Chapter 44

Chapter 44: Chapter 44

A few villagers laughed at that, and the sound made Lysander’s eyes become colder. "You came here with half the village because your broken arm was not enough humiliation for you, and now you are standing outside my house demanding that a sick woman come out so you can feel powerful again."

Falcon’s face twisted with anger, and several villagers immediately began talking over one another. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

"She’s not some innocent woman. If she wasn’t a trouble maker, then how would Falcon’s arm have gotten broken in the first place??"

"That’s right. She caused trouble in the market and made the chief lose his position. She hasn’t even apologised yet, and now, she even broke my son’s arm! If she doesn’t come out now, she’s going to regret it!"

"That girl is a curse to all of us! She’s always causing trouble! What a useless woman."

"Falcon was always a simple and good kid. Look at what she did to him."

Lysander watched these people talk. These were the same people who had watched her struggle for food, the same people who had turned their backs on her when she needed help, and the same people who had allowed Falcon and his friends to torment her because they had convinced themselves that she deserved it. Now they stood together pretending that they were the victims, and Lysander found the hypocrisy almost impossible to stomach.

"You have one final chance to leave," Lysander said as he looked directly at Falcon. "Take the people you brought with you and go back to your homes, I have no patience left for this."

Falcon opened his mouth to respond, but the Chief raised his hand before he could speak, and the entire crowd fell silent. The Chief stepped forward, his expression hardening as he stared directly into Lysander’s eyes.

"I already gave an order earlier," he said. "Ingrid has been banished from this village, and she was instructed to leave, but she ignored that order, which means she has openly disrespected the authority of the Chief."

"Banished?" Lysander repeated, and the contempt in his voice made several villagers glance at each other. "For what reason?" l

"Ingrid caused harm to members of her own village. Doing this is just the justice and explanations that they deserve."

"You are banishing her because of the words of the same people who have spent months making her life miserable, and you are calling that justice?" He took one step closer to the Chief, and although the Chief remained standing, there was a noticeable tension in his shoulders now. "I always thought you were old, but I also thought you were wise enough to tell right from wrong, yet today I am beginning to realize that you are nothing more than an old geezer who cannot think for himself."

The Chief’s face turned red with fury. "How dare you speak to me like that!"

"I speak to you exactly the way you deserve when you come to my home and threaten someone who is too sick to defend herself," Lysander replied. "You want to call yourself the Chief, but all I see is a man hiding behind the anger of a crowd because he does not have the courage to admit that he has treated Ingrid unfairly."

The villagers immediately erupted again, throwing insults toward Ingrid and Lysander, and Hawk, Falcon’s father, finally stepped forward with an expression filled with hatred.

"Enough of this," Hawk snarled. "If you refuse to bring that useless woman outside, then we will go inside and drag her out ourselves. Whether you like it or not, Ingrid must come out here and apologize for what she did to my son. Or else... Both you and her, none of you are going to escape here tonight if you continue to resist."

Lysander’s entire body became still at those words, and although he had not moved, the atmosphere around him changed so sharply that even some of the villagers stopped shouting.

"No one is going inside tonight."

Hawk ignored him. He raised his hand, and the villagers began moving toward the house.

Lysander’s transformation happened before any of them could reach the doorway. His body expanded with terrifying speed as silver scales spread across his skin, his limbs twisting and reshaping until an enormous serpent towered over the people standing in front of him.

His horns rose high above his head, and his purple eyes burned with a vicious intensity that caused several villagers to stumble backward in fear. He was so massive that his body completely blocked the entrance to the house, making it impossible for anyone standing outside to see what was happening inside,

When he opened his jaws and released a deafening hiss, the sound rolled through the village like thunder, forcing several people to cover their ears and retreat. Lysander was the largest Beastman in the entire village, and everyone knew that none of them could match him in raw size or strength.

Unfortunately, they had not come unprepared. Six enormous Gorilla Beastmen stepped out from behind the crowd, each carrying a chain harpoon that had clearly been prepared specifically for him.

Lysander’s eyes immediately narrowed when he saw the weapons. He quickly realised that this had never been about simply bringing Ingrid away, they had come intending to fight him as well.

The moment the first harpoon flew through the air, Lysander twisted his body in an attempt to avoid it. The weapon still struck his side, piercing between his scales before the chain wrapped around his body, and the pain that followed tore a furious roar from his throat. Five more harpoons followed almost immediately, burying themselves into different parts of his enormous body as the Gorilla Beastmen pulled the chains tight. Blood began running between his silver scales, but Lysander dug his claws into the ground and refused to move.

"Get away from my house!" he roared.

The Gorilla Beastmen pulled harder. Lysander’s body lurched forward, but he fought against them with everything he had, his tail sweeping violently across the ground and forcing several villagers to scatter.

One of the Gorilla Beastmen was struck so hard that he was thrown several feet away, while another was caught directly by the powerful sweep of Lysander’s tail and was crushed beneath the force of the blow.

Lysander twisted again and struck another attacker, and for a brief moment the sheer power of his rage seemed capable of overwhelming the entire group. However, the harpoons were embedded deeply into his scales, and every attempt he made to pull away only caused the chains to tear against his flesh. Now, he had five harpoons stuck into his skin each of them drawing blood.