Seeing this, Leo's heart felt as if it were being pricked by needles, stinging painfully. He raised a hoarse voice: "Come here, I believe you are being threatened by him, right?"
"I told you long ago that Owen is my life-saving benefactor; it was you people who forced me to come here. He won't harm the Omegina in your tribe, let us go." Rowan knew this tribe had a deep feud with the Silver-Winged Snake clan, but that was the truth.
If Leo hadn't brought him back, perhaps he would still be living day by day with Owen.
Getting to know friendly people like Asa and Yanan here could be considered a gain for him. However, he had no sense of belonging to this tribe. He wasn't good at socializing with others, so he didn't reject the idea of leaving with Owen.
In Rowan's eyes, he didn't belong to this world in the first place, so how could a small tribe hold him back?
Leo finally understood the Omegina's stubbornness; following Owen, the one getting hurt in the end would be Rowan.
"This Omegina has been poisoned by the ideology of the Silver-Winged Snake beastmen. Talking is useless; just eliminate that beastman." Elder Kain had seen too many such cases, where Omeginas were deceived by the sweet words of the Silver-Winged Snake beastmen.
Owen transformed into his beast form, and while they couldn't react in time, he struck a preemptive blow.
A snake tail sweep swept across, and the Snow Leopard beastmen couldn't dodge in time and were swept to the ground; Elder Kain, in particular, fell painfully.
Owen let Rowan quickly climb onto his back, spread his wings, and flew away.
"Catch him quickly!" Elder Kain wiped a trail of blood from his nose, speaking angrily.
The beastmen rushed out simultaneously to give chase.
Leo turned around, drew his bow taut, and aimed at Owen's thin wings to shoot.
Rowan heard the sound of the air being torn apart. Looking back, he saw the arrow about to hit Owen's wing.
He swung the wooden spear to parry, causing the arrow to only graze Owen's thin wing.
Before he could sigh in relief, hundreds of arrows were shot toward Owen simultaneously.
Owen dodged continuously. Fearing he might accidentally let the Omegina get hurt, there were arrows he had to take; the sound of arrows colliding with hard scales rang out dully.
Not long after, Owen's pitch-black snake body was stained with fresh blood, and his flying speed slowed down a bit.
But he knew he couldn't stop, or else the Omegina was at risk of being snatched away again. Recalling the pain of losing the Omegina, he suddenly flapped his wings hard, accelerating once more to widen the distance.
He turned into the forest behind the mountain, constantly weaving through the rows of trees to shake them off.
Leo chased closely; several times, the claws of the Snow Leopard beastmen almost caught Owen.
Every dodge Owen made was incredibly difficult, and a few beastmen had already run ahead, intending to intercept and kill him.
He used his snake tail to wrap tightly around the Omegina, increased his flying altitude, and found a way to escape.
Leo saw the situation was not good and hurriedly climbed a large tree nearby, trying his best to stop him, but it was useless.
It was like this again; the Silver-Winged Snake beastmen used this very method to steal the Omeginas of the tribe.
Leo watched helplessly as Owen took the Omegina away, feeling both pain and fury; clearly, it would have taken just a little more to stop them.
Rowan hugged the snake tail wrapped around him tightly, watching the beastmen in the tribe roaring madly, and his usually calm heart suddenly stirred.
For the first time, he felt as if someone truly needed him, expecting him to stay in a strange place to live.
He didn't look back; he knew he didn't belong there.
Owen tried to maintain this flight state, waiting until he flew far out of the Snow Leopard tribe's range before beginning to slowly reduce his speed.
Rowan realized Owen was a bit exhausted, so he helped find a place to land.
Seeing a cave on a cliff from a distance, Rowan patted Owen's snake tail and reminded him loudly.
"Fly toward the cliff ahead; there seems to be a cave there, and that protruding spot is flat enough to stop."
The biting cold wind blew away Rowan's voice.
Owen vaguely heard the Omegina's voice. Fortunately, a beastman's eyesight was very good, and he also saw the cave ahead.
When Owen landed steadily in front of the cave, they discovered it was a two-headed bird's nest.
Luckily, they had migrated south, leaving only an empty cave.
Owen gently put the Omegina down, turned back into human form, and then uncontrollably knelt on one knee in the snow.
Rowan hurriedly stepped forward to support him, seeing Owen covered in blood, with blood still flowing from the small holes caused by the arrows.
"Why are you hurt like this?" Rowan couldn't help but be surprised; he had been protected very securely by the snake tail, so he wasn't injured at all.
"It's fine, just small wounds. Let's go into the cave first." Owen used a weak voice to comfort the Omegina.
Rowan tried to help Owen into the cave; he could feel that Owen truly had no strength left.
Just as he was about to check Owen's wounds, he saw that Owen had passed out from exhaustion.
"Wake up, Owen, don't sleep yet." Rowan called him hurriedly.
"Can you still hear me?" Rowan patted his face; fainting at this time was not a good sign.
Seeing Owen had absolutely no reaction, Rowan slipped his hands under Owen's armpits and used all his strength to drag him into the two-headed bird's nest.
Two-headed birds didn't sleep on stone beds like beastmen; in their cave, there was only a large nest made of dry grass.
Owen was unconscious, so his whole body went limp, becoming incredibly heavy.
Rowan took a while to lay him flat in the bird's nest.
He ran out to the cave entrance to quickly retrieve the two animal skin bags, finding some hemostatic medicine inside to apply to Owen.
There were no overly large wounds on Owen's body, but the blood holes all over his body alone were enough to make him suffer.
Outside, the snow was falling heavily, and the two-headed bird's cave was biting cold.
Rowan pulled a few easily flammable dry branches from the bird's nest, piled them into a fire nearby, and used flint to light it.
When the dark cave lit up, he began to treat Owen.
He didn't hesitate to take off Owen's animal skin clothes. The wound on his chest was immediately exposed; there were two broken arrowheads still stuck inside, and blood was ceaselessly oozing out.