Chapter 490 - 487: Assassination

Chapter 490: Chapter 487: Assassination

News of the Flood Dragon Tribe’s revived Life Tree spread like wildfire, reaching every nearby tribe. Naturally, it also reached the ears of the Chameleon Clan, who lay in wait in the shadows.

Deep within a massive, damp, and frigid cavern, the light was dim. The only faint illumination came from a few clusters of moss that emitted a ghastly green glow.

Seated upon a throne roughly hewn from enormous Stalactites and Obsidian was Kui Ze, the Clan Leader of the Chameleon Clan.

His frame was almost lean, but the scales covering his entire body had a flowing, unsettling dark gold sheen, like molten metal.

Right now, that sheen flickered as his chest heaved violently. His vertical, reptilian, dark yellow pupils burned with a rage that could incinerate everything.

"Useless! A bunch of useless trash!" Kui Ze’s voice was hoarse and sharp, like a snake hissing, and it echoed throughout the vast cavern.

He violently smashed a glow stone he had been toying with onto the ground. The hard stone instantly shattered, spraying a fine, eerie green powder everywhere.

"What were those idiots I sent to the Flood Dragon Tribe doing? We were on the verge of success! The Life Tree was about to wither, the Flood Dragon Tribe was in a panic, and they would have been wiped out soon enough," he snarled, leaping to his feet. His body trembled slightly from extreme rage.

In a few strides, he rushed before several of his High Rank confidants who were prostrated on the ground. His immense pressure forced the scaled Beastmen to bury their heads even lower, their bodies trembling uncontrollably.

"Tell me! Why?" Kui Ze’s roar nearly tore the roof off the cavern. "Why is Jiao Yuan’s damn female cub still alive? Not only is she alive, but she awakened the Life Tree? Huh? Speak!"

A dead silence fell, broken only by heavy breathing and the faint rustle of scales.

Finally, a Chameleon with deep brown scales, kneeling at the very front, raised his head, trembling. His voice stuttered with fear. "Clan... Clan Leader, please calm your anger! I... I’ve already urgently contacted the old female who... who handled the matter back then..."

"What did she say?" Kui Ze’s voice was like an Ice Cone, making the Beastman shudder.

"She... she said..." The brown-scaled Beastman swallowed hard and recounted with difficulty, "She said she did follow orders and threw... threw the newborn Flood Dragon female cub... into the depths of the most dangerous part of the Bone Rot Forest. It’s filled with hungry Fierce Beasts and deadly miasma. She thought... she thought there was no way the little cub would survive the night. She never expected her to live..." He didn’t dare say the rest.

"Never expected!" Kui Ze let out a chilling, low laugh, as if he’d just heard the most absurd joke in the world. The sound was thick with brutality and a desire for destruction. "Just because she ’never expected’ it, she ruined over a decade of my clan’s hard work? Just because of her one ’never expected,’ the Flood Dragon Tribe rises from the ashes? Do you have any idea that because she ’never expected’ it, she might have brought total annihilation upon our entire clan?!"

He practically shrieked the last few words, his dark yellow vertical pupils narrowing into two dangerous slits.

The air in the cavern seemed to freeze, so oppressive it was suffocating.

Kui Ze straightened up. His chest heaved a few times as he forcibly suppressed the urge to tear these useless fools to shreds right then and there.

He knew that venting his anger now would be pointless.

The urgent task now was damage control!

His gaze became as cold as a viper’s. His voice dropped low, yet it carried an even more terrifying killing intent. "Listen! I don’t care what methods you use or what price you pay! Go and kill Jiao Yuan’s female cub for me, now!"

His icy gaze swept over each of his prostrated subordinates. "Send the clan’s most elite hunters. Spare no expense! Before they figure out the whole truth, before that lunatic Jiao Yuan launches his full-scale retaliation against us, make her disappear completely! Do you understand?"

"Yes, Clan Leader!" The few confidants responded in unison as if they’d received a pardon. Their voices held the tremor of having survived a close call, mixed with the grim determination for the bloody mission ahead.

"Get out!" Kui Ze growled. Watching his subordinates scramble away, he sat back down on his cold throne, his dark gold scales glittering ominously in the gloomy light.

He gripped the armrests so tightly that the hard stone groaned under his fingers as if it couldn’t bear the strain.

"Bai Wanwan..." He chewed on the name in a low voice. "You must die... otherwise, our entire clan will be the one to perish."

Bai Wanwan’s Beast Husbands had made ample preparations, but even they hadn’t expected the assassinations to be nonstop from morning till night.

For two consecutive days, they killed nearly thirty Chameleons disguised as Flood Dragon Males.

Apparently, the Chameleon Clan had no idea that Bai Wanwan was surrounded by three powerful Red Rank Beast Husbands.

The ones they sent were all top-tier Orange Rank experts, but before a Red Rank, death was their only option.

Jiao Yuan had been keeping a close eye on Bai Wanwan’s situation. When he learned she was facing endless assassination attempts, he was utterly enraged.

He tried to get close to Bai Wanwan, but no matter what he said, her Beast Husbands wouldn’t let him take a single step nearer.

Shuang Hua looked at him as if he were thin air.

Worried for his only female cub’s safety, he thought it over and over. Finally, carrying his long-suppressed fury, he returned to the home he shared with Lan Yi.

This time, there was no more beating around the bush, no more warmth. His gaze was sharp as a knife, piercing straight to Lan Yi’s heart. "Lan Yi! If you have any shred of feeling left for the dozen or so years we’ve spent together, then tell me the truth!"

His voice was low and suppressed, carrying the tension of a gathering storm. "Were you... or were you not... deliberately planted by my side by another tribe?"

The coldness and suspicion in his eyes made Lan Yi tremble. Tears instantly welled up. "I wasn’t! Jiao Yuan, how could you think that of me? We’ve been together for so many years, you don’t even trust me anymore?"

Her voice was filled with grievance and hurt.

"Trust you?" Jiao Yuan let out a short, weary, cold laugh. His eyes were filled with deep disappointment and pain. "How am I supposed to trust you? You used a female cub of unknown origin to impersonate my flesh and blood, deceiving me for over a decade! For all those years, the fatherly love I poured into Coral feels like a complete and utter joke!"

His words were like a sledgehammer, smashing brutally into Lan Yi’s heart.

Lan Yi knew she was in the wrong regarding Coral’s parentage and had no defense. She could only lower her head, her voice weak but tinged with stubbornness. "That matter... I was wrong, and I deceived you. But I really haven’t lied to you about anything else! Jiao Yuan, you have to believe me!"

"Haven’t lied to me?" Jiao Yuan took a sudden step forward, his tall frame exuding an intense pressure. "Then do you have any idea what our biological female cub just went through?"