Patriarch Gavin was now stuck between a rock and hard place.

Either sacrifice your daughter or condemn the clan to a hopeless war against a Martial Adept level cultivator!

Murmurs of agreement amongst the elders grew louder while both Patriarch Gavin and Rebecca remained silent instead of trying to fight back against the swaying opinion seemingly accepting the inevitable outcome.

Just as Dante was about to stand up for Rebecca and speak out somebody beat him to it.

Seeing the difficult situation his brother and niece were in Winton wouldn’t just stand by and do nothing about it

Instantly a horrifying aura burst out of him silencing the whole crowd.

“You people really are a bunch of shameless pigs, I’m embarrassed to even share the same blood as you ” spoke Winton with utter disdain

“As soon as times get tough instead of banding together as a clan and seeking to overcome these difficulties together , you bastard seek to sacrifice one of our own . Do you really think that Slater Clan would really spare all of us ? ” continued Winton.

“But what other option do we have , we can’t fight against a martial adept realm cultivator ourselves!” Said one of the elders

“Speak for yourself ” replied Winton coldly

“Just because you are too weak to skip levels and fight somebody at a higher cultivation level doesn’t mean everybody else around you is ”

But Winton was then interrupted by Grand Elder Harrison

” How can we be sure that you have the strength to fight a martial adept realm cultivator ?”

“Well you can’t, but you can be sure I can beat your ass and that doesn’t just go for you but for anybody else in the room. I’d happily take any challenges if you doubt my martial prowess” said Winton with a sadistic evil smile. And Winton was speaking his aura began to bubble as tendrils of smoke and darkness began to swirl around him creating a small storm around him scarring elder Harrison and any other elders into silence.

“Well, I’ll take the silence as yes then. Anyway we have 2 ninth level, martial journeyman cultivators, on our side and numerous eighth and seventh level martial journeyman level cultivators, even if the slater clan joins in they’ve never been our match in the first place so we have nothing to fear ” as Winton finished speaking he went back to his seat, retracting his horrific aura and allowing everyone too breath again

Whilst Grand elder Harrison and the remaining elders still had ugly expressions on their faces. Patriarch Gavin and Rebecca had wide smiles on their faces.

Turning towards Winton, patriarch Gavin gave him a nod of appreciation before going up to speak

” now that the problem of the upcoming inter-clan competition has been solved feel free to leave unless you have any outstanding questions for me to answer.” said patriarch Gavin

Despite the unwillingness many elders felt, they soon started leaving despite the unpleasant feeling they had.

While many elders began leaving Dante took a chance to speak to Rebecca.

“Now that the situation around the Martial adept cultivator has been solved. How do you feel about the inter-clan tournament coming up? Do you feel like you can still take on Curtis?”

“Curtis ?” replied Rebecca ” trash will always remain trash, I dealt with that waste once and I can deal with him again but this time I won’t spare his measly life.” said Rebecca with an evil scowl on her face ” just wait and see,” said Rebecca as she walked off.

Just speaking to Rebecca allowed Dante to realise that the aura around her had completely changed. It had changed from being more kind and welcoming to a more sinister and cruel one even giving Dante goosebumps all over his body. This was surprising for Dante because for as long as he had known Rebecca, she had always been a kind and welcoming person and for her to show such hatred and anger something had to be really bad.

But I guess it made sense. Who wouldn’t be mad if their own family turned against them and almost got them sacrificed?

Dante could only send out his condolences to Curtis’s family because he knew that when Rebecca got a hold of him in such an angry state it wouldn’t be pretty.

Thinking of this Dante slowly strolled back to his room. And as he entered his room he remembered his spoils that he had collected from his whole ordeal in the ‘Howling Beast Forest’ but because of this sudden meeting and all the frantic panicking and arguing going on he had forgotten to even Check the loot he got from the Slater clan Elder .

So he brought out the space pouch he had managed to scavenge. It was just a plain animal skin pouch with nothing remarkable about it and no mystical embellishments.

the only colour on it was a simple blue string used to open and close the pouch. If he hadn’t seen it open himself even Dante would have doubted that it was a real and authentic space pouch.

I mean who could even blame him, which normal person would keep such an expensive and rare natural treasure and make it look like it could be found in the local trash bin