108: Chapter 108 The Creator of the Ferocious Beasts

Outside the Southern Border, before the altar.

The air seemed to have solidified into substance, making it hard to breathe.

"What... did you say?"

"Why... would I do such a thing?"

Bloodshot veins filled Shen Ye's single eye. Cold sweat poured from the edge of the gauze on his temple, dripping onto the moss-covered stone floor.

"If the source of all this is us returning to the past and creating the Calamity Beasts... then, doesn't my parents dying in the beast tide mean... mean I killed my own parents!?"

This logical loop was like a rusty saw, repeatedly tearing at his most fragile nerves.

Everything he had done since he was old enough to understand.

Had been for the sake of wiping out the Calamity Beasts.

And yet, in the end, the true culprit turned out to be—his future self?

"Aaaaaah!!"

Shen Ye clutched his head in agony. The spatial power in his palms spiraled out of control, tearing several faint black cracks in the air around him, grinding the fallen leaves on the ground into powder.

"Calm down! Brother Ye!"

"Huff... huff..."

Shen Ye panted heavily, staring intently at Black-Robed Shen Ye, waiting for an explanation.

Black-Robed Shen Ye looked at his younger self on the brink of collapse and gave a bitter smile.

"Ironic, isn't it?"

Black-Robed Shen Ye slowly turned his head, looking past the two of them toward the weathered statue of a woman in the center of the altar.

"In a way... yes."

"We wanted to go back to save our parents, to change history through some means before the Calamity Beasts appeared. In the end... fate played a cruel joke on us."

"We wanted to save people, yet we became the blade that killed them."

Black-Robed Shen Ye's voice was low, echoing through the empty forest.

"The owner of this statue—her name is Ye Fei."

Hearing the name, Shen Ye and Xia Qing were both stunned. It was an unfamiliar name.

"Thirty years into the future, she is recognized as the Dragon Kingdom's strongest Beast Tamer."

A hint of reminiscence appeared in Black-Robed Shen Ye's eyes.

"She is proficient in all arts of animal mastery, and furthermore, she possesses an extremely unique aura."

At this point, Black-Robed Shen Ye paused, his tone becoming more emphatic.

"You've seen the Calamity Beasts Outside the Border. They are bloodthirsty, brutal, and devoid of reason, attacking any living thing in sight."

Shen Ye nodded silently.

During his time fighting Outside the Border, he had deeply experienced the horror of wild Calamity Beasts. They were pure killing machines, impossible to communicate with.

"However..."

Black-Robed Shen Ye pointed at the statue.

"When the Calamity Beasts see Ye Fei, they never initiate an attack against her."

"They even submit and back away."

Shen Ye's single eye widened in shock.

"What? There's someone like that?"

"How is that possible!"

Beside him, Xia Qing waved his magic staff, interjecting in disbelief.

"On our way here, which Calamity Beast didn't want to tear us apart and swallow us whole??"

Black-Robed Shen Ye continued to explain.

"Yes. At first, I thought it was because of her class, that she had mastered some high-level skill we didn't know about."

"But later, as our cooperation deepened, I realized things were even more complicated than I had imagined."

"In the entire world, among billions of people and thousands of professions related to animal training... only she, only Ye Fei alone, could do this."

Shen Ye frowned. Though shocked, his logic kept him skeptical.

"That still doesn't prove she's the creator of the Calamity Beasts."

"To say she's the culprit behind the Calamity Beasts just because they don't bite her... that's too far-fetched."

Black-Robed Shen Ye looked at his younger self and let out a long sigh.

He stood up, walked to the statue, and reached out to gently stroke the cold stone hem of the dress.

"Of course. You know what kind of people we are. People like us who toy with space and time believe in coincidences the least."

Black-Robed Shen Ye turned around, a heart-stopping chill emanating from his intact eye.

"That point alone indeed doesn't prove anything."

"However..."

"Shen Ye, what if I told you that I witnessed the entire process of her creating the very first Calamity Beast with my own eyes?"

"What if I told you that I was the one who personally... sent that first batch of created Calamity Beasts to hell?"

Shen Ye's whole body shuddered.

"What?"

"Sit down."

Black-Robed Shen Ye pointed at the ground.

"The story that follows might completely overturn your understanding of this world."

Black-Robed Shen Ye sat back down on the stone steps, hands clasped over his knees, his gaze becoming somewhat distant.

"Thirty years into the future, after a long period of leveling up and enlightenment, I believed I had fully mastered the ultimate profound meaning of the [Time-Space Traveler]—the power of the rules of time travel."

Hearing this, Shen Ye subconsciously clenched his fists. That was the realm he dreamed of.

"Back then, I had only one thought."

Black-Robed Shen Ye gave a bitter laugh.

"And that was to travel back forty-eight years, to the year our parents were murdered. I wanted to save them; I wanted to change that bloody night."

"At the time, Ye Fei and I were teammates in the same squad. When she learned of my plan, she didn't stop me, but instead offered to go back with me."

"She said she also wanted to go back to see if she could solve the problem of the beast tide at its source."

"The result..."

Black-Robed Shen Ye shook his head, his face full of self-mockery.

"I overestimated myself and underestimated the backlash of the River of Time."

"Because I couldn't fully control that violent temporal turbulence, the positioning deviated significantly. Instead of returning to forty-eight years ago, the two of us were directly teleported to—100 years ago."

"100 years ago?"

Xia Qing cried out in surprise.

"The eve of the Calamity Beast crisis just breaking out, or maybe even before it began?"

"Exactly."

Black-Robed Shen Ye nodded, a sudden light appearing in his eyes.

"There, we saw a completely different world."

"In that world, although people had begun awakening Professional panels and were known as [Ability Users], the Calamity Beasts had not yet appeared."

"There were no so-called Safe Zones, nor the concept of Forbidden Zones Outside the Border like we have now."

"People could freely go on outings in the wild or explore deep mountains without worrying about a Flame Lizard jumping out of the grass to bite their heads off. The nation was developing rapidly, skyscrapers were rising, and everything was flourishing."

Shen Ye and Xia Qing listened intently. That was the golden age their generation had only heard about in history textbooks.

"However..."

Black-Robed Shen Ye's tone shifted, becoming heavy.

"We were people from the future. Based on history, we knew the point when the Calamity Beasts appeared should be shortly after that time node."

"We were very anxious."

"The Professional system back then was still very immature. People didn't know how to control the power within them, and skill development was extremely low. We believed that once those bloodthirsty Calamity Beasts suddenly descended according to the course of history, the humans of that time would surely suffer heavy casualties."

"So, Ye Fei and I made a decision."

At this point, Black-Robed Shen Ye closed his eyes in pain.

"Ye Fei's class was very special. At that time, she had already advanced to the [Lord of Myriad Spirits], possessing the abilities of [Biological Fabrication] and [Bestowing Spirituality]."

"So, out of kindness and the original intention of protecting the people of that era... she used her core skills to create a batch of special creatures for the people of that time."

"We called them—[Guardian Beasts]."