Chapter Sixty-Five: The Viper in the Garden

Qin Mo leaned against the hearth, his silver eyes narrowing into lethal slits. "And who did they name? Who in this wretched little village has the authority to promise protection to a group of arsonists?"

"The Chief’s daughter," Davy said, the words falling like stones into a still pond.

"Mira. She provided the charcoal from the communal pits, she ensured the guards on the west perimeter were ’distracted’ by a fabricated wolf sighting, and she promised Su Mei safe passage to the Southern borders."

The silence that followed was more deafening than any roar. Lin Wan felt a cold sinkhole open in her stomach. She remembered Mira’s "gifts" of bitter roots and her silent, watchful presence.

She had assumed it was simply the usual friction between a local and a "foreigner," a natural jealousy. To think that the girl had been willing to burn down a home, and the cubs inside it, was a level of malice that Lin Wan struggled to comprehend.

"Why?" Lin Wan asked, her voice small but steady as she stood up, supporting the weight of her belly with one hand.

"Jealousy is a poison that requires no logic," Long Zhan answered, his voice dripping with self-loathing. He turned to look at Lin Wan, his violet eyes filled with a pained apology.

"Since the day I arrived, she has seen me as her path to power. She believed that if the ’foreign female’ were gone, the Dragon Sovereign, Me. would have no choice but to look at the only other high-ranking female in the territory. She didn’t want you dead, Wanwan... she wanted you erased, so she could step into the vacuum you left behind."

The village square, which had recently been a place of curious onlookers and the smell of Qin Mo’s cooking, was now a site of grim judgment.

The entire Orycto tribe had gathered, their ears flat against their heads, sensing the shift in the wind. In the center of the circle stood the Chief, looking aged and broken, his hands trembling as he clutched his staff.

Beside him was Mira.

She didn’t look like a criminal. She was dressed in her finest furs, her hair braided with polished stones, but her eyes were wild with a mixture of defiance and terror.

When she saw Lin Wan walking slowly toward the center of the square, flanked by the two most dangerous males in the world, Mira’s face contorted into a mask of pure hatred.

"You think you’re so special!" Mira shrieked before the Chief could even open his mouth.

"A female with no tribe, no history, carrying the cubs of a dead leopard! You came here and took everything! You took the Lord’s attention! You took the resources! You even took the Snake King’s heart!, You have so many powerful beastmen wishing to have you, why should it be you that dragon lord likes, why!"

Lin Wan stopped a few feet away, her expression surprisingly calm. "I didn’t take anything, Mira. I built a life. You tried to take it away, while there were children inside. Do you have any idea what that makes you?" 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"It makes me a protector of my people!" Mira screamed, though her voice wavered as Long Zhan stepped forward, his shadow falling over her like a shroud.

"You are no protector," Long Zhan said, his voice carrying the weight of a death sentence. "You are a traitor to the laws of the Beast World. You attacked a pregnant female under my protection. By the laws of the Sovereigns, your life is forfeit. But since your father has served this village well..."

He looked at the Chief, who was weeping silently. "The punishment will be exile. You and the husbands who aided you will be stripped of your names and cast out into the Northern forest. You will have no furs to Shield you from the cold wind, no weapons, and no tribe to claim you as their own."

The village gasped. In the frozen North, exile without gear was practically a death sentence. But Qin Mo wasn’t satisfied. He stepped toward Mira, his movements so fast and fluid that the guards didn’t even have time to blink. He leaned in, his silver eyes flashing with a hypnotic, predatory light.

"I have marked your scent, Mira," the Snake King whispered, loud enough for only those in the center to hear. "Every predator in the North will know you are ’prey.’ You will not die quickly. You will spend every night listening to the sound of things getting closer, knowing that I am the one who told them where to find you."

Mira collapsed to her knees, her defiance finally breaking into a pathetic, high-pitched wail.

As the guards dragged Mira and her shamed husbands toward the village gates, the crowd dispersed in a heavy, uneasy silence. The hard earned peace they had been enjoying all these while had been stained.

Lin Wan walked back toward her cottage, her legs feeling like lead. She felt the cubs moving again—a frantic, rolling motion, as if they could feel her stress.

"It’s over now, Wanwan," Long Zhan said, walking beside her.

"Is it?" she asked softly. "She was the Chief’s daughter. Half the village probably agreed with her, even if they didn’t help. We are still strangers here."

[Host... warning...] Weiwei’s voice crackled in her mind, clearer than it had been in weeks, but filled with a new, sharper alarm.

[Unknown... high-level... spiritual... signature... approaching... from the East. Magnitude:... Grade-S. This... is... not... a... beast.]

Lin Wan clutched her stomach. The exile of Mira was the end of one threat, but as the sun began to set, casting long, bloody shadows across the snow, she realized that the "peace" of the Orycto village was officially over. Something or someone powerful was coming.

The blood-orange glow of the setting sun cast long, distorted shadows across the village square, but the warmth of the light did not reach the doorstep of the expanded cottage. Long Zhan stood as motionless as a statue, his nostrils flaring as he tasted the air.

The scent he had picked up wasn’t the metallic tang of a predator or the earthy musk of a rogue beast; it was something ancient, like the smell of deep earth and ozone that precedes a mountain-shattering storm.

Qin Mo stepped out from the doorway, his silver hair shimmering like a warning signal.

His pupils were narrowed to thin, black needles. "You feel it too, lizard," he whispered, his voice devoid of its usual smugness. "The air is curdling. This isn’t a beast from the four territories".

Inside, Lin Wan felt a sudden, sharp chill that had nothing to do with the Northern wind. She clutched her stomach, her heart hammering against her ribs. Weiwei’s warning was still echoing in her mind, a "Grade-S" spiritual signature was approaching, something far beyond the power levels the system had recorded in this region so far.

"Wanwan, stay inside," Long Zhan commanded without turning around. He reached back, sliding the heavy oak door shut with a finality that made Lin Wan’s breath hitch.

At the edge of the village, where the pine trees met the clearing, the shadows began to coalesce. It wasn’t a gradual approach; one moment the path was empty, and the next, a figure stood there.

He was tall, draped in robes of a material that seemed to drink the remaining sunlight, shifting between deep charcoal and a bruised purple. His hair was as white as Qin Mo’s but lacked the snake’s luster, looking more like the frayed edges of a storm cloud.

He didn’t walk so much as glide, his presence silencing the evening insects and causing the village dogs to whimper and retreat into their burrows.

As he drew closer, the sheer weight of his aura became physical, pressing down on the Orycto tribesmen until they were forced to their knees, gasping for air.

Davy stepped forward, his wings unfurling to their full, terrifying span. His draconic horn began to glow with a violent, violet heat. "State your name and your purpose," he roared, the sound vibrating through the very foundation of the cottage. "You are encroaching on the territory of the Dragon Sovereign!"

The stranger stopped ten paces away. He didn’t look at Long Zhan. His gaze, eyes the color of a winter eclipse, was fixed directly on the cottage door, as if he could see through the wood and the stone to the female hiding within.

"I have no interest in Sovereigns or their petty territories," the man said. His voice was low and resonant, carrying the same ancient, cold authority Qin Mo had described when recounting Wang’s disappearance. "I am here for the Mother of the Triad."

Qin Mo moved with a blur of silver speed, placing himself between the stranger and the door. "You’ll find that the ’Mother’ is already spoken for," he hissed, his scales rippling along his jaw. "If you want her, you’ll have to go through us."