I Was The Only Omega In The Beast World-Chapter 171: CP: We Need To Go Back To The Valley

The days that followed settled into a rhythm—not the frantic pace of survival, but something slower. Something that felt almost like peace.

Almost.

Alex woke each morning to the weight of his mates around him, to the persistent ache in his lower back and the tender heaviness in his chest, to the small lives inside him that had begun to move with increasing certainty. The nausea came and went in waves, worse in the mornings but manageable with Sally’s ginger tea and the cooling mist Zale provided. His ankles swelled by afternoon, and his hips ached if he sat too long or stood too long or did anything too long.

But the stones were stirring.

Not waking—but stirring. Each day, Alex sat with them in the courtyard or at the ridge’s edge, and each day, the seven cold artifacts answered a little more. A flicker of warmth here. A faint hum there. The Bronze stone responded strongest when Granite sat nearby, his massive presence somehow anchoring something the stone had been reaching for. The deep blue water pearl brightened whenever Zale’s sphere drifted close, the water inside it catching the light like a living thing.

And always, always, the small lives inside Alex responded.

They had grown accustomed to the stones, Alex realized. The artifacts had been with him from the beginning—had been part of his body’s chemistry, his scent, his very presence—for months before the snakelings were born. The new children had never known a world without that resonance. Even dormant, the stones were familiar to them. Even cold, they were home.

"The cubs are mapping the stones," River announced one afternoon, watching Alex hold the obsidian Void stone against his belly. "Through you. They can’t touch the stones directly, so they touch you touching the stones. It’s like... listening through a wall."

Alex looked at his child—at the calm certainty in his small face—and felt the familiar mix of pride and bewilderment that River inspired in him.

"When did you figure that out?" he asked.

River tilted his head. "This morning. I was watching your scent change when you held the water stone. It got warmer around your belly first, then spread to the stone. Not the other way around."

Alex looked down at the deep blue pearl in his palm. The only one among the stones that wasn’t a stone. It was warmer than it had been yesterday—still far from the resonance he remembered, but warmer. And River was right. The warmth had started in his belly, in the place where the small lives fluttered, and spread outward to his hands.

"The children are waking the stones," he said slowly. "Not me."

"They’re helping," River corrected. "The stones remember you. They’re just... tired. The babies are giving them something to hold onto while they rest."

---

Leo found him that evening, sitting alone at the edge of the pool.

The sun was setting behind the ridge, painting the water in shades of orange and gold. The construction had stopped for the day—the workers had retreated to their temporary shelters, the wolves had gone to their patrols, the snakelings were occupied with a game that seemed to involve a great deal of screaming and very few rules.

Alex had his feet in the water, the coolness easing the swelling in his ankles. His hand rested on his belly, where the small lives had been active all afternoon—pushing, rolling, making their presence known with increasing insistence.

Leo sat down beside him without speaking first. That was one of the things Alex had learned to love about him—the understanding that some silences didn’t need to be filled.

"River says the babies are waking the stones," Leo said eventually.

Alex sighed, leaning back on his hands. The movement pulled at his lower back, and he winced. "I know. That’s the problem. If the children are the ones waking the stones, that means the stones are responding to them. Not to me. To the lives I’m carrying."

Leo was quiet for a moment. "Does that bother you?"

"It should, shouldn’t it? The artifacts have been mine since the beginning. They chose me. Responded to me. And now they’re responding to—" He pressed his hand against the swell. "To these ones. Before they’re even born."

"They’re responding to you carrying them," Leo said. "That’s still you. Just... a different part of you."

Alex looked at him. The lion’s golden eyes were soft in the fading light, his expression open in a way it rarely was. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"You’ve been thinking about this," Alex said.

"I’ve been thinking about a lot of things." Leo’s tail curled around Alex’s ankle, warm and grounding. "The shadow said it was condemned. Sent here as punishment. I spent years as an exile—not the same, but... I understand something about being cast out. About having nowhere to go back to."

Alex didn’t speak. He waited.

"The shadow is old," Leo continued. "Older than the tribes. Older than the artifacts, maybe. It’s been alone for three thousand years, watching beastmen live and die and build the same things over and over. And it’s angry. But anger isn’t the only thing it feels."

"You think it’s lonely."

"I think it’s been alone for three thousand years and now someone has arrived who might be able to do something about that." Leo’s hand found Alex’s, their fingers threading together. "I’m not saying we should trust it. I’m saying we should understand it. The way we understood the wolf lord who waited four years. The way we understood the bear who raised six children alone. The way we understood the dragon who decided to care about something after a thousand years of watching."

Alex was quiet for a long moment.

"When did you get so wise?" he asked.

Leo’s mouth curved. "I’ve always been wise. You were just too busy running for your life to notice."

"Fair."

They sat together as the sun finished its descent, the last light catching on the water and turning it to molten gold. The small lives inside Alex had finally settled, exhausted by a day of activity. The stones in his pouch were warm—not blazing, not singing, but warm. The way skin was warm after being in the sun.

"We need to go back to the valley," Alex said. "Tomorrow. Not just to the edge—into it. The stones are responding to the babies. Maybe they’ll respond to the place where the shadow is. Maybe that’s what they need to wake up fully."

Leo’s grip on his hand tightened. "That’s dangerous."

"Everything is dangerous. The babies are coming, Leo. I don’t know when—pregnancies are unpredictable, Naga says—but they’re coming. And when they do, I won’t be able to focus on anything else. We need to deal with the shadow before then. We need to wake the stones and restore System and figure out what the threshold actually is."

"The shadow said the threshold resets the world."

"The shadow also said it was condemned and wants to be free. I don’t know which parts are true and which parts are manipulation." Alex pressed his free hand to his belly. "But I know I can’t keep waiting. Every day we wait, the babies grow bigger. Every day we wait, the shadow gets more time to plan. We need to move."

Leo was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Not without the others."

"Yes," Alex agreed. "We go together. Like always. "