Choice

A short distance from the center of the tower's explosion, Aldo was crouched on one knee, tightly shielding the two young Tauren in his arms. Neither of them had suffered the slightest injury.

The old hunter slowly rose and coughed softly a few times, swallowing the blood-tinged phlegm back down.

He slowly set the trembling Bashana down from his arm, but when he tried to pull the other young Tauren away, he met fierce resistance.

"You! You! What have you done?!"

Baine shouted angrily, grabbing the old hunter's two massive horns and shaking them wildly. If not for the moral restraint of respecting his elders, he might have started cursing.

Aldo did not answer Baine's question. He gently pried open Baine's fingers and placed the struggling young Tauren beside Bashana.

The moment his hooves touched the ground, Baine turned and ran back, only for the old hunter to grab him and force him back down.

"Stay here. Don't move."

Aldo gave that simple instruction, then turned back to rummage through his pack.

To free his hands to carry the two young Tauren, he had stuffed all his weapons inside earlier. Sorting them out again would take some effort.

"Let me go! I would never run from battle, and I would never abandon my companions like you did!"

The instant those words left his mouth, he regretted them.

It was not that Baine had suddenly understood the hunter's difficulties. He simply felt that everyone had their own choices, and he had no right to force anyone else.

Xiao Na secretly tugged at his tail and silently shook her head.

So little Sian had been right. Baine always acted without thinking.

Aldo kept searching with his head lowered, as though he had not heard those hurtful words at all.

Baine drooped his ears and sat on the ground, poking at pebbles with a mixture of anger and regret.

"Huh? That's strange..."

After poking for a while, the mischievous pebbles kept bouncing around, and Baine could not hit a single one. That was when he realized something was wrong.

What pebbles were bouncing? The ground itself was trembling!

"Watch out!"

He hurriedly shoved Bashana. The two of them tumbled head over heels, filling their mouths with sand.

Luck saved them. Accompanied by a crack like shattering glass, a fissure appeared out of thin air where they had been standing. They had nearly been cut in half at the waist.

The experienced hunter was actually a little slow to react this time, responding last of all. But his experience saved his life. With a practiced roll, the fissure only managed to catch the corner of his clothes.

The two young Tauren looked at him in panic, wanting to run over.

The hunter instantly realized something and shouted anxiously, "Don't move!"

Baine and Bashana froze at the shout.

Aldo let out a breath and slowly said:

"That's it. Whatever you do, don't move!"

"Stay where you are. I'll come to you."

With that, the hunter began slowly moving toward them. The sky was still dark, and he had to focus all his attention to notice the faint ripples and refractions in the air. Using this simple method, he carefully approached Baine and Bashana.

Eyesight was not omnipotent, after all. The space here was like a shattered mirror, the dust filled with invisible fragments. Tiny spatial distortions had already cut countless wounds across the strong old hunter's body, one of them only two centimeters from his eye.

Wound after wound split open, spilling scorching blood. The old hunter trudged through a mountain of blades.

Watching the blood-covered figure before her, Bashana covered her mouth and wept soundlessly. Baine lowered his head in silence.

Blood stained his vision red, but he did not dare wipe it away, nor did he have any intention of stopping.

One step, two steps, three steps...

After crossing the final fissure,

He could finally reach the two little ones! He stretched out his hand and swiftly pulled them both into his arms.

Bashana threw herself fiercely into the old hunter's chest and burst into tears again. Just now, she had nearly thought she would lose another familiar person.

On this unfortunate night, she had been losing people without end.

"Don't cry. You're the future High Priest and High Chieftain. How can you cry so ugly?"

Tauren really did look silly when they smiled. The old hunter bared a row of crooked front teeth and smiled easily despite the blood still flowing down his face.

"Don't worry. As long as I'm alive, I'll never let my students suffer even the slightest harm!"

At that moment, a loud bang came from behind them.

The explosion made the spatial turbulence even more unstable.

Aldo tightly shielded Baine and Bashana, allowing invisible blades to carve bloody flowers across his body again and again.

The old hunter panted heavily. Trembling, he took several scrolls and a few magic arrows from his chest. He had just noticed the largest fissure, and a bold plan had formed in his mind.

If he could find a way to make that fissure keep expanding, perhaps he could redirect the pressure from the exit onto it.

The bird whistle on his wrist flashed urgently again and again. Within it rested the old hunter's most loyal companion, the snowy owl that had pecked out a demon's eye. But the hunter had no intention of releasing her. He only silently apologized to his companion in his heart.

Sorry, old friend. It's not your time to take the stage yet. Let me play the hero for once...

He affectionately stroked the foreheads of the two young Tauren, then hurled all the arrows and scrolls high into the fissure!

Boom!!!

It was like throwing a mana bomb into a portal. The Arcane fluctuations produced by the magical explosion severely disrupted the fissure's stability. As the hunter had predicted, it gradually began to expand. Fragments of vines and thorns slowly spilled from the red-and-black spatial fault. At the same time, the tiny fissures gradually faded and even disappeared.

"It worked!"

Baine jumped up happily, only to be slapped back down by Aldo.

Bashana rubbed her eyes, her gaze toward the old hunter filled with admiration. The hunter met her expectations, smiling as he patted the little Shaman's head.

Aldo let out a breath. "That should do it. Let's get out of here quickly."

"Are we just going to leave it alone?" Baine pointed at the enormous scarlet fissure, deeply worried.

"Leave it alone. It isn't worth risking your lives over!" The old hunter coughed, shook his head, and stopped Baine, who was itching to act.

"Could... could you let me try?"

Bashana stared at the constantly churning fissure, growing increasingly uneasy. "Aunt Tamara and Sian are still behind us. If this fissure keeps expanding..."

The elements seemed to be constantly warning her beside her ears. She took a totem from her robes and said hesitantly, "At the very least... at the very least, we need to know where it leads."

The old hunter thought for a moment, then sighed. He slowly stood up, nodded, and said, "All right. Little Baine, stay farther away. Girl, stay behind me. Be careful and protect yourself."

Bashana nodded, rose to her feet, and slowly walked toward the fissure.

At the same time, Chieftain Cairne Bloodhoof smashed the head of a mutated abomination with a vicious punch. Another twisted creature, its jaws gaping wide, screamed as it lunged at him.

It clearly did not understand what kind of powerful legendary warrior it faced. Before it could extend those disgusting tentacles, Cairne grabbed its "neck" and gave a slight twist with both hands, snapping its head clean off.

Another half-dead creature of the same kind lay beneath Cairne's hooves. His runic spear was planted in the ground, skewering three of them in a row like candied hawthorns.

"Magatha, are you done yet?"

With a savage stomp, he crushed the enemy beneath his hooves, flung the limp corpse aside, pulled up his spear, and swept it horizontally. His rage became a tangible shockwave, instantly clearing an area nearly ten meters wide.

"Stop rushing me!" Magatha snapped irritably.

An astonishingly enormous fissure had blocked the group's path. She was doing everything she could to close it so they could pass.

Four or five Searing Totems had been set around the Shaman, continuously spraying fireballs. Those disgusting things kept charging forward, turning to ash in the flames like moths flying into fire.

Magatha had reached the peak of her fury, like a powder keg ready to explode at the slightest spark. Even the smallest provocation could send her into a raging fit.

The accuracy of the rumors Dezco had heard was confirmed once again. This cow's temper was truly so terrible that even good-tempered Tauren could not understand it. Pandaren probably could not either.

If little Sian had been here, she might have mocked that it was fortunate Magatha had not been born in Pandaria. Otherwise... hehe.

Cairne could not really say anything. This Shaman was crucial to them right now. Hamuul did not seem particularly skilled in this area, and it had to be said that Magatha really was an exceptionally capable Shaman.

"We can't let that demon's ritual succeed. I'm counting on you!"

"Enough nonsense! Do you want me to open the anchor point inside solid rock? Go help someone else if you have time. I don't need you meddling here!"

Just as Magatha bluntly declared that she did not need help, a cry for assistance came from the distance at the perfect moment.

"Cairne, come give me a hand! Things are a little troublesome over here. These damned weeds are devouring my mana! My spells aren't doing anything to them!"

Hamuul Runetotem's voice carried from far away, sounding exhausted.

Hearing his old friend's plea, Cairne gave a few quick instructions and sprinted off.

From a distance, he saw vines as thick as embraced tree trunks rising from the ground around Hamuul. Their hanging aerial roots blotted out the sky, covered in terrifying barbs and warts that made Cairne break out in a cold sweat.

You call that weeds...

Nearby, Dezco Dawnstrider was also locked in a bitter struggle. His enemies were not flesh abominations or mutated plants, but legendary... dragons!

Black-and-blood-red drakes. Real dragons!

Do not underestimate these small creatures. Their destructive power was astonishing. Their sharp teeth could easily tear through plate armor, and their saliva was terrifyingly corrosive.

Dezco had been caught off guard and bitten on one leg by these loathsome devils.

And besides the drakes, he had to face a tide of venomous spiders. These despicable ambushers had secretly laid countless eggs around the area, periodically unleashing waves of spiderlings. Dezco struggled to hold them back, endlessly swinging his warhammer and pouring out intense Holy Light, burning these escaped pests away time and again.

Well, look at how cool those enemies looked as they screamed and burned to ash. Perhaps this move could be called—Ashen Awakening?

In any case, Dezco had no mood to think about naming things right now. He only knew that he had to hold on, at least until Lady Magatha broke through this damned spatial fissure.

In short, the reinforcements had been held back by the enormous fissure. These terrifying spatial cracks had not appeared only near the old hunter; they were everywhere throughout Bloodhoof Village.

Yet worse still, even this elite group led by the Chieftain was having such difficulty dealing with the horrors emerging from the fissures. How dire must the plight of those facing them alone be?