The scream ripped through the quiet morning air of the Badlands, sending a flock of ugly, vulture-like birds scattering into the sky.
Chaos erupted instantly.
Hei Yan bolted. His arms instantly shifted into massive, fur-covered panther paws, his claws extending fully as his purple eyes darted around wildly. "Who is attacking?! Where is the enemy?!"
"I will kill them!" Sha Chen roared, leaping to his feet and instinctively thrusting his spear forward. Unfortunately, because he was disoriented, he drove the blunt end of the spear directly into Jin Xuan’s stomach.
"Oof!" Jin Xuan wheezed, curling into a ball in the dirt.
Qing Lin, startled out of his cold-blooded slumber, hissed violently. His massive python tail contracted in pure reflex, accidentally tightening around Xin Yi’s ankles and dragging her three feet across the grass like a captured mouse.
"Let go of , you overgrown garden snake!" Xin Yi shrieked, kicking her legs wildly until Qing Lin blinked, realized what he was doing, and quickly retracted his tail with a sheepish, apologetic hiss.
Xin Yi scrambled to her feet, her hair sticking out in every possible direction. She pointed an accusing, trembling finger at the three Alphas.
"You!" she yelled, her voice cracking. "I gave you a ten-foot boundary! I told you to stay on the other side of the fire! How did you get over here?!"
Hei Yan imdiately looked down at his paws, suddenly finding the dirt incredibly fascinating. He completely dropped his fierce Alpha persona, pouting his lips. "The dirt was cold. You are warm. It was a matter of survival, Xin Yi."
"You are a panther! You have fur!" Xin Yi practically tore her hair out.
She spun around, glaring at the pile of spotted beastn sleeping a few feet away. "Gou Sheng! Er Gou! Da Sha! Wake up!"
The three hyenas snorted, blinking their yellow eyes open. They stretched their scrawny arms, letting out massive yawns that slled suspiciously like fresh antelope.
"Boss is awake!" Gou Sheng cheered, his tail thumping against the ground.
"You traitors!" Xin Yi gasped, pointing at the half-eaten antelope carcasses clutched in their claws. "I gave you cooked warthog! I made you my elite guard! And you sold out for raw at the second I closed my eyes?!"
Gou Sheng tilted his head, looking completely innocent. "Boss said guard against Alphas. Alphas gave us at. We guarded the at very closely, Boss! We did a good job!"
[Ding!]
[(⊙_⊙) System Notice: Host’s Elite Security Force has been compromised!]
[Security Rating: 1/10 Stars. Easily bribed by snacks. Host is advised to invest in a fence....]
"I am going to lose my mind," Xin Yi muttered, rubbing her temples to ward off the incoming migraine.
"Do not be angry, tiny female!" Jin Xuan cheered, finally recovering from the spear to the stomach.
"Alright, that is it. Everyone pack up," Xin Yi ordered, picking up her glowing Bone of Discipline. "Hyenas, you carry the iron pot. Alphas, you carry nothing because you are all in tiout. We are marching back to the Golden Mane Tribe right now."
~
The journey back to the savanna was a spectacle that the Beast World had never seen before.
Xin Yi marched at the front, her face set in a mask of modern-woman fury.
Right behind her walked three towering, incredibly dangerous Alphas, all still sporting matching red lumps on their heads, glaring at each other and occasionally hissing if one got too close to Xin Yi’s personal space.
Beside them strutted Jin Xuan, skipping happily because he genuinely believed he was bringing his new wife ho.
And bringing up the rear was a pack of fifteen spotted hyenas, carrying a massive black iron pot over their heads like it was a sacred, magical relic from the heavens, occasionally stopping to lick the sides to taste the leftover warthog broth.
"My boots are getting dusty," Qing Lin complained quietly, lifting the hem of his dark green silk robes. "This savanna is a wasteland. Xin Yi, let carry you. Your soft feet should not touch this filth."
"I am walking," Xin Yi snapped without looking back.
"She is a strong female!" Jin Xuan agreed loudly. "But if she gets tired, she can ride on my back! Lions are very fast!"
"I will break your back," Hei Yan growled, his purple eyes flashing.
After two hours of walking, the tall, golden elephant grass finally parted, revealing the sprawling, rocky encampnt of the Golden Mane Tribe.
The camp was bustling. Lions were wrestling in the mud, tearing into raw at, and roaring at the sky.
But the mont Xin Yi’s bizarre parade stepped into the clearing, the entire tribe froze.
Pieces of raw at slipped from their mouths. Lionesses stopped mid-wrestle. The air grew completely silent, save for the sound of Gou Sheng accidentally dropping the iron pot with a loud CLANG.
Chief Jin Hai, who had been sitting on his massive boulder, stood up so fast he nearly tripped over his own feet. He rubbed his eyes, staring at the tiny, pink-skinned female walking toward him.
"The hairless twig?!" Jin Hai gasped in absolute shock. "You are alive?! But.....the hyenas!"
"The Boss tad us!" Gou Sheng barked proudly from the back, puffing out his scrawny chest. "We are the Boss’s dogs now!"
The Lions stared at the hyenas in sheer disbelief. Did those scavengers just talk back to the Chief?!
"Father!" Jin Xuan bead, waving his hand. "I brought the tiny female back! And her weird pets! And her angry mates! Can we have the mating ceremony now?"
Xin Yi completely ignored Jin Xuan. She ignored the Chief. She ignored the stares of fifty massive beastn.
Her brown eyes were scanning the crowd like a heat-seeking missile.
[Ding!]
[WARNING! Boss Fight Approaching! (炎_炎)]
[Target Locked: Wan Ning. Level: Giant Mud Amazon.]
There she was.
Standing near the watering hole, holding a massive piece of bone and looking like she had seen a ghost, was Wan Ning.
"You..." Wan Ning stamred, taking a step back as Xin Yi marched directly toward her. "How... I threw you in the pit! You are too weak to climb out!"
"Weak?" Xin Yi asked.
The three Alphas imdiately stepped back. They knew that tone. That was the tone she used right before she built indoor plumbing or hit soone with a frying pan.
Xin Yi stopped right in front of the towering lioness. She had to crane her neck just to look Wan Ning in the eye, but her aura was ten tis larger.
"You kidnapped ," Xin Yi said, ticking the offenses off on her fingers. "You insulted my clothes. You threw into a literal garbage dump. And you made sleep in the dirt."
"I.....I am a Lioness!" Wan Ning puffed out her chest, trying to regain her confidence. "I respect only strength! You have no claws! You are nothing but a—"
Xin Yi didn’t wait for her to finish.
She didn’t use the glowing Bone of Discipline. She didn’t summon the heavy cast-iron frying pan. She didn’t call for Hei Yan, Sha Chen, or Qing Lin to help her.
Xin Yi simply pulled her right arm back, clenched her tiny hand into a tight fist, channeled every single ounce of suppressed rage she had accumulated over the past twenty-four hours, and swung with all her might.
POW!
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