Beauty and the Beasts

The female's voice was sweet and pleasant, her words something the surrounding mermen longed to hear. They felt incredibly envious of Silver.

Silver, however, suddenly halted. His gaze turned cold as he looked into Bluey's eyes and said in a warning tone, "I'm your mother's spouse."

Although they had never truly become spouses, he had set his mind on her since young.

Stubbornness was in the nature of all males, regardless of what species they came from.

Moreover, An'an only died because of him. If he forgot her, his love for her would become a joke, a tragic joke. Even he would despise himself.

Never had Bluey, who grew up cherished by everyone, ever had a male treat her so coldly. She was so frightened that her face turned pale instantly, and she couldn't help but retreat a few steps and stopped talking.

Silver retracted his gaze and, shaking his fishtail, swam away, leaving the bubble containing the female in the sea.

Shortly after, many mermen guards fell over one another to rush to push the bubble towards the sea surface.

"Bluey, Leader is like that. Don't be scared." Seeing that Bluey had suffered a fright, a merman hurriedly coaxed. That said, he also nervously glanced at the leader above.

Leader was especially dangerous today. Better be careful.

Only then did Bluey snap out of her shock and curled up in a corner of the bubble, nodding distractedly.

As the lighting turned brighter, the water temperature also rapidly rose. With that, Bluey felt that her mood seemed to brighten as well.

By the time she saw Silver, who was leaning against a reef on the island, Bluey had composed herself and feigned cheerfulness as she called out to the males behind her.

"Look, the flowers on the grassland have bloomed. So many butterflies! Let's go catch them!"

"Okay!"

Regardless of what she wanted to play with, the males naturally had no objections. Everyone started pouncing after the butterflies enthusiastically.

Silver sat by the side expressionlessly, only to ensure the female's safety and for no other reasons. When Bluey got tired from playing, he forcibly brought her back to the depths of the sea.

After this incident, Silver treated Bluey even more coldly. Even though he frequently appeared in her vicinity, he was the most distant merman from her in the entire tribe.

Although Bluey was naive and romantic, she knew how to behave in a delicate situation. Moreover, she was scared of Silver, so she didn't dare to offend him again and only watched him from a distance.

As she was already Bai Qingqing's third-generation offspring, her genes had assimilated with the beastmen and her reproductive abilities weren't as strong.

She would have seven to eight periods a year. Also, as she got older, her periods came increasingly less often. Nonetheless, she still had a great advantage over other females.

Silver kept in mind An'an's menstrual pattern and only allowed Bluey to give birth twice a year. Even then, their tribe was much more powerful and grew more swiftly than other merfolk tribes.

Using An'an and Bluepool's union as the starting point of their history, by the time the tribe had been established for 100 years, they had absolute dominance in the sea. No one dared to attack them.

Especially since legend had it that their leader's level had gone beyond that of a four-striped beastman. His abilities were too deep to be fathomable.

But just then, that legendary formidable beastman suddenly vanished, and their merfolk tribe no longer had that same deterrence in the wake of his disappearance.

However, they were a century-old tribe, after all, and consisted of hundreds of thousands of mermen. Just counting four-striped beastmen alone, there were more than ten of them. Even with him gone, no one dared to belittle them.

…

In the pitch-dark depths of the sea, a silver merman swam along aimlessly.

Before he knew it, he had already turned 100 years old. The longer he lived, the more vivid were the memories from his childhood.

Those shackles binding his heart also grew increasingly tight, so much so he had difficulty breathing.

He was truly tired.

The silver-tailed merman swam to the merfolks' burial ground, a ravine where countless merfolks' physical bodies were buried. This place exuded gusts of chilliness that drilled straight into one's bones.

"An'an…" As he uttered this name for one last time, Silver felt his eyes sting. Yet, he could no longer shed any tears. All of his tears had been left at the spot where An'an was buried.

Silver closed his eyes, a faint smile of relief on his lips as he spread open his arms and fell into the deep ravine…

[This marks the end of the merfolk tribe bonus arc.]