The enormous Red-Fang Beast collapsed with a ground-shaking thud that sent ripples racing across the nearby shimmering pool. Rory stood atop its massive skull, boots planted firmly in the blood-slick fur, the residual crackle of crimson lightning still dancing along the edges of the colossal axe she had just driven straight through bone.
She yanked the weapon free. The lightning construct dissolved into sparks that faded against the dappled light of Moonfall Forest. Below her, the fourth-tier mutant's body stretched like a fallen hillside, its once-ferocious red fangs now still.
Rory hopped down lightly, wiped a smear of blood from her cheek with the back of one gloved hand, and grinned.
"Jackpot."
She knelt, plunged her fingers into the shattered skull, and extracted a fist-sized core that pulsed with dense, swirling energy. Fourth-tier. Perfect. One more of these and she could finally push through the next threshold.
She sheathed the core in a reinforced pouch at her hip, then set to work with her combat knife, carefully prying free the beast's enormous fangs. Those would fetch a very nice price in Veridan City's material markets. Every coin counted when you were building a future that required both power and extremely good looks.
Five years ago she never would have imagined herself standing on a mountain of mutant flesh, harvesting parts like a professional scavenger. Back then she had been just Roanna Smith—Rory to anyone who mattered—turning eighteen and expecting the usual mix of cake, bad decisions, and a boyfriend who was supposed to love her.
Instead she had walked in on that same boyfriend with his tongue down her best friend's throat. Before she could even process the betrayal, the sky had cracked open. Meteors tore through the atmosphere, slamming into the city in fiery streaks. Buildings crumbled. Streets became rivers of fire and debris. In the chaos she had tried to pull a crying child out from under a collapsing overhang. Her boyfriend had seen her. He had looked straight at her… and then run the other way to grab the best friend's hand instead.
The last thing she remembered was the roar of falling concrete and the bitter certainty that the world was ending without her.
When she opened her eyes again, the first thing she saw was a giant blue rat the size of a truck, its bloody fangs dripping as it lunged. She had frozen, heart hammering, completely certain she was about to die a second time. A hunting squad of beastfolk had arrived in the nick of time, tearing the creature apart with practiced efficiency. They hauled her, still shaking, to the nearest settlement for treatment.
That was how she learned the truth. She was no longer on Earth. This was Astrium—an alternate version of her world, populated entirely by beastfolk. And she was the only ordinary human woman anyone had ever seen.
At first the discovery filled her with pure terror. Surrounded by towering, powerful men with animal traits and strength she couldn't match, she felt small, fragile, and completely out of place. She would have given anything to wake up back home, even if home was still burning.
Then she learned the rest.
Females were vanishingly rare in Astrium. The imbalance was so extreme that women received government housing, regular star-coin allowances, societal protection, and—most importantly—access to the Beast God System. Once a female ability user reached twenty-three, the system would match her with suitable male partners. Standard matching delivered nine husbands at a time. Matches happened every two years. There was no lifetime limit.
Nine husbands.
Rory had nearly choked when she first heard the number. She had never been greedy. One decent partner had always seemed like more than enough. But handsome ones? That part she refused to compromise on. She could handle poverty. She could handle danger. She could even handle the occasional near-death experience. What she could not handle was the idea of spending centuries stuck with faces that made her want to keep the lights off.
The government handed out free Divine Tree seeds to every registered citizen. The sacred trees belonged to the Beast God himself; consuming a seed gave a sixty-percent chance of awakening supernatural power. Those who succeeded became ability users with lifespans measured in centuries. Those who failed remained sub-beasts, limited to a little over a hundred years.
Rory took her seed, planted it in the small plot they gave her, and waited. One month later she awakened—not one ability, but two. Red lightning and water control. An unusually strong result that marked her as gifted.
They transferred her from the remote settlement S-147 to the larger city of F-154, where she briefly allowed herself to dream. Government villa. Steady allowance. Slow, safe cultivation. Wait until twenty-three. Collect nine gorgeous husbands. Live happily ever after.
Then she learned the catch.
A woman's rank determined the quality of the men the system would offer. Low-ranked females received low-ranked males. And rank affected more than power—it shaped physical appearance. Higher ranks meant stronger bodies, sharper features, greater presence. Some low-ranked beastfolk were… unfortunate-looking. Profoundly so.
The thought of waking up one day to nine of them staring back at her was more terrifying than any mutant beast.
So Rory made a decision. She would not wait. She would climb.
No family backed her. No clan offered resources or protection. When she tried to join hunting parties, the established ability users looked at the newly awakened outsider with no connections and turned away. Fine. She went alone.
The first years were brutal. She entered the forests shaking. She got mauled. She nearly became a meal more than once. She learned the hard way how to read terrain, how to time her lightning, how to use water to create openings or barriers. Every scar and close call became fuel. Her goal never changed: better cores, higher rank, and the kind of husbands who would make other women jealous rather than sympathetic.
Five years later, the woman standing in Moonfall Forest was no longer the terrified girl who had faced a giant blue rat. She was faster, harder, and far more practical. She still jumped at sudden noises. She still hated the idea of dying in some beast's stomach. But she forced herself forward anyway, because the alternative was worse.
Rory secured the last of the Red-Fang's usable materials, checked her pouch one more time, and started moving. The forest was never truly safe, and lingering near a fresh kill was asking for scavengers—mutant or otherwise.
One more fourth-tier core. That was all she needed for the next step. After that, the path toward twenty-three and the Beast God System would look a lot brighter… and a lot more attractive.
She smiled to herself as she slipped between the trees, red lightning still faintly humming under her skin.
Ugly husbands were not an option. She had come too far. All for the sake of handsome husbands!