Chapter 250: Surprise Gift

"I took her ultimatum too lightly." I shook my head after recovering myself. "I thought she was merely using the lives of the villagers as a threat to coerce me into surrendering. But from the look of it, she has been planning this all along."

If I didn't give her Twin Stars, she would simply use this ritual to strengthen her power and take the swords from me by force. And if I did give her Twin Stars … Well, I suppose there was no harm in following through with the plan and using that strengthened power to kill me instead.

"She's meticulous." Bai Ye's voice was icy. "She made sure to scare the villagers enough so that they wouldn't dare venture into the woods and discover this. If not for the group of brave men searching here today, no one would've noticed any signs of it." He clenched the map in his hand. "And without tracing out the full symbol, no one would've identified the purpose of such a setup."