Flames covered a vast area. There were trace remnants of blood scattered everywhere with destroyed trees and dirt upheaved, adding the smell of soil to an already bad cocktail.

Standing a few feet away from each other, Damian and Andrew were panting, a hard battle having took place. Sweat running down both of their faces.

Damian was losing his grip on his axes, leaning on a tree and Andrew held his hands out, ready to cast another spell if need be.

Surprisingly neither were in their demonic transformations.

Damian suddenly leaned off of the tree standing up. "Let’s end this."

Andrew smirked, Beginning to gather most of his mana into a single attack. But being cautious, he looked to Damian only to see him walk away.

"Man, I could eat."

Andrew dropped everything he was doing.

It seemed he requested to end the fight immediately.

"You serious?

"Yes. I’m tired and my stomach doesn’t lie. It seems beer is the only thing that can be eaten early morning."

As Damian began walking, Andrew made a request. "The bar, I’m sure we can find a good place nearby?"

Perhaps it was Time to do things his way. Maybe getting drunk with some friends of a friend wasn’t so bad.

Damian stopped completely. A smile crept up his face. He had no idea someone as posh as Andrew would even like that sort of thing.

He’s actually into this?

"Well it’s a good thing you asked. That place serves food you know. The drinks are just so good that it overtakes everything."

’Or the food could just be nasty.’ A fearful thought popped up in Andrew’s head.

He shook his head. "Well, lead the way. I’ll trust what you think is good."

But then something else popped up into his head. Damian hadn’t been wear a mask in a while. "Wait! How have you been able to hide your demonic features?"

"Oh, you just gotta focus really hard at dispelling them."

Andrew was having a hard time accepting this. He had been trying that every day.

It seemed Damian was a genius in his own way.

All this time he thought he had to find a time and a place to ask chance about it and Damian figured it out on his own?

——

"I did it Dad. I got the wolf." A young girl is dressed in elegant hunting attire. She steps back to admire her work.

Around ten feet away lie a wolf. Even with arrows sticking through its body, Its piercing yellow eyes stared her in the face, waiting for any opportunity that might arise to tear her apart.

Her father, a man with a mustache but a small beard looked forward. Keeping his crossbow aimed at it, he turned to her in shock.

"Young Brianna, i am impressed, my daughter truly inherits my eyes." a frown overtook his features. Looking closely, one could see arrows in its legs a paws, but nothing it couldn’t heal from.

"But...Why did you avoid the kill?"

She looked up at him with tears welling in her eyes. "I don’t want to kill her. What if she has a family?"

The man laughed. "She’d never leave them behind. She’s alone and unable to defend herself against us. It’s only natural she dies now."

Briana shook her head as she hugged her father tightly. "Can we please spare her?"

The man sighed before pushing her off.

"Unfortunately, the natural order demands it’s tithe" he dragged his sword behind him, walking towards the wolf.

with each step he took, the wolf beg mustering up more and more energy, preparing to use everything left to attack.

The man took a step the looked like a slow movement, then rushing forward.

Raising the word atop his head, he swung downward.

*SMACK*

Briana looked away, yet as she turned to see the remains, she saw her father, wrapping a rope around the unconscious wolf’s mouth.

she wasn’t dead. Her father turned around,

Having completed tied the wolf up. "We’ll have to hurry back before she loses her legs."

As he was about to walk past her, he noticed she was almost entranced with joy. Running forward, she hugged him once more.

"THANK YOU DAD." 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

He patted her on the head. "Oh please, how could I say no to you?" It seemed even the survival of the fittest had to wait on his little girl.

Jolting awake, Briana stretched her arms out of instinct. That was some of the best sleep she had gotten in a while. Whatever she dreamed about, it must’ve been good.

Looking around her room, it was elegant. A nice bed, purple sheets and a counter adorned with jewelry she rarely wore since she was a teenager.

Taking another look, a few maids were cleaning her room, yet they looked at her with worried gazes.

"Is there an issue I wasn’t privy to miss Manson? Miss hela?"

"No your highness. You just seem ill. You look tired is all."

Briana knew she was in peak physical condition. These were loyal maids and yet they gave such openly bad answers.

"Is that so?"

She stood up quickly. If none of them were answering, it had something to do with her father.

She already felt something was off. During the last Times she had seen her father, he had either tried suggesting marriage proposals for her, or had been stressed out. When she tried to probe, he either left or shut it down.

"I’m going to see my father. If any of you tries to stop me, I will have your heads."

She pushed past them. It pained her soul to threaten well meaning people like this, but something bad was coming.

Pushing open the double doors to her room,

The two guards protecting her door looked at her in confusion.

"Excuse me miss–"

One tried to reach for her, but was stopped by the other. "I don’t recommend that unless you want to go back home charred."

He then pointed to Briana’s hands, crackling with electricity. Briana was hurt. Why was she not informed of something this important?

Theodore was a stern man, But he always had a soft spot for her. She was tired of being treated like a kid.

If her father told everyone to make sure she stayed in her room, she was willing to bet he was nowhere in the house. And yet she checked everywhere. The dining hall, His study, the library. He was nowhere to be seen.

Returning to her room, she grabbed a thin suit of platemail armor, with the sigil of the hawk engraved into it. As she put on her helmet, her long black hair contracted with her white cape.

She turned to the maids who were almost paralyzed by awe and fear. The young mistress looked like a saint.

The palace corridors blurred past Briana as she sprinted toward the stables, her armored boots striking the marble with sharp, echoing clicks. She knew the servants wouldn’t dare lie to her—but fear made men foolish, and her father had clearly ordered silence. The air smelled of polished wood and fresh hay as she shoved open the stable doors, startling a groom who dropped his brush mid-stroke.

"Prepare my mare," she snapped.

The groom scrambled to obey, his fingers fumbling with the mare’s bridle. Briana didn’t wait—she snatched the reins from his hands and swung onto the saddle in one fluid motion. The mare, sensing her urgency, stamped her hooves impatiently. "Where—where are you going, Your Highness?" the groom stammered. Briana ignored him. She dug her heels in, and the horse burst forward, kicking up dust as they tore out of the stable and into the dawn-lit courtyard.

The palace gates loomed ahead, guarded by two men in full plate armor. They stiffened at the sight of her charging toward them. "Open the gates," she commanded, her voice cutting through the morning air like a blade. One of the guards hesitated. "Your father’s orders—" She didn’t let him finish. A crackle of electricity arced from her gauntlet to the iron portcullis, sending sparks skittering across the metal. The guards leaped back, and the gates groaned open just enough for her to slip through.

Briana patted her noble horse. "Its been a while, hasn’t it Athena?" The noble steed surged forward, seemingly faster than wind itself.

As she rode through her town, she noticed that everyone seemed to have their windows covered. Nobody was outside. People stayed very close to their homes if they went outside at all.

You could find life even in the dead of night. Yet on this night, it was very quiet. Athena brought her towards one of the town guard. "Excuse me sir,

Can you explain what is going on?"

"People attacked patrols in the town, as well as civilians entering and exiting. All of the guard who were sent died. Your father said it was just a monster, but people are saying an army is at his doorstep. Your father left with the royal guard and 70 percent of his standing army. The rest of us are here in case the worst happens." The guard’s voice wavered as he spoke, his fingers tightening around the shaft of his halberd.

The guard’s words settled over Briana like a cold mist. An army at her father’s doorstep? Seventy percent of their forces gone? She inhaled sharply, her grip tightening on Athena’s reins. The mare snorted, sensing the tension coiling in her rider’s body. "Where did they go?" Briana demanded.

The guard hesitated, his gaze flicking to the horizon where the first hints of dawn bled into the night. "The Blackwood Pass, Your Highness. But—"

Briana didn’t wait for the guard’s next words. Athena surged forward before he could finish, her hooves pounding against the cobblestones as they tore through the empty streets. The wind whipped Briana’s cape behind her like a banner, the scent of dew and damp earth filling her nose. Blackwood Pass—a narrow, treacherous route flanked by jagged cliffs, where an ambush could turn into a slaughter in seconds. Her father wouldn’t have taken the bulk of their forces there unless he had no choice. Unless the threat was already inside their borders.

Athena’s hooves kicked up clods of earth as they crested the ridge, and the sight below stole Briana’s breath—not from beauty, but horror. The Blackwood Pass had become a slaughterhouse. Hundreds of her father’s soldiers—their hawk-emblazoned tabards now torn and darkened with blood—were locked in a desperate push against invaders clad in wolf pelts, their axes glinting red under the rising sun. Bodies formed unnatural mounds where the fighting had been thickest. The stench of iron and voided bowels hit her like a physical blow.

She didn’t remember dismounting. One moment she was atop Athena, the next her boots slammed into mud slick with gore, her sword already drawn. Lightning coiled down the blade as she took her first running step toward the fray. A wolfskin warrior turned toward her, his face a grotesque mask of warpaint and fresh scars—then he was gone, bisected by a single slash that left his halves smoking. Briana moved like a storm given flesh, every strike precise, every step carrying her deeper into the enemy’s ranks. They fell before her like wheat before the scythe, but she barely registered their deaths. Her eyes scanned the chaos for a familiar silhouette—her father’s broad shoulders, the silver trim of his armor.