Seeing this scene, Aiyi could not help but recall what had happened many years ago, when Aoli had condemned them and Yin Yao had left. At this moment, she finally understood the grief Aoli and Yin Yao felt when they departed.
Unfortunately, she herself had once been a participant. She had been one of them.
Was this retribution?
Faced with the chorus of voices siding against her, what else could Aiyi do? From being the victim, she had almost been turned into someone unreasonable, someone insisting on bullying Ning Luo.
She received a great deal of food. Those beast hides she once envied Ning Luo for, she now had as well. But she had lost her only child. And she never received a sincere apology.
In the days that followed, the tribe members, perhaps after being reminded by Ning Luo and the others, kept a close eye on Aiyi, afraid she might do something reckless.
About half a month passed, and Aiyi did nothing out of the ordinary. Instead, she seemed no different from before. Some people even tried joking with her, saying she could have another cub tomorrow. She smiled and replied that it would be fine.
One day, when the tribe members had gone out hunting, Aiyi smiled as she approached Ning Luo’s cubs who were still playing. When no one was paying attention, she transformed into her beast form, seized the little tiger cub in her jaws, and caught two more with her claws. Amid the shocked cries of the others, she charged straight toward the long river. Without the slightest hesitation, she jumped in. She pinned the three cubs beneath the water, holding them there so they could not struggle. Once they stopped breathing, she did not resist at all and sank into the water herself, letting it swallow her whole.
She could not deal with Ning Luo, so she chose to become a beast instead. After all, she had never been given justice.
Later, when Ning Luo and her mates returned, they found the bodies of the three cubs and Aiyi. In her grief, Ning Luo took a large blade and hacked Aiyi’s body into pulp. She looked utterly deranged and terrifying.
This was a side of Ning Luo the tribe members had never seen before, yet her mates believed she had the right to vent her pain.
Those events happened much later. At this time, Tang Guo and Yin Yao had already crossed countless forests and, after several months of travel, arrived at the place where the barrier existed.
The moment she saw it, Tang Guo was certain it had been created by human hands.
“Ah Guoguo, do you want to go over?” Yin Yao asked, seeing the look in her eyes.
“We have to go over. Ah Yao, are you afraid?”
Hearing this, Yin Yao smiled and tightened his grip on Tang Guo’s hand. “As long as Ah Guoguo is by my side, I am not afraid of going anywhere.” He was not afraid of death. What he feared was dying and never seeing her again.
In the end, what he truly feared was losing Ah Guoguo.
“Then let’s go.”
Tang Guo instructed the other warriors to remain behind. Holding Yin Yao’s hand, the two of them crossed the barrier together. The instant they passed through, Tang Guo felt a wave of mysterious energy rush toward her.
It was faint, but it truly existed within heaven and earth.
“Could it be that this barrier is what blocks the mysterious energy?” Tang Guo asked the system. “Why would someone set up such a barrier?”
[Host, I scanned the area within my range. There are people here.]
“People?”
[Yes. Humans. They are wearing clothes, not beastmen. They can use martial techniques but cannot cultivate mysterious energy. I scanned their bodies. There is no such energy within them. I also discovered that the mysterious energy between heaven and earth is gradually decreasing.]
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Thanks for the chapters!
Huh, y’know, out of all the things, I never expected this to be the reason for the Beast Tide. Are these humans native to this world, or like, extra dimensional? From another planet?