I Got Cheated On and Ended Up in A Beast World

Chapter 167: Chapter 167

The giant shadow hand did not strike to kill. It moved with a terrifying, precise gentleness, wrapping its dark fingers entirely around the heavy wool servant’s cloak Lin Wan wore. With a brutal, casual jerk from the shore, the spatial anchor snapped backward, pulling her straight out of Wei Xiang’s secure grip.

Rip.

The fabric of her gray dress tore under the sudden strain. Lin Wan felt her fingers slip from Wei Xiang’s green collar, the warm pine-and-earth scent of her friend instantly replaced by the bitter, freezing smell of dark ozone and winter frost. She was flying backward through the air, her short, chopped hair whipping across her face as the river below became a dizzying blur of gray and white.

"Lin Wan!" Wei Xiang’s scream echoed from the center of the canyon.

Without her weight to hold him back, his body crashed heavily onto the far rocky bank, his shoulder slamming against a sharp stone ridge with a loud, sickening *crack*.

He rolled twice through the wet gravel, his silver sword slipping from his numb fingers as he scrambled to his knees, his amber eyes wide with absolute horror as he looked across the water.

Lin Wan did not hit the stones.

The purple shadow hand dissolved the moment her body crossed the threshold of the muddy bank, dropping her directly into a pair of large, solid arms that caught her with perfect, unyielding security.

Cassian held her against his broad chest, his grip so tight it felt like an iron band wrapping around her ribs, completely locking her lungs from expanding. He didn’t look across the river at the bleeding cultivator.

His golden slitted eyes were fixed entirely down on her pale, dirty face, his chest heaving with a slow, deep breath as he inhaled her jasmine scent, checking for any signs of permanent damage.

"You ran well, little bird," Cassian whispered, his deep, raspy voice vibrating right against her ear, sending a cold shiver down her spine. "You ran until your feet bled. You ran into the mud with a common servant. Did you truly believe a mid-tier worm could hide you from my sight?"

Lin Wan did not weep this time. The absolute terror that had driven her through the mountain tracks had completely burned away, leaving behind a cold, hollow core of pure hatred.

She lifted her small hands, her dirty fingernails scratching violently against the fine black silk of his tunic, trying to push his towering frame away from her body.

"Let me go," she rasped, her voice cracking with emotion. "Let me go, Cassian! I hate you! I would rather drop into that river and break against the rocks than spend another night inside your jade prison!"

Cassian’s jaw tightened, a dark, dangerous flash passing through his golden eyes. He didn’t answer her. He simply shifted his weight, his large hand moving up to grip her chin with enough force to keep her from turning her face away from him.

Across the roaring water, Wei Xiang forced himself back onto his feet, his left arm hanging limply at his side, completely dislocated from the crash. He used his right hand to drag his silver sword back into his grip, the blade trembling violently as he pointed it across the gray torrent at the king.

"Release her!" Wei Xiang roared, his voice cracking with a raw, desperate fury. "Cassian! She is a weak female! She does not belong to your courts! If you have any honor as a sovereign, fight me on these stones!"

Cassian slowly turned his head, his golden suns locking onto the bleeding cultivator with a look of absolute, cold indifference. To a supreme king who had just slaughtered fifty thousand warriors to secure a throne, a single wounded master from the lower world was less than a speck of dust on his boot.

"You have lived past your usefulness, servant," Cassian said quietly, his voice carrying a double-layered echo that made the surrounding pine trees drop their needles.

He didn’t raise his hand again. He simply let a fraction of his raw royal pressure leak from his core, directing the invisible weight straight across the river canyon. The air above the far bank turned black, a sudden, crushing gravity slamming down onto Wei Xiang’s shoulders until his knees buckled, the gravel beneath his boots cracking into fine white powder.

Gasp!

Wei Xiang vomited a thick spray of dark blood, his body collapsing flat against the wet mud, his fingers losing their grip on his silver sword once more.

He tried to push himself up, his muscles tearing under the immense weight, but the pressure was too dense. He was being pinned to the earth by the mere glance of a god.

"No! Stop it!" Lin Wan screamed, her hands hitting Cassian’s chest armor plates with frantic, helpless thuds. "Cassian, please! Do not kill him! He only helped me because I asked him to! It was my choice! I am the one who stole your token! Leave him alone!"

Cassian looked back down at her, his expression entirely smooth, like carved winter ice. "You plead for his life, yet you never begged for mine when you left that empty bed, Lin Wan. You care for his blood, but you do not care if my domain burns into chaos because of your absence."

"You don’t have a heart to break!" she wept, her voice rising into a sharp plea. "Please... if you kill him, I swear to you, I will never speak another word to you as long as I live. I will not eat. I will not drink. I will turn my body into a corpse inside that room, and you will have nothing but an empty shell to look at!"

The king froze.

His long fingers tightened around her waist until her dress fabric creaked, his slitted eyes narrowing into two thin, lethal lines of burning gold. For a long, suffocating moment, the only sound in the canyon was the roar of the gray water and the ragged, shallow breathing of the female in his arms.

He knew she wasn’t lying. He had seen the stubborn, unyielding light in her dark eyes when she refused his silk garments and his royal broth. She was fragile, her human bones easily broken, but her spirit carried an iron core that he could not crush without destroying her entirely.

"You threaten me with your own life to protect a dog," Cassian murmured, his voice dropping into a dark, terrifying register. "Very well. I will let him breathe tonight, little bird. But his life is now the first link in your new chain."

He lifted his head, his cold gaze shifting back across the river to the pinned, bleeding form of the cultivator.

"Listen well, worm," Cassian’s voice boomed across the canyon, carrying the weight of a royal decree. "You will stay in these lower valleys. You will tell the hidden clans and whoever you wish to that the female belongs to Me. If I see your face within ten miles of the upper rings again, or if a single whisper of her name leaves your lips to the outer worlds... I will return to this forest, and I will harvest every single soul in your home sector until the rivers run red with their fat."

Wei Xiang lay in the mud, his teeth covered in red foam, his fingers twitching toward his fallen blade. He could not speak. The pressure was turning his ribs to kindling, but his amber eyes remained fixed on Lin Wan, full of a deep, agonizing failure.

"We are returning, Lin Wan," Cassian whispered against her hair, his hand sliding down to cover the black mark on her neck.

The moment his large palm touched the manticore crest, a sudden, intense wave of purple spiritual energy flooded directly into her soul meridians. The hidden-soul talisman that Wei Xiang had placed on her was completely incinerated, the last remnants of its blue ash scattering into the gray wind.

The black lines beneath her collarbone flared with a blinding purple light, the permanent anchor locking back into place with a sharp, heavy thud that felt like an iron nail driving through her heart.

Ah!

Lin Wan let out a small, broken cry of pain, her vision instantly turning completely black as her exhausted, battered consciousness finally gave way to the deep dark. Her head dropped back against his shoulder, her small hands slipping limply off his black silk tunic as she lost all sense of the world around her.

Cassian gathered her limp form securely into his arms, pulling her gray cloak tightly around her small frame to shield her from the freezing mountain draft. He turned his back on the roaring river, his long leather boots making a sharp, heavy crunch against the mud as he walked back into the dark shadows of the pine trees.

The three shadow hounds stepped out from the brush, falling into a perfect, silent line behind their king, their crimson eyes scanning the darkness as the royal pack moved back toward the high, golden prisons of the citadel.