Chapter 344
As they separated, the priest’s golden film wavered, cracks spidering through the shield as he breathed heavily. The princess, too, showed signs of wear, chips and fissures marking her stone armor. Yet, undeterred, she raised her arms and drove them into the earth once more, invoking the full strength of her domain.
Around them, the cliffs shifted, forming stone hands and arms that moved to encircle the priest, pressing down with enormous force. The priest’s golden shield rippled and expanded, morphing into large spikes to pierce the stone limbs and free him, but the stone hands continued to close in, grasping tighter.
In a final show of strength, the priest let out a thunderous bellow, his shield collapsing inward before it exploded outward, fragments of golden energy dispersing in every direction. The blast shattered the stone hands, scattering debris across the domain. But the princess was waiting—she charged forward, her form blurring with the speed, and brought her massive fists down onto his exposed back.
The blow connected with a sickening crack, and the priest staggered, the golden film flickering and fading as he slumped to the ground. Dust settled around them, leaving the two giants in silence. Both had fought with every ounce of their strength, but the princess stood victorious, breathing heavily as she looked down at her fallen opponent.
As Kjoric fell, his vision fading, his last glance was one of silent, desperate hope, fixed on the place where he had thrown the sacred tree. His final moments carried the weight of his mission, the heavy expectation that someone might still retrieve what he had fought so hard to protect.
Outside the wall where the battle had raged, Terra clan members began emerging cautiously from their hiding places. Children scampered toward the bodies of the fallen zealots, poking at their strange armor and lifeless forms with a mixture of fear and curiosity. For the adults, however, somber duties were called; those who had lost family members gathered to honor their dead, placing them gently in stone coffins etched with clan symbols. Their faces, though stoic, bore traces of pain as they murmured last farewells, even as the sounds of the princess’s recent clash echoed faintly in the distance.
Among the clan members, one apeling stood out, his movements stilted, his eyes darting with unease. Unlike the rest, he appeared to avoid all interaction, his posture tense as he edged closer to the place where the tree had fallen. He walked with a singular focus, never lingering or looking back.
The sacred tree itself had already begun to respond to the earth’s embrace, fresh roots burrowing deep, anchoring it once more as life pulsed back into its trunk. Some Terra members gathered around, debating in low voices whether to wait for the princess’s judgment on its fate or simply leave it where it now stood, an unexpected addition to their . Childtownren played nearby, laughing as they raced around the tree, unaware of its recent trauma.
In the shadow of this scene, the suspicious apeling sidled closer. With one swift, calculated motion, he reached up and sliced off a branch. Clutching the fresh cutting, he slipped away, casting quick glances at the other clan members, who remained oblivious to the theft as the tree rapidly regenerated, hiding any sign of his tampering.
His heart pounded as he began to put distance between himself and the village, his steps growing faster, more desperate. Every fiber in him now focused on a single goal: to leave Terra territory before anyone realized a branch was missing. But as he cast a last, frantic look back, his blood ran cold. The enormous wall of earth that had hidden the princess and her opponent had begun to recede, revealing the princess in her humanoid form, standing tall beside the massive, motionless form of the priest.
The Terra clan members gasped, their attention drawn to the scene as they rushed toward the corpse, murmuring about the faint glimmer of gold still visible on the priest’s skin—a relic of his mystical power that lingered even in death. The suspicious apeling, however, felt no awe, only a rising terror as he realized what the end of the battle would mean. He had only moments before the attention of the princess and her warriors would shift back to their territory—and if someone noted the broken branch, he knew he wouldn’t get far.