Skinwalker Belle – Chapter 457 – Sheep into the Tiger’s Den? Tiger into the Sheepfold

“Yeah. Collateral, seventh rank.”

Lin Fan acknowledged, handing over the expedition document from Chijiao City.

The Pureblood commander took the document, scanned its contents briefly, then glanced at the dark-gold dragon horns on her forehead.

He didn’t speak immediately. Instead, his Mental Strength probed toward Lin Fan.

Lin Fan cooperatively released a trace of her seventh-rank early-stage Spirit Energy fluctuation—just enough, not a bit more, for him to confirm.

“Chijiao City… Long Ningshuang.”

The commander read the name aloud and returned the document to her.

“Never heard of someone like you.”

“What notable people could Chijiao City have?”

Lin Fan took the document back.

“It’s a mining town. News travels slow.”

The commander stared at her for a few seconds.

His expression was subtle.

Not suspicion—more like weighing her worth.

“A collateral reaching seventh rank. First time in over a decade.”

His tone leveled out, losing the condescending edge from before.

“You should know why.”

“I do.”

Lin Fan answered with two words.

Long Yi’s failure back then hadn’t improved the Collateral Dragonkin’s plight—it had only made the Purebloods tighten their grip further.

The commander gave a slight nod.

He didn’t press her on how she’d broken through to seventh rank.

Asking about someone’s trump cards here was taboo.

Besides, this was a conscription drive. Having a seventh-rank combatant was worth far more than digging into her background.

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“What’s your name?”

Lin Fan asked in return.

The commander looked at her, paused a beat.

“Long Xiao. Deputy Commander of the First Company.”

“And the head commander?”

“The Council of Elders hasn’t sent anyone yet. Once they arrive, they’ll take direct command.”

Long Xiao handed her a black iron token engraved with the character “One” and a coarse cloth bundle.

“Keep the token on you at all times. The bundle holds three days of rations. The women’s camp is on the east side—find yourself an empty spot.”

Lin Fan took the items.

“Any camp rules I should know?”

“No lethal fights among ourselves. No leaving camp without permission.”

Long Xiao watched her as he listed each rule.

“Violators—Pureblood or collateral alike—get sent straight to the mines for three years.”

“Fair enough.”

Lin Fan clipped the token to her waist.

Long Xiao’s mouth twitched—not quite a smile, but his tone loosened.

“Fair or not doesn’t matter. Just don’t make trouble for yourself.”

Lin Fan said nothing more and turned, heading east.

Long Xiao watched her retreating figure, his gaze lingering a moment on the hem of her black-and-gold horse-face skirt.

The guard beside him leaned in.

“Commander, that collateral’s background is unclear. Should we look into her further?”

“Look into what?”

Long Xiao withdrew his gaze.

“The Council of Elders has been suppressing the collateral branch for years, and I’ve never approved of it. The Dragon Clan tearing itself apart from within—now look where we are. A war’s brewing outside, and our own soldiers’ strength has been crippled by infighting. For a collateral to produce a seventh-rank means the Bloodline itself was never the problem. It was deliberately choked off.”

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The guard shrank back, not daring to respond.

“But keep an eye on her.”

Long Xiao added.

“Not to guard against her. To guard against others in camp trying to make trouble for her.”

“Understood.”

The First Company’s camp was indeed more spacious than the outer companies.

The tents were sewn from black beast hide, each housing four to six people.

The walkways were paved with crushed stone, so boots wouldn’t sink into mud.

Lin Fan passed through the men’s camp.

Over two hundred tents packed tightly in rows, most with their flaps open, revealing males of various races lounging inside or sharpening weapons.

As she walked past, nearly everyone stopped what they were doing.

But no one whistled, and no one made any crude sounds.

Anyone who made it into the first squad was at least at the peak of Level Six.

At that level, Evolved beings had the experience and the eye to know what mattered.

They stared at Lin Fan—not at her face or her figure, but at the Level Seven Spirit Energy fluctuations radiating from her.

Collateral Dragonkin.

Level Seven.

Female.

The impact of those three labels combined was far greater than any pretty face.

A lion-man leaning against a tent pole, wiping his blade, lifted his head. His gaze followed Lin Fan for a long stretch before he muttered quietly to the companion beside him.

“When did a Level Seven pop up?”

“No idea. But that aura isn’t fake—solid Level Seven.”

“Tch. No matter how strong the Dragon Clan’s collateral bloodline is, there’s a ceiling. Reaching early Level Seven is already the limit. It’s not the same as a Pureblood Level Seven.”

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“That’s what you say, but could you beat her?”

The lion-man was silent for two seconds.

“…She’s gone. What are you looking at?”

Lin Fan heard it all, of course.

Her Mental Strength spread across a hundred meters around her, catching every whisper clearly.

She didn’t take it to heart.

Passing the last row of tents in the men’s camp, a boundary marked by a wooden fence came into view.

A flag hung on the fence, bearing a simplified female silhouette.

The women’s camp.

Its scale was nowhere near the men’s camp.

At most a dozen or so tents, crammed into a small patch of ground in the southeast corner of the camp.

A few female warriors sat scattered outside the tents.

A tiger-woman nearly 1.9 meters tall sat cross-legged on the ground, gnawing on meat. Her fangs bit down with a crisp crack of bone.

Her aura at the peak of Level Six was on full display, unapologetic, her muscular frame gleaming with a bronze sheen.

Beside her were two leopard-women.

One fat, one thin—their builds differed by half, but both fluctuated at the peak of Level Six.

Further off, in front of a few tents, three Collateral Dragonkin women huddled together in conversation.

Their dark-gold Dragon horns glinted faintly in the sunlight.

Lin Fan swept her gaze across the area.

Forty-something in total.

The racial distribution leaned heavily toward Beast-types.

Tiger, leopard, lion, bear… females of those races were naturally built imposing, so reaching the peak of Level Six wasn’t too far-fetched.

Cat-people, fox-people, and other races leaning toward agility and Mental Strength were almost entirely absent—that was the gap in average talent between races.

The fox race might produce one Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox in tens of thousands, but ordinary fox-people could never match the talent of tiger-people.

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But what did that have to do with Lin Fan?

What she wanted was clear.

Over forty females at the peak of Level Six or above.

If she turned them all into Skins, she’d get at least forty Epic Grade ones.

Add that to the existing hundred and fifty, and that made a hundred and ninety.

Still ten short.

A gap of ten, in a military stronghold packed with over three thousand experts, was hardly a problem to fill.

Lin Fan walked into the women’s camp and stopped before the innermost empty tent.

She lifted the flap and glanced inside. Four beast-hide mats were laid out, two of them holding other people’s belongings.

Two spots were still open.

Lin Fan chose the corner one.

She tossed the supply pack Long Xiao had given her onto the mat and sat down.

Bending over, she took off her cloth shoes and rested her feet on the beast hide.

Footsteps sounded outside the tent.

The tiger-woman’s broad face poked through the flap gap, blood froth still smeared at the corner of her mouth.

“So you’re the new Level Seven?”

Her voice was rough, matching her looks.

“Yeah.”

Lin Fan looked up at her.

The tiger-man looked her up and down.

Finally, his gaze settled on her bare feet before shifting back to her face.

“What’s your name?”

“Long Ningshuang.”