Chapter 426: Unexpected Item
Lin Wan looked at the surrounding Northern Witch tribesmen and said calmly, "I'm just taking back what belongs to me."
Her voice wasn't loud, yet it clearly reached everyone's ears.
The leading man was stunned for a moment, a flicker of hesitation in his eyes.
He sized up Lin Wan, his bone staff trembling slightly as if weighing the pros and cons.
But soon, a resolute color returned to his eyes. "No matter who you are! Those who trespass on sacred ground must be captured!"
"You're asking for trouble, aren't you?" Lin Wan sneered, waving her slender hand.
In an instant, an invisible pressure enveloped the entire area. All Northern Witch tribesmen froze in place, unable to even move their eyeballs, leaving only terrified expressions on their faces.
Just as tension mounted, a white-haired old man suddenly rushed in. Without a word, he slapped the leading man across the face!
"You insolent fool!"
The old man roared, then turned and knelt before Lin Wan, kowtowing heavily. "These young ones don't know better, they offended the Sacred Child, please forgive them!"
Lin Wan frowned at the sudden appearance of the old man. His face bore a striking resemblance to the Southern Witch leader, though his clothing was more luxurious and his complexion much better.
"I look very similar to someone I've met before," Lin Wan mused thoughtfully.
The old man dared not raise his head, his voice respectful and trembling. "I wouldn't dare hide it from the Sacred Child..."
He paused. "The Southern Witch leader is my elder brother."
The furnace flames burned eerily blue, illuminating the old man's respectfully bowed figure.
Lin Wan's fingertips moved slightly, releasing the restriction on the Northern Witch youths.
Those young men felt as if they had been pardoned, but didn't dare be the slightest bit presumptuous. Under the old man's stern gaze, they lowered their heads and quickly exited the furnace.
The footsteps faded away, leaving only Lin Wan and the old man inside.
"It was my poor discipline that offended the Sacred Child." The old man kowtowed deeply again, his forehead nearly touching the scorching ground.
Lin Wan examined the old man before her whose face resembled the Southern Witch leader. "You're really brothers?"
"Absolutely true." The old man raised his head, a complex emotion flashing in his eyes.
He slowly straightened up and took out an ancient bone tablet from his robes. On the tablet were carved two intertwined runes, the very symbol of brotherhood in the Witch tribe.
"Back then..." The old man's voice grew distant. "The Sacred Master saved the Witch tribe from the brink of extinction, settled us here, and left that block of profound ice, ordering us to guard it for generations."
In the light of the furnace flames, the old man's face looked especially weathered. "At first, the entire tribe was filled with gratitude, swearing to protect the Sacred Master's treasure with our lives. But as thousands and tens of thousands of years passed, the younger generation grew dissatisfied..."
He sighed. "They questioned why the fate of the entire race should be bound by an ancient promise. Why should they be forever trapped in this sunless underground?"
Lin Wan listened quietly, her gaze sweeping over the block of profound ice that had been roasted in flames for a hundred thousand years.
"Seeing the internal conflicts intensify, on the verge of civil war at any moment..." The old man smiled bitterly. "My brother and I discussed and decided that blocking was worse than guiding. Rather than let the Witch tribe destroy itself in civil war, better to keep the conflict within controllable bounds."
His fingers gently stroked the bone tablet. "So, we actively engineered the split. Those willing to keep the promise followed my brother to stay in the Southern Witch, those yearning for freedom came with me to the Northern Witch. We agreed that no matter which path was chosen, we would not harm our own kind."
The furnace flames suddenly rose higher, illuminating the tears glistening in the old man's eyes. "These past hundred thousand years, we Northern Witches didn't want to destroy the Sacred Master's treasure. We just wanted to see... what exactly was sealed in that profound ice, worth the entire Witch tribe paying such a price."
The furnace flames gradually weakened, the old man's hunched back disappearing into the dark passage.
Lin Wan stood alone in the massive furnace, gazing at this block of Primordial Ice that had been roasted for a hundred thousand years.
"Return to its rightful owner..." She repeated the old man's words softly, gathering a wisp of immortal essence at her fingertips.
A pale golden light flowed from her palm like water, wrapping around the entire block of ice.
Unlike the Northern Witch tribe members who used brute force to roast it, her immortal essence seemed alive, penetrating along the patterns on the ice surface.
The ice began making faint cracking sounds, spiderweb-like cracks appearing on its surface.
Just as the ice was about to completely melt, Lin Wan suddenly sensed something unusual. Something was quietly slipping away from the depths of the ice!
That something was extremely stealthy. If she hadn't reached the Immortal Lord realm, she probably wouldn't have noticed it at all.
It was like a wisp of smoke, or a stream of light, silently escaping toward the gap at the furnace top.
"Trying to run?"
Lin Wan's eyes flashed with light, her right hand shooting out like lightning. Her five fingers spread open, an invisible binding force instantly enveloping the entire furnace.
That escaping light suddenly froze, caught firmly in her palm.
The golden light scattered, and what lay in her hand gradually took shape.
It was actually a golden ring!
Lin Wan's pupils contracted slightly. She was all too familiar with this golden circlet.
Though it was much smaller than the one in her memory, the unique patterns, the restrained luster, it was unmistakably... a golden headband!
The golden headband in her palm seemed to realize escape was impossible. It struggled violently in her hand a few times, emitting a faint buzzing sound.
But soon, as if accepting its fate, it quieted down, docilely lying in her palm, as if the earlier struggle had never happened.
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Hey everyone,
I'm going to skip the fancy pitch this time and just be straight with you.
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I know I can't compete with aggregator sites. They pump out chapters faster than I ever could, and I've made peace with that. What I can offer instead is consistency and care — a chapter that's actually readable, where the same technique doesn't get three different names in the same chapter and characters don't randomly switch personalities. Quality daily updates, not a firehose of machine-translated slop.
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