Chapter 245: Maidens in chains.

Zyra’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. She looked from the bowl of meat straight into Gwenevia’s overly eager eyes. This woman wasn’t being hospitable_ she was trying to drug them and shut them up!

Suspicion blossomed into dark certainty in Zyra’s mind. Tessi was right. Something terrible may have happened to the maidens in this freaky town. At least the people in Hollomgad were honest about not welcoming them and they had looked at them suspiciously. These ones had smiles. And a small town in the middle of nowhere with smiling faces and free food at a time when food was scarce, was always bad news.

Zyra opened her mouth to call out the fake old hag, but before she could say a word, a hand reached out from the crowd and forcefully slapped the bowl right out of Gwenevia’s hands! The wooden dish crashed onto the dirt, spilling dark, drugged meat everywhere.

"I have heard enough of this crap!" Lucian roared, his face flushed red with pure rage.

"LUCIAN!" Master Zoo screamed, slamming his fist onto the table as he surged to his feet. "Shut your mouth!"

Lucian completely ignored Master Zoo’s scowling face and focused entirely on the residents of the town. "What you are doing is wrong!" Lucian yelled, his voice shaking with anger. "The Soul maidens saved all of you! If it weren’t for them, that king beast would have eaten or killed every single one of us!"

Master Zoo’s face turned bright red, looking like a boiled lobster. "Silence!" he barked. He turned to his head guard, a tall, muscular man with a thick beard. "Adrian! boys! Throw Lucian and his entire family out of this town right now! I do not care if they get eaten by some crawling beast."

Adrian grinned wickedly, stepping forward with three heavily armed men.

"Wait!" a woman named Solange stepped out from the crowd, waving her hands anxiously. A few other villagers murmured in agreement behind her. "Master Zoo, throwing them out won’t fix this! How many of us will you throw out? We can always find other offerings for the cannibals."

Olga tilted her head and cast a sinister glance toward Zyra and Hunter, who were standing near the entrance of the square. "In fact_ why not hand over these new travelers to the cannibals instead of the Soul maidens? They look strong. The cannibals will love them!"

Zyra and Hunter traded a worried gaze.

Did she really just suggest using us as human snacks? Hunter thought, his eyebrow twitching.

Adrian chuckled, cracking his knuckles as he approached Lucian. Just as Adrian stretched out his big, hairy hand to grab Lucian by the collar, a hand shot out from the side and grabbed Adrian’s wrist in mid-air.

It was Hunter, who had moved so fast that most people had barely noticed him move at all.

Hunter stared at Adrian with calm, dark eyes. "Where are the soul maidens? And what is all this talk about cannibals?"

Adrian looked at his captive wrist, then back at Hunter. He laughed sarcastically, shaking his head. "Hey, brat. Let go of me right now if you don’t want your bone turned into a toothpick."

Hunter pinched his lips together. He really did not have time for this nonsense. All he wanted were straight answers, and these stubborn people were holding all of them. Instead of answering, Adrian launched a heavy, brute-force punch right at Hunter’s head! The wind howled from the force of the punch.

Hunter didn’t even flinch. He casually caught Adrian’s giant fist with his open palm. Then, Hunter squeezed until a crunching sound was heard.

Adrian, a man who was known far and wide as the strongest fighter in the town froze. His smug smile vanished instantly. His face turned red, then purple, then a shade of blue that nobody knew human skin could produce.

"Aaaaaah! My hand! My hand is broken! Let go! Please!" Adrian began to wail in pain, dropping straight to his knees. Tears actually spurted from his eyes like tiny fountains.

The town residents, including Master Zoo, stood there with their mouths wide open. You could have dropped a whole steamed bun into Master Zoo’s open mouth and he wouldn’t have noticed. They finally realized that these travelers looking for the soul maidens were definitely not easy targets.

"Where are the soul maidens?!" Zyra stepped forward, her voice echoing across the square like a crack of thunder. "We know they are here! What did you do to them?! We will be very merciful to whoever talks first. Should you make us torture you for answers, you will die one by one. And you will die while begging us to end your worthless lives." She was already thinking of commanding Beauty to scan the town instead of wasting time on these people who clearly had bad intentions.

Solange trembled, pointing a shaking finger toward a large, double-door wooden storehouse near the back. "They’re alive! They’re in there! I swear we didn’t kill them!" She pointed at Master Zoo, "It is him that wanted them to be offered to the cannibals, some of us were not in on it."

Hunter didn’t hesitate. He slapped Adrian right across the face sending the big guard flying backward through the air like a discarded sack of flour. Adrian crashed straight into an oak tree, knocked out cold, with tiny birds practically spinning around his head.

The residents gasped. This kind of strength was only seen in high-level beasts. What kind of human or beast was this man?

"Zyra, check on the maidens," Hunter said softly, his eyes staying locked on Master Zoo and the remaining guards.

"Beauty, scan the area," Zyra commanded in her head.

A sweet, mechanical voice chimed in her mind. [Scanning... Unconscious human lifeforms detected inside the back storage near the third flat building.]

Zyra nodded firmly at Hunter. "I’ll go check!"

She sprinted toward the back, shoved open the heavy double wooden doors, pushed them open and gasped.

Inside, a group of young women were huddled together on the dirt floor like sacks of rice. Their hands and feet were bound tightly with chains, and white cotton cloths were stuffed into their mouths. Beside them were piles of salted meat and crates stuffed with energy stones_ clearly prepared as a giant payment package.

"Hang on, girls," Zyra muttered. "Beauty give me anything to wake them."

A small silver bottle containing a serum that countered neuro-paralytic drugs materialized in her hands. She quickly worked her way through them, pouring the liquid into their mouths. Slow, healthy breaths returned to the girls, though they were still deeply unconscious. Then, she started working on the chains, breaking them with her strength alone.

Suddenly, the ground beneath Zyra’s feet began to vibrate.