Ruthless: Path of Conquest

Luna burst forward, her body cutting through the brisk night air.

She could see the end of the massacre in sight—and with it, the accomplishment of her King’s wish.

Another useless prey human moved in between her and her objective, and Luna leaned in with both heads, grabbed hold of the human by the shoulders, and ripped his arms off.

The man fell to the ground, screaming and gushing blood. Luna kept running, trampling his body and leaving him for one of the younger wolves to finish. She ignored the blood that splashed all over her coat. It was already soaked in semi-dried red and brown from the numerous others she had killed in the last five minutes.

These humans are so weak, she thought. It is strange to think they began as the same species as the King.

Hopefully the leader, at least, would give some decent experience. She was so close to her Evolution now, she could feel it. Both Luna and Romulus, her mate, were on the verge of assuming the incredibly powerful form that the former Wolf King had developed—or perhaps something else that they could not even imagine yet.

Luna got within sight of the human pack’s boss once more. This time, the only humans obstructing her were a handful helping the leader walk; he seemed to have lost his sight.

At the same time that Luna achieved line of sight, she heard the first splashes.

The humans at the vanguard of their pack had hit the water.

The tension in Luna’s face relaxed.

Mission accomplished, she thought.

There would be no possible escape for the humans now.

A few seconds after the first splashes, in addition to further splashes, Luna heard pained screams. Samuel and his alligators had reached the fallen humans. From the sounds of it, they were enjoying themselves.

Luna saw one of her pack leap on a human near the leader and begin tearing into him. Then two of the wyverns that were controlled by the King’s consciousness grabbed onto a pair of the humans guarding the leader and raised the men into the air, carrying them away from the fight kicking and screaming. Another pair of obstacles out of the way.

Thank you, my King.

The wyverns had been in the thick of the fighting, and she knew that it was because James did not want to lose a single one of his wolves to these enemies.

She looked to her mate, who ran near the front of one group from their pack, directly parallel to Luna. They made eye contact, and then she pointed her snout at the last two humans protecting the lead human.

Go get them, please, so I can kill the boss, she sent in a slightly pleading tone.

All right… Romulus replied in his gruff voice.

She knew that he wanted to kill the leader, too. They both wanted to impress the King however they could, and undoubtedly, the leader would be worth more experience than most of the lackeys.

But Romulus was a very generous mate.

He launched himself forward, breaking away from the pack. The humans beside Cyrus barely had time to scream before Romulus’s two pairs of jaws ripped into their bodies. Then they were shrieking and flailing wildly, but to little effect. One of them maintained the presence of mind to stab Romulus with his knives, Luna saw, but his arms were already weak from blood loss. Her mate received a couple of shallow wounds, the blades barely capable of penetrating his tough hide.

Like the rest of the wolf pack, Romulus was in relatively little danger from the undisciplined, surprised group of prey.

The lead human himself, released from the grip of his helpers, turned wildly back and forth, raising his hands in the air defensively, though he held no weapons.

Luna was a little surprised that he did not run away—but then, he had no way of knowing which way to run. It was dark now, and even if he could see and hear, the sounds and images of carnage came now from all sides of him.

She lunged at Cyrus and closed the distance.

This is the price of fighting our King, she thought.

Her flashing white fangs closed around the human pack leader’s neck, and she felt the hot blood gush into her mouth. This time, she allowed herself to stop and eat.

The body beneath her wiggled and writhed, but she held the human pinned down firmly with her claws as she chowed down on his tender meat.

Luna became aware that one of the wyverns loomed in the air directly above her.

Good. The King is watching.

Without her being aware of it, Luna’s tail stood straight up and then began to wag.

At some point, the human stopped moving, but Luna didn’t really notice. She was busy eating, and a couple of her pack members, including her mate, had joined in to share in the spoils. Monsters gained more from killing and eating higher level prey, so it was unsurprising that they would want to share in the bounty of the leader’s corpse before they started eating the bodies of the lesser humans.

And Luna certainly didn’t mind sharing.

The alert appeared while she was gnawing a particularly juicy hunk of meat around the thigh bone.

[You killed Cyrus Berberian, Lv. 12! You gained 480 exp!]

[Command Forest Wolf leveled up!]

[A Race Evolution is available. Review? Y/N]

The tail wagging intensified.

Yes! Yes! I’m ready, I’m going to Evolve! I’ll do it as soon as I get back. This is amazing!

She glanced to the side at Romulus and saw that his eyes had lit up as well.

Luna let out a little whine and nuzzled against her mate’s neck.

We are Evolving together, then, she sent. There was a little hint of nervousness to her tone. Perhaps she had misread his signals.

Yes, my love, Romulus replied, the tone of his voice deep.

They had agreed that when they Evolved, it would be time to mate. The King had already blessed their choice and expressed his wish that their union would be fruitful—and their children, the foundation of a dynasty that would always protect his Kingdom.

It was in Luna’s moment of greatest joy that it happened.

A great, white and orange light enveloped the body of the dead human leader. The sudden glare blinded Luna, and she did not know exactly what happened next.

She only felt a burning sensation in both of her heads, as if someone was holding the tip of a hot poker to her forehead and cheek respectively.

It was far from the worst pain she had ever felt in her life, but it was so unexpected that she let out an involuntary yelp.

And so did the wolves around her.

Not the whole pack, which would have been deafening, but the wolves that were eating Cyrus’s body with her.

The ones who participated in killing him, she realized. Some sort of magical attack?

But it did not seem particularly powerful if it was an attack.

After just a moment of the burning sensation, both the pain and the light subsided.

Luna looked down and saw the corpse of Cyrus still lightly glowing. Its hands smacked against the ground in front of her.

Impossibly, the dead man had launched some sort of attack.

The wolf leaned down, gripped the human’s skull and body in her two sets of jaws, and with a single mighty effort, she ripped the head away. The neck was already weakened from the repeated bites to that vulnerable region, so it was easier than she had imagined.

Luna, what’s happening? The voice of the King filled her mind. She heard concern in his tone.

I am fine, my King, she sent, turning to face the wyvern that was now floating down to touch ground beside her.

The creature that James had possessed looked at Luna with inscrutable eyes.

—

“Is it over?” Mina asked as James opened his eyes.

Just as he had been when she came into the room, he was dripping sweat. He sucked in a deep breath and slowly let it out. Mina dabbed his forehead with a cool, wet towel again.

Why do you always push yourself so hard? she thought.

He shook his head as if getting his bearings.

“You’re sweating like you have a terrible fever, skapi,” she said. “Can you stop this now? Your creatures can fight on their own, right?”

James nodded. “Yeah, they can. And anyway, it’s over. For tonight, anyway.”

Mina frowned. “For tonight? You need bed rest for at least a week!”

“Yes, I know. I’ll relax, as long as no other threats appear.”

“If other threats appear, you should let other people handle them,” Mina said sternly. “You have a whole military now. You don’t need to be a one man army anymore!”

“You’re right. I need to let go a little bit. Let me just send a last command—” He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. “There, now everyone will withdraw.”

“What happened out there, anyway?” Mina asked, her curiosity finally overtaking her concern at the forefront of her mind.

She began silently gathering fire Mana to reheat the bowl of soup she had brought James to eat. Magic was filling in the gaps for technology in many aspects of their lives now.

“Well, Cyrus died.”

Mina nodded and waited.

“Then his corpse seemed to be possessed by the angel I saw before, or something. It glowed with a bright, fiery light, moved like it was being puppeteered by some unseen force, reached out, and left these strange marks on the wolves that killed him.”

“Are they okay?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t a meaningful injury, honestly,” James said. “Just a little burn. Looks sort of like a backwards ‘E’ and ‘F’ mashed together.” His hands ran over his cheek where the angel had burned him in the vision when he had struggled with it. The wound had closed over completely very quickly after he came out of that trance-like state, but he still had a small, pale burn scar on his cheek. It looked like a white-hot finger of fire had burned him, not like a letter or symbol.

“That’s—” She hesitated a moment. “Well, I don’t know what that is. It sounds strange. Like some sort of ancient lettering. I can try and look it up in whatever old books I can find and see if I can piece together a meaning.”

“Maybe the angel cursed my wolves,” James said. “Goddamned angels.”

Mina almost laughed. Then she shook her head.

His sense of humor is catching, she thought. This is no laughing matter…

“How did the wolves feel afterward?” she asked.

“Um, frisky.”

“What?”

James shrugged. “Just like I said. They’re ready to get frisky.”

“All right. Remember, skapi, English is not my first language. That sounds weird. Not sure I know what that word really means. Pretend I don’t know the word ‘frisky’ at all. What are you trying to say?”

“Luna wanted to go and mate with Romulus afterward—their mating cycle and her Evolution are linked in her mind, or maybe in her biology—I don’t really understand how monsters work that well. Anyway, she’s still planning to do that, after the two of them go through their Evolution. So, I guess what happened can’t have been that bad. And we’re probably going to get some wolf pups in a couple of months.”

“Right…” Mina said. So the word did mean what I thought it meant. Those wolves are definitely not out of place in this crazy System world. Right after you were in a battle and got a mark burned into you. I can’t even imagine…

Enough Mana accumulated around her hand that the fire ignited, and she began slowly caressing the soup and the bowl with it, heating up all sides as evenly could.

She and James sat in silence for a minute.

Then he spoke again, and his tone was heavier. “I told you about what happened with me and the angel and what Hester passed on from Anansi. What do you think all of this means? I’m just—I wonder if something else, or someone else, is coming after us now. I really thought we were heading off the future threat. I wonder if I just accelerated it instead.”

Mina thought back to what she knew from the Bible. The old legends and myths were all coming true now, in modified forms. The mark that James had described actually reminded her of something from the Book of Genesis.

Is it something like the Mark of Cain?

But she was no biblical scholar. She did not even know what the Mark of Cain meant in the context of the story of Cain and Abel. It was just an idea that had stuck with her—the idea of being branded forever in some way. The sort of concept that made The Scarlet Letter interesting. Only now it was appearing in real life, not just in literature.

“Um, I think the food is warm enough, Mina,” James said, his tone slightly alarmed.

Mina looked down and saw that the soup she had been reheating was bubbling. Boiling hot. And it was just inches away from the bare skin of James’s arm. Even if it probably could not hurt him much now, it made sense that the sight had him a little nervous.

She turned to James and saw he was giving her a quizzical look, obviously wondering what she was thinking. But he didn’t say anything.

Maybe he was too tired to be very curious right now.

Whatever the reason, she was glad he didn’t question her. She didn’t really know any more about what had happened than he did—she probably knew less, because James had at least witnessed what happened directly.

There’s no sense in speculating now, she thought.

“We’ll figure out what the mark is,” Mina said finally. “I was just thinking about that…”

Then she began to spoon soup into his mouth, alternated with sips of Gatorade—both canned soup and Gatorade supplied by their friendly neighborhood Dungeon!—and that brought the conversation to an end.

Mina did not leave until the soup was all eaten, and James seemed to be drifting off to sleep. Only once he was tucked into bed did she get up to check on the rest of the family.

They would talk about this more tomorrow. Tonight, it was time to rest.