Veridan City, somewhere in the Moonfall Forest
"Come on! Come on, you bastard! Just budge in already!"
By a shimmering pool of water, a young woman dressed in black combat gear stood atop the head of a colossal mutant beast, as large as a small mountain.
In her hand, red light quickly turned into a huge axe, which plunged neatly into the beast's skull amid crackling sparks.
"Fourth-tier beast core secured!" The woman yelled out, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
"I'm rich, I'm rich… I'm gonna be so rich!" She exclaimed again. "Alright, no time to linger! I need to go! Come on, move faster, you lazy ass—once I find one more fourth-tier beast core, I can go back and claim my gorgeous husbands!"
As she spoke, the girl deftly leapt down from the beast's head. With a swift swing of her blade, the enormous fangs of the mutated Red-Fang Beast fell to the ground. The thud shook the ground beneath her, sending a subtle chill through her entire body.
It had been five long, exhausting years since she came into this world.
Roanna "Rory" Smith still remembered that day like it was yesterday.
It was the day of her eighteenth birthday, an event filled with hopes for a better life and a bright future.
Only it turned out to be the exact opposite of that. Not only had she witnessed her boyfriend kissing Rory's best friend, but it was also the day that marked the beginning of the apocalypse.
It was hell.
Meteors were falling from the skies, wiping everything with their raging flames. Rory ran to help a lost child hide from the crushing debris, and that was when she saw her boyfriend betray her once again––by saving her friend instead.
And then… there was darkness.
When Rory finally woke up, not only had the surroundings completely changed, but a giant blue rat was charging straight at her, its shockingly big fangs dripping with something red and sticky.
Fortunately, perhaps due to her final good deed before the world turned into darkness, fate had been merciful to her. A hunter squad happened to be nearby hunting mutant beasts, and she was rescued. They even kindly brought her back to the city, where she received medical assistance.
And then, after asking around, Rory realized she had transmigrated—into Astrium––an alternative version of plant Earth, populated entirely by interstellar beastfolk.
As a frail female human, standing among these tall and powerful beastmen, she felt no joy at all—only confusion, helplessness, weakness, and fear.
The freshly transmigrated Rory had the immediate urge to smash her head against a wall to see if she could transmigrate back home. Apocalypse or not, at least she would be with her own kind.
Before she could act, however, she heard that females—women like her—were treated exceptionally well here.
There were many more males than females in this new beast world.
As a result, females were rare and received special privileges.
The ruling government not only provided females with villas and monthly living allowances, but most importantly, it issued mates!
If a female could awaken supernatural abilities, then after the age of twenty-three, the Beast God System would match her with nine partners at once.
Matching occurred every two years, and there was no limit to the number of matches.
What did "no limit" mean? It meant that as long as you could handle and soothe them, you could have countless husbands.
Countless husbands!
Rory wouldn't even dare to dream of that many.
She wasn't greedy. In fact, she didn't need that many husbands—she felt that nine was already somewhat too much.
With her small frame, she wouldn't be able to manage more anyway.
So she had to awaken her abilities. She absolutely had to.
The Astrium Association's Ability Awakening Office provided every citizen with a free Divine Tree seed.
The day after she finished registering her residency, Rory went to the government office and received her Divine Tree seed.
It was said that the Divine Tree was a companion tree of the Beast God living in the Divine Realm. Beastfolk who consumed the seed had a 60% chance of awakening abilities.
Those who awakened abilities were called ability users, with lifespans ranging from 800 to 1,200 years.
Those who failed to awaken were called sub-beasts, with lifespans of only 120 years.
Rory was fairly lucky. Within a month of consuming the Divine Tree seed, she awakened her abilities.
And not just one—she awakened both red lightning and water dual abilities.
On the second day after awakening, the ruling government transferred her from the edge town Astella to her current residence in Veridan City.
Originally, she thought she could rely on the government subsidies to slowly improve her level, wait until she turned twenty-three, and then have the empire assign her nine husbands.
Living in a government-issued villa, spending government star coins, and watching the handsome male partners matched by the Beast God System dance for her—life couldn't be better.
But after arriving in Veridan City, Rory heard other female ability users say that low-rank females could only be matched with low-rank male ability users.
And an ability user's appearance improved with rank—the higher the rank, the better the body and the more attractive the face.
Some races' low-rank male ability users were so ugly that one could hardly bear to look at them.
Rory loved a handsome face, though. She could tolerate poverty, but she could not tolerate ugly husbands. Never!
So she had to work hard to level up before matching.
For ability users to level up, they had to absorb the power of beast cores from mutant beasts or insect races.
Female ability users in this world all had family resources to support their cultivation.
But Rory, as an outsider, had nothing and could only rely on herself.
At first, she tried to find other ability users to form teams to hunt mutant beasts. But when others saw that she had no family backing and was a newly awakened female, no one was willing to team up with her.
With no other choice, she came alone to forests filled with mutant beasts, doing her best to kill them and obtain beast cores.
At the beginning, she was afraid. But compared to facing nine extremely ugly husbands every day, mutant beasts didn't seem quite so terrifying.
Over five years, she had nearly been eaten by mutant beasts several times, and had nearly died from severe injuries more than once.
Fortunately, she survived them all. All for the sake of handsome mates!