Chapter 1

"Are you out of your mind, Priscilla Slither? If you remove the Sacred Heart, we will never be able to cultivate again, and the Beast Realm will be done for!" the beastmen cried angrily, surrounding her as they tried to stop her.

Priscilla didn't even blink. "Jas needs the Sacred Heart more than anyone else to cultivate and evolve. What's the matter with letting him use it?"

Jasper Whiskers, or Jas, was her supposed first love.

"That's not something you can take and use just whenever you want! You're the young mistress of the Snake clan! Even if you don't care about the other clans, you should still at least care about the future of the beastlings in the Snake clan!" someone cried out angrily and indignantly.

However, Priscilla attacked without warning a split second later, and several beastmen were sent flying. A handful of them even had their hearts ripped out completely, reverting to their original beast forms and dying on the spot.

Priscilla looked annoyed and impatient. "Who gave you the right to tell me what to do? I am the successor of the Snake clan! At worst, I'll just find something else to replace the Sacred Heart with after letting Jas use it!"

I couldn't stop myself from sneering and chuckling out loud at that.

The Sacred Heart was an incredibly rare stone that was impossible to come by even once in ten thousand years. All of the wealth and treasures accumulated by all beastmen over the millennia combined wouldn't even amount to a fraction of it.

So, how dare she, a mere young mistress of the Snake clan, speak with such arrogance as if it were just a walk in the park?

Priscilla was displeased when she heard me. She narrowed her eyes at me and demanded, "You have a problem with that?"

I retorted sarcastically, "No, of course not. You are the young mistress of the Snake clan, after all. How could I ever dare to object to your actions?"

She completely missed my sarcasm and went on to warn me. "Smart move. You know very well that I could replace you anytime I wanted if you were to act as clueless as the rest of them!"

"Yeah, yeah. Everything you say is absolutely correct," I said, unable to care less about what she did. I just turned and walked away.

It didn't matter much to me anyway because members of the Dragon clan could cultivate just by breathing. We didn't have to rely on the Sacred Heart for anything.

And yet, Priscilla still thought that I was a pitiful orphan with no clan to call my own. She thought I had only risen to power as her mate because of her status and identity as the young mistress and future successor of the Snake clan.

I knew that she thought of me as nothing more than a leech. It never occurred to her that she only managed to get to where she was today because of me. And yet, she repaid my kindness by killing me in my past life, causing my tragic death.

This time, I wasn't going to help her out anymore. I was going to watch her bring about her own demise instead.

Priscilla seemed very pleased with my sensibility and eagerly went forward to retrieve the Sacred Heart. All other beastmen who tried to stop her were either killed or heavily wounded in an instant. Even beastmen from her own Snake clan suffered the same fate.

"You're nothing but a bunch of trash! How dare you still try to stop me?"

Her face was dark and full of disdain. Actually, she could have just frozen their power to stop them without having to take their lives. Yet she didn't care and killed almost every beastman who tried to stop her.

With how ruthless and arrogant she was now, I was really looking forward to seeing what would become of her when the other beastmen learned of her horrible deeds.

I looked at the severed limbs scattered on the ground and felt a little uncomfortable. I thought of finding another place to watch the spectacle, but I'd only just moved a muscle when Priscilla immediately shot up to me, blocking me with a look of disgust on her face.

"You'd better stay out of my business if you want to continue being my good-for-nothing trash of a mate, Kael Vaxenroth! You have absolutely no right to get in the way of someone like me, the young mistress of the Snake clan!"

Trash?

If it weren't for "trash" like me, she would probably still be hiding around in some back alley and getting bullied by the other beastmen instead.

I couldn't stop myself from rolling my eyes. "I don't have any intentions to meddle in your business."

Priscilla scoffed coldly. "Did you really think that I'd believe you? It's bad enough that I always have to put up with your constant nagging, but I dare you to utter another word today. If you do, I'm immediately severing our bond!"

Her overconfident demeanor just made me nauseated.

However, we were bonded mates, which meant that I would lose all of my cultivation if I were to harm her.

I decided to just stay out of her sight so she'd stop bothering me. I didn't want to explain myself anyway, so I just nodded perfunctorily and went somewhere else to watch the drama unfold.

There was a threshold to entering the Secret Realm, and Jasper almost lost his life just trying to get in. The moment he saw Priscilla, he put on an aggrieved face and said, "Prissy! Do you think I'm destined to be a weakling forever just because I was born with an inferior bloodline?"

"Don't be upset. I promised you that I would help you and make you as powerful as me, Jas."

Priscilla then seized the Sacred Heart and placed it in his upturned palm, amidst the ferocious shouts and curses from the other beastmen.

There was a very short moment of silence in the Secret Realm. Then, screams of terror rang out.

"It's collapsing! The Secret Realm is collapsing!"