Villainess is being pampered by her beast husbands

The journey back to the Western territories was nothing short of a living nightmare.

The surviving hyena mercenaries did not merely run; they fled as if the god of death himself was breathing down their necks. They sprinted through the dense, unforgiving forests for three days and three nights, their lungs burning, their muscles screaming in absolute agony. They barely stopped to drink, and they certainly did not stop to sleep. How could they? Every single time they closed their eyes, all they could see was the agonizing, horrific death of that Vulture tribesman in the cave. They could still hear his bones cracking, his veins bulging, his final, desperate screams echoing in their ears.

Every time a twig snapped in the woods, the hyenas violently flinched, terrified that it was the sound of Kaya snapping her fingers from miles away. Every time they felt a slight cramp in their stomachs or a tickle in their throats, a wave of cold, paralyzing dread washed over them, absolutely convinced that the blue poison was finally activating. They were entirely, utterly broken. The psychological torture Kaya had inflicted upon them was far more effective than any physical chain or shackle could ever be. They were prisoners in their own bodies, carrying a ticking time bomb in their guts.

By the time the ragged, exhausted group finally crossed the threshold into the Venom-tooth Canyons, they looked like walking corpses. Their fur was matted with mud and dried blood, their eyes were sunken and bloodshot from sleep deprivation, and their bodies trembled uncontrollably.

The Venom-tooth Canyons were just as terrifying as their reputation suggested. The air here was entirely different from the rest of the beast continent. It was heavy, humid, and thick with the acrid, metallic scent of toxic marshes and poisonous flora. The jagged, towering stone walls of the canyon reached up toward the sky like the skeletal fingers of a dead giant, blocking out the sun and casting the entire stronghold in a perpetual, eerie twilight.

As the hyenas stumbled toward the hidden stone bridge that served as the only safe passage through the bubbling, acidic swamps, they were immediately surrounded.

From the shadows of the rocks, tall, slender beastmen emerged. They moved without a single sound, their cold, slit-pupil eyes locked unblinking onto the intruders. These were the Snake Tribe’s elite guards. Their skin was covered in fine, iridescent scales that shimmered in the dim light, and they held long, wicked spears tipped with the paralyzing venom of their homeland. The guards did not speak. They didn’t need to. The sheer, suffocating pressure of their cold-blooded aura was enough to make the hyenas drop to their knees and whimper in submission.

Recognizing the mercenaries that their Lord had hired days ago, the guards harshly ordered them to their feet with a flick of their spears, escorting the pathetic, shivering group deep into the inner sanctum of the canyon.

The deeper they walked into the Snake Tribe’s stronghold, the more the hyenas realized just how hopelessly out of their depth they were. The rough, natural stone of the canyon walls soon gave way to smooth, polished obsidian. Torches burning with strange, green-tinted flames lined the corridors, casting long, unsettling shadows that seemed to slither and dance on the walls.

Unlike the primitive, rough-and-tumble living conditions of the wandering tribes, the Snake Tribe lived in decadent, almost suffocating luxury. The floors were lined with plush, woven carpets dyed in rich emeralds and deep crimsons. Elaborate tapestries depicting massive serpents devouring the world hung from the ceiling. The air was thick with the dizzying scent of expensive incense, masking the underlying, metallic tang of venom that permeated the entire canyon.

Finally, the heavy obsidian doors to the central throne room were pushed open.

The hyenas were forcefully shoved inside. They stumbled onto the smooth marble floor, their claws scrambling for purchase, before collapsing onto their hands and knees. They kept their heads pressed firmly against the cold stone, too terrified to even look up. The throne room was massive, silent as a tomb, and unnervingly cold.

At the far end of the vast chamber, draped across a massive throne carved entirely from pure, solid gold and adorned with countless precious gemstones, rested the absolute ruler of the Western territories.

Lord Siss.

If someone from Kaya’s modern world had seen him, they would have been utterly mesmerized. From the waist up, the Snake Lord looked exactly like a human man in his early twenties. He possessed a face of such flawless, breathtaking perfection that it seemed almost celestial. His skin was as pale and smooth as fine porcelain, contrasting sharply with the long, silken black hair that cascaded down his shoulders and pooled around his waist like liquid midnight. His features were delicate, aristocratic, and exuded an elegant, untouchable beauty.

But that beauty was a terrifying, deceptive illusion.

Age meant absolutely nothing to the cold-blooded royalty of the Snake Tribe. While he looked like a youthful, delicate scholar, Lord Siss was an ancient, predatory monster. He had lived for anywhere between three hundred to five hundred years—no one outside of the royal bloodline knew the exact number, and those who dared to ask were never seen again. He had survived centuries of tribal warfare, assassinations, and betrayals, not through luck, but through sheer, unadulterated ruthlessness.

And beneath his slender, beautiful human torso lay the true source of his terror. Where human legs should have been, Lord Siss’s body seamlessly merged into the massive, thick coils of a gigantic black serpent. His scales were the color of the midnight ocean, shimmering with a dark, oily iridescence. The lower half of his body was easily thirty feet long, thicker than the trunk of an ancient oak tree, and packed with enough raw, crushing muscle to pulverize boulders into dust.

The Snake Lord lay gracefully draped over his golden throne, his massive tail lazily coiling and uncoiling across the marble floor with a soft, rhythmic ’hissing’ sound. He held a delicate silver goblet filled with deep red wine, swirling it slowly as he looked down at the pathetic, shivering creatures groveling at his border.

"Oh ho," Lord Siss’s voice echoed through the silent chamber. It was a beautiful, melodious sound—soft, sibilant, and hypnotic, like a gentle lullaby designed to put prey to sleep just before the fangs sank in. "My hired hunters have returned. But looking at the state of you, one might assume you were the prey."

The hyenas trembled violently. The sheer spiritual pressure radiating from the ancient beastman was suffocating. It felt like a physical weight pressing down on their chests, making it incredibly difficult to breathe.

They desperately wanted to tell him the truth. They wanted to scream that the Free Clan was a lie, that the human woman was a demonic tactician, and that she had forced a deadly, ticking poison down their throats. The words were right on the tips of their tongues. But every time they tried to open their mouths to confess, the phantom image of the Vulture tribesman vomiting black blood and thrashing in agony flashed in their minds.

Kaya had been abundantly clear. If they betrayed her, if they spoke a single word of contradiction against the script she had given them, they would die an agonizing death in seconds.

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