chapter 1

"Dig it! Dig it out! Come on, give me that beast core!"

F-268, Astralis Forest.

The pond shimmered like glass under the afternoon sun. A female dressed in a combat suit stood atop a beast as large as a semi-truck, her 6.5-foot-long blade crackling with blue lightning. With one hard swing, the steel sliced straight into its skull, sending sparks flying.

"Ha! Rank 4 beast core!" she shouted, voice echoing across the trees.

Her grin was wild. "I'm rich. I'm freaking rich! Just one more of these babies and I can walk away with nine smoking hot mates."

She hopped down from the beast's head, her sword still buzzing with static. One of the creature's massive fangs hit the dirt with a heavy thud.

Emma Tibarn still recalled her first day in this world. Five years had passed, but it stuck with her like a bad dream.

It had been the summer after her freshman year. She'd gone back to her hometown to drop by her grandma's grave. Coming down the hillside, her foot slipped on wet stone. Next thing she knew, she woke up in a place where nothing looked familiar. A pig with wings came charging at her like some sick cartoon gag.

Lucky for her, a hunting squad had been nearby. They took her in, patched her up, and dropped her off in the nearest city. That was when she found out she wasn't on Earth anymore. She was smack in the middle of an interstellar empire filled with therians.

She had been just a normal human girl—tiny, weak, confused, scared out of her mind. She honestly thought about smashing her head against a wall to see if she could reset the game and go home.

Then, she learned one crucial fact: in this world, females were treated like queens.

The gender balance was insane. Way more males than females. Which meant females got the red-carpet treatment—houses, stipends, and the best perk of all: the Beastmate System.

Once a female turned twenty-three and awakened her ability, the system would assign her nine partners at once. Every two years, she got a new draft pick. There was no limit. If she could handle the lineup, she could collect mates like baseball cards.

Emma didn't need a stadium full of people. Nine was plenty. She was small. More than that, and she might not survive the honeymoon.

So, awakening was non-negotiable.

The Intergalactic Awakening Division handed out Divine Seeds for free. It was rumored that the seeds originated from the twin root of the Beast God himself. About sixty percent of beastfolk who swallowed one lit up with powers and got the golden ticket—Etherians, blessed with lifespans stretching eight to twelve centuries. The unlucky rest? They ended up as Subtherians, stuck with a measly 120 years on the clock.

Emma had gotten lucky. Within a month, her lightning-based and water-based abilities lit up like fireworks. Jackpot.

Then, the government relocated her from S-1231, the forgotten edge of the empire, straight to F-268. She figured she could coast—collect her allowance, live in a fancy house, level up at a snail's pace, and wait until her twenty-third birthday rolled around.

Sounded perfect. Nine gorgeous males lined up to dance for her every night? Yeah, she could live with that.

However, that dream quickly went up in smoke. She learned that matching worked by rank. Low-tier females only got low-tier males. The higher your rank, the hotter your lineup. Some low-tier males were... let's just say, not poster material.

Emma was shallow enough to admit it. She could deal with being broke, but ugly mates? Hard pass.

So, she began grinding and hunting beasts.

To climb the ranks, there was only one way: crack open a beast or a Chitinid and claim its core.

Most females in the Empire had family wealth and backup squads to protect them. Emma? She was on her own—no family name or resources to support her.

She had tried to tag along with other females at first, but the moment they saw she had no clan behind her—and was a rookie who'd only just awakened—they all backed off fast. Nobody wanted the burden.

So, she had no choice. If she wanted cores, she had to march into the forest alone, face down beasts, and take what she needed. Scary? Sure. Still, it was better than sitting around waiting for a miracle.

It was pure terror at the start. Razor teeth snapping, claws slicing, and blood shedding everywhere. She almost died more times than she could count. Yet ugly bedmates scared her more than fangs and claws.

Five years later, she was still here. Scarred, tougher, and one beast core away from breaking into Rank 4. That meant access to Ranks 5, 6, and possibly even 7 males. She'd seen a Rank 7 male once. His face looked like the gods had carved it.

Just imagining nine men like that waiting at home made her mouth water.

Boom!

A deafening crash snapped her out of the fantasy. Her beat-up Gravicar jolted hard before losing power and dropping to the ground like a rock.

Emma reacted fast, pulling up a water bubble to cradle the vehicle and lower it safely. She jumped out, her sword already lit up.

A roar ripped through the forest. A blond male stumbled out, drenched in blood, barely outrunning the beast behind him.

Her eyes remained locked on the beast, which resembled a giant rhino—four times larger—with a blazing red-hot horn and flames blasting from its maw.

Perfect! A Rank 4 beast. Emma smirked. Well, aren't you a blessing?

She charged.

The blond male froze, stunned. A female?! Here?

"You—" He gasped, but she was already moving.

Her water bubble surged forward, sparks exploding into a thousand tiny blades that ripped through the beast's hide. The creature screamed, shaking the ground. Emma shot up on a water column, her sword swelling with lightning. She came down like a thunderstrike, splitting its skull wide open.

Five seconds later, the beast crashed to the ground, headless.

The blond male, Kael Auris, couldn't believe what he was seeing. A petite woman, barely five feet tall, standing over a dead beast four times the size of a rhino. Fierce didn't even cover it.

Before he could get a word out, Emma had already pried the beast core out of its skull, stripped the hide, bones, and meat, and packed everything into her Stasis Band—business as usual.

Between the beast core and the materials, she was set to pocket another small fortune. Her grin widened. Oh yeah, today's the jackpot. That's another 100,000 star coins, easy.

She finally turned to Kael. He had collapsed on the dirt, one arm bent at a sick angle, blood crusted over his face.

Emma frowned and prodded his leg with her boot. "Hey. You breathing? Need a hand?"

His eyelids slowly fluttered open. With a trembling good hand, he raised it gradually, palm facing upward. Resting in his hand was a glowing Rank 3 beast core.

"Save me..."

Smart. Always pay first. Emma pocketed the beast core, fished a healing potion out of her Stasis Band, and pressed it to his lips.

"This is all I've got. Please don't die on me. I'll patch the Gravicar and get you to a hospital."

She had no clue what disaster he'd stumbled into. It didn't matter, though—a deal was a deal.

She fixed the Gravicar with practiced ease, hauled him into the seat, and sped out of Astralis Forest.