A guttural voice, laden with malice, sliced through the night's stillness. It heralded the arrival of four figures who emerged from the undergrowth, their eyes blazing with a predatory gleam as they cornered the injured woman.
The leader, a burly man with a scar that bisected his face, sneered at her with undisguised contempt.
"You think you can escape from the Iron Palm Sect?" he sneered, his voice dripping with venom. "You'll pay for what you did to our young master."
The woman, her back pressed against a moss-covered boulder, trembled with fear. Her breaths came in ragged gasps, her eyes darting between her pursuers, desperately seeking a way out.
"Please," she choked out, her voice barely a whisper. "I didn't mean to harm him. It was an accident."
"Accident?" the leader roared, his laughter echoing through the grove. "You dare call it an accident when you break his finger? You'll pay with your life!"
