The beast slowly stirred, its body trembling as its shattered facial bones began to reconnect, knitting themselves back together. It tried to pull out the sword with its paw, but the effort was futile. After several attempts, it gave up and sat still and a horrific transformation began. Bones cracked and shifted with snapping sounds as the towering wolf's massive frame began to shrink. The spine curved inward, limbs contorted, the beast's body contracted changing its shape into a human form. Muscles that once bulged with strength thinned and tightened, thick fur fell away in clumps, scattering across the floor. The claws receded into bleeding nail and the elongated jaw folded back into a human face.
The transformation was both painful and mesmerizing. The wolf's sharp ears sank down and rounded, its ruby eyes dulled into weary human ones, but if one looked closely into his eyes, they would notice something unusual— a thin horizontal line running straight to the iris, stretching from the outer edge of the eye. The wild instincts and the rage faded from its gaze, replaced by the flicker of consciousness. At last, where the monstrous wolf had stood, now stood a fragile looking man with trembling legs. He hadn't assumed this form in years. His limbs trembled, unsteady like those of a newborn baby. When he tried to walk, his knees buckled beneath him and he fell down. His skin looked red and wisps of white steam curled up from his wounds as his flesh began to regenerate rapidly, the healing accelerated as his frame got smaller.
Grimacing in pain, he reached for the sword embedded in his ruined eye. His fingers trembled as he gripped the hilt and pulled. A harsh scream came out from his throat, raw and ragged. Tears streamed down his face from his remaining eye as the blade came out of his head. The effort drained what little strength remained in him — he collapsed, motionless onto the cold floor.
When he opened his eye again, three days had passed.
The man jolted awake and instinctively patted his face. His fingers brushed against his eyelid as his eye was completely healed, but the back of his head still felt jelly like as it had still not healed properly. Groaning softly, he pushed himself up and staggered out of the temple.
Outside, some traps were still working as some animals were trapped inside them. Driven by raw hunger, he sank his fangs into the neck of a deer, drinking deeply until warm blood dripped down his chin but his human throat was not habitual of it so he coughed when the blood ran down his throat. Then he tore into the flesh, chewing greedily — but his throat, convulsed and he vomited out the flesh he had chewed. He coughed violently, blood and saliva spilling from his mouth.
He tried to speak, but his tongue moved sluggishly and he failed to speak properly. Forty years had passed since he last took human form; his body had forgotten what it meant to be human, with a long and weary breath, he sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor and closed his eye. Slowly, he began pranayama — the ancient breathing technique.
Pranayama comes from two Sanskrit words: Prana, meaning "life force" or "vital energy," and Ayama, meaning "extension". It is the art of expanding and mastering one's inner life energy. As he inhaled deeply and exhaled in measured rhythm, his trembling body began to steady.
Prana is akin to mana or qi — all represent the unseen energy that flows within living beings, the essence that fuels strength, focus, vitality and just like mana or qi, prana is breathed and cultivated through harmony of mind and body. And as he continued his breathing, faint ripples of warmth spread through his veins and the power slowly started returning to his body. Practicing Pranayama was easy but controlling "Prana" took a lot of knowledge and practice.
Although the area was filled with life as trees and animals were everywhere, but something about it felt… empty as if they lacked vitality, there was no pulse of natural energy. It was as if the land itself had been hollowed out, stripped of its spiritual essence.
And indeed, it was. This was not the natural world, but an isolated dimension—a sealed space crafted long ago by Seraphine, a realm bound by its own laws. Within it, the flow of Shakti, the spiritual energy of existence, was absent. Seraphine had made it this way so no outsider could track the lifeforce inside so even if someone looked from above it looked liked a empty land lacking vitality. After an entire day of deep meditation, the man's frail body regained its strength. His sunken cheeks filled out, his limbs firmed and a faint glimmer returned to his eyes. Without hesitation, he began running— he was running in the opposite side from the village, deeper into the endless forest.
His speed was inhuman, with each leap he covered vast distance, moving like a blur between the trees. But soon, something strange caught his eye—a footprint, almost identical to his own, when he put his foot inside it, his foot fitted. He froze as he understood, he had been running in circles. Realizing this, he slowed his pace and began to study the terrain carefully. Hours passed before he felt a faint chill, a current of cold air coming through the forest unlike everything the air was filled with vitality. Following it, he soon reached a clearing, between it, was a small lake and above it was a fracture in the space, it looked like someone had broken a part of the glass and the air was coming through the crack. Then he remembered the day as he was running away from those wolfs he suddenly hit something and when he opened his eyes again he was inside a lake, he knew immediately this was the boundary, the rift that separated Seraphine's artificial realm from reality. Without a second thought, he stepped back two steps and jumped, vanishing within the crack.
The moment he crossed, the vital energy rushed towards his cells. The air outside was alive with energy so his cells absorbed it greedily, swelling until his body became like a balloon and his cells stretched and he felt unimaginable pain. Blood streamed from his nose, ears and mouth as his veins glowed faintly beneath his skin. The vital energy was too much to contain—his body convulsed and except his left leg, left lung and his heart everything bursted, yet the regeneration of a shapeshifter kicked in. Within moments, his shredded tissues knitted themselves back together, stronger and denser than before.
When his body reformed, he rose slowly. His body hummed with power. He flexed his arms, rolled his shoulders, cracked his jaw, and muttered, as if recalling something long forgotten—
"My name… is Soma"
He spoke the words again and again, until his tongue remembered the rhythm of speech. Soon, his voice flowed naturally. Then, with a feral gleam in his eye, he sprinted forward and leaped mid air he shifted as his bones snapped once again his
muscles thickened, hair burst from everywhere as his skull stretched into a lupine snout. By the time he landed, he was no longer human, but a massive wolf its fur glinting like burnished bronze in the sunlight as it ran across the plains. It was even more larger now, nearly one and a half times his previous size.
After running for four hours without pause, he finally saw an establishment, surrounded by stone walls and guarded by two fierce half-man, half-dog, their spears gleaming under the sun.
"Halt!" one of them barked "State your name and present your gate pass!"
The wolf's body shifted again—bones cracking, sinews twisting—until he stood upright on two legs, an eight-foot-tall werewolf, towering over them. His crimson eyes burned as he spoke in a deep, eerie voice "Call the Jagirdar of this region"
The guards stiffened because the title he uttered with such arrogance was not a trivial one. So it only meant one thing he was someone of higher rank then the Jagirdar.
In the region of shapeshifters, they were governed by a strict hierarchy, Jagirdar was the feudal lord of a region.
Ten Jagirdars, or feudal lords, answered to one Mahant.
Ten Mahants served under a single Maha-Mahant, who reported to their Raja.
Among the Rajas, those who commanded the strongest beast clans bore the title Maharaja, ruling ten Rajas beneath them.
And above even them, the one who ruled over ten Maharajas—was the Maharajadhiraja, second only to the supreme sovereign of all shapeshifters, the Chakravarti Samrat.
And now, after forty years of slumber, Soma—the forgotten wolf, had returned to step back into that world.
Soma was the 17th son of the Maharaja who ruled over the wolf clan.