The Beauty's Hidden Beast

Mitchell's POV

I've avoided visiting the forest my whole life because I hated getting wet. We scorpions could drown in a small puddle because of our heavyweight. If the ground were muddy, we would get stuck. So, naturally, the rainy forest was our enemy.

We only attacked during the hot and cold seasons, when the rain wasn't pouring down from the sky and the rivers were the calmest.

As a four-striped scorpion male, I discovered that I had the power to propel myself through the water despite my weight. If only for a short while, this made living near water less dangerous.

After traveling through the forest, my eyes have opened. The beastmen were thriving while we were all suffering and dying. Seeing it with my own eyes was different from hearing it from others.

It made me understand the situation's urgency and the need for change.

My father didn't care whether we all went extinct. He had no other interests beside reviving mother. I followed his old way of ruling because I didn't know any better. I thought we were safe and undefeatable with him on our side.

I was a rootless, our species's extinction didn't matter to me either, but that didn't mean I wanted it to happen. Dying as a loser didn't sit well with me.

I didn't want to give other beastmen the satisfaction of killing my people and taking over our territory.

My pride will never allow me to become the butt of their jokes.

"I say we kick all the rootless except for the scorpions and a few chosen ones out of the desert and back to the forest!" I declared to the scorpion leaders who gathered for a meeting in the Flame City, "Let the beastmen deal with their filth and solve their own problems!"

"That's an excellent idea!"

"Brilliant, Your Majesty!"

"What a smart decision!"

I smiled, satisfied with their reactions. Pacing around the throne room, I spoke. "But that's not all. I've visited the beastmen territories and realized that we can't follow their ways and traditions. We are different. We can't treat our females like they do, no matter how hard most of us try and how much our love is greater than theirs."

See my father, for example.

I continued, "Their females are weak, fragile, and can't be left alone without their males' protection. We can't afford that, so here's my suggestion," I said, my eyes scanning their faces. "We will build up our females' strength, train their bodies, and raise their stamina and endurance. Only then can we consider mating with them."

"What?!"

"What?! Did I hear you correctly, Your Majesty?!"

"Females have been born with beastmen's blood in their veins," I emphasized, motioning for Lia to remove her veil, showing the single stripe on her cheek, causing the leaders to hang their mouths open. "Female bodies are capable of great things. They have potential and strength that we are wasting. Clear crystals... We will start with collecting and feeding them lots of clear crystals. As for their training..."

A certain image of a certain foul female popped in my mind. Letting only weak males mate with the females won't solve the problem, but ensuring all the females are strong and fierce enough to endure them will.

I noticed the foul female's body could sustain her male's abilities from the spousal imprints without fainting. Then, I noticed that her stamina was also great. She could endure long periods without resting and could still send her males flying with a kick to their asses.

She would send both Skaris and Bart to hunt colossal, and they would return with clear crystals, exhausted and barely able to walk. It didn't matter to her whether her males were injured or not; she would continue pushing them to their limit.

She was the strongest, foulest, and cruelest female I have ever met. I asked Skaris to help me teach them, but he refused. Then I asked him if he could persuade her to help. He also refused. I'm the King. My people, my problem, he said as he cheered me on.

Then I remembered how the foul female would teach the cubs. I would let Lia beat up my triple-striped scorpions until she had no strength left in her and let her repeat it all over again the next day. I would also throw a stick for her to catch and bring over to me. I would ask her to do it over and over again, and sometimes, when she refused, I would hand her favorite snack to the males and make her chase them.

My brain was steaming hot from all the thinking I had done since I met that foul female. So many things happened, and inspirations came crashing at me from all sides.

I grinned. "After we clear the city, bring all your females to the Flame City. We'll show them what future scorpion females will be capable of."

Skaris and Bart proved that they could function properly even if they were rootless. My father would have functioned properly, too, if my mother hadn't died.

"I know most of you are skeptical and scared that your females might not survive, but believe me, they will," I continued to explain my plans. "The rootless will occupy the beastmen for a while. In the meantime, guard the Flame City. Do not let our enemies find out our secret. Keep this under wraps."

I revealed to them the location of the new resort and the colossal spawn. Then, I sent the strongest scorpions to get as many clear crystals as possible. We should take advantage of the dry season while we still can. There's no way I'm letting the boys take all the loot and let them and their foul female get stronger!

"As you command, Scorpion King!" They all cheered, leaving me alone in the throne room.

The fact that The Tiger Queen had shared her food, her shelter, her land, her people, her knowledge like planting corps, preserving food, and raising short birds and other animals instead of hunting them to me, was unexpected. I didn't agree with her idea of scorpions cohabitating with other beastmen, though.

Was it just a way for her to show off and make herself look superior? Or was she that nice and generous? Or too naive?

She was too idealistic, living in her fairytale castle, surrounded by her dreamy males and her beautiful cubs. I wish things were as simple as she made them sound. But they weren't.

Her wisdom was admirable, and her kindness was something to be praised, but like Skaris said, she was blessed by the Beast God. Unlike us, the cursed.

She told me I should stop kidnapping females and learn how to share and respect them like other beastmen. She gave me advice as if we were inferior and couldn't understand basic concepts. Her male was trading females for salt, and she was preaching to me about respect?

I stopped listening to her halfway, and just stared at her face and admired her beauty. She was always smiling and treating me nicely, and I found myself wanting to keep her as a pet and spoil her.

If I wore my soul stone, I would have fed off her like a plant fed off sunlight. The emotions would have overshadowed my reasoning, and it would feel so good. But not as good as seeing Lia gain her first stripe and helping my men kidnap a few unmated females.

I thought that foul female was annoying, but there was a whole new category of females whose presence I couldn't even stand. I'm just preventing the spread of rootless, I reasoned as I gagged their mouths. I couldn't do anything to them in the beastmen's territory, but I could do in mine. I'm so going to make them train until they burst in tears, and it would be so satisfying.

My hard work continued to bear fruit.

Muir and Skaris also congratulated me and said they could finally allow their female to visit the Flame City and the scorpion tribes. They had to make her promise never to visit them without their permission, and she kept to that promise.

Seeing a crippled female roam the desert as if it belonged to her was the weirdest sight ever. I thought she was too naive to want to visit the Flame City, but hearing her ask her males if she could visit, and they said no, then watch how she dropped them right before the entrance to continue her desert exploration was the weirdest thing number two.

I recollected my first meeting with her again. The blood dripping off her weapons and the corpse underneath her... It was treated exactly like the scorpions that ambushed the two villages! My men brought a few back. Their bodies were sliced, and some parts were stuffed into their mouths and asses. No mercy, no regret, no hesitation.

I refused to believe it initially, but everything pointed at her being the culprit. There was no doubt. Something was telling me that without her males, she would have been a nightmare to deal with. The foul female was a beast. A beast her males tried to suppress and tame. A beast they tried to hide from the world.

I felt my murderous instinct kick in. The urge to hunt her down was rising, and my hands itched, aching to strangle her. The desire was hard to suppress. I should hate her for killing my people, and I did.

I tried. Hard.

I tried to hate her more, but the urge to strangle her was always followed by the urge to hug her to death. Then came the urge to bite her and mark her. I sighed.

Mitchell, you can't put a spousal imprint on a female. Do you want to end up like your father? Obsessed, desperate, and dying?

Speaking about my father, it's been a while since I paid him a visit, given how busy my life has become.

I headed to the underground palace and discovered he was not there. I went to the ice cellar and didn't see him either. My mother was gone too.

"..."

"..."

"..."

"YOU ASSHOLES!!" I yelled, "WHERE ARE MY PARENTS?!?!"

I searched the palace but didn't find them.

I didn't find any sign of struggle or battle, and no one knew what happened.

They really kidnapped my father for her!

That damn Foul Female!

They didn't just kidnap my father, but also stole my mother!

That's it. That's it!

"Don't expect me just to watch and do nothing! I'm going to kidnap your female and steal all your cubs! You hear me?!"

· · ─────── · ⊱❈⊰· ─────── · ·

YaYa's POV

I rubbed the itch in my nose, stopping the sneeze that threatened to blow up the inside of Gold's bubble.

I wonder who's talking behind my back again. I looked around the canal and didn't find anything suspicious.

While the boys stayed back to clear the new territory of colossals and watched over the cubs, I decided to visit the destroyed Beast City and see the damage with my own eyes.

I traveled a lot, and the faster I could move from one point to another, the better. The canal worked perfectly as a transfer device. A batch of mermen was located at every canal station to keep it clean and functional, and one could request a ride for them at a reasonable price (crystals, grains, rice.)

Every time we reached a station, a new batch of mermen would exchange their spots with the previous group to move us further at full speed.

I looked up at the unfazed Gold, who stayed inside the bubble with me, and then at the peacock within Rosa's bubble. They couldn't handle the speed, and their bubble was covered in vomit.

The peacock squeezed in with Mandy was doing better than the other group, looking a bit green but fine. Mandy loved the speed, screaming in excitement, while the mermen were happy catching glimpses of their mermaid (they sped even more for her sake).

Bart and Skaris huddled together in one bubble, both white like ghosts─not used to this kind of travel.

Bart was still nervous in Rosa's presence, keeping his face and body covered with a cloak at all times. He preferred to hide away and avoid interacting with her.

"Have you heard?" One of the mermen spoke to another during our break at one of the stations, "The Tiger Queen's alliance with the Scorpion King has crumbled because of another female! She was jealous of him, showing interest in the Tiger Queen, and wanted him for herself. She was so desperate, I tell you. Even after rejecting her so many times, she continued to beg him for days and nights and even threatened to kill herself if he didn't mate her. The Scorpion King couldn't bear to see a female suffering. He finally took pity on her, accepted her courting, and ended things with the Tiger Queen."

My lips twitched. Someone decided to play along with my joke and turn it into an even bigger joke, huh?

"Is it true? A female courting a male is unheard of! There's no way for the Scorpion King to be so nice and soft-hearted, right?"

Bart and Skaris looked at each other, and then Skaris asked, "Who is this Scorpion King's new female you are speaking about?"

"They say it's a masked female with her body covered from head to toe," one of them said, giving me a side glance, "Someone like our Leader's female."

"..." The corners of my lips twitched again, reacting immediately, "Lia, I heard her name is Lia. Is that right?"

The mermen tilted their heads in thought, and one of them said, "I think it was Jaja, or Jala, or something like that."

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to keep a straight face as Gold parked me on the shore to catch some fresh air.

Mitchell turned out to be a better male than I expected. I recalled how Nivi fell in love with his character and how she'd have welcomed him into her harem straight away if he'd asked her like Bai. That's why I sent him her way, hoping he could become her mate and keep her safe.

Nivi was the dream female he had wanted this whole time, so why the sudden change? Why was he trying to pick a fight with me again? Did I hurt his pride and ego too much? Was he that petty? If yes, take your revenge on me with Nivi by your side!

"He is really shameless," Bart said, sitting on my left, "His pride is thicker than his shell."

Skaris nodded. "He is using the same strategy as our Dear ─ twisting other people's words and actions against them. She said she wanted his spousal imprint and continued to tease him into mating with her, even though we all knew she wasn't serious. He is making a big deal out of it now, to get back at us all," he shook his head, sighing enviously. "I wish I had half of his talent."

I grabbed both of their tails; an urge to tug at something and squeeze was strong. It was either their necks or tails. I'll leave the first option for a more private moment and will have to do with their tails for now, "You two have been spending too much time with that bug, and now you've influenced him and corrupted his little brain with your poor tastes in females. This is all your fault. If I'm going to blame someone besides him, it's you two."

Skaris slipped his tail out of my hand, playing catch and chase with it, "Dear, your tastes in males are not the best either. You are the last one to say anything about us and our poor tastes."

I snagged his tail again, watching it squirm like a worm on a hook. "If I find out he hurt Nivi, I'll turn him into a mashed scorpion patty, served fresh and flat as a cutlet."

Both boys cheered me on with their happy howls, "We will help you with getting the fire ready, Dear."

Their tails were smooth and soft, and felt like velvet sensory toys between my fingers. Skaris' tail curled and uncurled in my lap, tickling my hand, making it hard to let go. Bart wiggled his from side to side, giving me more sensory pleasure.

Bart tried to apologize for that incident, so I asked for his tail as a peace offering for my sensory enjoyment. I've already planned to take responsibility for turning him rootless, so if he wanted to become my male, I'd accept. But I'd never spill the beans unless he actually wanted it and asked for it himself.

· · ─────── · ⊱❈⊰· ─────── · ·

It took us two and a half days compared to the seven days on a flying beastman to reach Beast City.

Most of the city was in ruins, but that didn't stop me from exploring every corner. We discovered that lots of the building material was still usable and could be moved to the new territory.

I've noticed that the closer the mermen dug toward the Beast City, the more female soulstone they would find. Something must have been attracting them here like the ice bead attracted the male soul stones toward the Flame City.

Bart and Skaris returned from the trip to our old nest. Bart's breathing was strained as he tried to carry one of my anklets and bracelets like the relaxed Skaris.

Depending on the species and number of stripes, a beast-man's strength varied. Bart and Skaris, both four-striped, showed their differences in training. Skaris had been doing lots of heavy lifting, whereas Bart was more used to using his speed and agility in his daily routine.

They both buried my accessories near the canal before we continued on our journey to the Camel Hump Valley ─ Mandy and Rosa stayed back with Gold and the peacocks.

· · ─────── · ⊱❈⊰· ─────── · ·

The volcano eruption changed the whole landscape of the Camel Hump Valley. The lava had burned a vast portion of the land, killing all the old plants and trees. The river that used to flow between the peaks had dried up after the peaks merged, leaving behind a bed of rocks.

A large group of vultures flocked around the area. Their wide wings dominated the sky, casting imposing shadows on the ground below as they landed. With their white heads and long necks contrasting against the charred landscape, they picked at the carcasses of dead beasts.

Yet, in their grim feast, the vultures' presence cleaned up the land, making sure decay didn't spread diseases. As they soared and scavenged, seeds, carried by the wind or dropped by the vultures, began to sprout, nourished by the ashes that now enriched the earth. Slowly, life was returning to the valley, showing how nature could find a way to bounce back, even after such devastation.

"There's some abnormality there," Bart shifted into his human form and translated Skaris's words as he sniffed the air, gesturing at the top of the peak, "He heard lots of flaps of bird's wings inside of that peak."

I squinted my eyes at the crater a few miles away, spotting a few birds flying above the area. "Let's check it out."

The closer we got to the crater, the hotter the air around us. The wind blowing in our direction felt like fire and was too much for both Bart and Skaris to continue walking in their wolf forms, especially Skaris, who grew up in cold climates.

We passed the burnt terrain until we reached the edge of the crater. If a fire bead existed, I bet it would have been somewhere here.

We stood at the top of the crater. There was no lava or steam. The ground was dark and scorched.

In the crater's middle sat a cross-legged figure, resembling a death reaper. His dark cloak billowed like smoke in the still air; his face obscured within the depths of his hood.

My eyes were drawn to his hands. In one palm, he held a large egg. It glowed and pulsated with a life of its own, resembling a beating heart. With his other hand, he pressed a fire bead against the egg, as if incubating it, channeling some mysterious energy into its core.

Hundreds of birds of different species circled around him, their forms creating a swirling vortex.

Suddenly, his hooded head turned, and the amber eyes behind his bone mask widened as they locked onto mine. In an instant, the birds dived, swooping towards us like a swarm of bees.

I swung my arms, slapping a group of birds from my view. My eyes darted around, searching, but there was no sign of him anywhere.

"Where is he?"

Bart's and Skaris's ears twitched, and their noses sniffed, but the figure had vanished into thin air.

╔═══ Author's note ════╗

Isn't chapter 80 a perfect number to introduce our next candidate? 😏

Any information on soul stones would be appreciated. I knew females consisted of seven stones representing seven of their feelings, but I need more. 🙏🏻

Did Mitchell die in the novel? He left with the remains of his dead father after his whole species was wiped out and BQQ rejected him, and he was the only one who survived, right? Or did he appear later in the novel again?👀

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