Beastmen: She Tames the Land-Chapter 84: A quick look at the corrupted battlefield

Visha pulled herself up as Kaelen took off. She barely had time to see Uri and Xeno looking up as she left. She touched her heart, feeling their heartache as if it were her own.

She thought about the fact that she still wasn’t able to call on her beast, as they do, yet she could feel their emotions more strongly now. Her fingers ghosted over the puncture wounds on either side of her neck. She still didn’t understand how this bond worked. She only knew that the closer they became, the more she felt them.

There was a time at the beginning when she couldn’t differentiate their emotions from her own, but it faded quickly until she rarely felt anything. After the night they bit her, she was able to feel more of them. The lucky thing is that she won’t be constantly overwhelmed by their emotions.

She was able to feel their and her, both separately and as one entity.

She pulled her mind away from her thoughts and focused on the feeling of flying. Although she didn’t feel the experience of the wind whipping her hair, it was still exhilarating. Especially when she looked at the ground from up above.

Before leaving, Uri had mapped out the path for Kaelen. He wasn’t with them when they lived in the grotto, so he needed to know landmarks and such to mark his way. Visha’s eyesight was better than it used to be, but with Kaelen moving as quickly as he did, there would be things she missed.

"Slow down when you reach the meadow Uri told you about. I want to see what it looks like," Visha called out, the wind taking her voice.

Before long, she felt Kaelen slowing down and circling an area. She pulled herself up to see the meadow below. She expected to see the piles of animals they had killed. No other animal should try to eat them based on their smell.

The wind whipped her hair; her eyes bulged. She didn’t see the scene she had expected. What she saw was...nothing.

There was no black blood staining the grass or surrounding bushes and trees. There were no unnatural corpses. There was nothing but a large scorch mark on the ground, a circle of black grass.

A shiver ran down her spine as she saw it.

She only meant to come and see if the creatures infected anything around them after they died. But the outcome she saw made her more afraid than if she had seen the forest turning black because of their bodies.

Her body shivered, wondering who could have done it.

Before her fear could grow any further, she remembered Uri and Xeno. They could feel what she was feeling. She didn’t know if distance affected anything, but she couldn’t take the risk.

Taking a deep breath, she asked Kaelen to leave.

She wouldn’t think about these things again. What she needed to do was think about her current life and how well it was going. She didn’t need the mystery. It might get her into trouble she couldn’t afford.

Still, she couldn’t help tapping her finger on the basket for a moment before letting the thought go.

Four days later, as the sun began to set, Kaelen descended. They were close to the grotto. Visha advised him not to fly directly to the grotto. Rather, she had him stop at the first cave they lived in.

She wasn’t sure why she wanted to stop here. She only had a feeling she should.

Kaelen landed with a soft thud, releasing the basket when Visha was safely on the ground.

As she left the basket, she noticed the difference in temperature. The caldera was warm even at this time of the year. The nights, while not cold, could barely be considered cool. Yet as she stepped out of the basket, it took her body a moment to adjust. It was colder than she remembered. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

"You did well," Visha complimented. "If I hadn’t been telling you to rest, we might have been here sooner."

Kaelen nodded, a smile gracing his lips.

They stopped not far from the cave. As they walked, Visha smelled something familiar. It was a smell she couldn’t place. She felt it might be the cave itself. But as she got closer, she noticed the difference. It wasn’t the cave, it was a person.

Kaelen noticed her strangeness. His relaxed posture became rigid.

"Priestess, what is it?" he murmured. His voice was no more than a whisper.

"Something...no, someone I know is here."

They stood in front of the cave, a distance away. In case someone were to come out, they would have the chance to attack. Visha took out the stone knife. Even after using it as much as they did to carve, the blade wasn’t dull in the slightest.

Her eyes stared at the entrance of the cave. She saw the footprints.

She wondered for a brief moment if the bear shifters were still in the cave. But she denied it quickly based on the scent. This was definitely someone she knew. And she was with this person when her senses first heightened, otherwise she wouldn’t have known the scent.

By process of elimination, there was only one person it could be. "Heta?" she called out carefully.

There was shuffling in the cave. The person who came out wasn’t Heta, but he was still familiar to her. It was Kael, the beastman, who recognized Heta when they were sending her back to the Tiger tribe.

What was he doing here?

He saw Visha. His eyes glimmered with recognition. But there was also something else. Something akin to resentment.

She wasn’t sure why he looked at her like that. And she didn’t particularly care for the look. She was just about to ask about Heta when she saw someone else walking out of the cave.

It was exactly the person she expected.

As Heta got closer, she noticed the difference in her smell. It was still her, but it also wasn’t her. The smell came from her, but she couldn’t pinpoint the exact place.

It wasn’t until she saw Heta touch her stomach that she understood.

Heta was pregnant.

And based on her smell in the cave, she had been here for a while.

Didn’t they leave her with the Tiger tribe? Why was she here?