I Just Want to Farm, But My Beasts Keep Evolving!!

Chapter 198: Let’s See How Long He Lasts Without Her.

The shed sat at the edge of an abandoned grain field, a few kilometres from where the battlefield still bled crimson into the horizon.

It had no walls left worth mentioning, just a rusted metal roof propped up on four crooked beams, barely enough to keep the worst of the blood rain off their heads. It was the perfect place to disappear into, forgotten by everyone except the people who needed exactly that kind of place.

Bai Zhang sat on an overturned crate beneath the shed, his fingers trembling as he stared at the encrypted feed glowing faintly on the small screen in his lap.

The battlefield footage had cut out nearly an hour ago, swallowed whole by that impossible crimson ocean, but the aftermath reports had already begun trickling in from their scattered informants.

"It’s confirmed," he said quietly, not looking up. "The Divine Blood Empress is dead."

A girl stood just beyond the shelter of the roof, close enough that the crimson rain fell steadily onto her outstretched palm, staining her skin the same deep red as the sky above.

She seemed to welcome the sensation, tilting her head back slightly to let a few drops land against her face, savouring it.

"Say it again," she said. "I want to hear it properly."

"Ruby is dead," Bai Zhang repeated, his voice hollow. "She sacrificed herself to protect stupid humans and kill Black Dragon King. The main branch’s calculations were correct. She really did throw her life away for nothing."

A third figure let out a low chuckle from beneath the shed, though there was no real humour in it.

He watched the blood rain fall just beyond the edge of the roof, refusing to let a single drop touch him. "Ten years," he muttered. "Ten years of monitoring that family, waiting for their guards to slip even once, and in the end it wasn’t us who killed her. It was her own foolish sentiment."

"The main branch will be pleased regardless," The girl spoke, finally lowering her hand and letting the crimson droplets run down her fingers with a smile on her face.

"The Divine Blood Empress was the single greatest obstacle standing between those siblings and us. With her gone, the timeline moves forward considerably."

Bai Zhang finally looked up from his laptop, his expression tight with something closer to unease than triumph. "There might be a teeny tiny problem."

"Why am I not surprised??" Another casual voice called out from behind, as a man sat there taking a drag out of his cigarettes.

"Before she died, Ruby left behind some kind of divine protection on Raiden," Bai Zhang continued, pulling up another data fragment on the screen. Faint golden light still lingered in the recorded footage, a residual glow beneath the boy’s skin that none of their scanners could properly identify.

"I don’t have full details yet, but the signature reads as something far above what a Mythical being should be capable of granting. It’s not just an enchantment. It’s tied to an oath to The Ashen One."

The girl finally turned away from the falling rain at last, her expression unreadable beneath the red streaks running down her cheeks. "What did ya just say??"

The man beside the window waved a dismissive hand from the shed’s shadow. "Then it’s simple. We adjust the plan."

Then, without warning, her expression cracked. "Damnit, why now?!" she snapped, her voice climbing an octave in an instant. "We were so close!! So, so close!! Now you are telling me we have to stay in this hell hole for even longer??" Just as suddenly, the anger drained out of her again, replaced by that same unsettling calm from before, as if the outburst had never happened at all.

Bai Zhang exhaled slowly, turning his head away from her as he felt some of the tension leaving his shoulders as he watched the rain continue hammering against the open field beyond their shelter. "What other choice do we have?? Can you break past the divine protection??"

"We continue," The girl confirmed, stepping back fully beneath the roof now, water and blood both dripping from the ends of her hair.

"If we can’t get the boy, we get the girl. While the boy has already awakened The Ashen Bloodline, we can get the girl and stop it even before it happens. Now that the complication has lost its strongest guardian, our path forward is clearer than it has been in years."

The thick man moved toward a small terminal balanced on another crate, fingers already dancing across the keys despite the faint mist of red still clinging to the air around them.

"I’ll relay this to the main branch. They’ll want confirmation of the Empress’s death before anything else, and they’ll certainly want to know about this new protection."

A soft chime rang out moments later as the encrypted channel connected. A voice emerged from the small speaker, distorted deliberately to mask its true owner, cold and clipped in its cadence. "Report."

"The Divine Blood Empress has fallen," The girl said, stepping closer to address the channel directly, the crimson rain still visible, falling steadily behind her through the gaps in the shed’s broken walls.

"Confirmed dead during the beast horde incident. She sacrificed herself sealing away a Mythical-tier threat to protect the target."

A brief pause followed on the other end of the line. "As the elders predicted. Her sentiment for that family was always going to be her downfall eventually. What of the boy?"

"He received some form of divine protection from her before she passed," Bai Zhang cut in. "Details are still being analysed, but direct action against him is inadvisable for the time being."

"Understood. I want you all to go dormant. Cease all your activities for now."

Bai Zhang frowned slightly, the reflected red glow of the falling rain catching in his eyes. "Dormant? We finally have the advantage. Shouldn’t we press forward while the farm is still vulnerable?"

"No, there are still sympathisers loyal to his mother scattered across the clan," the voice replied flatly, as though explaining something painfully obvious to a child.

"Her death was ruled an accident, and there are those among the elders who never fully accepted that ruling. If the boy dies too soon after the Empress, suspicion will fall on us before the divine protection even has a chance to fade naturally. Patience has already brought us this far. It will bring us the rest of the way as well."

"For how long?" The girl asked, watching a fresh sheet of crimson rain roll off the edge of the shed’s roof like a curtain being drawn shut.

"A few months, at minimum. Perhaps longer, depending on how quickly the sympathisers lose interest in old wounds. Maintain surveillance from a distance. Report any weakening in the boy’s protection immediately. Do not, under any circumstance, engage directly until further notice."

The channel went silent a moment later, cutting off without further ceremony.

Bai Zhang stared at the dead terminal for a long moment before finally leaning back against the crooked beam behind him, rubbing his tired eyes. "Months of doing nothing. After everything that just happened."

"Not nothing," The girl corrected coolly, walking back out past the shed’s shelter and standing openly beneath the bleeding sky, letting the crimson rain soak fully into her clothes without any hesitation at all.

"Watching. Waiting. Learning everything we can about what that boy is becoming, and what kind of forces are gathering around him now that his greatest shield is gone."

She turned her head slightly, glancing back at the three men still sheltered beneath the rusted roof, red lines running the length of her face.

"The Divine Blood Empress spent her entire life protecting him," she said quietly, almost gently.

"Let’s See How Long He Lasts Without Her."