CHAPTER 221: CHAPTER 221: LITTLE CASSIAS

"There he is!" The bunch of furry cubs exclaimed. They all rushed to the figure on the door’s threshold.

"Come and face us if you dare!"

"We will challenge you!"

All the cubs fought to speak.

Zerra had her own reason for following despite their words about teaching an unknown cub a lesson. She could see that they weren’t really malicious; they were just a bunch of innocent cubs.

She had been disappointed because she had not seen Cassias among the cubs, yet unexpectedly, he was the stinky cub they were talking about!

Unlike them, Cassias was in human form. He looked to be around eight years old, the mini version of him. Just as they said, he had a deep frown on his forehead.

It was so different from the expression Cassias often made. He was often playful or calm with his soft eyes as he was looking at her, but... this unhappy kid, she wasn’t used to seeing that on him.

The brooding, gloomy aura was so thick.

"Get out of here. Don’t disturb me," he told the cubs surrounding him. The cubs, who were bigger than the ones in the human realm, froze in an instant when they heard that.

"We won’t leave until we teach you a lesson!"

"Accept our challenge! We will definitely prove we are better than you!"

The bunch of rowdy cubs yelled angrily, their faces flushed in anger. Seeing that they weren’t using force so far, Zerra was relieved. Her eyes never left Cassias’ troubled countenance.

She really wanted to pinch his cheeks, just like how he often pinched her ears and tails.

The cubs all fought to speak until they all looked at Zerra. She froze, not understanding what was going on. She was pondering Cassias’ memory so deeply that she didn’t pay attention.

"Little fox, now it’s your turn to say your lines!" The monkey jumped up and down like a hyperactive kid.

Oh... they were merely waiting for her to say something. She instinctively heaved a sigh of relief. Compared to other cubs, she was smaller, so her tiny form wasn’t that noticeable among them.

It was probably the reason Cassias was now looking at her, right? He had just noticed her presence, the only cub with white fur there. She couldn’t quite describe the emotion in his eyes. They were filled with irritation, curiosity, and, somewhat, melancholy.

Slightly at a loss, she endured the embarrassment and forced herself to say whatever lines came up to her brain.

"Accept our challenge!" She blurted out. Her voice was relatively smaller than other rowdy cubs; she was the quietest there. However, they all still heard her words.

After she uttered these embarrassing words, the rowdy cubs cheered, and they urged little Cassias to take on the challenge.

She didn’t understand what kind of challenge they were talking about, so she was a little anxious for Cassias, the only human cub among them. On top of that, he was also alone.

Thinking of that... Why did he live alone? No matter how she searched, Zerra couldn’t find any traces of another figure in Cassias’ barely habitable shack.

It meant that he was truly living alone without an adult guardian. An eight-year-old kid living alone in a forest filled with spiritual beasts? What had happened to him?

A moment later, it dawned on her that it was just a memory. She shouldn’t worry about it too much since things here actually had passed and only happened in the past, right?

While she was studying Cassias, he was also looking at her.

Actually, she was also a little surprised she could interact with figures in his memory. Even Cassias could see her. It didn’t feel like she was watching someone else’s memory, and instead, she had gone back to the past and was truly involved in it.

She wasn’t really going back to the past, was she? Her eyes widened at the thought.

When she thought of the sinkhole, she remembered that there weren’t only space tears there, but also the traces of time laws. Her worry wasn’t totally unfounded.

If that was the case, whether it was true, she had to protect little Cassias!

"How about it? Our little fox has spoken. Do you accept our challenge?" The monkey asked him proudly.

Zerra turned to look at little Cassias again. He had a frown on his face, with an almost tangible stubborn expression. She had expected him to refuse. The result would be these cubs howling and screaming; they would continue to harass him.

She covered her eyes with her paws, sighing softly.

As she waited for him to speak, the wheels in her mind turned, trying to think of a countermeasure.

"Fine!"

Eh? She abruptly opened her eyes. Did she hear him wrong?

However, the excited reactions from the surrounding cubs told her she hadn’t heard it wrong. Little Cassias had truly agreed!

Thus, she found herself getting dragged somewhere. Little Cassias and the monkey were leading the way, followed by the bunch of rowdy cubs behind them.

"We have arrived!" The monkey declared a few minutes later.

Zerra looked around in confusion. What are they going to do here?

"The rule is still the same." It began to explain the rules of the challenge. When Zerra heard it, her mouth twitched uncontrollably.

What a bunch of childish cubs! So, in short, these cubs couldn’t accept they were losing to little Cassias when it was him against the entire group of spiritual beast cubs.

Considering his current cold temperament, Cassias probably didn’t mean to compete with them in the first place. He was just trying to pick berries to eat and accidentally picked more compared to the group of cubs.

Thinking that little Cassias might be starving as he lived alone in the forest, her heart clenched a little. He truly didn’t have an easy childhood.

She had to take care of him!

So, she raised her paw.

"What’s wrong, little fox?" The monkey asked.

She hesitated only for a split second. The current little Cassias didn’t look as approachable as the powerful man who always accompanied her since the start of the apocalypse, but it was still him.

"I am going to his team." She pointed to Cassias’ figure. "He is alone, so it isn’t fair to him."

The entire forest turned quiet in an instant.