???
[Idalia's Stats]
Age: 6 Moon Cycles
(Development: Lvl 14)
[Raw Values]
STR: 80 [+52]
DEF: 30 [+3]
FPWR: 30
WIL: 50 [+24]
RES: 27
SPD: 28 [+3]
??? ??? ???
[Accumalated Particles]:
{37,100 | 50,000}
Spent = [-8200 Particles]
Distributable = [371 Points]
??? ??? ???
Three. Seven. One. A number too big. Nonetheless, she needed to allocate her points to the right stats. But the urge—wanting to bite into beef, or rather, needing to invest them all into strength—felt impossible to resist. Could she make the right decision?
Focus, Ida! Focus. She concentrated intently on the Firepower value because she needed much more of it for her significant Microrex evolution. So, she allocated [130] points to it. In that moment, her chest swelled with power, making her feel as though she could breathe fire from her mouth.
She exhaled. Alas, she still could not.
Yet the runes glimmered, and within seconds, she was presented with a visible update to her status as she fed [81] points to {RES} and [100] to {WIL}. It completed the set, and she licked her lips in satisfaction at her surge of growth.
[Allocating Points]
- RES +81
- WIL +100
- FPWR +130
- New Values:
RES: 108 [+81]
WIL: 150 [+124]
FPWR: 160 [+130]
- Distributable = [60 Points]
"Kelix," she murmured, eyes still on the far-off lights of the island base that [Spatial Sight] captured. "You never told me why we're even going there. All this sneaking and biting and burning. What for?"
Kelix didn't answer right away. His strokes didn't falter, but she noticed the muscles in his arms tighten a little. The oar dipped deeper. A small splash marked the moment he thought too long.
"You said there's someone strong there," Idalia pressed. "The orange-mana one. The dangerous one. You want him, right?"
"Right," Kelix said finally, his voice low, almost lost to the waves. "The Colonel."
"Colonel?" Idalia tilted her head. The word sounded heavy, formal—like Hunt Captain. "That's one of your Wanderan words again, isn't it?"
"It is," Kelix said. "Means… a commander. Someone who gives orders. Someone who makes others do the killing for them."
"So you want to bite him too?" she asked, hopeful.
Kelix's jaw tensed; his next stroke came down harder, sending a spray of silver droplets into the air. "No. I don't want to bite him."
Idalia's eyes searched his stern face, a low growl rolling in her throat. "Then you want to hunt him. Take him down as prey."
Kelix didn't deny it.
"Why?" she demanded. Her tail twitched, the end curling like a question mark. "You always tell me not to eat for revenge. You said it makes your heart rot. So why do you want to hunt him?"
Kelix exhaled through his nose. The sound was quiet but full of heat, like the air before lightning strikes. He stopped rowing. The boat drifted, caught by the lazy pulling of the tide. He looked out toward the island. Its silhouette was sharp now—turrets, watchlights, the faint droning hum of machinery and spell-forges.
"Because he deserves it," Kelix said at last.
Idalia blinked. "That's not an answer. You sound like me when I say the rhinos deserved to be eaten."
He laughed once, but no humor in it. "Fair point."
"Then why?" she pressed, leaning closer. "Did he steal something? Besides burning your nest and taking your pride?"
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Kelix's hand tightened on the oar until it crackled with faint sparks. "He took everything," he said, voice flat. "My unit. My brothers. The city we swore to protect. All of it. Even her…"
Idalia tilted her head, her voice softer now. "You mean… your Pride?"
He glanced at her. For a moment, he almost smiled. "Something like that."
She studied him, curious. His eyes—amber shot with faint blue—looked different now, like storm glass about to shatter. "What did he do?"
"He betrayed us," Kelix said simply. "Sold our positions to the Wanderan High Command. We were supposed to hold the gate at Saphyra. Instead, he sent artillery down on our own men. Hundreds burned alive before they even drew blades. I saw them fall. Saw them turn to dust before my eyes."
The words came like lightning, quick, cutting, and final.
Idalia didn't interrupt. She could feel the tremor in his voice. The same kind of tremor she'd heard once from an elder when speaking of losing their mate to predators. It was not merely anger; it was a deep ache that never healed, only grew more intense.
Kelix's gaze stayed fixed on the island, where faint lights blinked along the docks. "After my Nanna fell. He made sure I lived, though. Wanted someone to tell the story. Said it'd make a better warning if one of us crawled back alive."
"That's cruel," Idalia said, and her voice rumbled with something like sympathy.
"It's strategy," Kelix corrected. "Cruelty's only a tool to him."
The silence after that was heavy enough to sink the skiff. The only sound was the sea sighing against the hull and the quiet, electric hum around Kelix's shoulders.
"So that's why you're going there? To make him stop breathing?"
Kelix's eyes flicked toward her. "To make him remember first," he said softly. "Then stop breathing."
Idalia nodded slowly. That made sense. She would've done the same if someone had hurt her Pride. But still…
"You told me monsters eat and forget. But you're remembering too much. Isn't that the same kind of rot?"
Kelix froze. The faint static in the air sputtered out. He didn't have a ready answer.
She tilted her head, curious. "Maybe that's why you taste bad? You're full of burnt memories."
That earned a laugh. It wasn't a happy one, but it was real. "Maybe you're right."
"Of course I'm right," she puffed her chest out proudly. "I'm smart. And my nose knows everything."
Kelix smiled faintly, then dipped the oar back into the water. "Then keep that nose sharp, Ida. When we reach that island, it'll smell like blood and smoke. I need you to find the Colonel before his men find us."
Idalia's eyes glowed brighter. "You'll let me help?"
"I'll need you to," Kelix said. His voice was calm again, but something dangerous coiled beneath it. "You find him. I'll handle the rest."
She tilted her head. "Handle? You mean—"
"I mean he dies. No tricks. No prisoners. Just lightning." The way he said it made the hairs on her neck rise.
Idalia looked back toward the island. The base loomed closer now—searchlights sweeping, towers glinting like teeth. The smell of oil and hot metal reached her even over the salt.
She licked her lips, uneasy but curious. "What if he's stronger than you?"
Kelix didn't look away from the horizon. "Then you'll have to avenge me," he said simply.
Her eyes widened. "You mean—me? Like Pride duty?"
"Exactly," he said, smirking. "Just… don't eat me afterward."
Idalia snorted, flicking seawater at him with her tail. "You're safe. You taste terrible."
Kelix laughed again, a low static sound that almost melted into the sea wind. The skiff drifted onward, closer and closer to the island's dark docks. The lights grew brighter. The hum of machinery turned into the rhythmic clang of drills and marching feet. Somewhere, a distant alarm echoed—muted by the waves, not meant for them yet.
Kelix lifted his head, eyes lidding. "We're close. Get ready to use your Sight again, Ida."
Idalia licked the air, letting her [Spatial Sight] flicker awake. The colors of the world unfolded around her like ripples in glass—heat signatures, heartbeats, flickers of breath and motion. The island base glowed alive: hundreds of green and yellow auras moving in rigid lines.
And there, near the center—deep in the heart of the fortress—burned one orange aura. It pulsed steady and cold, like molten stone in a cage.
"I found him," Idalia whispered. Her voice trembled with awe and dread. "He feels… tremendous. Like he's watching everything, even when he's still."
Kelix's grip on the oars tightened, his eyes reflecting lightning.
"Good. Keep him marked. That's our storm's eye."
The skiff cut the last stretch of sea. The tide carried them straight toward the shadow of the dock where their revenge awaited; alive, armored, and unsuspecting.
???
The skiff bumped against the dock with a muffled thunk. Kelix's hand shot out, catching the mooring post before the hull could knock again.
Idalia searched their area. The docks were shadow and salt; lamplight glimmered far up the ramp where armored silhouettes marched their midnight patrol.
She crouched low beside him, nostrils flaring as she sniffed the wind. "Kelix they smell wrong," she whispered. "Metal and something… sour. Like rot that learned how to walk."
Kelix gave a curt nod. "Mercenaries. They use alchemic stimulants. Keeps them alert. Shortens their lives."
"Then I'll shorten them more," Idalia murmured, fangs bared.
"Not yet," Kelix said. He looked toward the farthest tower where the walls of the fortress rose in tiers of black stone, studded with runic pylons that pulsed faintly red. "We need to get inside before the dawn shifts the guards."
They moved. Quiet—though "quiet" was a relative term when one of them was half-grown and full of spatial rumbles. Idalia's tail scraped once against a crate, sending a puff of dust into the air, but the sound was lost beneath the steady crash of waves.
The base loomed larger with each step: narrow streets between storage sheds, stacked barrels of spellfuel, mechanical cranes whining as their chains swayed in the night wind. The whole place hummed with trapped energy.
Kelix raised his hand. "Hold."
Idalia froze mid-step.
From ahead came the soft click of armor. Then a flicker of gold light as a soldier's torch swung around the corner. Three of them—mercenaries in black steel, their armor carved with angular runes that drank the light instead of reflecting it.
Behind them lumbered a pair of tamed beasts: thick, low-bodied things with four eyes and mouths full of iron teeth. Their hide shimmered with molten veins.
"Molten hounds," Kelix whispered. "They smell blood from a mile away. We move fast or not at all."
"I choose fast!" Idalia grinned.
Kelix didn't have time to stop her. She shot forward like a storm uncoiled, claws striking sparks off the cobblestones. Her roar split the air, a sound too large for the space it filled. The soldiers barely managed to raise their weapons before she slammed into the nearest hound, her [Claw Rend] cutting across its neck.
Kelix followed a blink later—lightning flaring from his hands, arcing in web-like strands that danced across the soldier's armor. The smell of ozone and smoke filled the corridor.
The second hound lunged; he ducked under its snapping jaws, then drove his lightning rod straight into its chest. The crackling surge lit the dockfront like a storm flash.
Idalia was already on her second kill, biting down hard enough to snap bone and mana alike. The taste of molten hide burned her tongue, but it was satisfying.
Her status updated in real time. She smiled at the sight.
[Power Particles: 6000 → 11,200 Units]
"Next time," Kelix said through the crackle of static, "try not to announce us to the entire base."
"They would've smelled us anyway," Idalia huffed, licking her chops. "At least now we have room to move."
He sighed, not bothering to argue. The alarm was already blaring, and bells clanged somewhere deep within the fortress.
Kelix broke into a sprint and hurled a lightning bolt at a nearby tower.
"Change of plan," he said as the tower collapsed. "We fight our way through."
11 chapters ahead [or 5 weeks of reading time ahead of RR]. Have a good one!