Raising Beast Cubs to Find a Husband-Chapter 113: The Drowning King.

The moon hung directly over the crater of the volcano, casting a pale, ghostly beam onto the Spring of Severance.

The water wasn’t blue. It was a swirling, opalescent white, thick with steam and smelling of sulfur and ancient magic.

Elder Renard stood at the edge, his nine tails twitching nervously.

"The alignment is perfect," the Elder rasped. "But remember... the Spring does not heal. It severs. It will try to tear the darkness out of you. If the darkness is holding onto your soul... it might tear your soul out too."

Caspian stood at the water’s edge. He had stripped off his heavy coat and shirt. His chest was a roadmap of agony. The black veins of the corruption had spread to his face, spiderwebbing across his left cheek.

He looked at Primrose.

"If I change," Caspian said, his voice low and steady. "If I turn into a beast and try to leave this pool... do not hesitate."

He looked at General Rajah. "Strike me down."

Rajah gripped the hilt of his sword until his knuckles cracked. He didn’t answer. He just nodded, a muscle in his jaw jumping.

Caspian stepped into the water.

HISS.

The water reacted instantly. It boiled around his ankles. Caspian grit his teeth, wading deeper until the water reached his chest.

"Begin!" Renard commanded.

The Elder slammed his staff onto the stone. The Fox Guards on the ridges began to chant, a low, thrumming sound that vibrated in Primrose’s bones.

The water began to glow blindingly bright.

Caspian gasped. His head threw back, his eyes rolling up.

"It... burns..." he choked out.

The black veins on his skin began to writhe. They didn’t want to let go. They dug deeper, hooking into his flesh like barbs.

"Push it out!" Archduke Cassian shouted from the shore, his monocle reflecting the chaotic light. "Visualize the separation!"

"I... can’t..." Caspian screamed.

The Void wasn’t just a curse. It was a sentient, hungry thing. It realized it was being attacked. And like a cornered animal, it fought back.

BOOM.

A shockwave of black energy exploded from Caspian’s body.

The water turned from white to an inky, oily black.

"The seal is breaking!" Renard yelled, his fur standing on end. "He is losing control!"

Caspian’s body began to twist. His skin turned grey. Massive, jagged horns began to erupt from his forehead. His teal eyes were swallowed by total darkness.

He wasn’t a King anymore. He was becoming a Void Beast.

"Caspian!" Primrose screamed, running toward the water.

"Stay back!" Duke Lucien grabbed her arm, pulling her away as a tendril of black magic lashed out, cracking the stone where she had just been standing.

"Kill... me..."

The voice came from the thing in the water. It was a gurgling, drowning sound.

"Rajah! Do it!" Caspian’s voice broke through the monster’s roar. "Do it now!"

Rajah drew his sword. The blade burst into orange flames. He stepped forward, tears streaming down his face. He raised the blade.

"I promised to save you," Rajah roared, his voice breaking. "But I won’t let you become a monster!"

He swung.

CLANG.

A barrier of black sludge rose up and blocked the sword. The Void was protecting its host. It swatted Rajah aside like a fly, sending the massive Tiger General crashing into the tree line.

"It’s too strong!" Lord Rurik yelled, shifting into his Wolf Form to catch Rajah. "The magic is rejecting us!"

The Elder slammed his staff again. "Seal the cave! We must trap it inside!"

"No!" Primrose shouted. "He’s still in there!"

She looked at the writhing mass of darkness in the pool. She could see Caspian’s face surfacing for a second—terrified, in pain, and drowning.

The Warlords were battered. The Elder was giving up.

Primrose looked at her hands. They were shaking.

She wasn’t a mage. She wasn’t a warrior. She was a cook. A nanny. A girl from Earth who made good soup.

But before that...

A memory flashed in her mind. Not her memory. Someone else’s.

A golden mountain. A lonely fox. A promise to heal the world.

"I’m not letting you go," Primrose whispered.

She tore her arm free from Lucien’s grip.

"Primrose, no!" Cassian yelled. "The water will boil you!"

She didn’t listen. She didn’t stop.

She ran to the edge of the Spring of Severance and jumped in.

The heat hit her like a hammer.

It was agonizing. It felt like being cooked alive. But Primrose didn’t swim away. She swam toward the darkness.

She reached into the black sludge and grabbed Caspian’s hand.

Gotcha.

The Void roared at her. It tried to push her away. It showed her nightmares—Orion dying, the world ending, her own death.

But Primrose held on.

"Caspian!" she screamed underwater, though no sound came out. Come back to me!

She pulled him close, wrapping her arms around the transforming monster. She pressed her forehead against his chest, right over the Star-Iron.

I am here. I am not leaving.

And then... something inside her clicked.

A lock that had been rusted shut for a thousand years suddenly snapped open.

The water around them stopped boiling. It stopped being black.

It turned Gold.

Under the surface, the world had gone silent.

Primrose didn’t know if she was drowning or flying. She only knew that the searing heat had vanished, replaced by a warmth so intense and absolute it felt like being hugged by the sun itself.

She opened her eyes.

She wasn’t in the murky, sulfurous water anymore. She was floating in a void of pure gold.

Across from her, floating in the suspension, was Caspian. But the darkness that had been swallowing him was recoiling. The black sludge hissed and evaporated, unable to touch her.

What is this? Primrose thought, looking at her hands.

They were glowing. Not a faint bioluminescence, but a radiant, burning white-gold.

System Alert? she wondered dizzily. Did I trigger a hidden event? Is this a temporary invincibility buff? Like the Starman in Mario?

She reached out. She didn’t feel like Primrose the Cook. She didn’t feel like the failed, tail-less girl who scrubbed pots. She felt... ancient. She felt infinite.

She grabbed Caspian’s face with both hands.

"Wake up," she commanded.

Her voice didn’t sound like hers. It sounded like a cathedral bell ringing across a valley.

Above the surface, Elder Renard screamed.

"Get back! The energy is spiking off the charts!"

Lord Rurik shielded his eyes. Archduke Cassian’s monocle cracked from the sheer pressure of the mana density. General Rajah planted his feet, refusing to move, watching the lake boil with golden light.

"Is she... dying?" Duke Lucien whispered, his voice trembling for the first time.

BOOM.

A pillar of golden fire erupted from the center of the lake, shooting straight up through the crater and piercing the night sky. The clouds above the mountain were blown apart instantly.

And from the center of the pillar, she rose.

Primrose hovered in the air, holding the unconscious King in her arms.

But she wasn’t the girl they knew. Her silver hair had grown, flowing around her like a river of starlight. Her eyes were no longer amber; they were burning wheels of white fire.

And behind her...

"Tails," Renard gasped, falling to his knees. "By the Ancestors... she has tails."

Not fur. Not flesh.

Nine tails made of pure, spectral golden energy fanned out behind her, majestic and terrifying. They moved with a hypnotic grace, each one large enough to crush a building, yet light as a feather.

She wasn’t a failed fox. She was the apex of their entire species.

Primrose looked down at the Void Beast attempting to consume Caspian’s heart.

The darkness snarled at her.

Primrose didn’t flinch. She felt a strange, detached pity for the curse. It was just dirt. And she was the ultimate cleaning agent.

Divine Art: Purification, her mind whispered, though she had no idea where the spell came from. It must be a high-level skill.

She leaned down and pressed her forehead against Caspian’s.

"Burn," she whispered.

The nine spectral tails curled forward, wrapping around them both like a cocoon.

The golden fire poured into Caspian. It didn’t hurt him. It sought out the foreign invader.

The Void screeched—a sound like tearing metal—and was incinerated.

Black smoke poured out of Caspian’s mouth, his eyes, his chest. The grey skin shattered like a porcelain shell, revealing his healthy, pale skin underneath. The jagged horns crumbled into dust.

The Star-Iron shard in his heart glowed red, then white, then dissolved completely, processed by the overwhelming divine energy.

Caspian gasped, his eyes snapping open. The blackness was gone. His teal eyes were clear, reflecting the face of the goddess holding him.

"Primrose?" he whispered, awestruck. "You are... shining."

The light began to fade.

The massive golden tails flickered and dissolved into sparks. The long silver hair shortened. The divine aura retracted, leaving just a wet, exhausted girl in a simple dress hovering a few feet above the water.

Gravity remembered she existed.

Splash.

"I got you!" Rurik roared, diving in before they could go under. He grabbed Caspian by the collar and Primrose by the waist, hauling them both to the rocky shore.

Caspian coughed up water, shivering but alive. He checked his hands. No black veins. He checked his mind. The fog was gone. He remembered the ocean. He remembered Orion. He remembered his past life and most of all he remembered Primrose.

"I’m... I’m back," Caspian breathed, laughing through his exhaustion.

Primrose lay on the stones, staring up at the steam. She felt drained, like she’d just cooked a banquet for a thousand people single-handedly.

"Wow," she wheezed. "That was... one heck of a buff. Did anyone see my XP bar go up?"

She sat up, wringing out her dress.

"Okay, that water is definitely magical," she laughed nervously, looking at the stunned Warlords. "I felt supercharged for a second there! Did I glow? I felt like I glowed."

She looked around.

The Warlords were staring at her with wide, terrified eyes.

General Rajah had dropped his sword. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Archduke Cassian was shaking.

Duke Lucien was staring at the space where her spectral tails had been.

"Why are you guys looking at me like that?" Primrose asked, wiping slime off her cheek. "Do I have something on my face?"

Then she noticed Elder Renard.

The ancient, grumpy Fox Elder—the one who had called her an abomination, a useless tail-less creature—was currently pressing his forehead into the sharp rocks.

He was prostrating himself. He was sobbing.

"Forgive me," Renard wailed, his voice thick with terror and reverence. "Forgive this blind, foolish servant! I did not know! I did not see!"

"Uh... Elder?" Primrose blinked. "It’s okay. The chair thing wasn’t that big a deal. We can pay for it."

Renard lifted his head. His eyes were wide and crazy.

"The chair?" he shrieked hysterically. "You are the Nine-Tailed Mother! You are Ophelia returned to us! You are the Goddess!"

Primrose froze.

"The who now?"

She looked at Caspian. "Is he hallucinating? Is it the fumes?"

Caspian looked at her. He reached out and touched her shoulder, his hand trembling.

"Primrose," Caspian whispered. "I saw it too. You... you had nine tails of fire."

Primrose laughed nervously. "Guys, stop. It was just the magic water. It was a visual effect! A glitch!"

Renard crawled forward, trying to kiss the hem of her soggy dress.

"Divine One! You have returned to lead your children! The Sanctuary is yours! My life is yours! Please, do not smite me for my insolence!"

Primrose looked at the groveling Elder. She looked at the terrified Warlords. She looked at her own hands, which were currently just normal, wrinkled, wet hands.

Oh no, she thought, the realization sinking in with the weight of an anvil. I didn’t just cure the King.

I just accidentally started a religion.

She looked at the camera (or where the camera would be).

"I think," Primrose whispered, "we’re going to need a bigger explanation."

And then, overwhelmed by the mana exhaustion and the sheer awkwardness of being called a Goddess, she promptly fainted.