The forest was too quiet.
Not the peaceful quiet of rustling leaves and sleeping animals — but the hollow, suffocating stillness that comes when every living thing decides to hide at once.
Even the wind refused to move.
Greybridge lay behind Ethan and his party, faint lantern lights glowing through the deepening twilight. The Black-Eye Pack Commander had disappeared into that same darkness, leaving only its trail — broad, deep pawprints and a chilling warning.
Ethan exhaled slowly, adjusting the straps of his gear.
Tonight wouldn't be about fighting.
Tonight was about understanding.
If something existed in the forest capable of frightening a Black-Eye Commander… Ethan had to find it first.
---
The Hunt Begins
"Reyes, you take rear guard," Ethan said quietly. "Jiro, left flank. Aoi stays with me."
Harlan snorted. "And what am I? The camp mascot?"
"You're the only one with enough instinct to spot ambush points," Ethan replied.
"Right flank."
Harlan grumbled, but obeyed.
They followed the Commander's tracks deeper into the woods.
The air thickened.
The trees grew twisted, like they'd shifted direction in past storms but never corrected themselves. Moss clung to the bark like veins. Every sound — snapping twigs, crunching soil — echoed too loudly.
Aoi whispered, "Ethan… your aura is fluctuating."
She wasn't wrong.
His instincts, strengthened by multiple node fusions and the recent wolf-resonance awakening, were pulling at him in two directions:
Follow the Commander.
Flee the unknown presence.
But the Panel inside him remained steady, a silent pulse forcing clarity.
NEW ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITION DETECTED
"Predator Fog" — Supernatural Field Effect
Cause: Unknown
Effect: Suppresses weak auras; amplifies apex instincts; destabilizes low-tier creatures.
So that's why the forest was empty.
Everything weaker had fled before sunset.
Everything smarter was hiding.
Everything more dangerous… stayed awake.
---
Signs of a Struggle
"Track changes here," Jiro murmured, crouching low.
Ethan stepped beside him.
The Commander's prints had become more erratic — deeper impressions here, clawed scrapes there. Large tufts of black fur stuck to brambles. A swath of bushes had been flattened entirely.
Reyes touched a crushed branch. "Something attacked it?"
"Not attacked," Ethan corrected. "Intercepted."
Harlan squinted. "What's the difference?"
"An attack is an ambush. An interception means the creature expected it — waited for it — and then blocked its path intentionally."
Aoi's voice tightened. "Meaning the unknown threat wasn't fleeing the Commander… it was hunting it."
A heavy realization hung in the air.
Whatever scared the Commander… hunted it.
---
Wolf Instinct Unleashed
Ethan closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.
At first, all he sensed was cold moisture and dead leaves.
Then deeper. Past scent. Past sound. Past human perception.
Past the flesh.
Into the instinct layer.
His wolf-awareness awoke sharply, almost violently. A wave of pressure expanded outward from his body — invisible but palpable. Jiro staggered back a step.
"Boss— your aura…!"
It wasn't intentional.
It was instinctive.
A latent Alpha pulse rolled off Ethan's skin, probing the forest like a sonar wave. Every tree, every fragment of earth, every lingering energy signature resonated through him.
He felt the Commander's path.
He felt where the predator fog thickened.
And he felt something else…
A second presence.
Moving ahead of them.
Large. Heavy. Cold.
Too cold.
A humanoid shape.
Not wolf.
Not beast.
Not human.
Something in-between.
Something wrong.
Ethan opened his eyes, breath trembling.
The aura receded.
"We're not alone."
---
The Shadow Trail
They pushed deeper.
The terrain changed again: the soil became muddy, like fresh rain had soaked the ground here but nowhere else. Strange claw-marks carved the earth in wide arcs — not wolf-shaped, not human-shaped, but elongated, almost skeletal.
Reyes shivered. "What kind of creature makes prints like—"
A sudden, sharp sound cut through the night.
Not a howl.
Not a roar.
A metallic ringing.
As if something scraped bone against stone.
Ethan raised a hand. Everyone froze.
The ringing repeated — distant but moving.
Not echoing.
Tracking.
Aoi leaned closer, voice trembling for the first time. "Ethan… this isn't a forest creature."
"No," he whispered. "This is something else. Something that doesn't belong here."
The Panel flickered again:
FIRST CONTACT WARNING
Unknown Entity Type: "[REDACTED]"
Aura Classification: Not Beast / Not Human / Not Lycan
Behavioral Pattern: Pursuit of apex fauna
The fact that the Panel could not classify it at all made Ethan's skin crawl.
---
The Final Clue
At last, they reached the place where the Commander had stopped.
A clearing — unnaturally circular.
The trees around it had been sheared cleanly at chest height. Not cut. Not broken.
Sheared.
As if something had sliced them with impossible precision.
A black smear stained the ground — blood thicker than human, still faintly steaming.
The Commander's blood.
Aoi knelt beside it. "It's still fresh… whatever happened, it wasn't long ago."
Jiro's eyes narrowed. "So where's the body?"
Ethan stepped into the center of the clearing.
And froze.
Because in the very middle, carved deep into the mud by something like a clawed hand, was a symbol:
A circle.
Split by a vertical line.
With three smaller crescents branching off.
Ethan didn't recognize it — but his instincts recoiled violently from it.
Like prey recognizing the scent of an apex predator.
A wave of nausea rolled through him.
Aoi stumbled back. Harlan cursed under his breath.
Reyes whispered, "This… isn't a pack. This is something organized."
Ethan stared at the symbol.
He didn't blink.
Because just beyond the clearing, half-hidden in the fog, he saw them:
Black footprints. Human-shaped. Barefoot. Too deep. Too heavy.
Leading away… dragging something enormous behind them.
The Commander had been taken.
Not killed.
Taken.
Ethan's jaw clenched until his teeth hurt.
"So this is the enemy," he whispered. "This is who scared a Black-Eye Commander."
He turned to his group.
"We're tracking them. All of them. And we're not stopping."
Aoi's voice shook. "Ethan… this enemy—"
"—will not walk into our world unchallenged," he growled softly.
"Not while I'm here."