Chapter 135
If it had been just one or two tribes making such claims, it might have been dismissed. But now, at least five or six tribes had stepped forward, all confirming the same pattern—after being attacked by rogue beastmen, it was the medicine apprentices from the Black Forest Tribe who had treated their wounds.
To say they were “healed” was an exaggeration, but they had indeed been bandaged and given medicine.
Bai Tu scanned the beastmen who had spoken. He was certain they weren’t lying—their bodies all bore visible wounds. In the summer, orc pelts weren’t as concealing as in winter, only covering the torso, leaving arms and legs exposed. Their injuries were clear for all to see. Some even had dried bloodstains on their pelts, which was expected; animal hides couldn’t be washed frequently without wearing out, and these beastmen had already been robbed by rogue beastmen, leaving them without spare clothing.
What Bai Tu had noticed, others closer to the scene had also seen. Realizing that these beastmen weren’t lying, those standing in the inner circle hesitated. Should they release the medicine apprentices or not?
A group of beastmen instinctively turned to Bai Qi for guidance.
Bai Qi waved his hand. “I’ll go ask again.”
He had no idea how to handle this. By all accounts, the Black Forest Tribe’s beastmen had committed countless crimes, but at the same time, these medicine apprentices had saved people. Bai Qi’s head was about to explode—how was he supposed to judge this?
Knowing he wasn’t equipped to handle the situation, Bai Qi chose the best option available—ask Bai Tu.
However, he couldn’t get out of the crowd himself, so he turned to Ying Quan.
Ying Quan immediately understood and nodded, signaling that he would fly out to ask.
Meanwhile, tied up among the captured beastmen, Wu Cong finally cracked a smile—he had a chance!
Yes, he had done some bad things in the tribe, but he and the other apprentices had saved many beastmen from different tribes. As long as those beastmen spoke up for them, he would be set free.
But things didn’t go as he had imagined. Not only did no one plead on their behalf, but the entire marketplace suddenly fell into silence.
And the reason for that silence was a single question from Bai Tu: “Can the Black Forest Tribe’s medicine be trusted?”
It was an excellent question.
Just yesterday, the Black Forest Tribe had distributed food for free, which had drawn plenty of attention. That included medicine—which, just like the food, could not be trusted. Even the beastmen who had spoken up earlier confirmed that the Black Forest Tribe had switched from drugging food to distributing powdered medicine. Those who consumed it would feel drowsy, and if taken in excess, it led to addiction. Without it, they would eventually experience withdrawal symptoms.
Hearing this connection between yesterday’s events and Hu Wan’s earlier testimony, the beastmen who had been planning to defend the medicine apprentices suddenly went silent.
At first, they had believed that the apprentices didn’t deserve such severe punishment. But now, they realized they might have fallen into the same trap as the beastmen who had been lured into the Black Forest Tribe.
Could anything be more terrifying?
When it didn’t concern them personally, they had been willing to believe that the medicine apprentices were just products of their environment—perhaps a little excessive at times, but not truly evil. But now, realizing that they themselves might have been tricked, their attitudes shifted. If it weren’t for the sheer number of beastmen packed in the center, many of them would have already started attacking the apprentices.
Wu Cong’s smile hadn’t even fully faded before his expression froze in shock.
He had been hoping that these beastmen—the very ones he had helped—would appeal for his release. Surely, they had a sense of gratitude and would step forward for him.
Instead, not only did they fail to plead for him, but now their gazes carried something far worse—hatred.
Of course, they were angry.
Some of the beastmen had only just now realized what had happened to them after hearing whispers from the crowd. They had been faithfully taking the medicine they had received—one packet a day. In fact, just this morning, some of them had taken a dose. And what Hu Wan had described about the first few days of taking the drug matched their own experiences perfectly.
One beastman muttered under his breath, “I didn’t take any medicine today, but I really wanted to…”
The food in their tribes was mostly dry, and with the hot weather, their water had long since run out. Fetching more required traveling upstream. He had stayed behind due to his injuries and had only come over to watch the commotion—only to realize that he was part of it.
Moments ago, he had still believed the medicine apprentices were good people. But now, listening to the others’ suspicions, he couldn’t help but question his own symptoms—his craving for the medicine felt exactly like what they had described!
Some beastmen still clung to their belief in the apprentices. But even if they didn’t fully doubt them, a new fear had begun to settle in.
Whether or not the medicine apprentices deserved punishment was now secondary.
What mattered most was their own health—had their bodies already been affected?
Hu Wan had said that prolonged use of the medicine would weaken beastmen significantly, and very few could survive beyond three years.
He had only managed to stand before them today because he had secretly reduced his dosage. Meanwhile, the beastmen who had entered the Black Forest Tribe at the same time as him, who had taken the full dosage regularly, were long gone.
The possibility of their own deaths loomed in the minds of those who had taken the medicine.
And the scariest part?
It wasn’t just Hu Wan saying this—it was the beastmen standing behind him, too.
With so many testimonies confirming the same thing, they couldn’t even convince themselves otherwise.
No one stepped forward to plead for the medicine apprentices anymore.
Bai Qi let out a sigh of relief.
For a moment, he had been genuinely worried that if the discussion continued, the crowd might pressure them into releasing all of the apprentices.
Luckily, that didn’t happen.
The medicine apprentices, who had briefly thought they might be spared, experienced a rollercoaster of emotions—just as hope had started to rise, it was completely shattered, leaving them in even deeper despair than before.
The only one who remained composed was Wu Ming. His expression stayed calm, just as it had been before. Even as others spoke of his crimes, he showed no signs of panic.
However, Wu Ming’s calm demeanor lasted only until another group of beastmen arrived.
Lang Qi and his team had captured all the runaway beastmen and brought them back.
The Black Forest Tribe had sent around three hundred beastmen in total. Among them, Wu Jiu, the medicine apprentices, and their guards—a few dozen in number—had already been tied up by Bai Qi, Ying Quan, and the marketplace beastmen.
Sixty to seventy beastmen who had been deceived into joining the Black Forest Tribe had managed to escape on their own and made it to the outskirts of the market. That left a little over a hundred beastmen—some of whom had been resting in last night’s camp and hadn’t had time to flee, while others, seeing the beastmen they were guarding escape, had instinctively run in the opposite direction.
Now, all of them had been captured and brought back.
With so many prisoners, it was inevitable that some would lose their nerve. Before the market beastmen could even begin interrogating them, a few started confessing on their own.
The Black Forest Tribe had once been a small leopard clan, originally known by a different name and far smaller than it was now. Back then, its beastmen lived no differently from those in other tribes—leaving early in the morning and returning late in the evening in search of food.
As the tribe expanded, beastmen from other tribes gradually joined. At first, the treatment of new members wasn’t vastly different from that of the original members—the only real distinction was that they received slightly less food.
However, everything changed drastically once the tribe was renamed the Black Forest Tribe.
Wu Jiu and the then-chief introduced a ranking system for the beastmen—the earlier a beastman had joined, the greater their privileges. Those who had joined before the name change were classified as high-ranking beastmen, while those who joined later became low-ranking beastmen.
High-ranking beastmen had absolute power over the low-ranking ones—they could beat, insult, or even kill them freely, all of which was permitted within the Black Forest Tribe.
But not all newly joined beastmen accepted this oppression. At one point, the low-ranking beastmen collectively rebelled, resulting in the deaths of many high-ranking beastmen before the uprising was finally suppressed. After that, for a time, the Black Forest Tribe stopped accepting new members—until Wu Jiu claimed to have found a solution.
No one knew exactly what Wu Jiu had done, but after consuming the food he provided, new beastmen became completely obedient. The beastmen who had been assigned to guard them had seen this firsthand.
These guards were all young beastmen who had only started overseeing the low-ranking beastmen in the past few years. Each time a new group joined the Black Forest Tribe, they would be fed food laced with Wu Jiu’s drugs.
Once Wu Jiu decided enough time had passed, the guards would drop their pretense and start treating the newcomers as free labor—forcing them to hunt, do backbreaking work, and toil endlessly.
If a beastman refused to comply, there was no need to beat them—they simply stopped giving them the drug.
Within two days, the withdrawal symptoms would break their spirit, and they would give up resisting.
There was no need for violence, though some of the guards beat low-ranking beastmen anyway—not to enforce discipline, but simply to vent their frustrations. They saw themselves as superior to the newly captured beastmen, forgetting that they had once been the same.
Now, one by one, the captured beastmen trembled as they confessed everything—not just the truth of the Black Forest Tribe, but also their own crimes.
They had no choice but to confess.
The medicine apprentices and the beastmen who guarded them were less frightened than the others. This was because they had oppressed low-ranking beastmen less frequently—mostly by forcing them to do labor, which was common throughout the entire tribe.
The guards were different from the medicine apprentices. The animosity between them and the low-ranking beastmen was deep-seated—one could even call it a blood feud. The rapid death rate among the low-ranking beastmen, where most didn’t survive beyond three years in the tribe, was closely tied to the actions of these guards.
Beatings and verbal abuse were a daily occurrence. Sometimes, they would intentionally withhold food or find other ways to torment the low-ranking beastmen. If one of them fell ill, the guards wouldn’t bother seeking treatment; instead, they would simply dump the sick orc into the mass grave outside the tribe, regardless of whether they could have been saved.
The same applied to injuries. If a low-ranking orc was wounded, the guards discarded them just as easily. In some cases, they even found it annoying when the injured bled too much and dirtied the ground—so they would beat them even more mercilessly. No matter how strong someone was, such treatment could take half their life away. And for those weakened by long-term drug consumption, many were beaten to death on the spot.
Despite being called high-ranking beastmen, the guard position was far from prestigious. Those assigned to this job were not particularly valued within the Black Forest Tribe. They had to lower their heads and submit when facing the chief, shamans, medicine apprentices, or even the beastmen responsible for food storage and patrolling.
The Black Forest Tribe had the strictest hierarchy in the entire Eastern Continent.
High-ranking beastmen looked down on low-ranking beastmen.
Powerful high-ranking beastmen looked down on weaker high-ranking beastmen.
The hierarchy was like a chain of contempt, trickling downward layer by layer.
Because the guards spent so much time among the low-ranking beastmen, they inevitably absorbed their scent. beastmen had keen senses of smell, and even the faintest trace of odor was easily noticeable. Because of this, the guards were often ridiculed by other beastmen in the tribe.
After being humiliated elsewhere, these guards would naturally take out their frustrations on the low-ranking beastmen. After the fire broke out last night, many of them had been beaten, and that was just one example of their daily suffering.
In short, the low-ranking beastmen had become the punching bags for everyone in the tribe.
Now, the same guards who had once abused their small bit of authority found themselves in a panic.
Seeing the low-ranking beastmen, whom they had tormented for years, suddenly become the center of public sympathy, they desperately tried to shift the blame onto others, hoping to escape punishment.
To reduce their own sentences, they turned on each other, saying:
“Yes, these things happened in the tribe, but I wasn’t the one who did them!”
“I was just a normal guard, just doing my job!”
“I had no real power to decide anything!”
But their victims were standing right there.
The low-ranking beastmen who had suffered under them immediately exposed their lies.
Hearing this confrontation, even the beastmen who had initially refused to believe that the Black Forest Tribe could be capable of such horrors fell silent.
Originally, many had been angry over the idea of someone impersonating Black Forest beastmen—but now, they wished that had been the case.
If these revelations had been a lie, at least they could have reassured themselves that the Black Forest Tribe wasn’t truly like this.
But now, the truth was undeniable.
The Black Forest Tribe was exactly as it had been described.
There had been no slander, no false accusations—only cold, hard reality.
Their illusions of the mighty Black Forest Tribe shattered completely—leaving behind nothing but dust and regret.
Some even felt ashamed—they had mocked and scolded those who had spoken against the Black Forest Tribe earlier. Now, realizing how wrong they had been, they had to swallow their pride and apologize.
They had once believed that the beastmen criticizing the Black Forest Tribe were simply jealous. Now, they understood how absurdly wrong they had been.
A small handful of beastmen still stubbornly clung to their beliefs, refusing to accept reality, no matter what was said.
Even as the Black Forest beastmen themselves admitted to the beatings and drugging, they still insisted it was all lies.
One particularly stubborn beastman shouted: “The Black Forest Tribe would NEVER do such things! If they did, I’ll cut off my own head and let you kick it like a ball!”
He swore with absolute certainty, unwavering in his belief in the mighty Black Forest Tribe.
“These people are fake! It’s all a setup! You’ve gathered a bunch of frauds to slander the Black Forest Tribe! You’ll see—when the Black Forest Tribe finds out about this, they won’t let you go! You, the ones who captured them, will all pay for this!”
However, only a few beastmen echoed his sentiments.
Most beastmen were focused on the confrontation between the former captives and their former guards.
The gathered beastmen couldn’t keep up—they felt like their eyes weren’t enough for everything happening at once.
They looked to one side, then the other, back and forth, trying to absorb everything.
There was too much to take in, and some were dizzy from turning their heads so much—they still hadn’t even heard everything.
It wasn’t until the sun climbed higher and the heat became unbearable that they realized the entire morning had passed.
At that point, Lang Qi, the wolf clan leader who had captured most of the Black Forest beastmen, stepped forward and declared, “We’ll lock them up for now. Once everyone has finished their trades, we’ll decide how to deal with them.”
This answer satisfied everyone—after all, they couldn’t spend the entire day just discussing this matter.
As the first morning of the market ended, the beastmen who had come to trade had heard one shocking revelation after another.
But they were still here for salt and supplies—after an entire morning of discussion, they gradually dispersed, no longer gathering around the Black Forest beastmen.
If it didn’t directly involve them, then listening was enough—trading for goods was more important.
A short delay was fine, but wasting too much time? Their chiefs would definitely scold them.
Besides, the captors had already promised that once trading was finished, they would discuss how to deal with the Black Forest Tribe’s beastmen.
Even if they wouldn’t be making the final decision, they would at least get to hear the outcome.
Since nothing new had happened for the moment, they turned their attention back to their trades—before they missed their chance to get what they came for.
Only the beastmen who had taken the medicine given by the Black Forest Tribe were still worried about themselves. Ying Quan informed them of Bai Tu’s instructions—no matter how much they wanted to take those poisonous drugs again, they must never touch them. The remaining medicine was also collected by Ying Quan and directly handed over to Bai Tu, who had already returned to his temporary residence.
Bai Tu kept thinking about it and felt that the appearance of the Black Forest Tribe beastmen together with the rogue beastmen was very suspicious. That afternoon, he decided to question the injured beastmen about the details of their injuries.
When Bai Qi arrived, Bai Tu was examining the food brought by Ying Quan. The bear clan member, Xiong Tuan, who came with Bai Qi, suddenly froze upon seeing the food.
“What’s wrong?” Bai Tu asked, noticing that Xiong Tuan seemed to have something to say.
“This food looks just like the food from our tribe.” As soon as Xiong Tuan said this, he realized that speaking like this in front of Bai Tu, especially while Bai Tu was holding the food, might cause some misunderstanding. He hurriedly explained, “I don’t mean that you took our tribe’s food—just that it really looks like ours…” His voice grew quieter as he spoke because he realized that no matter how he phrased it, it sounded inappropriate.
Bai Tu understood what he meant and reassured him, “Don’t worry. This food was taken from the beastmen rescued by the Black Forest Tribe.”
After saying that, Bai Tu asked Xiong Tuan, who was carefully observing the food, “Are you sure this food is the same as what was lost from your tribe?”
Hearing this, Xiong Tuan hesitated. He wasn’t entirely sure, but the resemblance was uncanny. After a moment’s thought, he suggested, “How about I ask the chief?” If he wasn’t certain, it was better to confirm with the chief.
“Go ahead.” Bai Tu nodded and gave Bai Qi a few instructions before letting them go find Xiong He. Then, he turned to receive the beastmen who had encountered the Black Forest Tribe on their journey.
A total of seven tribes had received help from the Black Forest Tribe. Without exception, all of them had encountered the Black Forest Tribe shortly after being attacked by rogue beastmen and running out of food.
The Black Forest Tribe’s so-called apprentice healers treated their wounds while telling them that they could get food from their tribe. However, they also mentioned that due to the scarcity of prey in their territory this year, fresh meat was limited, so most of what they had were meat products with a slightly off smell, and food with a normal taste was rare.
The attacked tribes had their food and supplies stolen by the rogue beastmen, leaving them with nothing but the animal skins on their backs and some heavy but practically useless items—like stone pots—that the rogue beastmen had discarded as worthless. Receiving food and medicine from the Black Forest Tribe seemed like a stroke of luck, a gift from the heavens.
Grateful, the beastmen profusely thanked the Black Forest Tribe. They received enough food and medicine to sustain them until they reached the market. One tribe didn’t even have a stone pot, and the Black Forest Tribe specially gave them two without asking for any compensation.
The beastmen already had some reverence for healers and their apprentices, and after receiving such aid, their admiration deepened. So, when they saw the apprentices being captured, their first instinct was to prove their innocence and demand their release.
Only after listening to the explanation of some long-watching beastmen did they realize they had been deceived. If they had continued consuming the medicine, they would have eventually become dependent on the Black Forest Tribe, obeying their every command. In two years, they would be worked to death, their bodies discarded into a pit, and possibly devoured by wild beasts or rogue beastmen. The thought sent shivers down their spines.
They then noticed Hu Wan and the others. Hu Wan and the beastmen with him were still somewhat recognizable as people, though emaciated—they just no longer resemble tigers. However, others around them were so thin that they barely looked human, as if they could be blown over by a gust of wind. The worst part was that even in such a frail state, they still had to carry loads heavier than themselves back and forth. If they didn’t, they would be beaten.
If the Black Forest Tribe hadn’t been exposed early, they would have suffered the same fate. The unlucky ones would have been beaten to death within the first year.
Filled with gratitude toward Bai Qi for warning them and Lang Qi and the others for capturing the Black Forest Tribe’s beastmen, they eagerly recalled the details of their encounters when Bai Tu questioned them.
“Our tribe was raided by rogue beastmen in the middle of the night. The next morning, we encountered the Black Forest Tribe.”
“Our tribe was ambushed in the afternoon. The rogue beastmen took our food and left. At night, we heard beastmen approaching and thought the rogue beastmen had returned, but later we realized it was the Black Forest Tribe’s healers passing by.”
“We encountered the rogue beastmen in the morning and met the healers at noon…”
Since all their food had been stolen, these tribes had no way to trade for supplies. Their leaders answered Bai Tu’s questions truthfully, one by one.
Bai Tu then asked who had treated them, how much food they were given, and what kinds of food they had received—covering every possible question.
Initially, none of them had thought anything was suspicious. But after hearing each other’s responses, they started to notice inconsistencies. As they fell into silent contemplation, Baiqi walked in, approached Bai Tu, and whispered a few words.
Bai Tu had immediately found it odd when he heard that every single one of these tribes had been “rescued” by the Black Forest Tribe. While the tribes themselves lacked such quick reasoning, they were not entirely oblivious.
Almost every tribe had encountered the Black Forest Tribe within half a day of being attacked by rogue beastmen. Even the tribe that took the longest still met them within half a day. The timing was so precise that it was hard not to suspect that the Black Forest Tribe had orchestrated it.
“Could they have been waiting there on purpose, only appearing to ‘rescue’ us after we were injured by the rogue beastmen?” one beastman hesitantly speculated.
Several other beastmen, who had been thinking the same thing, nodded in agreement.
Bai Tu glanced at the speaker, then at the other beastmen, and sighed inwardly. Without answering, he led them somewhere else.
On the other side were the beastmen who had received free food and medicine yesterday. Having eaten the Black Forest Tribe’s supplies, they were anxious but also reluctant to return to their tribes immediately—they needed to figure out what to do. If they went back, they would only have their own tribes to discuss with, making it hard to find a solution. But here, at least, there were many others in the same situation.
Since it was the Wolf, Lion, and Bear Tribes who had captured the remaining members of the Black Forest Tribe, the affected beastmen now had a sense of trust in them and waited for their guidance.
These beastmen were gathered near the resting areas of several tribes, so Bai Tu and the others reached them quickly. On the way, he had Baiqi bring some supplies.
The beastmen following Bai Tu were confused. Had they guessed correctly or not? Why hadn’t Bai Tu answered them?
When they arrived and saw how Bai Qi, Ying Quan, and the others followed Bai Tu’s instructions, the beastmen began to suspect that Bai Tu was actually the one who had orchestrated the exposure of the Black Forest Tribe. They were puzzled as to why he had remained mostly behind the scenes, only speaking once—and even then, only a few beastmen had heard his words. But despite this, they trusted that he would uncover the truth.
Now, however, they were slightly worried. Bai Tu hadn’t answered their suspicions—was it because he thought they were too foolish to understand? They had failed to see through the Black Forest Tribe’s deception earlier. Did he think they were too slow-witted to be worth explaining things to?
Bai Tu, of course, did not dislike them. Nor did he leave them waiting too long. As soon as he reached the beastmen who had received the free medicine, he instructed Bai Qi to take out the supplies from the basket he carried.
Inside were the very same food supplies that the Black Forest Tribe had given to several tribes. Since food was scarce, the beastmen had been careful not to eat everything at once, rationing their portions to last as long as possible. They only ate when absolutely necessary, hoping to make the food last and maybe even trade some of it for salt. They could live without many things, but salt was essential.
Most of the tribes had done the same, so even now, there was still a fair amount of food left.
Seeing the familiar supplies, one of the beastmen who had previously suspected Ying Quan of stealing the food turned red with embarrassment. He had accused Ying Quan of hoarding the food for himself and had even voiced his suspicion, only to be stopped by his tribe’s leader. Now, he was grateful that his leader had intervened—if Ying Quan had really intended to take the food for himself, he wouldn’t be bringing it out now.
While that beastman squirmed awkwardly, the others were simply confused. The tribe leaders who had handed over the food were especially bewildered—they had no idea what was going on.
But the real surprise came next. More beastmen arrived, bringing out additional food supplies from their respective tribes.
Before anyone could ask what was happening, one of the resting beastmen suddenly exclaimed, “Hey! Isn’t that our tribe’s basket?”
The Beast God Continent had many tribes, each separated by vast territories. In any given region, only a few tribes would exist, as too many would lead to resource shortages. If a region was already occupied, new tribes searching for land would avoid it.
Due to differences in location, along with the fact that weaving—one of the most basic tasks—was primarily assigned to the elderly and beastmen who couldn’t leave the tribe for various reasons, each tribe developed its own unique weaving techniques. Additionally, the raw materials used for weaving varied by tribe, as they typically utilized the most abundant and suitable plants available in their surroundings.
Differences in plant materials, weaving methods, and tribal customs meant that the final woven products were never exactly the same—whether in size, material, or weaving craftsmanship. As a result, beastmen could easily recognize baskets belonging to their own tribe.
Upon hearing the beastman’s exclamation, Bai Tu said nothing. Instead, he signaled for the beastmen carrying food to dump everything onto the ground.
Some beastmen felt distressed at the sight of food being wasted. But then they remembered—this was food tainted with drugs, which would make them sick if consumed. In that case, it was indeed better to discard it.
As the food spilled onto the ground, a few beastmen who had remained silent up until now glanced at Bai Tu. Finally, one of them mustered the courage to speak their initial thought upon seeing the food.
“These look just like the food stolen from our tribe by the rogue beastmen.”
Each tribe had its own way of preparing food. Some preferred cutting meat into large chunks, while others favored smaller pieces. When beastmen from different tribes saw the piles of food before them, they could usually recognize their own tribe’s preparation style at a glance—unless another tribe happened to have a nearly identical method.
Habits were difficult to change. Some tribes liked to roast meat until it was extremely charred, making it almost impossible to bite through until it was later boiled in a pot.
Others preferred lightly roasting their meat, only fully processing it when they were ready to eat. This made the meat easier to chew but also more prone to spoilage.
A few tribes preferred boiling their meat instead of roasting it. Since boiling was more time-consuming, it was rarely practiced. The beastman who had spoken belonged to one of these rare tribes. In a pile of dark roasted meat, the pale boiled meat stood out immediately—and its shape closely matched how his tribe typically cut their meat.
A single coincidence might have been dismissible, but with so many piling up, and after all the details they had been reflecting on, the beastmen could no longer ignore the truth. If their food hadn’t been stolen by the rogue beastmen, they wouldn’t have needed to rely on the Black Forest Tribe’s medicine, and they wouldn’t be living in such fear now.
But it was too late for regrets. All they could do now was express their thoughts. These foods—they were undeniably from their own tribe.
“This is the food you were left with,” Bai Tu said, glancing at the beastman who had spoken, as well as the others who seemed hesitant to speak. He then continued, “Earlier, you speculated that the Black Forest Tribe might have been secretly watching you, waiting for you to be wounded before stepping in to ‘rescue’ you. Now that everyone is here, let’s push that thought further. Is it possible that the rogue beastmen were actually raised by them?”
The beastmen from several tribes stared at Bai Tu in shock.
They had dared to suspect that the Black Forest Tribe had deliberately timed their appearances based on the precise intervals between attacks. They had also suspected that the tribe had been handing out food recently because they were short on people. But this—this new theory—was something they hadn’t even considered.
The beastman who had just mustered the courage to share his thoughts was especially shaken. If Bai Tu was right, then the Black Forest Tribe had been the ones who stole their food all along?
With a single sentence, Bai Tu had stunned every beastman present. Even Bai An, who heard about it later, was completely taken aback.
“The Black Forest Tribe was raising rogue beastmen?!” Bai’an was not only shocked but furious.
Rogue beastmen were universally despised across the Beast God Continent. Whether large or small, nearly all tribes viewed them as a menace. For weak tribes like the Snow Rabbit Tribe, their impression of rogue beastmen was even worse—almost every small tribe had been raided by them at some point.
If they only stole food, that would be bad enough. But they were far worse. They killed indiscriminately, more ruthless than even the bandits of the Brown Monkey Tribe. Many rogue beastmen would sneak into small tribes, kidnapping the female beastmen and sub-beastmen while slaughtering all the males.
In reality, many beastmen were forced to wander for various reasons. However, these beastmen would either eventually join a relatively friendly tribe or end up becoming part of the wandering beastmen groups. Due to the rainy and snowy seasons, surviving alone in the wild was nearly impossible—even for the stronger beastmen species.
Many years ago, there were still reports of small nomadic tribes. These tribes had few members and never stayed in one place for too long. They would settle in a resource-rich territory for a year or two before moving on to find a new land. However, in recent years, such tribes had disappeared entirely.
Now, the only ones left wandering were those who, despite being physically strong and outnumbering the average tribe, refused to hunt for themselves and instead roamed around plundering other tribes. Some claimed that the once-migratory tribes had all been assimilated—or wiped out—by the rogue beastmen.
The appetite of the rogue beastmen seemed insatiable. They loved attacking other tribes, even when they already had enough food. They would still seek out opportunities to raid others. Even when they failed to take down a tribe, they would still try to kill its cubs before retreating.
And now, these vile, ruthless rogue beastmen were being secretly nurtured by the Black Forest Tribe? How could anyone not be furious upon hearing this?
The larger the group of rogue beastmen, the bolder their actions became. The group that had been plundering these tribes along the way numbered over a hundred strong—all adult, battle-ready beastmen. Any tribe they set their sights on had virtually no chance of fighting back.
And this was just what they had heard about within the past few days since setting out for the market. If the rogue beastmen had already attacked so many tribes in such a short time, how many smaller tribes had they harmed over the years?
The realization sent a chill down Bai An’s spine. He suddenly recalled several tribes he used to communicate with years ago—now, they had all gone silent.
“There used to be several rabbit tribes in the Eastern Continent.” Thinking about the past, Bai An sighed.
Over a decade ago, he had known at least six or seven rabbit tribes. But gradually, they stopped appearing at the market.
Eventually, he realized that his own tribe was the only rabbit tribe left. And it wasn’t just his species—many smaller tribes had been disappearing. For larger beastmen with imposing beast forms, smaller tribes of their kind were also dwindling, leaving only a few large tribes with hundreds of members.
“I should have noticed it sooner,” Bai An murmured.
Looking back, the number of small tribes had been decreasing at an alarming rate. Every time he visited the market, one or two familiar tribes would be missing. He had always assumed they had simply left early, taken a different route, or been delayed. Only now did he realize that something was terribly wrong.
Bai Tu shook his head. “This isn’t your fault,” he reassured Bai An. “These changes didn’t happen all at once. Of course, you wouldn’t have noticed anything unusual. And the Black Forest Tribe wouldn’t have wanted anyone to notice, either—otherwise, they’d expose themselves.”
“What we need to focus on now,” Bai Tu said firmly, “is eliminating the rogue beastmen—and the Black Forest Tribe that controls them.”
This was an unforgivable act. The Black Forest Tribe had deliberately raised rogue beastmen, sending them out to plunder other tribes. Then, they used the stolen food to manipulate and win over those they had ‘rescued.’
Taking this a step further, if no one had realized the truth, how many more people would have joined the Black Forest Tribe after this market gathering? How many would have ended up like Hu Wan’s former clan—dying quietly within the Black Forest Tribe while outsiders envied them for gaining a place in the tribe?
The Black Forest Tribe’s tactics were too refined. Bai Tu suspected that this wasn’t even the first time they had done this.
There was no question—the situation had to be dealt with. But the Black Forest Tribe had far more people than them, even without counting the rogue beastmen.
Bai An hesitated.
Lang Qi, however, had already nodded.
Thanks for the chapter~~~