Faced with that bizarre, terrifying shriek, almost only the white-haired priests maintained their composure among the gathered Saint Clan.

Her tone was even calm: “Eight Branches, deliver the head of the Hunted. It is laid out in my chamber, I have already performed the rites.”

Qing Bazhi bit his lip, wordlessly turning to leave.

This was tradition.

This *is* tradition…

Qing Qishu and Qing Jiuye remained silent, their faces etched with shame.

“Young traveler from afar,” the priestess said, looking at Jiang Wang, “did you not ask me what predicament faces the Shady Land? That we Saint Clan must have our strong young warriors fight each other, and then offer the head of the warrior who dies to the Hunted… this is the predicament we face.”

“What is the cause of this predicament?” Jiang Wang’s voice was tinged with the oppressive atmosphere, “That cry just now?”

The old priestess looked at him and told him a story:

Long ago…

A tailless swallow came to their door, speaking with a human tongue, and said, “Kind people, I am starving, about to die of hunger. Can you give me something to eat?”

A kind Saint Clan maiden brought some fruit.

The tailless swallow said, “No, I do not eat this.”

The Saint Clan maiden then brought a bowl of rice and a bowl of water.

The tailless swallow said, “How can such things fill my stomach?”

The Saint Clan maiden grew angry and said, “What is it that you want to eat?”

The tailless swallow then revealed a ferocious visage, saying, “Only your head can satisfy my hunger, even just a little.”

Having said that, it pounced on the Saint Clan maiden.

This scene was witnessed by a Saint Clan warrior, who raised his bow and shot the tailless swallow dead with an arrow.

But the horror was that the next day, the tailless swallow appeared again.

Exactly the same, not a feather harmed.

It even used the exact same tone to beg the people: “Kind people, I am starving, about to die of hunger. Can you give me something to eat?”

The people already knew its ferocious face, so no one answered. The brave Saint Clan warrior killed it at once. To prevent this strange tailless swallow from resurrecting again, the Saint Clan warrior even burned its corpse to ashes.

But on the third day, the tailless swallow appeared again.

This time it cried, “I am about to starve to death, please, give me a human head to eat.”

Of course, no one would agree.

The Saint Clan warrior killed it again, but in the process of killing it, the Saint Clan warrior discovered that it was much stronger and more agile than last time, and killing it was no longer so easy.

The fourth day…

The fifth day…

Every time the tailless swallow was killed, it would appear again, completely unharmed, the next day. And it became stronger than the day before.

No matter how they treated its corpse, burying it, chopping it up, even if a warrior roasted it and ate it… it would always resurrect.

Finally, one day, the Saint Clan warrior was no longer its match, and was killed by it in battle.

The tailless swallow pecked off the head of this pitiful Saint Clan warrior and ate it in a few bites.

Then it happily said to the people, “This is the hundredth head I have eaten, kind people, thank you! I am full! See you again in a year!”

Having said that, it flew away from here.

And sure enough, it never appeared again, until a year later…

When the tailless swallow reappeared, the Saint Clan warriors had prepared for a whole year, setting traps and working together to kill it. They trapped its body with chains, placed it in a wooden coffin made of divine dragon wood, and buried the wooden coffin in front of the Tree Altar, hoping to suppress the evil creature with divine power.

But to their despair, the next day the tailless swallow resurrected again.

And as before, it became even stronger.

In a great battle, it killed seventeen Saint Clan warriors and pecked off the head of one of them.

When it left, it said, “I am full, thank you for the hospitality! See you again in a year!”

A year later, faced with the tailless swallow’s visit again, the people had different opinions. Some diligently practiced combat skills to fight the tailless swallow again, while others tried new methods to prevent the tailless swallow from resurrecting.

At this time, a Saint Clan warrior stood up and said, “It only needs to eat one human head, why should we kill so many people?”

This warrior committed suicide in front of the tailless swallow, offering his own head.

After the tailless swallow pecked and ate the head, it left as expected, without harming anyone else.

This kind of “head offering” has continued to this day, and is the predecessor of the Saint Clan’s “Hunted” tradition.

This story is not long, but it is exceptionally dark and despairing.

A monster that can never be completely killed, and becomes stronger with resistance, has turned the appalling act of eating human heads into a habit.

People fear it and are accustomed to it.

The white-haired old woman finished telling the story.

Jiang Wang and the others were silent.

The Saint Clan’s “Hunted” tradition is a history of great sacrifice.

But from another perspective, isn’t this also a history of the tailless swallow taming the so-called “Saint Clan?”

“I have a question.” Wu Quji asked directly, “Since that tailless swallow only needs to eat one human head a year. Why don’t you offer old people or children who are unable to work, instead of letting young and strong warriors die? From a value trade-off, it is not appropriate. Young and strong warriors should be the guarantee of the survival of the clan, right?”

The old priestess looked at him deeply, “The old are history, and children are the future. To lose history is to lose honor. To lose the future is to lose everything. We have no tradition of letting the old and the children die.”

Qing Jiuye glared at Wu Quji, “Although my Saint Clan has been forced to submit, our spine has not been broken!”

At this time, Jiang Wang asked, “Is that tailless swallow the Yanshi Owl?”

Before entering the Shady Land, Qing Qishu mentioned this seemingly taboo name, which left a deep impression on him.

“Yanshi Owl?” Before the priestess nodded, Su Qi next to him spoke out of curiosity.

While the priestess was telling the story of the tailless swallow, he had been lost in thought, seeming to have connected it to something.

“Young man, do you know the Yanshi Owl?” The old priestess looked at Su Qi with her cloudy eyes.

“I once came across an ancient book with a passage that recorded the Yanshi Owl,” Su Qi said hesitantly.

Jiang Wang’s heart stirred. Ancient books that exist in the present world record the tailless swallow monster of the Source Sea Forest Realm?

This matter is becoming more and more mysterious.

Everyone looked at Su Qi with questioning eyes.

He thought for a moment, first declaring, “I am not sure of its authenticity, I only say what I have seen.”

“But speak without hindrance.”

Su Qi organized his words and narrated, “According to the records in that ancient book…”

“Swallows are good birds, owls are evil birds.

Ancient people greatly hated owls.

Cutting off the heads of owls and hanging them on trees for public display.

This is the origin of “beheading and displaying the head.”

This has also become a punishment that the human race still uses to this day. People often cut off the heads of those sentenced and hang them on wood for public display.

It is said that after an owl dies, its malice does not cease. Only one out of ten thousand owls that have been beheaded and displayed will breed an extremely evil bird from its severed head.

Its name is Yanshi Owl.

Legend has it that this thing is the owl’s malice. Because it hates that other birds, people love swallows so much, but hate owls so much, it turns into the shape of a swallow. It is to harm lives in the shape of a swallow. To harm the human race in the way that the human race “likes.”

Because it is born from a severed head, it is born with a head but no tail, so the biggest difference between the Yanshi Owl and the swallow is that the Yanshi Owl has no tail.

The Yanshi Owl is the most evil of owls, born cruel, and feeds on the heads of living beings.”

Speaking to the end, Su Qi’s voice even trembled a little—

“When the Yanshi Owl cries, it will surely devour a hundred heads!”