—Year 397 before the Ascension of the Celestial Monarch—
Fate was deceptive; it could give you something to take something else away. One should never trust luck more than one trusts a spurned lover; after all, love is strong, but hate is even stronger.
Tolrik sighed as he watched Benia advance through the darkness of the caves with a somewhat thoughtful expression on her face, while beside him was his sister Ulrika, who looked at him with a smile on her face before punching him on the shoulder.
"What's wrong? You seem a bit discouraged," his sister murmured with a smile as she scanned the surroundings with a somewhat sharp gaze.
"Nothing, just that I feel Benia is a little different," he murmured with an almost imperceptible voice.
"What? Who is different?" suddenly growled a figure with black hair who suddenly appeared behind him without him realizing.
Dazed, he could barely react when he almost tripped and fell forward, while feeling his mouth full of dirt and his face was a palm's distance from Benia's.
"What the hell?" growled an annoyed, but strangely nervous Benia, who looked askance at a distracted Tolrik.
Coughing slightly, he shook his head while murmuring: "Nothing, I just thought you've changed recently; you don't go out with us as much anymore."
Frowning while looking away, a bit uncomfortable, she replied defensively: "It's not my fault. We're not partying, this is a damn mission," Benia growled echoing the situation.
The trio was currently dressed in metallic armor. Benia wore a tight and compact scarlet armor, with a triangular helmet tied to her waist, which had a breathing system and enhanced vision, except for the back of the neck, which was where her long hair reaching her waist escaped. On the other hand, his sister Ulrika didn't wear a helmet; she was a tall woman, measuring two meters twenty in height, with skin white like marble and eyes sky-blue like water. Her aquamarine-toned hair, which was tied in a long bun, fell almost to her heels. Her armor, a single piece of golden color, was covered in violet plates that moved with her body as if it were natural.
"You should stop being nervous, Tolrik. As a Guard you must be prepared to always be alert, you can't be a child forever," Ulrika corrected him like a mother, which made Tolrik's expression darken slightly from embarrassment as he said in an embarrassed whisper:
"I'm sorry," to Benia's mockery.
"Why has the Master been weird lately?" Tolrik growled trying to change the subject. "She doesn't go out as much as before, it's strange; now Sister Jagger takes care of the missions."
"I don't know, she's just busy with other things. Besides, now we are professional Guards, we shouldn't depend so much on the Master," Ulrika said with a thoughtful expression, also seemingly worried about the master's growing isolation.
But then she became alert: "Shut up, we're here. It's time to act."
Quickly the group fell silent, including Tolrik, who forced his exosuit to limit his vital signs; after all, he was a Guard and this was an important mission.
The Guards, as their name suggested, were agents who were in charge of being guardians of the eastern continent, protecting it from external threats in secret. Normally they didn't get involved in internal conflicts unless it was extremely necessary, but there were times when it had to be done.
Tolrik was a tall young man of attractive appearance; he had bright blue hair like Ulrika and shared part of her beautiful and fine features, except that he had red eyes and was a little taller.
His exosuit was quite tight to his body, which facilitated mobility, but also highlighted Tolrik's toned body, which attracted the gaze of a curious Benia.
Smiling at the childishness of the duo, Ulrika ignored them as she murmured: "Chakra, Water Dao."
Suddenly the air in front of her began to distort forming a mirror in front of the trio that presented them with the image of their target to defeat.
"The Lycaons have infiltrated Ulheim. Their presence has been hidden for a while thanks to the underground tunnels. We must find all the cave entrances and seal them to limit their presence; if they continue reproducing at the rate they are going, they could take the entire Ulheim region by surprise."
The group ascended and watched how the water mirror refracted a panoramic image of several hundred meters: steep corridors and paths of rock and stone where the movement of shadowy and fierce figures could be observed.
The scenario they had in front of them was quite different from a mortal base, a difference from the Fey or other mortal races.
They saw gigantic monstrosities, more beasts than men, transporting huge blocks of rock and stone, while smaller Lycaons dug tunnels and trenches.
Lycaons without bestial characteristics inspected the work carving symbols on the blocks, building pyramids and walls around them, while at the same time collecting corpses and waste from both Feys and beasts to gut them and extract their blood and flesh, which would later be used for scrolls and ink.
Tolrik and Benia's duo was stunned at the spectacle they were seeing. They also saw huge two-headed wolves the size of buildings serving as beasts of burden, while other smaller beasts served as hunting dogs patrolling the area.
"There are hundreds," Tolrik growled with certain fear, fear that made even Ulrika look at him with irritation, and much more Benia, who looked at him with certain disappointment.
"And there will be thousands if we don't stop them. This is a large-scale infiltration. The northern continent, in the most underground and forested areas, is already conquered by the corrupted offspring of the monster race. It's a matter of time before they conquered it, and if they adapt to the Death Mountain Range, it could be the end of the ancestral Fey dominion over these lands."
An expression of conviction suddenly appeared on Tolrik's face as he looked decisively into the distance. This was his mission and goal: as Guards they had to protect this continent. For the people they cared about, for what they loved, and for their land, they had to triumph or die trying.
...
He rose from his nest like many times before and began to devour his ration without hesitation.
A coppery taste filled his mouth; the blood jade pills melted in his mouth, strengthening and nourishing his flesh and body, which continued to grow at a constant rate.
He crawled on all fours toward the outside of his nest; not everyone possessed one, they had to fight to earn it, and he had impaled the flayed skin of its previous owner at the nest entrance as a warning.
"Meow," a meow came from inside his nest as a figure covered in white fur and a face with feline as well as mortal features emerged. She wasn't the only one, multiple females were in his nest; it wasn't strange in the litter that some of them possessed more than one female, although normally the Lycaon females themselves didn't choose a fixed partner.
Frowning with his elongated snout, he sniffed the air; he could detect the female's excitement. She wasn't a Lycaon, he didn't know her race or lineage, but he didn't care.
Ducanor had long lost interest in the knowledge of his previous life, although from time to time it flickered in his mind.
"You're still hurt," purred the female's voice as she licked a long scar in the chest area while looking at him suggestively.
"I'm not hurt," he growled as he pushed the female's face away from him; her expression of concern turned into sadness as she pressed her almost naked body against him again.
"Come on, I want to... take care of you," she purred.
Ducanor rolled his eyes while feeling inexplicably irritated; most females were quite surly, apart from simply seeking to mate for food or to have more offspring, but this one always stayed stuck to him like a flea sucking his blood with her strength.
And suck she did...
"Shut up, female, I don't need care," seeing her sad look, he growled and threw her some blood pills. "Rest and meditate, I'll be back soon, I must see Father."
The white cat's expression didn't improve despite giving her pills, which woke up several of the other nearby females who looked at her with envy, but she simply pouted as she settled in the nest looking in his direction with concern.
She would wait for him.
Of course she would wait for him.
He didn't know how much time Ducanor had spent here... but it could be considered that he had already spent a lifetime here in the darkness.
A concentration pill was devoured by a nervous Tolrik to enter the place. And well, that was Ulrika's job.
Indifferent to her brother's nervousness about entering battle, she began to concentrate her spiritual energy precisely and methodically.
Suddenly the air began to ripple as a concentrated Ulrika murmured: "First Chakra, open."
In response to her words, their bodies collapsed into water particles that moved at great speed through the air as if teleporting, and before Tolrik could react, a white light covered his entire vision so that then...
A sonic explosion resonated throughout the underground section making several Lycaons and beasts that were there scream in pain, who confused saw how suddenly from the ground itself three figures materialized from nothingness itself.
"Adhwadhawhda," the incoherent screams of the Lycaons resonated as they shouted fiercely. Most could barely react, but some more experienced ones ran in a fixed direction to, apparently, sound the alarm.
But Benia was much faster; in an instant she reached the place where the Lycaon warrior with a vaguely humanoid appearance was, and before he raised his claws with a black metallic shine, then a glow emerged.
From her hands emerged an accumulation of energy that looked like a small laser beam at her fingerctips.
"First Chakra: Energy."
Suddenly all the kinetic energy that had accumulated during the body's movement, as well as the potential energy of the air, manifested in an energy beam that formed a fist-sized hole in the werewolf's head.
That was Benia's ability: to accumulate the kinetic energy of an object she has in her hand and shoot it forward as if it were a projectile. Although this had time as a limitation; she had accumulated for quite some time the necessary kinetic energy by lightly hitting the metallic sections that moved automatically on her armor. The accumulation of energy generated caused it to propel at great speed and temperature when released, exploding in turn.
But Benia didn't just stop with that. In an instant that seemed to have extended for minutes, her body moved at absurd acceleration; her ability allowed her to increase her own speed to the point that her entire body was accelerated.
A second for others was half for her, and of course, the more speed, the more force it generates.
Even if she weighed less than a hundred kilograms, with her speed doubled in an instant a metallic fist had practically become a cannon.
Bodies and viscera went flying from Benia's direct onslaught as she kept moving at great speed.
In the cultivation of the Guards there were two main paths: the Conceptual Path and the Chakra Path.
While Ulrika had chosen the Chakra path, Benia had chosen the second, the Conceptual Path. Instead of transforming her mark of destiny —which she had formed through the bond with the True Spirit— to integrate various natural elements through the five primary natures of spiritual energy forming a Chakra, she had chosen to condense the concept she had awakened through the Geas with the True Spirit. It was in this case: Energy.
The name of the True Spirit in this case was...
"Summanus."
The concept, upon reaching a level of mastery and considerable affinity with the user, would form a core inside called a spiritual core.
Concepts, upon sublimation, evolved in their uses; the primary ability of the energy concept was accumulation, while the sublimation of the concept meant the evolution of the conceptual core to a conceptual crystal.
Thus awakening her second ability through understanding the concept of energy: acceleration.
After the conceptual crystal, reaching a second sublimation would transform them into a Three-Pointed Star, and as before, another sublimation into a Four-Pointed one, and so on reaching the legendary level of Five-Pointed Star.
"Concentrate, Tolrik!" resonated his sister's familiar voice, which quickly alerted him to danger.
When suddenly a huge monstrosity, a beast almost six meters tall that had two pairs of arms with spear-sized claws coming out of its side, rushed in his direction.
"Adawdrrar rarw rraar."
Just at the moment he thought of acting to defend himself, blood gushed from the arms and neck of his attacker, who before he could move had already been completely mutilated by a figure elegant as a mantis.
Unlike Benia, who was using pure power to face those scaly monsters.
Ulrika was using pure technique; a single edge so long that it practically doubled Ulrika's height was in the palm of her hand, but this was not made of metal.
But of water, as if it were a miniature river flowing imitating the shape of a sword; this extended beyond its own edge thanks to Ulrika's manipulation. This was the treasure inherited from the Kangqueror family: the sword Uisce Beatha.
"Blood Sword," Ulrika suddenly growled. The blood that floated in the air from the cut suddenly became an extension of the sword, which at this point was crimson, due to the Lycaons' blood being red.
And then, as if it were a meat grinder, it moved at great speed forming a crimson spiral that had Ulrika as its center and had imprisoned dozens of Lycaons inside.
Which in an instant were turned into pieces of divided flesh, while the rest that were outside tried to flee, only to find their end at the hands of Benia or himself.
After all, he was the weakest of the team, to his own shame, but to be worthy of Benia and his surname as a member of the Kangqueror Clan he had to be better, he had to always be the best.
...
Two naked bodies caressed and moaned as the water fell and the steam rose; the sound of the white cat's quiet and shy moans resonated at a constant rhythm through her warm lips.
At this point, Blood Wolf was enjoying the pleasure of caressing and making his own the body of the submissive beast beneath him.
Domination, power; that was what he desired and that was what Father could grant him absolutely.
"Meow, fast, inside," said the female with desire.
In his base form, Blood Wolf's appearance was similar to what he had before the change, only with more fur, pronounced teeth and nails like claws and slightly more wolf-like features.
While the female moaned at his touch, surrendering to the pleasure and affection he could give her.
She had no name, probably had never been given one, and while Ducanor's fur-covered hands caressed her body and squeezed her buttocks, she moaned.
He was no longer Ducanor Kal Arreus, Father had given him a new name, as well as a title: Blood Wolf.
He had given him another gift, a drop of unknown blood; he told him it was his reward for his loyalty. He didn't understand its meaning, but he consumed it and as a result his body began to burn strongly and his black fur had turned a greenish hue.
"More," the female growled with desire, and he gave her what she asked for without preparation, like animals; as he entered her, her warm body in the cold cave was one of the few consolations in Blood Wolf's new life.
For that he lived.
The female's meows resonated as he slapped her fat ass against his belly and felt her tail caressing his body; his hands traveled her buttocks, ecstasy brought a strange clarity to his mind.
The spiritual energy in his body reached an abnormal harmony; his lower Dantian, which had been open from before, and the intermediate one, which had been forced open because of Father, began to circulate a large amount of spiritual energy.
His head began to throb strongly as his body began to expand; he wasn't transforming into his true form.
He wasn't changing into something else; something else was trying to take control of him. Was it the Gnosis his father sought so much?
That thought died with pleasure and pain.
The ecstasy of carnal pleasure fought against the torture his mind and soul suffered.
Fire and darkness.
His partner's moans of pleasure turned into shrieks; her mind had plunged into a state of inhuman ecstasy, her soul and body were being taken to the limit of the senses, to the point that, if not for the fact she wasn't a mortal, she would have died of nervous system failure.
Ducanor, while fighting the pain, roared as he broke free and reached orgasm, but at the same time he separated from his lover, clarity returned; his third Dantian had been forcibly opened again, but this time not under the total influence of Lycan blood.
At that moment, his nameless partner was unconscious, covered in her own fluids. Sighing with some affection, Ducanor covered her with some blankets while ignoring the fearful looks of women and men inside the nest.
An impulse was filling his mind at this moment, a thought that could be both his and external, but that idea told him that...
He had to descend to find something.
Something that would change everything.
And without realizing it, he didn't notice that on his chest, where the Griffin Rune had been replaced by black wolf fur, a light shone again.
A light of silver and gold.