Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest
Chapter 162 - 34: As Brilliant as Flames

Chapter 162: Chapter 34: As Brilliant as Flames

She woke up from her stupor.

She saw many berries scattered on the ground and struggled to rise from the snow.

Behind her, the Secret Forest was deep and dark, ahead lay the hills covered in white snow, a thin night sky heavily pressing on her heart.

She stared in panic and confusion at the unfamiliar scene.

Where was this?

...

The hunt had lasted for several days because it was a long journey.

Thus, they had to camp here tonight.

Roman was butchering a deer when he saw Gwivelle, frantic like a child who had had a nightmare, rush into his arms.

His hands were bloody from slaughtering the prey; he did not touch Gwivelle’s head but simply asked, "What’s wrong?"

"Roman, Roman... Sanna, Sanna, Sanna is gone!" Gwivelle gasped for air, and after finishing her sentence, the suppressed fear and tension inside her burst forth, tears rolling down her cheeks as she cried bitterly.

...

The dusk was dim, and the cold wind was urgent.

The surrounding trees also faded with the night.

There was no trace of the moon.

This land had not fallen into total darkness.

Those strangely shaped trees were densely packed, shouldering Chen Xue.

This was a barbaric forest!

Sanna knew that terrifying legend.

When the Barbarians from the Eastern Plateau swept south, another tribe of Barbarians lived deep in the Western Secret Forest, existing in a sunless environment generation after generation, short in stature, drinking blood, living with beasts, cannibalistic, and anyone who entered would be devoured by the forest...

She recalled that distant and dreadful legend—the cannibalistic forest Barbarians, and suddenly, she feared that Barbarians might appear in this Secret Forest to flay and eat her alive.

She trembled with fear, only wanting to escape this barbaric environment.

She followed Gwivelle back the way they came, confident in Gwivelle’s sense of direction. After all, even the mountains hadn’t killed her.

But when walking across a snowy slope, she slipped and fell before she could cry out to Gwivelle, hitting a tree down the slope and losing consciousness, only coming to after dark.

She hoped to return the way they had come during the day.

But nature’s cruelty unfolded before her like a curtain.

Halfway through, she despairingly realized she was unfamiliar with this place and couldn’t remember the route from the daytime.

The unfamiliar environment grew even more alien.

She chose a direction that seemed familiar, only to find the path narrower and trapped by the dark forest, as if there was no escape from this land.

Those trees were bizarre, their branches like the claws of monsters.

The north wind howled, passing through the dense trees with a sharp, piercing scream as if ghosts were shrieking.

Snow from the branches fell with a "rustling" sound.

The scene was too terrifying; Sanna was on the verge of collapse.

"Kao, save me. Gwivelle, save me..."

She frantically looked around for a passable road, instinctively calling for help. But when she mentioned the witch, she suddenly stopped her cries, remembering a past incident, and shuddered.

"Gwivelle said she took back her words; Gwivelle won’t hurt me!"

Sanna suddenly ran forward but twisted her ankle and fell to the ground, her ankle throbbing with pain, unable to stand.

"It hurts!" she cried out in pain, fear and fright occupying her heart. She staggered to lean against a tree trunk, took off her thick boots to check her ankle, and found it red and swollen, unable to stand.

I must be crippled!

She felt utterly despondent.

I will surely die here!

She thought.

An unprecedented fear mounted, compressing her nerves, tearing at her sanity.

She had experienced Kao’s beating; she failed to complete a literacy task Kao had given her. He covered her body with a blanket and beat her with sticks and fists until she felt near death, her bones feeling like they were about to break, lying in bed for a whole day before feeling better.

Yet, what she faced now was a hundred, a thousand times more terrifying than Kao, that harsh character.

"Kao, brother, save me!" Panic engulfed her, and her ankle throbbed painfully.

She couldn’t move. Her body temperature was dropping, and her thick winter clothes could not shield her from the icy wind; she felt bitterly cold.

Then she let out another piercing scream!

It was because she realized that what she was leaning against was not a tree trunk but the living shell of a monster!!

It loomed above her, its trunk displaying an eerie color, as if scorched by flames, and its branches stretched out like specters, sharp and slender, resembling countless blades. The leaves were a sickly green, flickering with a ghostly light, chilling to the bone.

She trembled with fear, looking around her. The shadows of the trees were menacing, like numerous ferocious living beings.

"The curse isn’t real!!"

She regretted it deeply. The Witch of Calamity had cursed her to freeze to death on a winter’s night, and now was that evil spell coming true?

She couldn’t accept this fact; she didn’t want to die, not here like this.

"I must escape!" Sanna wept as she crawled forward with both hands and feet.

The fear of dying was so fierce that it made her lose her reason and composure.

She began to hate Gwivelle.

Otherwise, how could she have ended up in this situation!

She also began to hate Kao.

Only because Kao had made her approach Gwivelle could they have become friends.

She started to hate herself.

She shouldn’t have been careless, shouldn’t have treated Gwivelle as a commonplace friend, but should have faced her with caution.

Sanna recalled the scene from before.

Gwivelle had transformed into a terrifying and dark witch, her face seemingly flowing with shadows, cursing her to a dreadful death.

That language was no ordinary speech; it contained weird Secret Power.

She saw, in a daze, that forbidden power flowing inside Gwivelle’s body, like a cold poison snake entwining her body...

For various reasons, they kept that incident to themselves, not speaking of it to outsiders.

Sanna felt that she herself was most to blame. If she had paid more attention, she wouldn’t have ended up like this.

She didn’t know how long she had been crawling.

Suddenly, Sanna sensed something indescribable, a horrifying chill that made her hair stand on end, her instincts warning her of approaching danger.

It was the watchful eyes of some wild, unknown creature.

Her neck, chillingly cold and stiff, turned to see a pair of green, beastly pupils staring at her.

"No!!"

Her scream echoed through the barbaric forest.

As the old wolf pounced, Sanna’s pupils dilated, her soul trembling as if unlocking shackles, and a strange Force surged from her body, through her resisting palms, forming an invisible barrier.

Crack!

The barrier shattered instantly.

Whoosh!

The foul wolf, with its stinking maw, was upon her in a flash, and then, just as quickly, it was flung away.

It flew past her face as if, in the midst of its lunge, it had been hit by a train coming from the side,

and that large arrow pierced the Void!

It struck precisely into the wolf’s body!

The enormous Force directly pinned the beast’s body against the trunk of a strange tree.

Clang!!

The tail of the arrow still vibrated with a resonant sound.

Sanna, still in shock, gasped for air and followed the direction of the arrow.

The dark and terrifying Secret Forest cleared in her vision, as if a filter had been removed, all things becoming sharp and clear.

Her hearing had sharpened, and for some reason, her vision had also enhanced, allowing her to clearly see the figure hundreds of meters away.

He stood there with the Large Bow, his chest heaving slightly as he breathed, towering there.

Those fiery red eyes blazed intensely in the night, like dazzling flames!