Chapter 262: Whistle Of Death

Hearing this shocking revelation, many of the villagers simply couldn’t hold back anymore.

They closed their eyes, turned away, covered their mouths in horror.

Just when they thought they had heard the worst and thought the truth couldn’t get any more horrific—it had.

A grandfather willing to make his own grandchildren suffer.

Newborn babies, barely a day old, tormented because he didn’t want his daughter to lead the village.

All for such a petty, stupid reason, he had destroyed so many lives, handed control to a man driven by nothing but ambition.

It was too disgusting to even think about.

Several elders muttered about cutting down the tree they had planted when the former patriarch died. He had no right to stand in this forest after what he’d done.

But more than that, they wanted to see how Leona would react—her own father had tried to kill his grandchildren.

Just as everyone expected, Leona looked utterly lifeless. Her eyes were vacant, hollow, as if she was questioning everything she had ever known.

Which was exactly what Julius wanted. He sneered inwardly, a smug smile flickering across his face—until Leona finally spoke.

“I guess it’s true, then.” Her voice was quiet, almost hollow. “My father really did hate me.”

The crowd stilled.

“I always knew we didn’t get along. He was on his own tempo, his own pace. But at least…at least in his final moments, when he gave me the position of matriarch without any hesitation, I thought…”

She paused, her lips trembling.

“I thought he had finally shown me the love he never gave me my whole life. I was so happy.”

She let out a wry, broken smile.

“But it was all false.”

“He was handing me the throne just to make me a puppet. Doomed to be alone, unable to show my true emotions, for the rest of my life.”

She shook her head slowly.

“He truly never loved me. He probably hated me from the moment I was born.”

Nyx felt her own heart crack. She had always known their father’s nature, had never expected anything from him.

But Leona had hoped. And that hope had been crushed so cruelly.

Julius watched, barely containing his satisfaction. Even if he was going down, he wanted to break her spirit first. One final act of cruelty.

But then Leona’s expression shifted.

The despair didn’t vanish, but something else emerged alongside it.

A warmth. A radiance. A smile—beautiful, genuine, unbreakable.

“But it’s alright.”

Everyone stared.

“Even if my father never loved me. Even if he hated me, wanted me dead, wanted my own children dead.” She looked down at Luna and Lulu, who clutched her tightly. “I don’t care.”

She looked up at the crowd.

“Because I have all of you. Despite everything I did over the years—despite how horrible of a matriarch I was—you still welcomed me back. You still love me.”

The villagers pressed their hands to their hearts, tears streaming down their faces.

“And I have my sister and mother as well” She looked at Nyx, who stiffened. “Who never gave up on me. No matter how horribly I treated them, no matter how many times I pushed them away, they always came back.”

Nyx’s eyes softened, thinking that her mother up in heaven would be so proud right now to have given birth to such a strong daughter.

“And I have my daughters.”

She gazed at Luna and Lulu, who beamed back at her with pure, unconditional love.

“Who always looked up to their mother, no matter how horrible I was.”

“Mother!” They cried together, pressing closer.

“And finally…” Her eyes found Luca. He stood apart from the crowd, watching her with a quiet smile.

“Luca. Who pulled me out of the abyss I was trapped in. Even when I kept dragging myself back down, he pulled me into the light. No matter what.”

She turned back to Julius, her gaze steady, unafraid.

“So I don’t care anymore. Just because one person I used to want respect from doesn’t love me…it’s not the end of the world.”

“Yes, it’s sad. But I can live with it.”

“After all…” She spread her arms. “I’m surrounded by so much love. What else could I ask for?”

“Mother! Mother, we love you so much!” Luna and Lulu threw their arms around her, sobbing with joy.

The villagers wiped their tears, voices rising in a chorus of support.

“Leona, we love you! We love you too!”

“We’ll never let you go!”

Leona beamed, basking in the warmth.

Nyx let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, realising her sister’s spirit hadn’t broken. She was stronger than ever.

Julius, however, experienced the exact opposite reaction.

His face contorted with rage and desperation as he watched Leona bask in the warmth of affection and support.

Everything he’d schemed for, every psychological blow he’d calculated, had failed.

His final opportunity to break Leona’s spirit had been snatched away.

The realization sent him into a frenzy.

“DAMN YOU!” He hissed, his voice cracking.

“DAMN YOU ALL! I’LL MAKE YOU SUFFER!”

“EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU! I’LL GIVE YOU A HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE ENDING BEFORE I GO!”

Everyone looked at him, startled. His face was twisted with madness, his eyes bloodshot, his body trembling.

His mouth then began to move strangely, his jaw working as though manipulating something hidden within. The villagers watched in confusion and growing alarm, uncertain what he was attempting.

Then, with a grotesque movement—Julius pushed something out from between his lips.

It was a tooth. A molar, yellowed and old, held delicately on his lips.

But this was no ordinary tooth.

Upon closer inspection, those with keen eyes could see that it had been deliberately carved—holes had been drilled through both sides, and the bottom had been fashioned into a particular shape.

It looked almost like a whistle. A small, grotesque, tooth-shaped whistle.

Nyx’s sharp eyes caught the detail immediately, and her body went rigid with recognition.

She understood, in that moment, exactly what Julius intended to do.

“HERO!” She screamed, surging forward.

“DON’T LET HIM BLOW IT! DON’T LET HIM BLOW THAT THING!”

But Nyx wasn’t the only one who understood the danger.

The villagers, sensing the threat, reacted with desperate speed. Elves pulled daggers from the sheaths at their waists, their movements frantic and coordinated.

They knew with absolute certainty that if Julius managed to activate that whistle, something catastrophic would follow.

Something they couldn’t survive.

The daggers began to fly.

But they were too slow.

Julius sneered—one last look of contempt—and blew.

Fweeeee!

Air passed through the whistle. But no sound emerged, at least none that human or elven ears could hear.

But Julius knew. Something else could hear it.

Something that would bring despair.

Something that would kill them all.

He also knew he would die after this. Luca would never let him live.

But at least he would take most of the village with him and he would watch them suffer before he went.

His face twisted into the laughter of a villain, manic and triumphant, as he waited for the screams to begin.

But…the screams never came.

Instead, the elves stared at him, confused. Some tilted their heads.

“What happened?”

“Did anything happen to you?”

“No, nothing. I feel fine.”

Julius’s expression faltered. His laughter died in his throat.

He stared at the crowd in disbelief, then looked down at the whistle in his hand. His breath began to come in short, panicked gasps.

“What…why?” He whispered, his confidence crumbling.

“Y-You should be dying. You should all be screaming right now.”

He lifted the whistle to his lips again, puffing out his cheeks and blowing with all the force in his lungs, his entire body straining with the effort.

Fweeeee!

His face reddened from exertion. Spittle flew from his lips.

Still nothing.

The villagers looked at each other in genuine confusion, tilting their heads like animals trying to understand a sound they couldn’t place.

“Did you hear anything?” One elf asked another, his voice uncertain.

“Nothing at all.” Came the response. “Not a single thing.”

“It didn’t make any noise.” Another added. “I’m not even sure that’s a whistle to begin with. What is it supposed to do?”

They began checking themselves frantically, running hands over their bodies and heads, turning to their neighbors to search for any sign of injury or internal disturbance.

But there was nothing. No pain. No sensation of anything foreign awakening within them.

Leona quickly pulled Nyx, Luna, and Lulu close, her motherly instincts overriding everything else as she conducted a rapid, thorough inspection of each of them.

She ran her hands over their faces, their necks, their torsos, searching desperately for some sign of what Julius had apparently tried to trigger.

She too found nothing.

And Nyx, despite her own confusion, turned to Julius with a sharp gaze.

“Julius, what exactly did you do?…Is something supposed to happen right now?”

Her question seemed to break Julius entirely.

He pulled the tooth-whistle from his mouth, staring at it as though it had betrayed him.

“Why? Why isn’t it working!?”

He gasped out, his voice cracking with desperation.

“It’s not supposed to happen like this! You’re supposed to be dying right now! You’re supposed to be groaning in agony so intense that you’d beg for death rather than endure another moment!”

He tried again, blowing the whistle with even greater force, his cheeks puffing out so far they nearly split.

Saliva sprayed from his mouth. His eyes bulged. Every muscle in his body tensed with the effort.

Still…nothing.

Not satisfied, Julius tried blowing from different angles, aiming the whistle in various directions, his movements becoming increasingly frantic and desperate.

He blew from above, below, from the sides. He even tried blowing it backward, as though some different orientation might somehow activate the mechanism that should trigger mass death.

But nothing came out of it.

The villagers watched him with a mixture of confusion and growing pity, as though observing a madman performing meaningless rituals.

This was the great manipulator, the cunning shadow ruler who had controlled them for forty years—

—now reduced to a slobbering, desperate creature trying to activate a mechanism that had failed him.

Finally, Julius collapsed to his knees, his entire body shaking with the force of his despair.

“No, no, no.” He whispered, his voice hollow and broken. “How can this be? How is this possible!?”

He looked up at the crowd with eyes that had finally accepted defeat.

“Y-You’re supposed to be dying right now. You’re not supposed to be standing here like this.”

“T-The pain inside you—the things I put inside your bodies—they should have killed you all by now.”

“Why? Why aren’t you dead!?”

The implications of his words crashed over them like a wave.

“What’s he talking about?” One elf whispered urgently. “Things inside our bodies? We’re supposed to be dying!?”

“What did he put in us?” Another asked, their voice trembling. “What is he talking about?”

“Just what the heck did he do?!”

The panic spread like fire, each villager suddenly acutely aware of their own body, searching for something foreign, something that shouldn’t be there.

But just then, like a bucket of water over a raging fire—Luca’s voice cut through the chaos.

“I believe…Julius is referring to this.”

The crowd turned toward him as one.

And immediately, horror and revulsion bloomed across every face.

“W-WHAT IS THAT?!”

“WHAT IS THE HERO HOLDING?!”

“IT’S DISGUSTING!”

In Luca’s outstretched hand, he held something. Something small, something that writhed and twisted in his grip with obscene movements.

It looked like a leech, about the size of a finger, but far more disgusting.

Its body was covered in red spots, and tiny, fleshy legs lined its sides, twitching weakly. It squirmed in his grip, writhing like it wanted to escape.

Several elves gagged. Others stumbled backward, their faces pale with revulsion.

Meanwhile, Julius’s entire body went rigid.

He stared at the creature in Luca’s hand, his face draining of all color.

“How…” His voice came out as a whisper. “How do you have that? You’re not supposed to have that!”

He scrambled forward on his hands and knees, grabbing at Luca’s leg.

“How is this possible?! How do you have that thing in your hand?! It’s supposed to be in their bodies! Inside them! Not in your hand!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep