Chapter 47: Beast Empire

Suddenly, a violent tremor ripped through the ground, causing the entire valley to shake beneath the thousands of gathered feet.

The Principal’s eyes sharpened, his gaze locking onto the trembling earth. With a deafening roar, the ground cracked open, and a colossal, terrifying phantom creature breached the surface. It was a massive, ethereal blue whale, stretching a hundred meters long, composed entirely of dense, high-pressure elemental water. Its body shifted between a translucent, semi-aqueous form and a solid, shimmering mass as it glided effortlessly into the air, levitating above the crowd.

The whale’s massive maw parted, and a group of figures vaulted out from within.

These individuals bore the striking, hybrid features of man and beast. Some possessed slitted cat-like eyes, others sported wild canine ears or clawed hands, all moving with feral, predatory grace. Leading them stood a striking young man with thick golden hair, fierce tiger ears protruding from his crown, and a sleek suit of white-scaled battle armor. A mocking, arrogant smirk curled across his lips as he looked down at the assembled humans.

They belonged to the infamous **Beast Tamer Class**—the most formidable sub-class in the martial arts realm. In their early stages, Beast Tamers specialized in binding and commanding wild elemental beasts. Once they broke through to the third rank, however, they could initiate a partial or complete cellular merge with their bonded beast, transforming into powerful hybrid **Beast-Men** and retaining that state indefinitely.

While mixed-blood Beast-Men occasionally lived within the borders of the human empire, true pure-blooded Beast-Men ruled over their own sovereign domain: the **Beast Empire**, a vast realm completely independent of human rule where creatures born of hybrid genetics thrived.

High above in the clouds, Ethan watched the spectacle unfold, his mind drifting back through the memories of his past life.

When he had reached the age of twenty-five in his previous timeline, a catastrophic, continent-spanning war had erupted between the Human Empire and the Beast Empire. While the war brought devastation to millions, it also served as a crucible of immense opportunity.

Those who survived and stayed out of the front lines managed to scavenge legendary treasures, ancient cultivation scriptures, and abandoned territories left in the wake of the conflict. The war ultimately reshaped the future of the human domain, ending with the crushing defeat of the Beast Empire, the enslavement of its surviving populace, and the seizure of its vast sovereign wealth.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

From our Human Empire, there was also a young man from the Beast Tamer Class named Raphael.

He eventually devoured the heart of the Rank 8 Beast Empire’s Emperor, which allowed him to become the new Beast Tamer.

If I remember correctly, there’s a very high chance that Raphael was also a Heavenly Chosen One—the person Heaven itself chose to become the new Beast Tamer at that time.

But this time...

Will I let the Beast Empire lose to the Human Empire?

Let’s see.

Even now, a decade before that massive war was scheduled to break out, simmering tensions continuously boiled between the two empires.

Skirmishes regularly erupted along the borders, with elite human strike teams frequently raiding prosperous Beast Empire border cities.

Ethan suddenly recalled a specific upcoming event: a brutal human raid on a major Beast-Empire stronghold called **sitfaahold**, where thousands of pure-blood beast-folk were captured and thrown into underground slave markets.

Among those captives was a young female beast-man bearing the rare, legendary **Shadow Beast Bloodline**—a genetic resonance remarkably similar to Kael’s own shadow abilities. In the original timeline, that captive girl had eventually ended up in a slave auction, where Kael purchased her and turned her into one of his most loyal, formidable wives.

*I wonder if the future shifting will alter that event as well,* Ethan mused quietly, his eyes narrowing. *If I kill Kael too early, I might miss out on intercepting those future opportunities and bloodline resources. For now, he still needs to draw breath.*

If the timeline truly fractured beyond recognition, Ethan knew he would simply have to take matters into his own hands and engineer the outcomes himself. But for the immediate present, his focus remained locked on the unfolding chaos at the secret realm’s doorstep.

Ethan turned his gaze toward Rose, who hovered quietly beside him.

"The secret realm is about to open," Ethan said smoothly. "You’re at the early fourth rank, and I’m firmly in the third. Both of us could easily enter. But instead of coming with me, I want you to track Lumian. The moment you find an isolated opening, eliminate him."

Rose didn’t even blink. She wasn’t shocked in the slightest that Ethan was ordering her to hunt down and kill the boy who wore the face of her son. She had long since accepted that Ethan viewed Lumian, Kael, and Arthur as walking corpses destined for slaughter.

"Understood," Rose replied flatly, a cold edge to her voice. "He was never truly my son. I’ll make sure he doesn’t walk out of that realm alive."