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"Baine!!!"

The little Tauren warrior was coughing up blood. Trembling, he stretched out one hand, trying to touch his father beyond the wall.

A thick tentacle was coiled around his waist, its barbed thorns already buried in his abdomen. As the tentacle tightened, his young body let out a series of bone-chilling creaks.

His bloodstained spear fell to the ground and slowly rolled away.

All around him had become a sea of tentacles and thorns.

"Fa...ther..."

Though his wounds were clearly fatal, he neither wailed nor begged. That weak voice was the tender response of a little warrior.

As if he were saying: Father, I didn't run. I'm a real warrior too.

Aldo Thunderhorn and Bashana Rune Totem lay not far away. Bashana's body still seemed to tremble faintly, while the old hunter had completely fallen silent. He lay quietly on the cold ground, blood spraying outward in all directions and staining a vast stretch of earth red.

The tragedy had already happened.

Cairne's eyes instantly filled with bloodshot veins. His heavy breathing burst from his nostrils in powerful gusts, and his entire body transformed into an enraged bull.

With an explosive stomp, shattered stones flew from beneath his hooves. Cairne leaped high into the air and roared as he cleaved at the barrier before him.

The barrier had no way to withstand the legendary warrior's heavy blow. It shrieked and shattered, opening a huge hole.

Cairne's body slid backward from the recoil. Just as he quietly gathered strength to charge in again, the entire barrier regenerated at an absurd speed.

By the time the chieftain landed, the wall had already been restored completely.

"Help me!"

Amid the chieftain's trembling roar, two long-charged Lightning Bolts slammed heavily into the wall. But the spells' destructive power could not keep up with the wall's restoration, leaving the casters helpless.

Seeing this, Cairne grabbed his spear and struck several more times. Without exception, the barrier swiftly restored itself again.

Hamuul furiously punched the barrier, then struck it several more times. A bloody mark appeared on the barrier.

"Ah!!!" He dropped to his knees in grief, helplessly pounding the ground with both hands.

He did not possess Cairne's immense strength. His daughter lay in that cage, her fate unknown, and a despairing sense of powerlessness surged into his heart.

Elemental Spirits! Tell me, how am I supposed to save my daughter!!!

Magatha did not think so much. She viciously smashed her hammer into the ground, cursed, then resumed her previous task. She had to close the rift.

"At least ten minutes. Aren't you our chieftain? Think of some other way before then!"

"I'll help you!" With reddened eyes, Hamuul flung away his staff and began assisting Magatha's spell. At this moment, he did not know what else he could do, but he absolutely could not sit and wait for death!

Cairne had already abandoned his reckless attacks. He forced himself to calm down and observed slowly, searching for a breakthrough.

Hard work paid off. Soon, an opportunity appeared before him.

Or rather—above his head.

The chieftain raised his head high and narrowed his eyes at the sky. This barrier was not hemispherical; it was more like a vertically standing wall. That meant it could not extend endlessly, and Cairne quickly found that narrow gap.

About fifteen meters overhead, the air visibly rippled. That was the gap in the barrier!

A sliver of hope... to break through the cage.

But... twenty meters. It was a height that even Heroic Leap could not reach, a despairing gap.

Did he have no choice but to give up?

Cairne had long known the answer. He tossed the rune spear onto the ground, spat twice, rubbed his hands hard, then took several steps back.

Rage began to surge.

Then he sprinted, accelerated, and leaped in one fluid motion! With an explosive crash that split the earth, Cairne's huge body shot into the air like a whistling arrow. This was the greatest performance of his life, and the Tauren chieftain's body rapidly approached the gap!

Five meters, four meters, three meters, two meters... Closer and closer, yet slower and slower. Time seemed to have pressed pause. After those fractions of a second that felt like a lifetime, the chieftain brushed past hope.

Less than a meter remained between him and the gap, yet it was as distant as an uncrossable chasm.

Cairne's body stopped rising completely. He stretched out his arm with all his strength, desperately trying to reach that threshold, but his body, unable to find purchase in midair, kept falling under gravity. Falling, falling, until finally... he crashed heavily onto the ground.

With a deafening bang, pain shot through his knees. Cairne did not care. He immediately began his second leap, then a third, a fourth...

Nearby, the Shamans were doing everything they could to break the seal. The entire battlefield sank into an eerie silence, save for a series of rhythmic, thunderous impacts.

Bang—boom—bang—

The dense drumbeats continued to sound, and that tight, powerful rhythm awakened the old hunter's lingering consciousness.

His thoughts had grown hazy, and his body had stopped, yet he still clung to this world.

The Tauren hunter, who should have slept peacefully, opened his clouded eyes. It felt as though countless mountains weighed upon his exhausted body.

Who was that child lying on the ground? Who was that child hanging in the air? And who was he?

In this gray world, he had completely forgotten his own name. Those beautiful memories seemed to have drifted far away.

His journey should have ended here, allowing him to gain peace in the next life as a hero. But he refused, because a voice was reminding him...

You still have unfinished business.

Free hunter, what did you live for, and what did you fight for?

Ah... I remember now. I have forgotten my name, and no longer know who I am, but I will never forget that voice! That is my identity, my final duty!

"Urrraaaaaaah!!!!!"

Cairne, Magatha, and Hamuul were all stunned by that deep, majestic roar.

The gravely wounded Aldo Thunderhorn actually roared as he climbed to his feet again.

His body had already gone cold, his blood had nearly run dry, and a massive wound lay open across his abdomen, his organs shredded to pieces. Yet by relying on his final conviction, he stood once more!

A desolate, boundless wind howled by his ears, playing a farewell song for this great warrior.

He began to run. Gale winds wrapped around him, granting him Earth Mother's final blessing. His racing figure became a dark bolt of lightning.

With a roll, Xiao Na was firmly in his arms.

The tentacles reacted too slowly. Only then did their attack arrive—a terrifying sweep carrying dreadful wind pressure.

The hunter nimbly crouched down, letting the tentacle sweep over his head and avoiding the fatal attack.

Then he sprang up, stepped onto the tentacle's branches, and broke into another mad dash.

Closer! Almost there! Baine was right before his eyes!

But how could his enemy let him have his way? This time, four tentacles struck together.

The old hunter lightly twisted aside, and a dagger slipped from his sleeve into his palm.

He poured his remaining Arcane energy, along with the deepest thread of power in his soul, into it. Then he slashed downward, cutting the bowl-thick tentacle cleanly in two!

But he could no longer evade the attack descending from overhead. A tentacle dripping with foul mucus was about to smash down onto him.

At that critical instant, the sound of shattering glass rang out once more. Cairne fiercely hurled his rune spear, and the savage Shattering Throw instantly broke the barrier, brutally slicing the tentacle looming overhead into several pieces.

Dashing, spinning, cutting... This string of seamless movements was like dancing on a blade's edge. No one could believe such actions were possible for a huge, clumsy Tauren, and the performance was far from over!

More tentacles attacked from every direction, while countless bloody flesh sacs beneath his feet closed in step by step. Aldo leaped from the severed end of a tentacle, his hooves lightly tapping back and forth among the tentacles as he rose and shifted like a legendary monk master.

Then Xiao Na's body was hurled heavily out of the barrier!

Cairne leaped up and caught the young Shaman securely in his arms. She was safe!

Only a wall separated life from death. On this side lay the silent wilderness; on the other was the apocalyptic spectacle at the end of the world. Life and death stood apart.

In the instant of his fall, the chieftain's and hunter's gazes met briefly. Cairne discovered in grief that the old friend's eyes, once shining with wisdom and spirit, had lost all their light.

He was already dead.

Below him was a sea of tentacles.

Yet even though his soul had already departed, the memories remaining in his body still made him perform one final action.

He flung the heavily wounded little Tauren in his arms... high into the air.

Below, Nightmare's enormous maw bared its cruelest fangs and surged forward eagerly.

The old hunter's lifeless body fell among them and, amid satisfied rumbling, was torn into a sky full of bloody spray.

Baine's body was still falling straight down. At this rate, he would probably fall into the tentacles' grasp again and become their feast...

However, accompanied by a piercing cry, a snow-white figure suddenly appeared. Like lightning tearing through dark clouds, she slammed fiercely into Baine's chest, giving him one final burst of strength.

Before Cairne's despairing eyes, Baine's figure completed an almost impossible second acceleration and flew steadily out of the barrier. Like a fledgling escaping its cage, he spread his wings, and nothing could ever stop his flight again.

In the chieftain's peripheral vision, a streak of white light plunged straight downward, swallowed by the sea of monsters.

Clink. What was that sound falling to the ground?

Amid the darkness that blotted out the sky, a bloodstained bracelet gently fell to the ground. It was covered in cracks like the bark of an old tree, and a ray of light pierced through all the darkness, illuminating it.

Warm blood flowed over those cracks. Upon it, someone had once clumsily carved their story in crude words.

Snowfeather, Aldo Thunderhorn's eternal companion.