Elliana’s voice rang out through the ancient trees. “Show yourself! Who are you, and why did you change your mind the moment you saw those bracelets?”
The forest responded with nothing but empty silence.
After waiting for what felt like an eternity, Elliana finally turned her attention to Cole. “Have someone escort Taylor back to safety. I want to stay here and track down whoever that man is.”
Cole felt torn between two equally powerful desires — his burning need for clarity of the situation and his deep concern about Elliana’s physical condition. Reading the conflict written across his face, Elliana locked eyes with him and gave him a warm, confident smile.
“Don’t forget that I’m a trained physician, Cole. I understand my body’s limitations better than anyone. Trust me when I tell you I’m perfectly capable of continuing.”
Against his better judgment, Cole eventually gave in to her determination. He signaled to the rescue team members to prepare the cable system that lifted Taylor to the hovering helicopter. N?w ?ovel chapt?rs are published on fι?dnοvel.net
After Taylor had been safely hauled up and away from danger, Cole shifted his focus to Jason. “That injury on your back needs proper medical attention. You should return with them.”
Jason’s response was immediate and firm as he shook his head in refusal. “Just superficial wounds, nothing that requires urgent care. I’m not leaving until I discover what secrets this forest has been protecting all these years.”
With that settled, the three of them, accompanied by a handful of remaining rescuers, pushed deeper into the wilderness, trailing the same path the wolf pack had taken during their retreat.
Every few minutes, Elliana glanced down at the pair of bracelets clutched in her palm. “We’ve spent so much time searching for the truth about these s,” she said quietly to Cole. “Something tells me we’re finally about to discover what they really mean.”
Cole felt the same intuition stirring in his gut and responded with a nod of agreement.
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True to the mysterious man’s word, their journey remained surprisingly peaceful. The route ahead stayed completely clear of danger, and at one point, they even spotted a small herd of deer peacefully grazing in a sunlit meadow, providing a brief moment of natural beauty amidst the tension.
This peaceful passage led everyone to reach the same disturbing conclusion. The forest itself wasn’t the deadly trap that rumors had painted it to be. The real danger was man-made. All those people who had ventured into these woods over the decades and never returned might have fallen victim to natural hazards, but it seemed far more probable that they had been deliberately eliminated by that mysterious guardian. He was clearly guarding a great secret, something that was almost certainly connected to the bracelets Elliana now carried.
After approximately an hour of steady walking, they came upon an absolutely massive tree that dwarfed everything around it, unlike anything any of them had encountered before.
The trunk was so impossibly thick that thirty adults standing side by side with arms outstretched would barely be able to encircle its circumference. The deeply grooved, weathered bark told the story of countless centuries of survival.
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