A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

The village of Warka Daro, located somewhere in the centre of Ethiopia, housed no more than a few hundred people. Prior to the awakening, most of the people living here were poor and subsisting on farming and husbandry. They lived traditional, usually pretty secluded lives.

Now, post-awakening… not much had changed. Although the need for food had significantly diminished since then, they knew no other life and were one of the first to notice that continuing to eat food actually aided your training. So, they still spend most of their time on farming and husbandry.

Cows, pigs, and chickens have remained largely docile creatures, even if they went through their own mutations and strength growth.

Finally, they had no more need to pay taxes, and buying anything from the outside world had become impossible, so they'd become even more isolationist. They knew they were part of the Enkare Nkai kingdom or whatever but barely cared about that.

Even the recent conflict with the Humanitas Sangh hadn't affected them. They knew it existed simply because their so-called rulers insisted on informing them, but it meant little. Or, at least, so it was for their leaders.

Fearful of more change after the awakening, these men and women downplayed the danger they were in to the rest of the village, while telling themselves that 'everything would be fine'. After all, what was the difference, really, between one ruler and the other?

So, most of the people living there spent their days doing menial tasks. The encroaching jungle forced them to maintain their huts, houses, and fields nearly constantly. Meanwhile, a small group of their strongest fighters patrolled the simple wooden palisades to protect the village against beast hordes.

Life in Warka Daro was quintessential for the many small villages throughout the Horn of Africa that refused to integrate into the bigger cities. It wasn't an easy life, but it was a simple one, and many even found happiness in them… at least, when they weren't being attacked by a beast horde.

Even though their leaders always told them that everything would be fine, there was no way they hadn't all noticed how the beast hordes were rapidly becoming more powerful in a way that outpaced their own strength growth.

For them, this day started like any other before... but little did they know everything would change today.

Just as the sun was creeping upwards towards its mid-day position, a powerful roar shook Warka Daro to its core. From child to elder, from farmer to guard, they all felt their legs wobble, and their knees buckle at the power and pressure that suddenly descended on their little village.

"Wha— What the hell was that?!" one guard cried out in a panic. His grip on the spear in his hands tightened, but he felt like no weapon was strong enough to resist the owner of that roar. "That didn't sound like any second-ranked beast I've ever heard before!"@@novelbin@@

"H— Hell, if I know!" another responded, his wide eyes staring into the jungle outside the edge of their perimeter. Slowly, his head panned to the left and right. He didn't even know where to look! That roar had felt like it came from everywhere!

"D—Daddy!" A frightened voice echoed behind them, making one of their hearts constrict. "W—What was that?!"

Woodenly, one of them turned around to look at his twelve-year-old daughter, holding a simple lunch in her hands. Just seconds ago, she'd been happily skipping along the muddy, rooty road to bring her father some food when that roar made her heart skip a beat.

"I— It's alright, baby," the man cried, quickly trying to shoo her away. "G— Go back to your mother, alright?! Daddy and his friends will keep you safe like always!"

The young girl's hands trembled, but she managed to nod, her eyes wide in fright. Slowly, she started to turn around… only to freeze at the last moment. "D—Daddy! W—What is that?!" she screamed, dropping the food in her hands as she pointed at the forest's edge.

Quickly snapping his head around again, the guard's heart skipped a beat. Next to him, his comrade reacted no differently. Shocked, he couldn't stop his feet from retreating a step.

There, at the edge of the forest, they could see a massive claw partially wrapping itself around an oversized tree from behind. The forest's darkness prevented them from clearly seeing the body this claw was attached to, but it was nearly two and a half meters tall, stood on its hind legs, and possessed two amber eyes glowing with a fear-inducing light.

Then, it took a step forward. Growling softly and anomalistically, it entered the deforested area around Warka Daro, revealing the full majesty of its terrifying, beastly form.

Standing tall on two legs, its elongated body bore the unmistakable musculature of a predator, yet its posture was strangely unnatural, as though its bones did not quite fit within its own skin. That skin, a patchwork of rough, bark-like plating and patches of sickly pale fur, rippled and shifted subtly as it moved.

Its arms were grotesquely long, each ending in three talon-like fingers that twitched with unnatural precision. The massive claw that had first revealed its presence flexed idly, the blackened nails reflecting the light like dull steel.

But it was the head that stole their breath away.

It had the general shape of a stag's skull, elongated and sharp, yet the bone was fused with flesh, as though nature had failed to decide whether it was meant to be alive or dead.

Thick, sinewy tendrils hung from its jaw like half-formed whiskers, moving slightly even in the still air. And from its brow, twisted, gnarled antlers stretched outward like the roots of an ancient tree, their tips adorned with tattered remnants of skin—not its own, but something else's.

Those amber eyes, burning with an intelligence that did not belong in something so primal, flicked between them. Then, with an eerie, clicking growl that echoed between a feline's purr and the rustling of dead leaves, it took another step forward.

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The guards were frozen in fear as they felt a kind of power ebb of this creature that they'd never felt before. A power that exceeded even these two second-rankers.

The father gulped as his eyes were locked onto the creature. "B—Baby…? G— Go back to your mother…"