Secretly Married for 4 Years, He Regrets to Tears After the Divorce-Chapter 209: Search and Rescue Team Breaks into the Sarankal Border
As the wedding day approached, Adrian Lancaster grew increasingly anxious.
Soldiers patrolled outside his wooden hut twenty-four hours a day. Wherever he went, someone followed. Invisible shackles had completely imprisoned him in the land of Sarankal.
Every escape plan he could think of had failed.
Adrian Lancaster sank into utter despair.
’Was this all fated to be?’
’Was he destined to spend the rest of his life in Sarankal?’
Aston had become a distant, unattainable dream.
...
「On the fifth day.」
A primitive, fanatical clamor shrouded the Sarankal Tribe’s morning.
Beneath a giant totem pole, beast-hide drums were beaten with wild abandon, their booming echoes as deep and rhythmic as a heartbeat.
Tribespeople, their faces painted with white clay and ocher pigments, gathered in the square. They performed strange, postured dances and cheered with fervor.
"Auspicious day! The chief weds! The River God protects! Long live Sarankal!"
The door to the wooden hut was pushed open, and several tribal serving women entered.
They carried the groom’s attire: a heavy collar made of animal teeth and shimmering metal plates, along with other ornaments.
"Chief Tarn, please change into these."
Adrian Lancaster didn’t resist. He let them do as they pleased.
In addition to the robe and collar, they placed new, bone-carved ornaments on his wrists and ankles.
They clicked softly with every movement, feeling more like another set of invisible shackles.
"Chief Tarn, it is time to go and receive Lady Nia."
Adrian Lancaster rose to his feet like a robot, his heart heavy. "Lead the way."
"Yes, Chief Tarn." The serving women bowed respectfully.
A moment later, Adrian Lancaster, now in his wedding attire, stepped out of the hut. The bright sunlight made him squint.
He was flanked by guards holding stone spears, their expressions stern. They followed his every step.
The serving women led Adrian Lancaster toward the larger wooden hut where Nia resided.
The tribespeople along the path erupted in even more fervent cheers, but to Adrian Lancaster, the sounds seemed distant and distorted.
Nia stood before her home, dressed in her finest. She wore a long dress sewn from the most vibrant feathers and soft deerskin, a wreath of flowers crowning her head. Her eyes, fixed on Adrian Lancaster, shone with undisguised adoration and joy.
’Her Tarn had finally come to marry her.’
But the joy radiating from Nia only made Adrian Lancaster feel a suffocating despair.
"..."
He knew Nia was a good woman. She was his savior. For his sake, she had argued with Barton and the elders on several occasions, desperately defending him.
He could never repay the debt he owed her.
But gratitude wasn’t love.
Adrian Lancaster couldn’t bring himself to love Nia. It wasn’t that she wasn’t a good person; it was that his heart already belonged to someone else. There was no room for another.
"Let the wedding ceremony commence!"
With a loud cry from Maka, Adrian Lancaster was required, according to Sarankal custom, to take Nia’s hand and walk with her to the circular platform in the center of the square.
There, they would complete a series of tedious rituals, culminating in a final tribute to the River God.
"Chief Tarn, please take the bride’s hand."
At the serving woman’s quiet prompt, Adrian Lancaster took a slow step forward and absently took Nia’s hand.
’If he refused to go through with the wedding now,’ he thought, ’Barton would probably shoot him dead with an arrow.’
Nia’s heart pounded like a drum. Blushing, she shyly lowered her head.
Amid the crowd’s cheers, the two of them walked step by step toward the nearby platform.
The ceremony was about to begin.
"Report!"
A sharp, urgent cry tore through the festive clamor.
A soldier from the border patrol sprinted into the square, his face a mask of alarm.
He fell to his knees before Barton and the assembled elders, shouting breathlessly, "This is terrible! A group of people in strange clothes and carrying strange weapons has broken through the border! They’re too powerful! Our men can’t hold them back!"
The square fell silent in an instant. All eyes turned to the soldier.
Barton’s face darkened, his entire being radiating a murderous aura.
"Who are they? How many?"
"I don’t know where they came from. I counted about twenty of them. The iron sticks in their hands spit fire and make a deafening noise. Several of our warriors fell before they could even get close."
The patrolman’s voice was laced with fear and disbelief, as though recounting a nightmare.
It was the first time he had ever seen such a powerful weapon—one that could kill a man with just a light press, effortlessly.
Hearing this, Adrian Lancaster’s heart leaped. His pupils contracted, and he trembled with an excitement he couldn’t suppress.
’Fire-spitting iron sticks? Those are guns—weapons from the civilized world.’
’Could it be? Has my family from Aston found me?!’
"What do they look like? Do they look like me?" Adrian Lancaster asked the patrolman impatiently.
The patrolman thought for a moment, and then it was as if his mind exploded with the realization.
"That’s right! They look very much like you, Chief Tarn."
The moment those words were spoken, Barton understood. He whipped his head around, his gaze piercing Adrian Lancaster like an arrow.
"Are they your kinsmen?"
Nia also looked at Adrian Lancaster in astonishment, her joy replaced by confusion and unease.
Before Adrian Lancaster could answer, Barton roared, "Sound the horns! All warriors, assemble! Capture every last one of those outsiders trespassing in Sarankal! We’ll offer their blood to the River God!"
WHOOOOO—WHOOOOO—WHOOOOO—
The deep, piercing call of a bull’s horn echoed across the tribal lands.
The people, who moments before had been lost in celebration, now wore grim, dangerous expressions. They snatched up their weapons and, led by Barton, surged toward the border like a tide.
Women and children were hurried away as the shouts of warriors mingled with the call of the horn, plunging the square into chaos. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖
Two brawny warriors seized Adrian Lancaster, holding him fast.
Nia tried to reach for him, but Maka yanked her back, shielding her from the turmoil.
