Chapter 131: [129] Bloodline Battle!
Marcus’s grip tightened on his broken spear, which he’d been carrying despite its uselessness. "We don’t want trouble. We’re just passing through on our way to Whitehaven City."
"Oh, I’m sure you don’t want trouble," the leader said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. "Nobody ever does. But see, here’s the thing—my crew and I, we’ve been tracking that Golden Wyvern for weeks. Been planning to take it down, harvest the valuable bits, maybe capture the cubs if we got lucky."
He spread his hands in a mock-apologetic gesture.
"And then you kids show up, swoop in, and steal our prize right out from under us. That’s just... well, that’s just rude, isn’t it?"
"We didn’t steal anything," Ren said, his voice tight with controlled anger. "We tracked the wyvern independently, risked our lives to hunt it, and earned everything we took. You have no claim here."
"No claim?" The leader laughed, a sound like breaking glass. "Boy, the only claim that matters out here is the claim of strength. And looking at you five..." His eyes swept over them dismissively. "I’m seeing a lot of exhaustion, a lot of injuries, and not a whole lot of fight left."
He took a step forward, and his thirty-two subordinates mirrored the movement, tightening the circle.
"So here’s how this is going to work. You’re going to hand over both those cubs, nice and peaceful-like. You’re also going to tell us where you stashed the wyvern’s corpse so we can harvest it properly. And then you’re going to empty your spatial rings of any cores, scales, or other valuable materials you might have picked up."
"And if we do all that?" Marcus asked quietly.
"Then we let you walk away with your lives," the leader said. "Oh, you’ll be poor, and you’ll have wasted all that effort for nothing, but you’ll be breathing. That’s more than you’ll get if you refuse."
Another of the lieutenants, a woman with twin axes and a cruel smile, added, "And just so we’re clear—if you make us take it by force, we’re killing all of you. Can’t have witnesses running back to the academies talking about how we ’robbed’ them."
The third lieutenant, a massive man with a warhammer easily two meters long, cracked his knuckles meaningfully.