The mountain blocked most of the early light, leaving the jungle in a cold, grey haze until the sun finally cleared the peak. The rays of the early sun touched my fur like warm needles, welcoming me to a new beginning.
A melodic chirping from an unfamiliar bird reached my ears as I opened my eyes, stretching lazily along the tree branch.
"Yesterday was… heavy," I muttered, yawning as I rolled my shoulders.
Below me, the shattered clearing still bore the scars of yesterday's struggle.
The broken tree, the scorched ground, and Leonia's bow before she vanished.
"That was recognition," I murmured. "From a colossal monster of this world."
I took a long and steady breath. For the first time since I hatched, my heart was not trying to hammer its way out of my ribs. I felt…Solid.
First things first, food.
"Predator's Eyes," I whispered.
The world bled into red as my vision sharpened. Scanning the forest below, I quickly found my target.
A baby fire wolf.
I stepped to the edge of the branch.
BLINK.
Blue particles flowed into my joints like a well-oiled machine as the world twisted. I reappeared above the wolf, claws already flaring as gravity pulled me down.
"Sorry," I said quietly. "But if I don't kill you… I won't be able to eat or level up."
The words felt more like a prayer than an excuse.
My claws came down in a clean strike. The wolf split apart with a painful cry.
AUUUU!
This wasn't cruelty. It was necessity.
I fed quickly, then stood and bowed my head toward what remained.
"Thank you… for keeping me alive."
Next is water.
The watering hole shimmered under the morning light, just as beautiful as ever. I drank deeply as my reflection stared back at me.
Royal blue fur. Calm eyes but ruby red.
I searched the area for the baby ape, thinking it would make a good warm-up before venturing deeper.
Nothing.
I exhaled and released the skill.
The red haze faded. The world returned to normal.
"Phew…"
The relief surprised me.
Since yesterday, since I'd reached my instinct for the first time, I'd felt it.
The difference.
I could activate Predator's skills and I could turn them off at my will.
That control… it felt like real progress.
Levels and stats hadn't given me this feeling. They always came with fear…fear of losing myself.
This didn't.
The forest felt brighter as I stepped forward, moving deeper into the unknown.
The deeper forest felt different.
That was the first thing I noticed.
The sense of fantasy truly settled in once I stepped beyond the familiar paths.
The trees twisted into shapes that didn't make sense. And the colors, purple and neon gold, felt like they belonged to a dream.
Bushes and low plants crowded the ground, some glowing faintly where sunlight touched them. Scattered across the earth, medium-sized stones reflected light in hues of blue, red, silver and gold.
It was beautiful. Too beautiful.
It felt like standing inside the womb of nature itself; rich in beauty, abundant by outside world, and alive as if hiding death in its shadows.
I didn't realize something was wrong at first.
Only that my step felt… heavy.
I tried to move forward again.
My foot wouldn't budge.
I looked down.
…Nothing unusual…Just grass and soil.
I lifted my leg slightly. There was nothing clinging to it, nothing I could see. Yet the sensation remained. A thick resistance, like invisible gum, pulling my foot back toward the ground.
Then the tension spread as something gummy yet invisible wrapped around my body.
In a blink, pressure tightened from my head down to my hips. My arms were forced against my torso, bound so tightly I couldn't even twitch.
I froze.
Not by choice but by force.
My heart slammed against my ribs once again like a trapped bird. I tried to gasp, but the pressure around my chest and neck made every breath feel like I was sucking air through a straw.
Then a sound echoed above the treetops.
REEREEREEREE!
REEREEREEREE!
It moved from left to right, fast and rhythmic, slicing through the dream canopy like a signal.
The more I struggled, the tighter the binding became.
Every movement only made it worse.
The pressure wrapped around me like a living thing, crushing my chest, tightening around my neck. My breaths came shallow and frantic, each one harder to draw than the last.
My vision blurred. The world and the colors started fading as a grim darkness clouded my vision from the outside edges slowly.
I gasped, forcing air into my lungs… but the bind only tightened further.
At this rate… I'd be strangled to death.
Cold seeped into me.
My limbs stopped responding. My body felt distant, heavy, like it no longer belonged to me.
Then-
I felt something.
A touch on my shoulder.
It wasn't physical. There was no weight to it. And yet, it was warm and gentle. A soothing presence that spread through the cold, sinking deep into me and pushing back the numbness.
The world vanished.
Once again, the jungle dissolved into a vast white field.
Only this time… It wasn't me but my instinct that reached out to me.
In front of me stood my predator's instinct.
A red-outlined silhouette of myself, formed of the same flowing particles, its hand resting on my right shoulder. There was no mass, no flesh… only intent.
It looked at me.
KRRRHAAA!
The sound wasn't threatening.
It was steady and grounding. Almost reassuring.
As if it was telling me not to give up.
The pain and suffocation still burned, but through it, I noticed something else.
The ruby-red eyes of the silhouette glowed brighter and a sudden heat flooded down my spine, burning away the numbness in my chest.
A spark flared in the back of my mind as my eyes widened.
I was barely able to form the words but still whispered.
"Predator's Eyes."
The white field turned into an overlay of red hue.
The forest returned, not as mass, but as outlines placed in that white field. Trees, vines, the ground beneath me, all of it were only blue silhouettes as if they are sketched in flowing particles like a fantasy world drawn with a single glowing pencil.
That's when I noticed them.
The bind.
Dozens, no, hundreds of thin blue strands wrapped around my chest and neck as they were tightening with every second. They weren't part of me. They weren't even part of the forest.
They were being pulled.
I followed the strands upward, tracing them through the canopy.
My eyes widened.
"What… are those?"
Tiny shapes clung to the branches above. So small they were invisible to the naked eye. Countless. Each one held a thread in its mouth, thin on its own and harmless but together, the strands merged as they reached me, forming a thick and suffocating web.
They were pulling me apart by inches.
[Horde of Invisible Cute Spiders encountered.]
Another system message followed, sharp and cold.
[Due to prolonged hypoxia, Skill Unlocked: Helis Integration – Lv. 1.]
And then-
It happened.
Blue particles bled out from my body, spilling from every pore like heat escaping through cracked stone. The warmth that had been spreading inside me reflected outward, coating me in a thin layer of energy.
The web reacted instantly.
The strands hissed, melting away as if exposed to fire. The pressure around my throat vanished. The narrow slit of air I'd been clinging to, widened all at once. And I dragged in a desperate, burning breath.
A new sensation took hold, not the cold theft of my control but a perfectly vibrating alignment.
For the first time…
My instinct didn't overpower me.
It merged.
In the white field, my blue silhouette was wrapped by another form… red, sharp, violent…overlaying me perfectly. My mouth flared with energy as two wills aligned.
[Temporary Soul Synchronization achieved. Duration: 15 seconds.]
I Blinked upward.
And I roared.
"Helion - KRRRHAAAA!"
The sound carried two tones at once, my own call and the raw voice of instinct.
The roar didn't just echo; it shredded the leaves into glowing confetti as helion breath punched through the branches, turning the 'cute' nightmares into a rain of soot.
I landed on the scorched ground, feet steady.
[Soul Synchronization ended.]
The red outline peeled away.
The white field shattered.
Color and weight rushed back into the world as bark, soil, and air regained their form. And just before everything fully returned…
I saw it. My predator's instinct.
It looked at me.
And it smiled.
The burnt smell filled the air.
Black smoke drifted upward from everything that had fallen under Helion Breath's path, curling lazily toward the canopy above.
As my breathing steadied, I noticed something on the ground.
A single spider. half-burnt and barely visible.
When I exhaled and Predator's Eyes faded, it vanished from sight once more.
"…Damn," I muttered.
"These tiny things almost killed me."
The thought lingered longer than it should have.
Even Leonia had bowed.
A monster ten times my size, a colossal ruler of this forest, had recognized me.
The forest hadn't actually changed. But the way I looked at it had. The colors and the beauty didn't look like a dream anymore; they looked like a warning.
Under the warm light of dusk, shadows seemed heavier, and the beauty around me felt like a disguise rather than a promise.
I opened my status window.
[Status]
Level: 12
Experience: 520 / 900
HP: 300 / 300
MP: 220 / 220
[Stats]
STR: 80
AGI: 80
INT: 99
SPD: 80
[Skills]
Rolling Dash – Lv. 2
Scratch – Lv. 6
Helion Breath – Lv. 4
Blink – Lv. 9
Predator's Instinct – Lv. 7
Predator's Eyes – Lv. 4
Helis Recovery – Lv. 1
Helis Integration – Lv. 1
I took a long and slow breath of the smoky air. My chest didn't feel as tight anymore. For the first time, the weight of the fear didn't feel like it was trying to crush me.
My connection with my instinct was stronger now.
Stronger than fear.
Stronger than hesitation.
And I didn't realize it yet…
But the greatest danger in this world wouldn't come from the untamed wild.
It would come from those who called themselves civilized.
Around the time Helion first felt the sticky pull at his feet-
Seven figures entered the clearing where Leonia had attacked Frank and Miranda.
Four of them were soldiers, their armor stamped with the royal emblem of a bear's head. Steel shields rested on their arms, swords gleaming in the sunlight as they moved in practiced silence. Two advanced at the front, two held the rear.
Between them moved the core of the formation.
Two female marksmen, cloaked and alert, flanked a single mage.
The mage wore a sleeveless purple gown that cut deep at the side from her hip toward the bottom. Its fabric embroidered with faint runes that shimmered when she walked. A staff of the same hue rested lightly in her hand, its crystal tip pulsing with restrained power.
One soldier broke formation and approached the shattered wagon.
The others adjusted instantly.
When he returned, the group resumed its advance.
"So?" asked the front-left soldier without turning his head.
The inspecting soldier exhaled heavily.
"They weren't lying about Leonia's ambush. I thought that nameless village was trying to bait the capital for supplies."
His gaze swept over the clearing.
Massive claw marks scarred the ground. Trees lay splintered. The earth itself looked torn.
Another soldier snorted.
"No rations for months. Wouldn't be the first time someone wrote fairy tales to get attention."
Laughter followed, brief and dismissive.
From the rear, a soldier muttered,
"Leonia's attack is one thing. But Helis? That's a different lie altogether."
The left-flank marksman raised her voice.
"That's why the capital sent her with us."
Silence fell as they reached the burn line.
The laughter died.
The forest ahead was scorched black, a clean and unnatural path carved through trees and stone alike. A fallen trunk lay split in half, its edges glassed by heat.
The right-flank marksman whispered,
"This wasn't just a fight. This was colossal-class damage."
The mage had been silent until now.
She stepped closer to the burn mark and knelt, fingers brushing the ash. She lifted them, rubbed the residue between thumb and forefinger, then inhaled slowly.
Her eyes narrowed.
"Does Leonia possess a breath attack?"
Every head snapped toward her.
One marksman answered carefully,
"No, my lady. Her element is thunder. She reinforces her body, nothing like this."
The mage said nothing. She studied the line again, then the surrounding terrain.
"What exactly did the report say?"
A soldier unrolled a scroll.
"During Leonia's ambush, a small blue monster appeared. Miranda Moris fainted. The two monsters engaged each other while village hunters extracted the woman and child."
"Hm."
Her brows drew together.
"That report may be inaccurate."
A soldier bristled and half-drew his sword.
"So they did lie?"
The mage's gaze cut to him, sharp and cold.
"I didn't say that."
She stood.
"It's possible the little monster didn't attack the woman."
All of them exchanged looks as disbelief piled up inside.
"…What?" someone breathed.
"It may have protected her," the mage continued calmly.
Disbelief spread instantly.
One marksman stammered,
"That's impossible. Monsters don't…"
"I know," the mage replied. "But look at the burns."
She gestured toward the blackened line.
"This attack wasn't aimed at Leonia. It was aimed to block her."
Silence deepened.
"And Helis," she added softly, "is not an element. It has no scent, no residue pattern as per the stories we grew up hearing. Just like this burnt mark on the ground."
She closed her eyes briefly.
"I don't know what it was," she admitted. "But it wasn't a complete lie."
They were still trying to process that when-
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
A pillar of pure blue energy tore through the distant canopy.
Trees vanished into ash. Blue particles shimmered in the air like falling stars.
No one spoke.
Steel shields dipped and blades lowered as the soldiers stood frozen gazing at the blue light reflecting in their polished chestplates. No one spoke; they just watched the distant sky burn.
The mage, however…
Her eyes gleamed, not with terror but with wonder, as a wide smile carved on her face.
Like a child glimpsing a candy for the first time.