The jungle darkened as if the world itself held its breath.
A shadow tore through the thicket—it didn't walk, it advanced like a contained hurricane, like a penumbra thirsty for blood.
The panic wasn't a rumor: it was a silent scream that embedded itself in everyone's chest.
Every soul there knew it instantly. Something had arrived that didn't belong to their world. Something they shouldn't see, nor face.
Kraven.
The name fell like lead in the minds of those present.
The cruelest. The most merciless. The Monarch General, the highest rank in the entire Imperial Army only after the Supreme Commander himself. A dream killer.
Behind him, two figures escorted him like shadows: his Monarch Captain and his Lieutenant, faces of silent death.
Kraven walked among them like a war god, ignoring their paralyzed gazes, ignoring their trembling. His every step was an unspoken death sentence.
He stopped exactly between Atahualpa and Ocelotl.
The air seemed to break under his mere presence.
With a slow, almost elegant movement, his sword emerged from his gauntlet:
a blade of rusty red titanochrome, like a fragment torn from some forgotten hell. His armor, forged and tempered in blood, reflected cruel glints.
His eyes shone with cold madness as he fixed his gaze on Atahualpa.
He smiled. A demented, soulless smile.
And then, without warning, he pierced Atahualpa's stomach with his sword.
The young warrior let out a heart-wrenching scream, desperately grabbing the blade with both hands, trying to stop the mortal advance.
Blood gushed in torrents, sliding between his fingers lacerated by the relentless edge.
Ocelotl, staggering but still alive, tried to defend his rival.
With a defiant roar, he grabbed Kraven's shoulder…
Fatal mistake.
In a single blink, Kraven created a nanotechnology dagger, a crimson flash emerging from his wrist.
Without mercy, he plunged it into Ocelotl's neck.
The dagger disintegrated at the same time as his life.
Ocelotl's body fell to its knees, and then face-first, inert, devoured by the hungry earth.
Atahualpa, gasping, groaning with fury and pain, spat his rage:
"Damn you!" he growled, trembling, the sword still piercing his belly.
Meanwhile, in the Celestial Gardens Stadium, horror crossed the transmission screens.
Tiberius stood up abruptly, his chair rumbling as it fell.
His face, a mask of fury.
"This is enough, it's no longer an exam!" he roared.
He looked at Aurelius with a dry order:
"Summon the other Monarch Generals!"
"Understood," Aurelius responded, worried about his granddaughter but disappearing immediately.
Tiberius didn't stop. His furious gaze fell on Rhygar:
"You… summon the Seraphim who are still loyal to the empire."
"Understood, sir," Rhygar murmured, before vanishing like a gale.
Back in Amazonia, terror had taken form.
No one dared move. The ground itself seemed to creak under the weight of fear.
The aspirants' eyes were frozen in a mixture of dread and hopelessness.
And then, Makia acted.
She disappeared from the great wolf's back with a sonic snap.
A blink in the air.
"Sonic Blink! Shoc—!" she shouted, her attack still forming.
She didn't finish.
In a movement so fast that not even the air could follow it, Kraven caught her by the neck mid-flight.
Held like a rag doll, Makia kicked, struggling in vain against the crushing force that immobilized her.
This wasn't like facing a normal enemy.
It wasn't even like the brutality Ian had faced.
This time they were before one of the Ten.
One of the Empire's ten war titans.
A Monarch General.
And in Kraven's cold gaze, Makia saw the truth:
Here, mercy didn't exist.
Here, only death reigned.
In the Celestial Gardens stadium again, the silence was unreal.
Alistair Bekkart stood up abruptly.
For a second, his heart seemed to stop.
On the gigantic floating screen that dominated the coliseum's sky, the image was clear, brutal, intolerable:
Makia—his daughter, his girl, his warrior—held by the neck as if she were nothing more than a dry leaf between a monster's fingers.
Kraven.
The crimson demon.
The imperial assassin.
Alistair couldn't breathe.
"Damn Kraven!" he whispered, fists trembling.
All the portals were closed.
No one in the Celestial Gardens could pass through those barriers while the exam was in progress.
He was trapped.
And his daughter was dying.
Inside the very hell they called Amazonia, things broke even more.
Over the jungle's overcast skies, holographic screens lit up one after another, projecting the horror live.
Every aspirant could see it.
In the middle of their journey, Ian was laughing with Tezca, the two joking. For a moment, everything was light.
But then he looked up.
And saw it.
The image of Makia, hanging in the air like a corpse, strangled by Kraven.
The laughter died on his face.
His eyes widened like plates.
His heart seemed to be crushed by an invisible fist.
The color drained from his skin.
Ian didn't scream. Didn't cry. Didn't curse.
He simply… went out.
An instant of breaking.
An instant where his soul cracked.
His sister.
His best friend.
The person he loved most in all existence…
Was being murdered.
And he could do nothing.
Miles away, Kael and Aelius also saw it.
Both stopped dead when the screen floated above their heads.
The sounds of the jungle… everything disappeared.
Only that image existed.
Makia dying.
Kael almost fell to his knees.
Aelius trembled.
At the scene, the three-eyed wolf roared with primitive fury.
With brutal speed, it turned on its paws and charged directly at Kraven.
It leaped.
Its fangs sought to tear apart the assassin, but Kraven, without even looking, spun his bloody titanochrome sword with a single movement.
The blade tore through the creature's chest, opening it like paper.
The beast fell heavily, emitting a howl of pain that split the soul.
It was still alive… barely.
Writhing on the ground, like a wounded dog, breathing with difficulty.
Makia, still hanging by the neck, looked at it with clouded eyes.
"I'm sorry…" she whispered, with a tear falling. "Forgive me…"
And then, something happened.
The entire jungle changed.
The air vibrated with an ancient rhythm.
The trees began to creak.
The earth trembled.
The leaves whispered in a forgotten tongue.
And suddenly…
the drums were heard.
They weren't real.
They weren't played with hands.
It was the jungle itself dreaming, roaring from its roots, resonating in every living being.
The drums grew.
Boom… Boom… Boom-BOOM.
The ancestral echo of the jungle that never died.
In the distance, among the treetops, savage chants began to rise.
Guttural. Powerful. Sacred.
And then… they emerged.
From the thickets, from the shadows, from the trees…
came the beasts.
Giant apes, with intelligent eyes, wielding weapons made of bone and stone.
Creatures that looked human but with blue skin as well.
An army of the jungle.
An army unconsciously summoned by Makia.
Not with words.
With her pain. With her bond. With her blood.
The Children of Instinct needed no orders.
Their mission was one:
Protect Makia.
At all costs.
And from the skies to the roots, Amazonia roared.