The settlement finally quieted.
Fires burned down to coals. The grappling circles emptied. Beastmen crawled into tents or collapsed where the wine had left them.
Kane rose from the bench, collected Mjoldr, and stepped inside the guest tent.
Kessa followed at once. She claimed his left side without discussion, throwing one striped leg over his thighs and settling her head against his shoulder the way she always did when the day was finished.
Griselda took the space on his right, close enough that he could feel the faint warmth of her wing when it shifted, but not clinging.
She faced the entrance, yellow eyes half-open even as her breathing slowed.
Kane didn’t sleep.
He stared at the low canvas roof and let the thought he had been pushing aside finally surface.
Meeting Grathak terrified him, just slightly. Not the way weaker men feared death.
He knew he would win if it came to a direct fight. The system, the titles, the raw numbers he carried from clearing the game once already, all of it said he would walk away.
But winning would cost.
He would take damage. Real damage. And walking out of Berakamon alive after defeating its emperor would turn every pack, every settlement, every bloodline in the forest against him.
Victory here could close more doors than it opened.
He closed his eyes anyway and forced rest into his body until the first thin light touched the tent wall.
Kane woke either woman before.
He eased out from under Kessa’s leg, left Griselda still facing the entrance, and stepped into the morning air without Mjoldr in hand.
The settlement was only beginning to stir. Smoke rose from a few early fires. He walked past the palisade gate and into the trees without announcing himself.
Shenron was already there.
The taller tiger-striped male stood in a small clearing, long brown hair tied loosely back, red eyes calm. In both hands he held a broadsword that reached nearly his own height, dark metal, worn grip, the kind of weapon that had outlived the man who first forged it.
Kane stopped a few paces away.
"Your weapon?"
Shenron nodded once.
"Two hundred years old. Our emperor used this."
Kane raised his open hand. Mjoldr tore free from its resting place against a nearby trunk and flew to his palm with a familiar weight. Shenron’s red eyes tracked the axe the entire way.
He tried hard to keep his expression flat. Interest still leaked through.
"Petty human trick."
"A trick that killed hundreds." Kane laughed once, short and genuine.
"You’re not as good at hiding curiosity as you think."
Shenron’s grip on the broadsword shifted.
"Are you playing with my sister?"
The question came harder than the previous words.
Kane met the red stare without blinking.
"I don’t know about playing. But I care for her. If I were to rise above everything, she will be at my side."
"And if you were to die?"
"Then it’s her wish to follow me or be alone."
Shenron said nothing for a long moment.
Claiming a human wasn’t unheard of among the outer packs. Keeping one as a temporary bed warmer happened. Treating one as a true partner, someone who might stand beside a beastkin of rank, was rarer.
The silence stretched until the older male finally rolled one shoulder and stood to his full height.
"Let’s go for a hunt."
They walked deeper into the trees together. The morning canopy filtered green light across the leaf litter. Shenron moved with the easy silence of someone born to these paths.
Kane matched the pace, Mjoldr loose at his side.
After a stretch of quiet, Kane spoke again.
"I heard there were mutants here."
"Indeed," Shenron answered.
"Something has been making the beasts rampage. Must be demon essence leaking from deeper ground. The true border packs have been restless for weeks. Even the river beasts are short-tempered."
They found the first sign not long after: deep gouges in a trunk higher than any normal bear could reach, and a scatter of bones that still carried the wrong scent. Shenron’s nostrils flared.
Kane felt the Empress’s mark under his skin prickle with distant hostile intent.
The mutant came from the left.
It had once been a forest cat of some kind, now swollen to the size of a small horse, fur patchy with black veins, eyes glowing a sick yellow.
Extra joints bent its limbs the wrong way. It hit the clearing in a single bound, jaws already open for Shenron’s throat.
Shenron met it with the broadsword.
Bang.
The blade caught the mutant across the shoulder and carved a deep line, but the creature’s momentum still carried it into him.
They went down in a tangle of claws and steel.
Kane was already moving. Mjoldr left his hand in a flat, vicious arc and buried itself in the mutant’s ribs with a wet crunch. The beast screamed, a sound that was half roar, half something that had never belonged in a living throat.
Shenron rolled free, came up on one knee, and drove the broadsword up under the mutant’s jaw.
Kane raised his hand. Mjoldr tore free in a spray of dark blood and returned to his grip. He stepped in and took the creature’s front legs out with two brutal, precise swings.
Slash.
Shenron finished it with a downward cut that split the skull.
The body twitched once and went still. Black fluid leaked into the leaf litter instead of proper blood.
Both men stood breathing hard, weapons still ready. The forest around them had gone completely silent.
Shenron wiped the broadsword on the mutant’s patchy fur and looked at Kane.
"You didn’t hesitate."
"Neither did you."
"Most humans freeze the first time they see something that wrong."
"I’ve seen worse."
Shenron studied him for another moment, then turned the tip of the broadsword until it pointed loosely at Kane’s chest.
"Let’s spar."
Kane’s mouth curved. He spun Mjoldr once, settling the axe into a ready grip.
"About time."
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