The supreme elder noticed his actions and stopped smiling. She said, "How disrespectful. It seems you want to be forced before you can see the light."
She signaled to the people beside her to pursue Arthur. Then she called out to the other two, "You fools. Catch him now, and I won't punish you for making me come out here to do your job for you."
According to their plan, she didn't need to come out at all. In fact, it was better that she didn't join the pursuit and that no one from the family be directly linked to the pursuit.
But the three fools that she sent to capture Arthur did a bad job of it. From the way things looked, Arthur was going to escape. She couldn't allow that to happen.
She had three choices to make. Either send more capable people to go ahead of Arthur and waylay him, give up on Arthur and hope it doesn't bring any trouble to her family, or join the pursuit and get the job done herself.
She chose the third option. This is why she appeared in front of Arthur.
She was hoping that Arthur would let down his guard around her and let her capture him easily. But he refused to comply.
If he had complied, she would have been tempted to let the whole thing go and pretend that she was really here to save Arthur. At the very least, if she still wanted the inheritance, she would have been gentle about it.
But Arthur was wary of her and refused her offer of hospitality. That meant that he was already suspecting her and was going to bring trouble to her family if he escaped. So she decided to stop pretending.
Since she wasn't pretending anymore. She asked the two previous pursuers to join the hunt.
It was a good call that brought in quick results. Arthur was quickly surrounded with nowhere to go.
The supreme elder walked over to him with a frosty face and said, "Young man. You have an inheritance, and I want it. Now, we are either going to do this the easy way, or we are going to do this the hard way. Before you decide, ask yourself this: is your life worth the inheritance?"
Before Arthur could reply, someone was already clapping. But the source of the clap wasn't from anyone on the scene.
Both Arthur and the 13 people from the Milton family looked towards the source of the clap. When Arthur saw the person clapping, he relaxed. This reaction was the odd one out.
The people of the Milton family stiffened when they saw who was clapping. They appeared to have frozen after they turned their necks to look.
Even the supreme elder had frozen. But she was a leader and had a lot of people counting on her for survival, so she quickly recovered and began thinking of a way out of the current conundrum.
But the person who was clapping didn't wait for her to speak or act. They said to her, "I find what you said to be interesting. I might even use it for myself in the future."
"Take for example, now. You have something that I want. We can either do this the hard way, or we can do this the interesting way. There is no easy way because there is no easy way to hell."
"Come now. Choose what you will have. But before you choose, ask yourself this question. Was my life and the life of my family worth the inheritance?"
The supreme elder frowned when she heard the options. She frowned because it was a threat and a promise of total destruction. Those aren't good things to hear.
It appeared that she was doomed. In order to find a way out of this doom, she lunged towards Arthur. She aimed to catch him and use his life to force the people of the Blood Skull sect to spare her family.
Arthur had relaxed earlier, but he knew that a fight was about to happen. Especially after he heard that threat. He knew that this was the calm before the storm, so he equipped his armament in preparation for survival.
His armament had just fused with him when a boulder rushing down a mountain smashed onto him. That's what it felt like when the supreme elder smashed into him.
It shouldn't have felt like that because she wasn't aiming to harm him. She was only aiming to catch him, which was why her hand was stretched out to grab him.
But the life-saving item that Elder Storm Hawk had given him flared into action at that moment to create a golden shield around him. This shield blocked her grab and made Arthur feel that she had punched him.
He was smashed into the ground because of that punch. He was very unhappy about it, but the supreme elder was even more unhappy about smashing him to the ground.
Elder Storm Hawk, who was watching with a cold face, smiled when she saw what the supreme elder did to Arthur.
She said, "The interesting way it is then. I must say, it is the wrong choice for you."
She said that as she signaled to the people behind her. There were two people behind her. Each one had been watching the series of events with a sharp, hungry look in their eyes.
They were like starved wolves willing to do anything for the next meal. They were desperate for flesh, and Storm Hawk just gave them the permission to engorge themselves. So they rushed forward to tear the lambs apart.
The supreme elder saw them lunge forward and felt despair. She looked at Elder Storm Hawk and said, "None of your choices were good."
Elder Storm Hawk shook her head and said, "Wrong. The hard choice was good for you. You would have had to give up a lot of benefits, but all of you would have survived with your lives in the end."