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The four felines that had managed to escape Eldoria tore through the eastern forest at full speed. They were not fleeing blindly; they were returning to their refuge.
Deep within the forest, protected by a thick mist and black rocks infused with mana, the rest of the pack awaited them. And atop the highest peak overlooking the clearing, standing over the corpses of the local wildlife, their true master awaited them.
The Alpha Leader.
A colossal creature, far larger and more powerful than the A-Omega that had fallen at the fortress. Its presence made the air vibrate, while mana flowed around its jet-black fur in dense, heavy waves.
The four survivors immediately prostrated themselves before it, emitting low growls that conveyed the failure of the incursion and the death of the beast that had led the attack.
The Alpha Leader showed no anger.
It simply raised its head and sniffed the wind.
This part of the forest was their new territory. They had migrated from the frozen northern lands in search of the stream of energy emanating from beneath the earth, and their goal was to claim the entire region as their own.
Until then, they had encountered nothing but lesser beasts, which they devoured with ease.
The Alpha stepped forward and released a deep, guttural roar that set the entire pack into motion.
It was time to explore the boundaries of their new domain.
They advanced through the trees, moving like coordinated shadows across a carpet of ash and dead leaves.
However, when they reached the edge of the forest, the leader came to an abrupt halt.
Its senses had detected something it had never encountered before.
A few dozen yards away, standing on two legs, clad in gleaming metal and radiating a form of magic that did not belong to the wild, stood strange creatures.
The pack leader regarded them with curiosity... and absolute disdain.
For the first time since arriving in the south, they had encountered humans.
Far away, Dayana descended a frost-covered slope.
She stopped.
Not because she had heard something.
Because she had felt it.
She closed her eyes.
To Dayana, the forest was not darkness.
It was life.
Blood painted the world around her. She could sense the small animals hiding among the roots, the creatures sleeping beneath the earth, and the bodies of predators moving through the woodland. Every heartbeat was a point of warmth; every body, a signal.
And those signals had become strange.
Far too strange.
Dayana slowly opened her eyes.
—This...
She had followed the A-Omega's trail from Eldoria, expecting to find an injured creature, a monster hiding somewhere after surviving the battle.
But the forest was showing her something entirely different.
There were too many.
Dozens.
Then hundreds.
And they were not scattered throughout the forest.
They were moving together.
Coordinated.
She advanced several yards before closing her eyes again. The presences appeared before her like patches of heat suspended in the darkness: small ones, large ones, some enormous.
All of them were moving in the same direction.
Deeper into the forest.
Dayana frowned.
It was familiar.
Far too familiar.
She had witnessed something similar in the lands where she used to live.
First came the anomalies: beasts growing faster than normal, predators abandoning their usual hunting grounds, and creatures beginning to attack in groups.
Then came the mutations.
Some beasts altered their behavior. Others developed abilities they should never have possessed. And the strongest began driving the others from their territories.
This was not a normal migration.
The entire ecosystem was changing.
The surge in mana was pushing the creatures beyond their natural boundaries.
Dayana opened her eyes.
—It's happening again...
She continued forward, but this time at a much slower pace.
She didn't need to get closer.
She didn't need to see.
She only needed to feel.
She closed her eyes once more.
The forest projected itself into her mind again: the small creatures, the predators, the pack.
She began counting.
Ten.
Twenty.
Fifty...
More.
Her expression hardened.
—How many are there...?
Then she sensed something.
A presence that did not fit with any of the others.
It wasn't simply larger.
It was fundamentally different.
Dayana became completely still.
The creature was far away.
Very far away.
But its blood...
Its blood was like a bonfire in the middle of a snow-covered field.
No.
Not a bonfire.
A raging inferno.
Her eyes snapped open.
—...
For the first time since beginning her search, the vampire's smile disappeared.
She took one step back.
Then another.
Not because she had been discovered.
But because she had just realized something far worse.
That was not the A-Omega.
It wasn't even close.
She closed her eyes again, attempting to gauge the creature's scale, but she couldn't.
The amount of blood she could sense was absurd.
Its body had to be enormous, but that alone did not explain the oppressive density weighing down the surroundings.
The concentration of mana was so abnormal that it made the other monsters seem like insignificant points of heat surrounding a raging bonfire.
And then she understood.
The creature was not alone.
Dozens of others were gathered around that central presence, moving according to the same pattern.
They stopped when he stopped.
They advanced when he advanced.
Dayana slowly opened her eyes.
—A leader...
But even that word was inadequate.
She had encountered powerful, dominant monsters before.
This was different.
That creature was not merely surviving the surge in mana.
It was adapting to it.
And the entire pack was evolving alongside it.
Dayana took another step back.
She was not going any closer.
Not this time.
She could fight one creature.
She could even face several.
But venturing alone into territory like this would be madness.
And Dayana was many things.
Stupid was not one of them.
She looked south, toward Eldoria.
—The A-Omega...
Now she understood what had happened.
The creature that attacked the fortress had never been the leader.
It wasn't even the most dangerous creature in the area.
It had simply been one of the first predators bold enough to cross the boundary.
A scout.
The vanguard.
Dayana pressed her lips together as memories of the past returned to her: beasts fleeing their territories, weaker specimens being driven toward inhabited regions, stronger ones claiming new domains, and evolution accelerating at an alarming pace.
It was happening again.
The eastern forest was not being invaded.
It was being occupied.
She began retreating without taking her eyes off the darkness.
—I have to warn them.
The presence remained there.
Immense.
Motionless.
Watching from somewhere among the trees.
Dayana did not wait to discover whether the beast could sense her presence.
She turned around and vanished into the shadows.
Far in the distance, a deep roar shook the mountain peaks.
It was not a cry of hunger.
It was a declaration of territory.
The forest had a new master.
And Eldoria had just entered its hunting grounds.
Dayana quickened her pace, her fists tightening.
—The monster in Eldoria wasn't the threat...
She glanced back one final time.
—They were scouts.