On the day of the wedding, laughter echoed ceaselessly through the Great Canyon.
The four great clan leaders had been feeling gloomy ever since they chose to submit and back down, so they seized this opportunity to celebrate to their hearts' content. Belute and Calorona were the happiest of all, drinking freely with the four clan leaders and the elders.
"Lord Castle Master, congratulations!" Gaisreisen raised his cup to Belute.
"Ha ha." Belute smiled at Gaisreisen, then lowered his voice. "Gaisreisen, have your Four Divine Beast Families truly backed down and decided not to fight?" Belute was also invested in the struggle between the two sides.
Gaisreisen paused, then nodded.
"And what about the Eight Great Families?" Belute asked.
"No reaction yet," Gaisreisen replied, shaking his head. "They probably can't be sure for the time being whether we've actually submitted."
"Mm." Belute nodded. "But you should be careful. Once those Eight Great Families find out you've retreated, even if they don't dare enter the Heavenly Sacrifice Mountain Range, they'll find other ways to take revenge."
Gaisreisen said with self-mockery, "We've already decided to stay inside the Heavenly Sacrifice Mountain Range and never leave. What can they do about it?" There was a touch of bitterness in his words.
Belute said nothing more.
"Hey," Calorona whispered beside him with a chuckle. "What do you think — will Bei Bei and Niss have a boy or a girl?"
"How would I know?" Belute laughed. "But I can guarantee it won't be a God Devouring Mouse!"
If both parents were God Devouring Mice, their child would absolutely be one too. Unfortunately, across all the infinite planes, only Belute and Bei Bei were God Devouring Mice. In general, the more fearsome a divine beast was, the fewer of them existed.
Azure Dragons, White Tigers, and even the Underworld Serpent — each was unique. There was only a minuscule chance that true divine beasts would appear among their descendants through intermarriage. But that probability was absurdly low. On the other hand, divine beasts like the Giant Python and the Suanni were far more numerous when counted across all the planes combined.
The stronger a divine beast's innate talent, the rarer its numbers.
The weaker its talent, the more numerous it became.
Several months passed in the blink of an eye. Inside the Great Canyon, outside Bei Bei's house.
Lin Lei, Belute, Calorona, and a crowd of others had all gathered. Dilia and Niss were inside — Niss was about to give birth. The most nervous and restless person there was none other than Bei Bei.
"She's going into labor! She's going into labor!" Bei Bei stood outside the house, muttering to himself, pacing back and forth without pause.
"Bei Bei, just sit down," Lin Lei said with a laugh.
"How can I sit down?" Bei Bei's entire body was trembling with slight muscle spasms. He glanced at Lin Lei. "Boss, my heart is about to jump out of my chest from nervousness, and you want me to sit? Ugh, why hasn't it come out yet? It's taking forever."
Belute chuckled. "Bei Bei, Niss just went in a little while ago. It's going to be quite some time yet."
Bei Bei could only force himself to endure. Every second felt agonizingly long to him.
"Waaaaa~~~" Suddenly, a high-pitched cry rang out.
Bei Bei froze as if struck by lightning, standing rooted to the spot.
"Creak!" The door opened, and Dilia stepped out, giving Bei Bei a puzzled look. "Bei Bei, what are you standing there spacing out for? Aren't you going in?" Only then did Bei Bei snap out of it. His body blurred into a black shadow, and he was already inside the room.
Dilia laughed. "That Bei Bei — completely dazed."
"When you were giving birth to Wendy, Bei Bei said I was the nervous one. He's even worse than I was," Lin Lei said with a smile.
Dilia shot him an exasperated look. "Don't get cocky. When Taylor and Sasha were born, I heard you were so nervous you were sweating all over. A mighty Saint Realm expert, sweating from nerves?"
Lin Lei could only smile bitterly.
A moment later, Bei Bei and Niss came out of the room. Bei Bei's grin stretched from ear to ear as he cradled a baby in both arms. Niss was human, so the child naturally took human form. However, this infant...
Much like Gaisreisen, it carried the bloodline of a divine beast within it. But it was not a true divine beast.
"Boss," Bei Bei said to Lin Lei with overwhelming emotion. "Look — this is my child! This is Bei Bei's child! Ha ha... Bei Bei finally has a kid!" At this moment, he was so excited he looked practically unhinged.
"Here, let me hold him," Belute said with a smile.
"Mm." Bei Bei very carefully handed the baby to Belute.
Belute took the child and examined it closely. "Oh, it's a girl. The God Devouring Mouse bloodline in her is fairly decent, but awakening the divine beast bloodline within her will be a bit troublesome." Even Belute still hadn't found a way to perfectly draw out his descendants' latent gifts.
The Four Divine Beast Families had the "Ancestral Temple Baptism," which could grant their younger generation the ability to shapeshift and even possess divine beast talents. Of course, these talents varied in strength, depending on the concentration of their bloodline.
"A girl is great, a girl is great!" Bei Bei's mouth remained stretched in a perpetual grin.
He was simply too excited today.
As a God Devouring Mouse — a divine beast whose talent was so overwhelming it provoked heaven's jealousy — Bei Bei's offspring would naturally be exceedingly few. Belute, for example, had three sons, but that was because they were triplets, all born in a single delivery. After that one time, Calorona never bore any more children.
As for Lin Lei, although he wasn't a divine beast and faced fewer heavenly restrictions, Taylor and Sasha had also been born together as twins. And as for Wendy, he only conceived him after arriving in the Hell realm.
From this day forward, Bei Bei threw himself wholeheartedly into a new pursuit — raising his child.
The sky was clear and crisp. Lin Lei stepped out of his house and spotted a young girl sitting cross-legged on the grass in the distance, cultivating. She had lustrous black hair, and her skin was as translucent and flawless as jade.
This was Bei Bei's daughter, Ina.
"For Ina to become a god would be difficult indeed," Lin Lei sighed to himself. Though Ina carried the bloodline of a divine beast, she was not a true divine beast. And Belute hadn't yet found a way to replicate the effects of the "Ancestral Temple Baptism."
Ina could only rely on herself for now, which was why despite cultivating for over a hundred years, she was still only at the Saint Realm.
"Uncle Lin Lei." A crisp voice rang out as Ina stood up. Her eyes danced with impish intelligence, just like her parents'. "You seem to be in a good mood — something good happened?"
Lin Lei couldn't help but smile. "Nana, you've got a sharp eye. Mm, I did have a bit of a breakthrough."
"Oh?" Ina's eyes immediately lit up. "Which elemental law did you break through?"
"The Fire System," Lin Lei said without hiding it.
The Fire System was the one Lin Lei had made the slowest progress in. Although he had cultivated it for over a thousand years, it was only today that he had fully comprehended his fourth profound mystery. As for the other two profound mysteries of the Fire System, he hadn't even begun to grasp them.