Chapter 515: Chapter 262: Excuse Me... Is This Grey Valley Village?
A few minutes ago, Uncle Mike’s instructions kept echoing in my mind like some kind of hallucination.
"More than thirty... just run with your wife and kids, don’t look back... they can’t take away that many..."
As a husband and father, Tom wished he could rush home immediately and take his family to the refuge in the rear.
But just as the urge to protect his loved ones drove his legs to take that first step.
He saw the faces in the crowd.
Uncle Harold, when his father passed away, he was still young, and even working in the fields left him exhausted. It was with Harold’s help that he got through that toughest stage;
Brother Abel, knowing his family wasn’t well-off, had specially sent several pieces of preserved deer meat when Janice was pregnant, and was scolded by his sister-in-law for days afterward;
Leon, this guy... Madi, this guy isn’t hiding safely in the back, what’s he doing at the front!?
Tom glared, grabbing the collar, and almost forcibly dragged the half-grown teenager out of the crowd.
"Who told you to come?"
"If something happens, what will your sister do in the future?"
He growled low at the boy in front of him, spitting as he yelled.
As the only brother of his wife, Janice, the last remaining family in the world, Tom had always viewed him as his own brother.
Seeing him silently following everyone here, a fire of anger flared in his heart.
"Listen, I want you now, immediately, to go home!"
"Stay with your sister."
"You’re always clever. If things go wrong, take Lily and Leo with your sister and run northeast, don’t wait for me."
"Do you understand!"
Tom tightly gripped the grass fork; the original thought of retreat had long been replaced by a more resolute and profound emotion.
He would not back down.
Even just holding on for one more second might allow one more villager to survive.
"From now on, you’re the pillar of the family, protect your sister, do you hear me?"
Tom spoke rapidly, continuously instructing.
Yet the young boy in front of him remained silent, just tilting his head, silently and steadfastly gazing at his brother-in-law.
His hands tightly gripped the rusted shovel covered in solidified dirt, never letting it go from beginning to end.
"Damn, did you freaking hear me!?"
"Now is not the time to be willful, understand!?"
"..."
"Quiet!"
Just as the crowd grew more restless, even somewhat chaotic, that burly old man, the chief of Grey Valley Village, suddenly shouted loudly.
Bandits, snowstorms, famine... leading the villagers through disaster after disaster, this old man named Clapam had accumulated immense prestige in the village.
Just two brief words restored order to the chaotic crowd.
People no longer argued or worried, but silently and attentively looked at the old man at the forefront, once again pinning their hopes on him.
Clapam’s brain rapid-fired, his thoughts flying in his mind.
The enemy was a large goblin community led by Earth Goblins, numbering more than forty.
With the current defense strength of Grey Valley Village, even considering those improvised traps laid in advance, they were definitely no match for them.
So... command the villagers to give up resistance and disperse into the forest to escape?
No! That’s absolutely impossible!
The forest in the dark is the goblins’ home turf, and scattered people would lose the power of collective cooperation, thus abandoning their greatest advantage as humans.
Unfortunate as it may be, Grey Valley Village could just become history.
But if they stayed here to hold the line, facing such a horde of goblins, how long could they hold out?
At that time, perhaps all the adult males in the village would die here!
Clapam’s expression changed, his jaws clenched.
In just a few seconds, reflecting in the firelight, his eyes were already filled with blood.
A trace of determination flashed across his face.
He pulled over the stubborn-looking young man gripping the iron shovel, his tone resolute to the extreme:
"Leon, head back to the village immediately and tell everyone to run northeast... we’ll meet on the main road!"
From the moment the two guarding the wheat field discovered the goblins and sounded the horn, to the villagers slowly gathering, only a few minutes had passed.
Under normal circumstances, these green-skinned rats would have long been unable to suppress their bloodthirsty desires, screaming as they waved their wooden clubs, rushing towards the village en masse.
But now, under the enforced orders of the Earth Goblins, they slightly spread out around them, like a large mouth about to close, vaguely covering the edge of the wheat field.
A few hurried minutes passed, as the villagers finished gathering and made their on-the-spot decisions, the green-skins also completed their arrangements.
"Hiss-Gah!"
A gaunt goblin, its thin, paper-like dark green skin wrapping its bony fragile frame, could no longer restrain its desires and leapt out from the shadows of the dense woods, charging straight toward the crowd.
Taking his gaze off the young man’s back as he shouted and ran into the village, Tom turned around, peering through the simple fence embedded with long thorns.
Watching that ferocious earth goblin leap wildly on the field ridge, and the green-skin horde behind it about to surge toward them like a tide.
The wooden handle of the grass fork in his hand tightened again and again, his breathing becoming involuntarily rapid.
Beside him, Village Chief Clapam, Uncle Harold, Brother Abel... the sun-worn faces marked by time were filled with fear, panic, some even trembling, emitting whimpering sounds.
But not a single one chose to step back.
His attention was unprecedentedly focused, and for some reason, Tom wasn’t thinking of the impending slaughter, struggle, death, but rather of the vow he made once in front of his father’s grave.
To give his family a good life... it seemed now he couldn’t make it happen.
Leo was still young, Leon was clever, he once thought of sending this lad to town to learn a craft, now...
Awooo—
Suddenly, from an unknown place came a long wolf howl resonating through the night, snapping Tom’s consciousness back to reality.
"Wild wolf? No, this kind of sound..."
He instinctively pondered the source of the sound.
But immediately, the chaos from the distant woods interrupted his thoughts.
Tom didn’t know what was happening.
It was not just a wolf howl; it was a sudden gust sweeping through the forest, an unusual faint tremor of the ground beneath his feet, the relentless, abrupt shrieks mingled in the howling.
Darker than the night, massive twisted black figures under the faint moonlight revealed their fleeting, terrifying outlines.
The trees were snapped, falling leaves wrapped with broken branches rained down; the frictional sound of metal slicing through flesh and bone overlapped, transforming into a horrifying roar that made one’s hair stand on end.
The evening breeze carried a hint of blood scent drifting from afar, filling the nostrils with each breath.
The goblin that first leapt from the forest still ran on the field ridge.
Its scarlet eyes filled with a desire for human flesh, with no doubt as to why the comrades behind didn’t follow;
The thick saliva dripped from its mouth while running, and its flaring nostrils, the aroma of blood and flesh had long filled its tiny head, ignoring the gradually ceasing shrieks behind.
It raised the filthy wooden club embedded with rusty iron ingots high, but its body suddenly sped forward at an abnormal speed.
Of course, it wasn’t awakening any power on the battlefield, or bursting with potential.
An iron-gray sword blade, at some point, had already pierced through its chest.
Shooting forth from the depths of darkness, the powerful impact carried by the force inertia nailed this frail body onto the ground.
This goblin hadn’t even figured out what happened, its only consciousness along with the vitality in its body seeped into the soil with the blood flowing beneath it.
"Pa."
Footsteps echoed.
The silver-white ring reflected a shimmer under the moonlight, a blood-stained hand reached out from the darkness, gripping the sword hilt;
Slight gray bone-crafted leg guards with fine texture and smooth lines, boots stained with grass clippings and blood drips pressed heavily on the goblin’s head, there’s no doubt that with a bit more force, this skull wrapped spherical head would burst like a water-filled sack.
An exertion of the arm, the slender sword blade with blood beads was extracted from the soil and corpses, the iron-gray sharp sword light made it hard to keep one’s eyes open.
In the air, the last trace of an intimidating black wolf shadow quietly dissipated, merging into the night.
A young man with black hair clad in mottled iron armor casually flung a sword flower, flinging the blood away.
Looking at the villagers standing motionless behind the fence ahead.
With a polite smile on his face:
"Excuse me... is this Grey Valley Village?"