Raising Beast Cubs to Find a Husband-Chapter 167: The Song of the Abyss

The moment the Boss’s corrupted fingers brushed the Heart of the Tide, the garden screamed.

It wasn’t a sound. It was a metaphysical shriek. The connection between Primrose and the Heart—which was still downloading the Blue Tail—glitched violently.

"Agh!" Primrose gasped.

The blue light surrounding her turned jagged and erratic. Instead of absorbing the water mana, she was drowning in it. Frost raced up her arms, turning her skin to ice. The cold was absolute. It was the cold of a starless void.

"No!" Caspian roared, lunging at the Boss.

The Boss backhanded him with a wave of Void energy. Caspian flew backward, crashing into a cherry blossom tree.

"The Heart is too volatile," the Boss laughed, his hand blackening as he tried to pry the sphere from Ophelia’s chest. "If I can’t control it, I’ll shatter it! I’ll drink the pieces!"

Primrose fell to her knees. She couldn’t move. She was freezing solid.

The resonance is broken, Ophelia’s projection flickered, looking terrified. She cannot contain the Ocean’s sorrow alone. She needs an anchor!

Suddenly, the roof of the dimension—which was already cracked by the Boss’s earlier attack—exploded inward.

CRASH.

The Abyssal Hunter, trailing smoke and water, smashed through the barrier. Jax slammed the Dragon-Skull ship onto the grass, carving a deep trench through the flowers before coming to a halt inches from the pond.

"I stuck the landing!" Jax yelled, kicking the hatch open. "Everybody out!"

The hatch blew open.

It wasn’t just the kids. The Warlords—Rajah, Rurik, Cassian, and Lucien—who had been fighting the Kraken outside, had hitched a ride on the ship’s hull during the breach. They rolled onto the grass, weapons drawn, looking wet, angry, and ready to kill.

"You attacked my wife," Rurik growled, shaking water from his fur. "That’s a paddlin’."

"Get the Boss!" Rajah ordered, his sword igniting with blue fire.

But before they could move, the Boss snapped his fingers.

"Annoying pests."

The black sludge he had poured into the garden rose up. It formed an army of Shadow-Clones, blocking the Warlords from reaching the island.

"Primrose!" Luna screamed, running out of the ship with Clover. "She’s turning into an ice sculpture!"

Primrose couldn’t hear them. She was lost in the cold. Her heart was slowing down. The Blue Tail was killing her.

Ophelia’s ghost looked at the Warlords and the Children. Her eyes widened.

The Founders, Ophelia whispered. They are all here.

She looked at Primrose.

Little Fox! You do not need to bear the weight alone! Call upon the Pack! The Blood of the First Kings remembers the Oath!

Primrose, half-frozen, looked up. She saw the kids.

She didn’t see toddlers. She saw potential.

A massive Shadow-Beast lunged at Arjun.

Rajah moved to intercept, but he didn’t need to.

Arjun didn’t flinch. The Tiger Cub planted his feet. He took a deep breath, expanding his small chest.

He opened his mouth.

It wasn’t a squeak. It wasn’t a scream.

"ROAAAAAAAR!"

A visible shockwave of golden sound erupted from the boy. It was the Roar of the First King—a sound that could shatter mountains and paralyze enemies with pure primal fear.

The Shadow-Beast disintegrated instantly. The shockwave knocked the other shadows back.

Rajah stopped mid-stride. He smirked, wiping a speck of sludge off his cheek. "Good diaphragm. He’s been practicing."

Vali saw the shadows encircling the group. He saw Clover shaking.

Something clicked in the Wolf Cub’s brain. The playful puppy vanished.

Vali’s eyes turned a glowing, blood-red crimson. His messy hair stood on end. A red aura, heavy and suffocating, exploded around him.

The True Alpha Presence.

"Pack..." Vali growled, his voice distorted and deep. "Formation."

The sheer pressure of his aura forced the Shadows to their knees. They couldn’t attack. The Alpha Command overrode their programming.

Rurik laughed, blocking a stray attack with his arm. "Ha! That’s my boy! Look at that bloodlust! He’s going to be a terror in middle school!"

Jasper saw Primrose freezing. He adjusted his silk pajamas.

"This is chaotic," Jasper sighed. "I require order."

He closed his eyes. Green scales shimmered on his skin. Behind him, a massive spiritual projection of an Imugi (a Lesser Dragon) manifested. It coiled around the group, creating a barrier of wind and lightning that repelled the sludge.

Cassian adjusted his glasses, watching the spectral dragon. "Atmospheric manipulation. He finally tapped into the serpentine leylines. Efficient."

Silas walked toward the pond. The shadows tried to grab him.

Silas didn’t even look at them.

"Down," Silas whispered.

The shadows flattened into the floor, turning into a black carpet for him to walk on. He was the Heir of the Night. The darkness recognized its master.

Lucien leaned against a tree, watching his nephew command the very element the Boss was using. "He has better control than I did at his age. Terrifying."

But even with the Shadows held back, Primrose was still dying. The Water Mana was too chaotic. It needed a conductor. It needed a voice to harmonize the frequency.

Caspian struggled to stand up. "I... I have to stabilize her..."

"No, Father," a small voice said.

Caspian froze.

Orion floated out of the ship.

The Merman Prince wasn’t complaining about humidity. He wasn’t asking for snacks.

His eyes were glowing with an ancient, bioluminescent teal light. Markings—Royal Jaoiren Markings that hadn’t been seen since the First Age—glowed on his skin.

"Orion?" Caspian whispered, stunned. "Since when..."

Orion ignored him. He looked at Primrose.

He opened his mouth.

He began to sing.

It wasn’t a song with words. It was a frequency. A haunting, beautiful melody that sounded like whale song mixed with the chiming of crystal bells.

The air in the garden vibrated. The water in the pond stopped churning. The ice on Primrose’s skin stopped spreading.

Caspian dropped his trident. His jaw hit the floor.

"The Voice of the Sovereign," Caspian gasped. "He... he has the True Voice? But he’s five! He only cares about bath bombs!"

"Priorities, Father," Orion’s voice echoed in everyone’s minds, though his mouth kept singing.

Guided by Orion’s song, the chaotic Water Mana smoothed out. It became a rhythm. A tide.

Primrose took a deep breath. The ice on her skin shattered, turning into diamond dust.

She stood up.

The Blue Tail fully materialized behind her. It wasn’t flickering anymore. It was solid, majestic, and flowing like a living river.

She now had Six Tails: White, Silver, Gold, Green, Violet, Blue.

She looked at the Boss.

"Okay," Primrose said, her voice echoing with the power of the ocean. "My turn."

She raised her hand.

Guided by Orion’s song, she didn’t just shoot water. She controlled the state of matter.

"Freeze," Primrose commanded.

The water inside the Boss’s body—in his blood, in his cells—froze instantly.

The Boss gasped, stiffening as he turned into a living statue of ice.

"Burn," Primrose commanded.

Her Gold Tail flared. A beam of concentrated sunlight hit the ice statue.

CRACK.

The thermal shock shattered the Boss’s frozen form. He exploded into a thousand shards of ice and shadow.

The Boss—or at least, this version of him—was gone.

But the garden was falling apart. The Void-Kraken outside had eaten too much of the foundation.

The pocket dimension is collapsing! Ophelia’s projection shouted. You must leave! Take the Heart! I can sustain myself for a few hours without it, but you must get it to the surface!

"We’re not leaving you!" Primrose yelled, grabbing the floating Heart of the Tide.

"You have to!" Ophelia smiled sadly. "My body is heavy. I will slow you down. Go! Save the ocean first. Then come back for me."

The sky tore open. Billions of tons of seawater prepared to crush them.

"Everyone to the ship!" Jax screamed, revving the engines of the Abyssal Hunter.

Caspian grabbed Primrose. "We have to go!"

Primrose looked at Ophelia’s sleeping body one last time. "I’ll be back," she promised.

She sprinted to the ship.

They piled in. The kids were exhausted, their ancestral avatars fading. Orion collapsed into Caspian’s arms, snoring immediately.

"Go, Jax! Punch it!" Rurik roared.

The Abyssal Hunter shot out of the collapsing garden, blasting past the screaming Void-Kraken.

They rocketed up the trench.

Behind them, the Tomb of Ophelia imploded, burying the ancient Fox and the secrets of the past under miles of rock.

They breached the surface of the ocean minutes later.

The Abyssal Hunter launched into the air like a dolphin, splashing down into the black, oily waves.

Inside the cockpit, it was silent.

Caspian looked down at his sleeping son. He brushed a lock of hair from Orion’s forehead.

"He saved us," Caspian whispered, looking at the other Warlords. "Did you know? Did you know he could do that?"

Rajah sheathed his sword. "We knew the potential was there. The blood doesn’t lie."

Lucien nodded. "Silas has been commanding the house cats for weeks. I assumed Shadows were next."

Rurik grinned, patting a sleeping Vali on the head. "My boy’s an Alpha. Of course he is."

Caspian looked at Orion with new eyes. "I thought he was just... soft. I was wrong."

Primrose sat in the co-pilot seat, clutching the Heart of the Tide against her chest. She had Six Tails now. She felt powerful.

But then she looked at the sky.

The sun wasn’t shining.

The sky was purple.

A massive Black Eye was staring down at the world from the clouds.

"Uh, guys?" Primrose pointed up. "I don’t think we won yet."

The True Void had arrived.