Chapter 125: The Ultimatum [Bonus Chapter]
The Grizzly was severely wounded, bleeding heavily from its knee, its armpit, and its snout but it was far from dead.
Driven into a frenzy of pain and rage, the monster locked its remaining good eye onto Elara.
It ignored the swordswoman and charged the archer.
"Hey, come back!"
Elara didn’t panic.
She stood her ground on the rock, calmly pulling another arrow from her quiver.
’Like Fenna taught me...’
Elara tracked the bouncing uneven gait of the charging beast. She didn’t aim for the chest as she instead aimed for the tiny dark target of its remaining eye.
She drew the string to her cheek.
She exhaled.
THWIP!
The arrow flew true. It punched cleanly through the soft tissue of the bear’s eye socket, sinking deep into the skull.
The Grizzly’s brain scrambled.
The massive monster let out a garbled wet choking sound, its front legs collapsing underneath its immense weight.
The bear crashed face-first into the mud, sliding forward from its own momentum, tearing a deep trench in the earth as it skidded to a halt just ten feet away from the archer.
It tried to push itself back up with its claws scraping uselessly against the bedrock but Vala wasn’t going to give it the chance.
The swordswoman sprinted across the clearing.
She didn’t slow down as she reached the downed beast.
"Get over here!" She planted her boot directly onto the bear’s massive bone-plated shoulder, using the monster’s own body as a stepping stool to launch herself into the air.
At the apex of her jump, Vala poured every single drop of her remaining non-elemental mana into her shortsword.
The blade flared with a brilliant blinding white hum as she brought the sword down in a devastating two-handed vertical strike, driving the humming steel directly into the back of the Grizzly’s thick neck, aiming straight for the gap in the cervical vertebrae.
The steel crunched through bone and severed the spinal cord.
The massive Blood-Mane Grizzly went completely limp. Its heavy head slammed back into the mud with a wet thud, and it stopped moving entirely.
Total silence fell over the bloody clearing, broken only by the ragged panting of the two junior recruits.
Vala stood on the back of the dead bear, her hands trembling as she slowly pulled her sword free from the monster’s neck.
She looked across the mud at Elara. The archer lowered her bow, offering a tired shaky grin.
"Weapons down!" Reina’s voice rang out from the ridge above. "Keep your hands open and away from your hilts!"
Vala immediately sheathed her shortsword, sliding off the bear’s corpse.
Elara slung her bow over her shoulder. Both girls raised their empty hands, making sure they didn’t look like a threat to the terrified wolves huddled near the cave.
Up on the embankment, the rest of the squad stood up from the ferns.
They slid down the muddy slope with boots hitting the basin floor.
Brida walked with a wide grin of pure pride on her face, while Silas led the girls, his own dark sword securely sheathed at his hip.
Silas walked straight past the dead Grizzly, stopping in front of the two sweating, exhausted junior girls.
"Flawless footwork, Vala," Silas praised her genuinely with his deep voice carrying a tone of approval. "You didn’t fight the weight of the beast, rather you redirected it. Morwenna’s lessons paid off... That was top-tier combat."
Vala’s chest puffed out, a massive, proud smile breaking through the mud and sweat on her face. "Thank you, Lord Graves!"
Silas turned his head with his golden-ringed eyes shifting to the young archer. He offered Elara a slow amused smirk.
"And for the record, Elara," Silas said dryly, crossing his arms over his armored chest. "It’s very good to know that my scouts are guarding my territorial assets with such fierce dedicated enthusiasm."
Elara’s face instantly turned the color of a ripe tomato.
The adrenaline of the fight crashed, leaving her standing in front of her Lord after publicly screaming a degenerate joke about another girl’s backside belonging to him.
"I... I was just trying to draw aggro, My Lord!" Elara stammered, frantically waving her hands while Brida cackled loudly in the background. "It was a taunt! I swear!"
"It worked," Silas chuckled, letting her off the hook. He turned his attention away from the junior girls and looked toward the far side of the clearing.
The real test was just beginning.
Reina stepped forward, moving slowly and deliberately past the squad.
The Alpha male Umbral Wolf was lying in the mud, its chest heaving with shallow agonizing breaths.
Its ribs were completely shattered, its left eye swollen shut, and dark blood pooled beneath its torn flank.
Despite its fatal injuries, the massive beast tried to raise its head as Reina approached, letting out a weak defensive snarl.
Over by the cave, the females tensed, baring their teeth, ready to fight to the death if the humans took one more step toward the pups.
Reina didn’t draw a weapon. She didn’t carry a whip or a heavy chain.
She slowly sank down to her knees in the wet mud, making herself look as small and unthreatening as physically possible. She held her bare hands out with palms facing upward.
She tapped deep into her Beast Tamer class skills, projecting a dense aura of pure empathetic calm across the clearing.
"Easy," Reina spoke softly.
She didn’t use harsh grunts or clicks.
She spoke in clear, calm human language, letting the magical resonance of her voice convey her intent. "We aren’t here for your den. The bear is dead and the hunt is over. We aren’t going to hurt your family."
The Alpha’s ears twitched. The fierce, desperate snarling slowly faded into a low rumbling growl of pure exhaustion, though its one good eye remained locked onto her with heavy suspicion.
While Reina held the Alpha’s attention, Silas moved.
He didn’t walk toward the Alpha or the females. He walked in a wide, slow arc around the edge of the clearing, heading straight for the rocky cliff face where the younger brother wolf was lying motionless in a pile of bloody rubble.
The Alpha realized what the Lord was doing.
It tried to snap its jaws, struggling to push itself up from the mud to defend its brother, but its shattered ribs gave out.
The massive wolf collapsed back into the dirt, watching helplessly as the tall human approached its kin.
Silas reached the younger wolf. The beast was barely breathing, its back leg twisted at a horrifying unnatural angle.
Silas didn’t hesitate. He dropped to one knee beside the dying monster as he pulled off his heavy leather right glove, exposing his bare skin.
He placed his open palm directly onto the wolf’s blood-soaked flank.
The Alpha let out a desperate warning bark but Silas ignored it. He focused his mind, drawing power from the very center of his Gold Core and funneling it straight into the back of his right hand.
The Genesis Rune burned to life.
A brilliant blinding array of complex green lines and geometric shapes ignited across Silas’s knuckles.
In the blink of an eye, a massive flood of pure, warm, life-giving green light poured out of the rune and washed completely over the shattered body of the young wolf.
The magic was immediate and miraculous.
The sickening sound of bones snapping back into proper alignment echoed softly through the clearing.
The deep lacerations across the wolf’s fur physically knit themselves back together, closing up without leaving a single scar.
The twisted back leg straightened out, the tendons reattaching and strengthening under the green glow.
In less than five seconds, the young wolf’s shallow breathing deepened into strong healthy lungfuls of air.
The green light faded, leaving the clearing in dim shadows once again.
The young male wolf’s eyes snapped open. It let out a startled yelp, scrambling to its feet.
It didn’t limp or bleed. Instead it stood perfectly upright on all four legs, looking down at its own body in pure canine confusion.
The Alpha stared at its brother, completely stunned.
The female wolves near the cave stopped snarling entirely, their ears perking up in disbelief.
"See?" Reina continued her calm soothing dialogue, keeping her hands open toward the Alpha. "We didn’t come to kill... You fought hard and you protected your pack but you don’t have to fight like this anymore."
She slowly stood up from the mud, keeping her movements smooth and predictable.
"You don’t have to bleed for scraps in the dark," Reina told the dying pack leader. "Our territory has walls... It has warmth... It has stone to sleep on during the rain and we have premium meat."
She turned her head slightly and gave Silas a sharp nod.
Silas understood the assignment. He tapped his Warlord interface, opening his Lord Inventory.
He didn’t pull out the raw bloody cuts of monster meat he normally carried for the forge.
He definitely didn’t pull out Umbral Wolf meat either.
He selected the premium, high-quality roasted boar flanks that Kaalia had prepared back in the Keep’s kitchen.
With a flash of golden pixels, four massive steaming slabs of perfectly cooked, rich, savory boar meat materialized in Silas’s hands.
The incredible smell of roasted fat and spices instantly flooded the damp clearing, completely overpowering the stench of the dead bear.
Silas took two steps forward and tossed the heavy slabs of meat gently onto the flat, clean rocks near the center of the clearing, well within reach of the females.
For a long moment, nobody moved.
The wolves stared at the cooked meat, their noses twitching violently as the rich scent hit their starving senses.
Slowly, cautiously, one of the massive female wolves crept away from the cave entrance.
She kept her belly low to the ground with her eyes darting between Silas and Brida, expecting a trap to snap shut at any second.
She reached the rock and she sniffed the roasted boar flank.
Her hunger overrode her caution. She opened her jaws, grabbing the massive chunk of meat but she didn’t eat it herself.
She clamped her teeth around the edge of the slab, turned around, and dragged the heavy prize straight back to the cave entrance, dropping it right in front of the three tiny, trembling black pups.
The smell of the food was too much for the babies to resist.
The three tiny pups scrambled out from behind their mother’s legs, their tails tucked between their legs.
They took two bites of the roasted boar before they realized something infinitely more interesting was standing just a few feet away.
The pups completely ignored the food... They turned their heads, their tiny noses sniffing the air, and locked onto Silas.
To the shock of the entire Vanguard squad, the three tiny Umbral Wolf pups abandoned the safety of their den.
They waddled aggressively across the muddy clearing on their oversized paws, walking straight past the terrifying commander and the Arcanist, heading directly for the Lord.
Silas blinked in surprise as the three pups reached his boots.
They didn’t act like wild monsters. They acted like eager puppies. One of them immediately started chewing happily on the tough leather of his bootlaces, while the other two stood on their hind legs, whining softly and pawing at his dark canvas trousers, begging for attention.
Silas couldn’t help it.
A soft genuine smile broke across his face.
He knelt down in the mud, reaching into his inventory to pull out a few smaller, bite-sized scraps of roasted meat.
He held his hand out flat, letting the tiny apex predators happily lick the food right off his bare palm.
"Look at them," Vala cooed from the background, completely melting at the sight as she and Elara crept closer to help hand out small scraps to the babies.
Reina watched the interaction, thoroughly baffled.
’Why are the pups so attracted to him?’ Reina wondered, rubbing her forehead. ’He’s a massive armored Warlord holding a sword... He should be terrifying to them. Does he project some kind of overwhelming alpha aura that overrides their natural fear instincts?’
Whatever the reason, the sight of the Lord gently feeding the babies was the final definitive proof the pack needed to realize the humans were not a threat.
The females relaxed their posture, stepping out to claim the rest of the meat. The younger brother trotted over to join them, eating hungrily.
Reina turned her full attention back to the bleeding, shattered Alpha male lying in the dirt.
It was time for the ultimatum.
"We are going back to our sanctuary now," Reina spoke clearly, her voice ringing with the final authority of a Master Beast Tamer.
She didn’t issue a threat but instead she offered a choice.
"You can come with us. If you do, your wounds will heal. Your mate will be safe and your pups will never starve again."
