Chapter 3 – White Wolf
The sky above was a canvas of ash, thick clouds swollen with unshed snow, shifting and rolling like the sea before a storm. A faint breeze carried the bitter scent of blood, death, and rotting flesh through the ancient forest. The stillness was unnatural—as if the forest itself held its breath.
Beneath that suffocating sky, he lay.
His body sprawled lifelessly across a bed of wet leaves and mud, tangled in rusted chains, soaked in blood. His bare skin was torn open in dozens of places—ripped by stones, scratched by thorny undergrowth, and bitten by the frost. His legs were pale and shredded; his feet were barely distinguishable from raw meat. His back was lashed and bruised, a canvas of brutality. His eyelids fluttered occasionally, but only reflexively. There was no awareness left in him. Just breath.
It was a miracle he still drew air at all.
Around him, twenty wolves circled. Their eyes gleamed like silver under the dim light. Tongues lapped hungrily at their jowls. Their paws padded silently over the muddy ground, weaving around the scattered limbs and torsos of the dead—the remnants of his family. The emperor had made his decree clear: let the beasts finish what the law had started.
The scent of human blood had called the wild, and now they had come.
One wolf growled lowly, lips curling to expose yellowed fangs. Another joined in, the sound rising like a chant. They didn't leap at him immediately, no—this was a game to them. A fresh, broken human, barely alive. Easy prey. Meat that couldn't run. A breathing corpse.
Then the first strike came.
A gray-furred wolf lunged, sinking its teeth into his thigh. There was no scream—only a twitch, a breath escaping from cracked lips. Blood oozed out, black and sluggish. His eyes flickered open for a heartbeat, but all he saw was a blur of fur, shadow, and teeth.
Two more wolves grabbed at his arms, jerking his limbs like rag dolls. The chains rattled as his body shifted, dragged half an inch, then another. Mud filled the wounds. Bones shifted beneath torn skin.
Within seconds, ten of them were upon him.
They clawed at his chest, bit into his sides, tore at his arms and legs. Their hunger made them frenzied, but they didn't kill him outright. They tore to torment. Each bite was a test of his fading life. His flesh was theirs now, and they wanted to savor it.
One of them, a towering black beast, straddled his chest. Its breath was hot and foul as it lowered its muzzle to his neck. A single bite—and it would all be over.
The air suddenly shifted.
A piercing sound echoed through the trees—a deep, reverberating howl, not like the others. It was not hungry. It was commanding. Ancient.
The wolves froze.
The one atop his chest backed away, tail tucked low. Others stopped mid-bite, ears flattening. One by one, they turned toward the sound.
From the mist between the trees emerged a shape.
White. Immense.
The snow began to fall.
It drifted from the sky like ash, gentle and slow. Each flake caught the light in a strange way—glowing faintly blue before melting against the blood-soaked ground. The trees bowed as if in reverence. The very air grew still.
She stepped into the clearing like a ghost made of moonlight.
A wolf—but not a wolf.
Twice the size of the largest among the pack, her fur shimmered like fresh snow, flowing with each movement as if caught in wind that wasn't there. Her eyes were crystalline blue, ancient and intelligent. Not the eyes of a beast. The eyes of a spirit.
A spiritual beast.
A being born from the will of the forest, formed by the Qi of the world, forged through centuries of silent cultivation. In the world of men, only the most powerful sects spoke of such beings—and only in legend. She was real. She was divine.
And she was staring at him.
The wolves lowered their bodies, pressing their heads to the ground. The dominant ones whimpered, backing away. Even the black-furred brute who had nearly ended his life didn't dare meet her gaze. They understood. This was no ordinary predator.
This was their queen.
She stepped closer to the center of the clearing, where he lay.
Half-conscious, barely breathing. Limbs broken. Flesh mangled. Bones shattered. A smear of blood trailing from the edge of the forest to this very point—like a path of suffering carved into the earth.
His eyes fluttered again, catching a glimpse of her silhouette.
To him, it was little more than a white blur. A giant dog? No… a guardian. A hallucination?
He tried to move. Failed.
Tried to breathe deeply. Failed.
He felt... nothing. No pain. No warmth. No fear. Just cold. Endless cold.
Her nose brushed against his face.
She sniffed.
Then, she exhaled—a deep, warm breath of spiritual energy, glowing faintly in the air.
And something within him stirred.
Not his body—his soul.
A warmth flickered in the pit of his belly, faint like a candle in a storm. His heartbeat, which had been slowing to a stop, skipped once. Then again.
She moved her nose across his chest, then to the thick iron chains.
With a single bite, she crunched through the metal as if it were straw. Then another. And another. Chains fell away with soft thuds into the blood-wet leaves.
The pack watched, unmoving.
When the final chain snapped, the spiritual beast stepped back and lifted her head to the sky. She let out a howl—low and mournful, yet fierce and commanding. The sound rolled across the forest like thunder, shaking snow from the trees.
All the wolves echoed it.
A chorus of howls.
A song of submission.
Then silence returned.
Snow continued to fall, covering the blood, the corpses, the clearing. Bit by bit, nature tried to hide the atrocity committed by men. But scars that deep couldn't be buried.
She lay down beside him.
Close enough that her fur brushed against his ruined skin. Her warmth began to seep into his body, not just physically—but through energy. Qi, soft and ancient, enveloped his body, stopping the bleeding. Slowing the decay. Holding death at bay.
He couldn't speak. Couldn't move.
But for the first time in days, he felt something other than pain.
It wasn't hope.
It was a question.
Why?
Why had she saved him?
She had no reason to.
He was no one now.
A discarded heir of a disgraced bloodline. A warning to others. A cursed soul left to rot in the wild.
And yet… she stayed.
All night, as the snow deepened and the forest grew silent, she did not move. Her pack remained at a distance, waiting, watching.
The moon rose high and silver.
And somewhere in that quiet, beneath the layer of ice and death, his broken soul began to stir.