Villainess is being pampered by her beast husbands

Chapter 455: Chapter-455

Kaya’s chest tightened for a reason she couldn’t quite name.

"When he recovered," the old man said, "he challenged her to a fight as repayment. Foolish, proud, full of that bird-tribe arrogance. She accepted, of course. They fought. And she won. Hard."

A faint smirk tugged at Kaya’s mouth. "Good."

"The sky beastman fell in love right there," the old man continued. "Hopelessly. He chased her. Pestered her. Insisted the gods had tied them together. In the end, under pressure from politics, prophecies, and his own annoying persistence, she married him too. She used to complain he was irritating." He eyed Kaya. "I believe her. I know the type."

Kaya raised her hand. "How do you know he was irritating?"

"Same way I know ’you’ are irritating," he replied instantly. "Some personalities, you can smell from one sentence."

She huffed but let it go.

"So she had two mates," the old man summarized. "One from the ground, one from the sky. Different tribes. Different tempers. Both deeply, stupidly in love with the same troublesome human girl who carried half a god."

He let the image hang there: one woman, two powerful beastmen orbiting her like stubborn moons.

"And after that?" Kaya pressed. "People say more—snake tribe, others—"

"I told you," he cut in, "I’m telling you the short version. What matters isn’t counting how many men called her ’wife.’ What matters is what that did to the world."

Kaya fell silent. freёwebnovel.com

"The disciples grew restless," he said quietly. "Jealous. Afraid. Imagine it: a ’human’, raised from nothing, holding half the beast god’s power, married into different tribes. Ground. Sky. Others, depending on who you ask. She had influence she didn’t even want. And everyone else could feel it."

His voice deepened.

"Some called her a blessing. A bridge between clans. A sign that the beast world would enter a new age. Others called her a curse. A crack in the balance. A weakness in the beast god’s armor. Those were the ones who survived long enough to tell their side of the story."

Kaya swallowed. "And the beast god?"

"He hesitated," the old man said. "Too long. That’s the one thing every version agrees on. He couldn’t bring himself to kill her, not completely. But he couldn’t let her keep growing either. The more she lived, the more that fragment became something he could never reclaim."

"So what did he do?" Her voice came out quieter than she intended.

"He chose the path of a coward wrapped in righteousness." The old man’s tone was flat. "He sealed her. Locked away her memories, her cultivation, her power—everything that made her dangerous. Then he cast her out. Back into the mortal cycle. Let everyone think she died. Let the disciples write their own little versions: she was lustful, she was weak, she betrayed them, she died a hero, she died a villain. All noise."

He looked at Kaya, gaze heavy.

"The truth," he said, "is simple. She didn’t die. She was reborn. Again and again. Different bodies. Different eras. Different worlds. Sometimes she never awakened. Sometimes she came back here and stirred the same hornet’s nest all over again. Each time, people like you came looking for the story."

The candle hissed softly as the wick burned lower.

Kaya’s throat felt dry. "And you think I’m... one of those rebirths."

He gave a slow, humorless smile. "You came from another world. You carry strange power. You collect beastmen like bad habits. You smell like trouble. What do ’you’ think?"

She looked away, jaw tight. Images flashed in her mind—Rudy’s fangs snapping, the sparrow’s offended chirps, Cutie’s trembling hands, Veer’s cold eyes tracking her every move.

The old man watched her wrestle with it, then finally unfolded his arms.

"That’s the story," he said. "Short enough for you?"

Kaya’s voice was quiet, but steady. "No."

He arched a brow. "No?"

"I asked for the full story," she said. "You gave me the bones." She met his gaze again, her own eyes hard. "But I’ll take it from here. If the rest is repeating itself... I’d rather see it with my own eyes than listen to a ghost of it."

For a long moment, he simply studied her.

Then, to her surprise, the old man chuckled—soft, tired, but real.

"Troublesome child," he said. "Just like her."

This time, Kaya didn’t argue.

The candle had burned low, a thin thread of smoke curling lazily from the blackened wick. Shadows stretched long across the stone floor, swallowing the corners of the room.

Kaya still hadn’t moved from her seat.

"So that’s it?" she asked quietly. "That’s the story?"

Her voice sounded calm, but the questions underneath it pressed like a blade against skin.

The old man rolled his shoulders, as if the weight of his own words had settled there. "That’s all *I* know," he said. "The rest is guesswork and people’s need to make themselves important."

Kaya stared at the table for a heartbeat, then lifted her eyes to him. "Then I’ll ask properly," she said. "Since you told me to ask questions."

He clicked his tongue. "I said ask the right questions. Not *many* questions." freewebnoveℓ.com

"I’ll decide which are right." She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "First: did any of you ever see her? The original woman. Not the legends, not the drawings. Anyone alive when she was here?"

He didn’t even have to think about it. "No."

"No one?"

"Our tribe is old," he said. "Not *that* old. The records of her time are from so far back even the stones barely remember. What we have are fragments—spears, beads, broken tablets. Not faces." He shrugged. "By the time my grandfather’s grandfather was born, she was already a story."

"So you’ve never actually *seen* her," Kaya summarized. "You just know the pattern she leaves behind."

"That’s enough." His gaze sharpened. "Fire comes and goes. You don’t need to see the first spark to recognize the ashes."

Kaya chewed on that in silence.

"Fine. Then... do you know what happens to her *after* she’s sealed and sent back? Any concrete record of one full life? One name, one village, one... anything?"

He shook his head slowly. "Once she leaves this world, she stops belonging to our records. At most, we know: a stranger appears, power grows, gods get nervous, something explodes, and the world resets a little." He looked at her. "We only see her when she walks here. The rest is smoke in someone else’s sky."

Kaya’s fingers drummed once against her knee. "So you don’t know how many times she’s been reborn."

"Enough that my ancestors stopped trying to count," he said dryly. "You keep a tally of storms at first. After a few hundred years, you just say, ’The rain came again.’"

Kaya snorted softly at that, then fell quiet.

"Next question," she said. "Do you know who she is now?"

The old man didn’t look surprised. If anything, he looked... tired. "Everyone always comes to that," he muttered. "Who is she now? Is it me? Is it him? Is it the woman next door?" He met Kaya’s gaze. "No. I don’t know."

"You figured out I’m not from this world the moment I entered your tribe," Kaya pointed out. "You can smell a lie from ten steps away. You’ve met others from places like mine. And you still don’t know?"