Beast World: A Fragile Beauty Blessed with Many Children-Chapter 371 - 370: How Many Can We Eliminate?

Si Shuo stood up, her hair almost standing on end. "So you’re saying, once the Beast Tide happens, its scale will be even larger than the one we encountered in Puchang City?"

Ji Liang nodded. "How big was that forest outside Puchang City, really? The Southwest Forest is endless. It’s vast and sparsely populated, with not many Beastman Tribes in that area. Normally, there isn’t much consumption of the beast population, so the hunting quotas assigned to each Beast City every year are already heavy. They’re at the tipping point for preventing a Beast Tide from breaking out.

"Beastmen slacking off isn’t something that happened overnight. Every year, they complete a little less of their quota. You can’t see the effect in one or two years, but after five, ten, or even a hundred years of this fermenting, the abnormality starts to show."

He had gathered a lot of information from his several trade runs.

Gong You’s brow furrowed slightly. "In other words, this recent surge in the Wild Beast population is very likely a sign of an impending Beast Tide?"

"Yes, a sixty to seventy percent chance," Wei Ce said. He had participated in last autumn’s hunt, which was when the Wild Beast population was at its peak for the year, so it wasn’t easy for them to notice anything unusual. However, the Combat Power of the Wild Beasts was a bit higher than in previous years. "The last Beast Tide happened over five hundred years ago. Back then, it nearly flattened every Beast City in the Central Continent.

"They came with ferocious momentum. At first, everyone fought back hard, but after the cities fell, their fighting spirit was broken. They could only flee south and east with the young females and cubs.

"But a great many Fierce Beasts gather in a Beast Tide. If we don’t eliminate them, then we Beastmen will be the ones who are eliminated.

"Furthermore, once a Beast Tide spreads to the coast or the Dongye Forest, it will Devour the Wild Beasts from the sea and the Dongye Forest, absorbing them to become its own power.

"With nowhere left to run, many of the older Beastmen, in order to protect their females and cubs, charged into the Beast Tide and self-destructed one by one. The other males also fought desperately, repelling the Beast Tide only after suffering devastating casualties.

"The lesson from that time was too profound. That’s why everyone has always abided by the spring and autumn hunts each year..."

Although he had only said a few words, Si Shuo and her group, who had experienced the Beast Tide at Puchang City, could fully imagine the tragic and brutal scene.

"What if we start culling them ahead of time?" Si Shuo asked, pressing her lips together. "I think everyone has gotten too comfortable. It’s been five hundred years, and in that time, there have only been medium-scale Beast Tides at most. For well-trained Beast Soldiers, those are easy to repel. This has also led everyone to become blindly overconfident. Even if many people suspect this might happen, I don’t think the people in the City Lord Mansion will believe it.

"To be precise, they probably don’t want to believe they’d be so unlucky. That after five hundred years without a major Beast Tide, one would just happen to break out within their one- or two-hundred-year lifespan..."

Xiao Cheng pressed his lips together tightly. "Sister, you’ve never been to the Southwest Forest. You don’t know how big it is. The ones who participate in the spring hunt every year aren’t just the nearly one-third of the Beast Soldiers and males from our Guangshou City; there are also many Beastmen from other Beast Cities. There are so many of them. How many people do we have in our family? Even if Brother Gong You activated the Time Law and we killed nonstop for a year, how much of a dent could we make?"

At this, the corners of Si Shuo’s lips curved up slightly.

Gong You took out a Crossbow powered by Crystal Stones and waved it in front of him. "We won’t just be activating the Time Law. We can also take them down one by one. It’s a lot easier than our usual brawling."

The scale of the Beast Tide back in Puchang City wasn’t small, and time was tight. They set up numerous traps, and with the Beastmen harvesting the beasts together, they managed to save the city.

The cubs’ eyes sparkled as they looked at the beautiful, small Crossbow. They turned their heads to Si Shuo. "Mother, we can help too!"

They weren’t ordinary human children. They were Beastman cubs with tough physiques, strength greater than that of a normal adult, and they even had superpowers. Their bodies were significantly enhanced.

Wei Ce stroked his chin thoughtfully. "We have Invisibility and Hidden Breath. We can approach the Wild Beast herds silently and target the young. That would be equivalent to curbing the growth of the herds to some extent..."

"And the High-level Fierce Beasts. Once a Beast Tide breaks out, the influence of High-level Fierce Beasts is huge..." Zhi Le added.

Their family’s strength was small, but every bit they culled would count. Right now, the Beast Tide was only just showing signs of emerging. As long as they culled some of the High-level Beasts and the excess cubs, they could keep the Beast Tide in check.

At the very least, even if a Beast Tide did gather, it would no longer be an apocalyptic threat to the Beastmen...

Si Shuo suddenly froze as an idea came to her. She lowered her gaze and called out to the system in her mind. The longer she stayed in the Beast World Continent, the less she relied on the system.

So much so that when the system came online, there was a CRACKLE of static, as if it hadn’t been used in a long time: Host, hello. The Peanut System is at your service.

Si Shuo asked, "System, we suspect the number of Fierce Beasts in the Southwest Forest is excessive and could trigger a Beast Tide. Can you provide a relevant data analysis?"

After a moment of silence, the system displayed a string of data. "This is a comparison of the total Wild Beast population and the number of cubs born in the Southwest Forest at the same time over the past ten years, as well as the culling ratio by the Beastmen during the spring hunt..."

Si Shuo looked at the data. The changes weren’t that significant year to year, but a longitudinal analysis over the ten years showed a steady trend of the gap widening. In just ten years, the rate of change had reached five percent. And that was just for ten years. If one were to look at the data from five hundred years ago to the present, the trend would be even more pronounced!

It seemed their guess was correct. A Beast Tide was very likely to break out in the next few years.

"System, can you turn the Southwest Forest into a dungeon-style instance where you level up, kill monsters, and get equipment drops?"

The system seemed to lag. This query was beyond the scope of its automated responses, so it forwarded the unrecognized question upward.

Si Shuo smiled and counted on her fingers. "Look, a dungeon mode would allow the Wild Beasts to be centrally targeted. The instance could have three difficulty levels—easy, medium, and hard—letting the Beastmen hone their Combat Power and participate together in wiping out the Beast Tide.

"Think about it. If we avert a Beast Tide, the Beastman population won’t suffer major losses. Isn’t their ability to produce cubs much greater than mine alone?

"Even if the cubs’ aptitude isn’t top-tier, or even if it’s below average, you can’t argue with sheer numbers... Besides, who’s to say they won’t have opportunities in the future, or that their descendants won’t produce outstanding individuals through mutation?"

Her reasoning was too compelling. The system acted as a mouthpiece, relaying her words verbatim.

Soon, the system gave its reply: Host, doing so would interfere with the historical progression of the Beast World Continent and could easily cause spatiotemporal instability. The very reason we invited you here is because we cannot interfere too much in the Beast World Continent ourselves.

Si Shuo scoffed. "You’re going to make excuses about creating a simple Teleportation gate and an isolated battlefield? From the moment you summoned me here and gave me a system to accompany me, history has already deviated!"

After another moment of silence, the system said: Host, we recommend that you upgrade your Beast Husbands’ superpowers.