The fortress of the Ice Fang Order towered over the city like an eternal guardian. Its walls were cube-shaped and made of reinforced stone and steel. According to her father, countless weapons and defenses slumbered within the walls, ready to unleash their apocalyptic wrath in times of need, but Aranea herself never saw any of them. Only a smooth surface reflecting the moonlight rose behind her. How could protection emerge from that?

  Around the fortress spread a city full of many houses where Normies, unaltered humans, lived. Currently, there were only a few idle revelers on the streets, as most people were either in taverns or sleeping soundly after their daily shifts. That suited Aranea just fine. Darkness was no hindrance to her vision.

  She turned left from the gates and walked down the road, passing through the slums, the poorest part of the city. From there, she walked to an abandoned area where factories once stood. The Order no longer had a need for these obsolete, air-polluting boxes. Thanks to the technology that Wyrm Lord had brought in through trade with Iterna, the new manufacturing and assembly pnts operated cleanly and safely, without polluting the surrounding areas or endangering the workers. Or at least this was what Dad had told her. Smiling, Aranea lifted her paw to the sky and ‘grasped’ the distant moon disk with her palm. There was so much to see and learn in the world!

  Pretty soon, Aranea stumbled across a small group of white-furred Wolfkin cubs. The elders of the Order did not like it when Aranea bothered older kids, as the elders considered Aranea to be too young. Thus, everyone had to meet in secret.

  “What took you so long!?” one of the boys asked.

  Wide-eyed Keyl, an Ice Fang, snatched Aranea into a hug. He was five years older and tried his best to impress the girl with his physical prowess, but no matter how hard the boy tried, they were simply built differently. Aranea was already taller than him; she barely felt his embrace. The boy was carrying two wooden swords strapped to his back.

  “So, uhm… about the st time.” Keyl touched the back of his head. “I understand if you never want to duel me again…”

  “Dummy!” Aranea ughed and bonked him jokingly on the head with her paw. “It was just a bruise! Who cares about it?”

  “Oh…” the boy said, visibly relieved. He knelt on one knee and offered her a sword, as if he were some kind of knight. “Then, Lady Aranea Wintersong, will you please accept this humble challenge of mine on this beautiful night?”

  “Keyl, we want to py,” said a girl nearby, throwing a bck and white soccer ball in the air and catching it on her ankle. “You’re just going to lose again. Get over it and stop bothering Ari. We all lose sometimes.”

  Football was something of a new thing in the Ice Fang Order. Keyl saw it on TV, on one of the recorded programs brought back from Iterna. He showed it to Aranea, and together they built a small stadium in an abandoned warehouse. Instead of real goals, they used steel pipes, and instead of nets—ropes. Surprisingly, it was easy enough to buy a soccer ball at the market, although Keyl had to spend his entire birthday savings on this toy. Eventually, other kids joined the duo. The original soccer ball was long gone, but now that their group was slowly growing, it was easier than ever to purchase a new one to repce the destroyed one.

  “I gdly accept this challenge, good sir!” Aranea boastfully grabbed a wooden sword and jumped a few steps back. She took no stance. Not against Keyl. He demonstrated her several impressive tricks, but facing him, she never saw any reason to be careful. It’s not like he was going to poke her eye out!

  Keyl stood up, taking the wooden sword with both hands and raising it to the height of his head, aiming the tip directly at Aranea’s chest. Gripping the hilt tightly with both paws, he moved the sword slightly to the right of his head and thrust. Aranea blinked in surprise. Normally, Keyl stuck to the “sshing” attacks. But this was a “piercing” motion, and he wielded his weapon like a spear. He covered most of the distance with a single lunge. His left paw released the sword hilt, and his right paw moved back, holding only the lower part of the hilt with three fingers and pushing his weapon forward.

  This motion almost caught Aranea off guard because she had anticipated him to close the distance with a few measured steps rather than a single dash. She tilted her body to the right to avoid the wooden bde. It passed next to her chest… And then Keyl grabbed his weapon with the full grip of his right paw and sshed to the right. She enviously admitted that he executed the move perfectly, easily redirecting his strike and seamlessly changing from one type of attack to another. Aranea had never seen such a technique from him before. She should have been hit.

  And yet he was just so slow! Aranea leaned back, nearly falling ft, as Keyl’s sword arced over her head. In this very instance, while falling, she struck forward with her weapon. Using her own wooden sword as a needle, she poked the boy on the wrist, and Keyl hissed in annoyance. Aranea arrested her fall by flexing her leg muscles; her hair barely touched the ground.

  “Touch! Ari wins again!” The Wolfkin girl with the soccer ball ughed and cpped her paws in congratution.

  “Damn it all!” Keyl shouted in frustration, helping Aranea to her feet before she could fall and hit the stones. He ensured she was standing and broke his weapon on the knee. “I train and train until my bones crack; every night my muscles ache from the strain, and this! This is the best I can do?!”

  “Don’t you worry, Keyli-boy!” Aranea patted him jokingly on the head with her paw. “One day you will beat me up…”

  “If only I too had the cursed barbarian blood in my veins!” Keyl tossed the broken remains of his weapon away.

  “What?” Aranea asked, confused. Barbarian? What could he mean?

  “If only I had the same blood as you!” Keyl threw his arms up in anger, breathing fast from irritation. Aranea felt bad for him. He really trained hard without skipping a single lesson. But it wasn’t her fault that she was strong, right? “Or if you never had this accursed, tainted blood in you! Then I would never have lost to you! You’re a dirty-blooded cheater—damn it, a cheater from the cursed bloodline! The savage legacy of your mother is giving you an advantage too great for me to overcome! I’ve honed this move over and over again, and you don’t even practice, don’t even want to train, and still make a weakling out of me! The cursed blood of your savage mother is the only reason why…”

  “My mother is not a savage!” Aranea screamed, pushing him back. Keyl fell on his ass, blinking in surprise. Aranea blinked, equally surprised by the sudden outburst. Everything inside her screamed to go on. She wanted to close her jaws on the soft neck of this worthless male and bleed him. Who did this male think he was? How dare he insult a female... The girl shook off the sudden aggression and hurried to help him to his feet, unsure of what had come over her. “Sorry. But my mother is not a savage! She’s... she’s caring, there’s no curse on her.… she’s a nurse!!” Aranea felt tears wetting her fur. Was that what Keyl always thought of her? That she was a savage girl? A spawn with tainted blood?

  “Not cool, Keyl,” a Wolfkin boy said. “I never won against Ari myself either, and yet you don’t see me raving like a madman about it.” The Wolfkin girl dropped the soccer ball and moved to hug Aranea, but the girl pushed her away and stepped back.

  “I… I do not feel like pying today; sorry everyone.” Aranea mumbled, ashamed of her behavior. Not only did she make everyone pity her, but she also cried like a complete buffoon! She’ll never live this one down.

  “Ari…” Keyl dropped to his knees. “Please, I never intended… I do not know what came over me. I am sorry, so sor…”

  Aranea could not listen anymore. She could hear Keyl and a few others trying to catch up, but she was much faster than them. She ran into a building, almost leaped over the broken stairs to the second floor, jumped out the nearest window, evading the broken gss lodged in the frame, nded softly on all fours, rolled once, and ran through the bushes to the slums.

  “Cursed blood,” she muttered angrily as she reached the slums. “I’ll show you cursed blood. Mom is not cursed; she’s… no longer a warrior, that’s it!” Aranea wiped tears from her eyes. She was unsure what had caused such a reaction in her. The cubs always bantered. It was part of the game. Aranea taunted Keyl, and he teased her back... so why did it hurt so much?

  I am dumb. There was no harm done. She decided. She will apologize to Keyl tomorrow. The poor idiot was probably bming himself right now. Maybe I should buy him something? But where will I get the tokens?

  She came to a halt near a small stone bridge after hearing a whimper underneath. It was the deep sound of someone in immense pain, yet trying their best not to reveal themselves. Without thinking, Aranea jumped down.

  A small river ran under the bridge; the water was clean and reflected the light of the moon. Something—no, someone—y in the dark. It had an enormous body and pale, almost white skin with no fur or hair. Countless scars and cuts covered the misshapen figure; some were oozing blood that hissed upon contacting the ground, as if a weak acid ran through the veins of this strange being. A small, fat-looking tail protruded from the center of its back. Strange-looking, three-fingered, cwed hands gripped its head, covering short ears. The creature had a single blue eye and a single white eye, and tears flowed from them in an unceasing stream. The shape of the skull resembled that of a Wolfkin, but the creature was so much bigger! And the rest of its body was... strange.

  “Are… are you alright, mister?” Aranea asked as the creature whined again. The girl was unsure if this was a man; she made an assumption based on the sound of whining. “I’ll call for help right away. Please don’t move! Everything will be fine!” She yelled, hearing the familiar work of the joints of power armor coming from afar.

  The creature looked at her, and an unspeakable horror in his eyes shook Aranea. There was a short, crescent-shaped scar under his left eye. He lifted his arms from his head and whispered, “Run. For the sake of everything, run! Run fast before he comes back….”

  Aranea wanted to ask who “he” was, but suddenly she felt a sting at the back of her neck. She wanted to jump, but her body refused to obey. She had become a statue, numbness running through her now wooden limbs.

  “Who comes back? Me?” asked a cheerful male voice, and the creature clutched his head, whimpering in terror. “Grug, mind introducing me to your new friend?”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” the creature mumbled repeatedly, trying hard not to gnce at the person behind Aranea.

  Something slithered. Aranea’s eyes widened as she noticed a long metallic tendril moving across the ground. The thing reached Grug, and a thin bde popped out of it, slicing through the flesh of the beast’s back and burrowing under the skin, causing Grug to scream in pain as his skin was peeled away. The metal appendage kept traversing under the skin like an ugly, ravenous parasitic worm in search of sustenance.

  “I asked a question, pet,” the voice said, this time with a hint of anger. “And since your power prevents me from easily extracting information from your thick skull, speak up. Pretty please.”

  Grug shook with his entire body at the st word and began to babble very quickly, “I just met her. She is only a child. Please let her go, please, please…” He made no attempt to defend himself while the tendril went to his shoulder bde and cracked the flesh open there. He only whimpered once more, begging the strange man to let go of Aranea.

  “Well, let’s have a look at her.” Someone grabbed Aranea by her shoulder, turning her around. A smiling face of the Normie hung above her. He had bck hair and wore a sand-colored cloak over his shoulders with a crimson shirt visible underneath. The whites of his eyes were pitch bck, while his pupils glowed green. The tousled bck hair formed a widow’s peak on the man’s forehead. “Lookie here! A half-breed! You must be that Aranea girl I heard so much about. Such curious eyes indeed.” Another mechanical tendril appeared above the man’s head. “Can’t wait to see how you react when I take them out.”

  Take them out? Aranea thought in horror. This must be a joke, right? She tried to move, but all she could do was look at the smiling face before her.

  “Hands off, Academician,” said a zy voice, and hope spread in Aranea. “You already got what you wanted. This cub is mine. I still have a use for her.”

  “Oh, come on, Tilden!” Academician turned away from Aranea. “It’s just one more kid. You sold me six tonight. Let me take seven back to the b. You no longer even need her anymore. The fool will charge into the trap on his own now…”

  “I need her to deal with her bitch of a mother,” the voice yawned. “The deaths of my dear allies will be for naught if Kaisa gets her paws on me. I want to ensure that their noble sacrifice won’t be in vain. Don’t you want the same? So kindly fuck off before we make you. I am taking her with me.”

  “Make me?” Academician whispered, as if in disbelief. Another mechanical tendril rose into the air, and Aranea was horrified to see several cubs, children of the Ice Fang Order, sleeping in a gss cage currently held by the tendril. “Am I sensing an iota of threat here, friend?” The tentacle carelessly tossed the cage for someone to catch. The voice of Academician had changed; unmistakable aggression seeped into the previously cheerful voice.

  “Sir, we really ought to depart.” A woman’s voice said. She sounded tired, like she was dealing with a petunt child. “You procured what you desired. Tilden will get his due, and hopefully we can continue our fruitful operations…”

  “Be silent, please, dear,” Academician told the woman, facing Aranea. “Sorry, but I will have to leave you as a human. Not to worry, I will give you a nudge towards ascension.” He lifted the girl and whispered into her ear, “Everything that will happen to your family from this moment on is your fault alone. Whatever transpires will come to pass because you are too weak to stop the will of another. Live with it.” He flung Aranea into the air like a doll.

  Her body was spinning when someone caught her by the nape. The white-furred Wolfkin of the Ice Fang Order was holding her. A long gold chain adorned his neck, partially hidden behind the gorget, and he wore light blue power armor painted in the orange of the Summerspring House on his chest and the backs of his arms. He was bareheaded, revealing a bored-looking face with a single scar over his eye. He held Aranea in one paw and pointed a high-caliber autocannon mounted in his vambrace at Academician with the other. Several other Wolfkins stood guard behind him, their paws on the hilts of their swords.

  “Thank you for your cooperation, Academician. The tragic passing of my dear comrades will now serve a greater cause. One that will benefit both of us if you continue to see me as a viable partner and treat me with the befitting respect.” The Wolfkin smiled arrogantly.

  Academician stood in front of the Wolfkins, smiling with barely contained rage. Several mechanical tendrils protruded from the vastness of his cloak; one was currently opening up Grug’s spine, causing the rge being to cry from pain. A green-haired young woman in an austere green business suit stood beside the man, holding the gss cage with the sleeping cubs in the crook of her arm.

  “Well, if you wish to complete our transaction at the stiputed amount, we will leave this hospitable pce.” Academician smiled thinly, and a rge bck oval appeared in the air behind Grug with a soft hiss. After a second, Aranea could see a rge white room inside, filled with light and medical equipment. “A word of advice. Don’t lose your head, Tilden. You are not half as smart as you think you are,” Academician chuckled, turning around and walking through the portal with Grug and the woman.

  “Sack of shit,” Tilden said calmly into the closing portal.

  “C.. cu…cubs! R… resc…” Aranea forced out desperately.

  “Worry about yourself.”

  He threw the girl up, and she felt a blow to the back of her head. Everything went bck after that.