Silver-leaved branches stuck out like ghost fingers in the dark of the Forbidden Forest.
The cold in the wolf world never felt friendly.
There was always a smell of old blood and leftover black energy hanging in the air.
Tonight, the silence of that cursed place got completely destroyed by heavy, rushed footsteps crashing through the trees.
A tall, broad soldier jumped over a giant root tangled across the ground.
His silver chest armor, the sign of his rank as captain of the palace elite guards, was now broken into pieces.
Torn cloth soaked with blood covered his torso.
His name was Vane, the right hand and the best tracker prince Caleb ever had before that bloody coup night shattered everything.
“You can’t run forever, Vane!!!” a heavy voice echoed from above the trees, full of threat.
“COME AND CATCH ME YOURSELF IF YOU GOT ANY COURAGE, JAREK!!!” Vane shouted loud, keeping his legs moving through the thorny bushes.
“Courage?” Jarek replied coldly, dropping from a tree branch, landing right five meters in front of Vane’s path.
“Courage isn’t the problem for us who control the palace now.” “Control the palace?” Vane forced his steps backward, the toe of his boot screeching hard on the wet ground.
“You’re just a pack of thieves who used the chaos!” Behind Jarek, four other soldiers in pitch-black armor slowly appeared from the fog, surrounding Vane from every side with weapons ready.
“Call us whatever you want, Old Grey,” Jarek asked mockingly, spinning his big axe casually.
“Now tell me, where are the rest of those loyalist rats hiding?” “They’re in a place your rotten nose will never reach!” Vane answered, breath ragged, jaw locked tight.
“You’ll never find them!” “Too bad,” Jarek huffed, staring down at the torn wound on Vane’s left shoulder.
“I wanted to send your heads together to the new ruler as a gift.” “YOU TRAITOROUS PIECE OF FLESH DOESN’T EVEN DESERVE TO SAY THE WORD RULER!!!” Vane growled low, his fangs starting to lengthen from the rising anger.
“He is not the ruler!” “The ruler is the one who sits on the throne, Vane,” Jarek replied with a very mocking tone.
“Not your prince who ran away like a scared dog into the dark!” “Prince Caleb did not run, Jarek!” Vane said, trying hard to hide the unbearable pain in his left arm.
“He will come back and chew off all your heads!!!” “Caleb is dead in that dimension gap a few months ago, Vane!” Jarek argued, stepping forward one by one, slowly closing the distance.
“ACCEPT THE TRUTH THAT YOUR GREAT MASTER IS NOW JUST ASH!!!” “If he really died, then why are you still so scared?” Vane replied with a mocking, provoking smile.
“Why do you still look so shaky every time his name is spoken, huh?!” “ENOUGH WITH YOUR TALK!!!” Jarek shouted, his jaw locking instantly from rage.
The leader of the hunting squad signaled his men with a short hand wave, ordering them to end this argument with blood right now.
“KILL HIM RIGHT NOW!!!” Jarek commanded, his voice suddenly turning cold and sharp.
“BRING HIS HEAD TO ME!!!” “Come on, all of you!” Vane challenged loudly, pulling out his cracked short sword, the handle already damaged.
“Show me how traitors fight!!!” Two black-armored soldiers jumped at him at the same time, aiming their spears straight at Vane’s chest.
“Die, cursed guard!” the first soldier shouted, thrusting his spear.
With fighting instincts trained for decades, Vane tilted his body, letting the first spear tip pass only inches from his skin before he swung his sword.
Crack!
The wooden shaft of that weapon broke in half.
“Is that all the power of your new elite squad?!” Vane yelled, using his right leg to kick the second soldier’s face so hard he crashed onto the ground.
“So disgusting!” “DON’T GET COCKY YET, OLD GREY!!!” the first soldier, weapon broken, shouted angrily, trying to grab Vane’s neck with bare claws.
“Feel this!” “You’re too slow to touch me,” Vane said coldly, stabbing his short blade into the gap of his enemy’s armor at the shoulder without mercy.
“AGHHH!!!” The soldier screamed in pain before collapsing, clutching his wound that kept bleeding fresh blood.
But that small victory came with a huge cost for Vane.
Thud!
A heavy hit from the back of Jarek’s big axe landed straight on Vane’s back.
“Ugh!” Vane groaned badly.
His body was thrown forward and crashed hard against the trunk of a silver pine tree.
“Nice show, but your stamina is gone, Vane,” Jarek murmured, standing proudly above Vane’s body now lying on the ground.
“You already lost.” “I…
I’m not finished yet!!!” Vane spat hot, trying to gather the last of his spiritual energy to stand again, even though his vision was already blurring.
“Look at you!
Your left arm is already turning black from the darkness curse!” Jarek mocked harshly, stepping on Vane’s right wrist that still held the sword.
“WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT TO SHOW OFF, HAH?!” “AAAKKKHHH!!!” Vane screamed in pain as his wrist bones felt like they were crushed by Jarek’s iron boot.
His short sword slipped away, rolling toward a shallow ditch right behind their fighting spot.
Vane glanced down into the ditch, seeing at the bottom of that small valley the legendary remains of an ancient stone circle.
“Why are you looking down there?” Jarek asked coldly, raising his axe high into the air, ready to slam it into Vane’s neck.
“Do you think you can survive if you jump?!” “At least I won’t die at the hands of a pet dog traitor like you!!!” Vane answered with the last strength in his voice.
“Your death is still the same, dishonorable,” Jarek said coldly, preparing to swing his axe down.
“Die now!!!” “NO WAY!!!” Vane shouted desperate.
With a very fast move, Vane dragged Jarek’s leg using his whole body weight, making the balance of that big armored man wobble for a few seconds.
“You’re crazy, Vane!
What the hell are you doing?!” Jarek shouted panicked as his body tilted.
Using that short moment, Vane twisted his body toward the ditch.
“See you in hell, Jarek!” Vane called before letting himself fall free into the darkness of the ditch behind them.
“SILENTH!!!
HE JUMPED INTO THE ANCIENT ALTAR!!!” Jarek shouted panicked from the cliff edge, watching Vane’s body slide down into the valley.
“Should we go down to check his corpse, Sir?” one of the remaining soldiers asked doubtfully, staring terrified into the ditch.
“COME DOWN FROM THE SIDE PATH NOW!!!” Jarek ordered, his face filled with deep fear.
“DON’T LET HIM TOUCH THOSE STONES!!!
FAST!!!” THUD!
Vane crashed hard onto the ground covered with purple moss.
Unbearable pain spread through his whole nervous system, making his ribs feel broken in several places.
“Cough…
Prince…” Vane breathed, fresh blood coming out from the corner of his lips.
He crawled painfully, dragging his body toward the center of the ancient stone circle standing tall in the night fog of the valley.
“If you are still breathing somewhere…
please give me a path tonight,” Vane whispered softly, almost inaudible, pressing his right palm, soaked with blood, onto the symbol carved on the main stone.
“Listen to your servant…” Fresh blood from the pure bloodline of that tracker wolf instantly soaked into the ancient stone grooves, triggering a huge dimension energy reaction.
Whoosh!
A silver-purple light that had been dead for hundreds years suddenly roared, creating a high-pressure wind vortex so loud in the middle of the stone circle.
“STOP HIM!!!
DON’T LET THAT ANCIENT ENERGY VORTEX OPEN FULLY!!!” Jarek shouted from a few meters away, finally reaching the valley bottom with his men after running around.
“Too late, Jarek!” Vane shouted loud, his body slowly lifting from the ground because of a strong magnetic pull.
“This energy won’t be stopped by that stupid axe of yours!!!” “You’re crazy, Vane!
You’ll be thrown into the void and become meat fragments!!!” Jarek warned panicked, not daring to step closer because the wind pressure was too extreme.
“Come back!!” “I’d rather die broken into pieces in the void than live and kneel in front of cowardly traitors like you!!!” Vane replied loudly, his voice competing with the howling wind that got even wilder.
In the middle of that blinding light vortex, Vane’s wolf senses suddenly caught something very strange.
Between the thick scent of ancient energy, there was a faint smell of wet pine and earth herbal medicine, very weak but very familiar to him.
‘This scent…
You’re alive, Prince?!
You’re actually alive?!’ Vane screamed inside his mind, emotional, his teary eyes widening in the icy wind.
He deliberately shut his lips tight, not letting a single word escape so the enemies in front of him wouldn’t smell this truth.
“What the hell are you even doing?!
GIVE UP RIGHT NOW!!!” Jarek shouted, trying to throw a flying dagger, but the weapon turned into ash before it even touched the energy circle.
“Damn!” “Tell your traitorous leader that the stolen throne will never last long!!!” Vane shouted for the last time to Jarek, giving a victory-filled, mysterious smile.
“NO, VANEEE!!!” Jarek screamed panicked.
With one huge energy surge, Vane’s body was fully sucked into the center of the silver-purple light opening wide in the middle of the altar.
The next second, a silent pure energy explosion happened, destroying all remains of that ancient stone structure into shapeless ruins scattered on the valley floor.
“FUCK!!!
THIS PLACE IS NOW COMPLETELY GONE!!!” Jarek spat harshly, brushing the dust covering his armored face after everything became quiet again.
“Damn, damn, damn!” “Do…
do we have to report this to the central palace, Sir?” his soldier asked, body still shaking from fear after seeing that energy power.
“What about Vane?” “Of course we have to report!
But tell them Vane died and was destroyed in the vortex with no trace so we won’t be seen careless and sentenced to death!!!” Jarek decided frustrated, turning to leave that cursed valley.
“Anyway, he already followed his dead, ashed prince!
Let’s go from this damn place!” Meanwhile, in a very distant dimension slice, the calm of Earth’s pine forest was suddenly disturbed by a very strange natural phenomenon.
The cold from last night’s storm, felt by Valerie and Caleb in the cave, now shifted into a sudden unstable outer atmosphere roar.
The clear night sky without clouds suddenly split by a single silver-purple lightning bolt striking straight down into an open area near the stone hill slope.
BOOM!
A huge body was thrown out from a suddenly cracked air gap, crashing into the thorny bushes with a loud boom before stopping on the wet ground.
The air crack closed instantly in a blink, leaving Earth’s cold night silence and a burnt smell from the ground hit by dimension energy.
Vane lay still among dry leaves, breath coming out very short and broken.
His whole skin was now covered with new burn marks from the friction of the void atmosphere that almost tore his soul into small pieces.
But the cold he felt here was very different from the cursed cold of his world.
“Where…
where have I been thrown?” Vane whispered very weakly, his fingers moving slowly to feel the texture of Earth’s unfamiliar grass.
“Am I already dead…?” He tried moving his nose once more, ignoring the huge pain in his head that kept pounding hard from the heavy impact earlier.
The night air around this place felt very pure, clean from the black energy contamination of that tyrant palace.
And what made his heart beat fastest was, the unique scent of Prince Caleb he smelled earlier, now felt thousands of times thicker and closer around this stone hill area.
“This scent…
the Prince is here…” Vane murmured softly, his eyes shaking as he stared into the forest darkness ahead.
“The Alpha power scent is behind this hill!
I didn’t smell wrong!” The extreme pain instantly attacked all of his joints as he tried to move, making him fall again, face crashing into the cold wet ground.
“Argh…” Vane groaned soft, realizing his energy capacity had reached zero and his wounds were starting to get badly infected because of exposure to this new world.
His awareness slowly started to fade into pure darkness, but his mind focus stayed locked on the direction of his master’s scent not far from where he lay.
“Prince Caleb…I…must tell you this news…” Vane whispered for the last time before his eyes truly closed tight, losing all consciousness under the quiet Earth pine tree shade.
“Wait for me…” The moonlight that night shone on the dying soldier’s body, the early sign of a new storm that would soon hit the quiet life Caleb and Valerie had built in the hidden stone cave for the last few months.
The destiny once broken in the other world had now found its path again through the blood sacrifice of a loyal tracker.