{Third Person POV}
The beasts erged from the undergrowth in a loose circle, six of them total, five dire wolves and one particularly large razorback boar bringing up the rear.
They moved cautiously, ears swiveling, noses testing the air for any lingering threats.
The alpha wolf, a scarred female with one ear torn half off, circled the massive corpse of the Alpha Dire Bear, keeping her distance. Her pack followed her lead, wary and watchful.
Minutes passed.
No movent from the bear. No movent from the broken boy beside it.
Just the sound of wind through leaves and the steady drip of blood onto forest floor.
The alpha wolf approached closer, hackles raised, and snapped her jaws near the bear’s face.
Nothing.
She barked once, sharp and commanding.
Two younger wolves darted forward and bit into the Alpha’s haunches, tearing at flesh, ready to bolt at the first sign of movent.
Still nothing.
The great beast was truly dead.
The alpha wolf’s stance relaxed slightly. She barked again, a different tone this ti, territorial, possessive.
The pack moved in, and together they began dragging the massive corpse backward, away from the clearing. The at would feed them for days.
But the alpha paused, her remaining ear swiveling back toward the blonde boy.
She left the others to their work and returned to circle the unconscious human.
The rest of the pack followed.
The wolves began to close in, forming a tightening ring around the boy’s broken body.
The alpha lowered her head, sniffing at the blood pooling beneath him, her lips pulling back from bloodstained fangs.
Then suddenly—
The air pressure changed.
Every beast froze.
The temperature dropped so suddenly that their breath turned to mist. The wind died completely, leaving an oppressive, suffocating stillness.
Then the leaves began to lift.
Not blown by wind. Just... lifting. Rising into the air like gravity had reversed itself, spinning in a slow spiral above the clearing.
The wolves backed away, whimpering, their instincts screaming danger.
The space in front of them distorted.
Reality rippled like water disturbed by a stone, colors bleeding and warping at the edges. The air itself seed to tear.
A seam of golden light split the darkness.
And a portal opened.
The light spilled out like liquid.
From the portal stepped a hooded figure.
Their movents were fluid, unhurried, like they had all the ti in the world. The cloak that shrouded them was deep crimson, nearly black in the dim light, and seed to drink in the shadows around it.
The hood obscured their face completely, but as they turned their head to survey the scene, the dead Alpha, the unconscious boy, the circling predators, a soft sound of amusent escaped them.
Feminine, almost playful.
"Oh my," the figure murmured, their voice carrying easily through the unnatural stillness. "Hungry little puppies~"
The alpha wolf’s hackles stood on end, every hair on her body rigid with primal terror.
But one of the younger wolves, driven by hunger or stupidity or both, snarled and lunged.
The figure simply vanished.
Just there one instant, gone the next.
The wolf’s jaws snapped on empty air—
The figure reappeared at its side.
One pale hand erged from beneath the cloak, fingers splayed.
And the wolf exploded.
Flesh and bone separating into component pieces that scattered across the clearing in a spray of gore.
The figure tilted their head, looking down at the blood now staining their cloak with what seed like mild disappointnt.
The remaining wolves went insane with rage.
Pack ntality overrode survival instinct. They charged as one, jaws wide, converging on the figure from all sides while the razorback boar thundered in from behind.
Two wolves leaped for the throat.
The figure raised one hand, almost lazily.
Both wolves slamd into an invisible barrier in midair and simply stopped. Hung there, suspended, struggling against nothing. Then their bodies crumpled inward like crushed paper, bones breaking with wet cracks, and they dropped to the ground in misshapen heaps.
The third wolf tried to circle around, going for the boy instead—
It made it three steps before its head separated from its body. No blade. No visible force. Just a casual flick of the figure’s fingers and the wolf’s head tumbled across the forest floor while its body collapsed.
The clearing went silent except for the soft drip of blood and the ragged breathing of the last surviving wolf.
The alpha.
She stood frozen, every muscle locked rigid, unable to move, unable to flee, unable to do anything but stare at the death surrounding her.
The figure turned to face her fully.
"Let our little boy rest," they said softly, the playful tone gone, replaced by sothing cold and absolute. "He earned it."
The hood shifted slightly, and for just a mont, the alpha wolf caught a glimpse of what lay beneath.
Crimson eyes.
Glowing like hot coals, locked onto her with an intensity that stripped away every pretense of being a predator and revealed her for what she truly was.
Prey.
Hooded figure smiled, hands moved, and... the wolf simply ceased to exist.
The figure stood in the center of the carnage, surrounded by the torn and broken bodies of the pack, and let out a small sigh.
"Such a ss," they murmured.
Then they turned and walked to where the boy lay unconscious in the blood-soaked dirt.
They knelt behind him, the crimson cloak pooling around them, and looked down at his broken body with sothing that might have been fondness.
Might have been curiosity.
One pale hand reached out, fingers hovering over his chest.
Golden light began to seep from their fingertips, warm and bright, so different from the cold violence of monts before. It flowed like liquid, sinking into the boy’s chest, spreading through his shattered body in complex patterns that ford and dissolved too quickly to follow.
The light pulsed in ti with his fading heartbeat, growing brighter with each beat, stronger.
The bleeding slowed. Then stopped.
The figure watched in silence as the golden light faded.
Then they reached down and gently brushed the blood-matted hair from his forehead. Their fingers, still pale and perfect despite the carnage they’d wrought, traced a line down his cheek with surprising tenderness.
"Consider this a belated birthday gift," they whispered, their voice soft, almost affectionate. "107."
They remained there for a mont longer, kneeling beside him, one hand resting on his shoulder.
Then they stood in one fluid motion, the cloak swirling around them, and turned back toward the portal that still hung open in the air, spilling its golden light across the clearing.
They walked toward it without looking back.
Stepped through.
Reality rippled again, the tear beginning to seal, the golden light dimming—
And then the figure was gone.
The portal closed with a sound like a drawn breath, and the unnatural pressure vanished. The leaves that had been suspended in the air dropped all at once, fluttering down like crimson rain.
The forest beca silent once more.
Just the sound of wind through branches. The distant call of a night bird. The slow, steady breathing of an unconscious boy who’d sohow, impossibly, survived what should have killed him three tis over.
Then sothing changed.
A mark appeared on the boy’s chest, visible even through his torn and blood-soaked clothing.
Circular. Complex. Made of lines and symbols that seed to shift and move when looked at directly.
It began to glow.
Soft at first, then brighter, golden light pulsing outward from the mark in slow, steady waves that matched the rhythm of his heartbeat.
The light grew stronger, illuminating the clearing, casting long shadows from the surrounding trees.
Brighter.
Until the entire forest seed to hold its breath.
And in the distance, the first faint hints of dawn began to lighten the eastern sky.
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