crimson eyes narrowing with intense focus. "What did she do?"
"She was so calm," the woman whispered, shaking her head in disbelief. "Our warriors were shaking so hard they dropped their spears, but she didn’t even look at us.
She leaned down from the giant beast, picked up the little Veynar girl with her own hands as if holding a fragile bird, and pulled her close."
She pointed a trembling finger toward the open sky above the Great Lodge.
"The moment the child was in her arms, a brilliant purple light exploded around them. It was so bright it blinded the entire clearing for a heartbeat. When the light faded... they were completely gone.
Both the alien girl and that colossal beast vanished into thin air! And after that, the beast horde simply turned around in absolute silence and vanished back into the deep jungle."
Sol stared at her for several long seconds, his mind rapidly processing every word. The details matched Gorr’s dying confession down to the smallest inflection.
To make sure there was no rehearsed lie or shared delusion, he walked further into the square. He questioned an elderly Zharun elder sitting near a broken cart, a wounded line guard whose arm was bound in splints, and a young weaver huddled near the granary.
Every single account matched down to the smallest detail.
Their eyes were filled with the same unshakeable, glassy terror of people who had witnessed a living goddess descend upon their mortal squalor and tear the fabric of reality apart.
The dark sky, the unstoppable deep-jungle horde, the colossal horned beast, the lavender-skinned girl with obsidian horns, the gentle rescue of Lumi, and the mysterious purple teleportation flash that dissolved them into thin air.
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