The statue glowed brightly.
The elder's eyes widened.
She hadn't expected this.
The frequency coming off the boy was absurdly high.
For a moment, she genuinely thought her senses were deceiving her.
Meanwhile, James still had his eyes closed.
He was trying to find his aura.
He had used it multiple times before, but every single time it had happened on instinct. It was never something he consciously activated.
Usually, it only surfaced when his life was in immediate danger.
Still, he remembered the feeling.
That warm pressure surrounding his body.
It felt strangely similar to the sensation he'd experienced when the animals spoke to him about Gaia.
Selene's words replayed in his mind.
"Let me give you a foundational explanation. Every single living being in existence possesses an aura. Think of it as a unique spiritual frequency that your soul radiates outward. When a soul is born into the physical realm, Mother Nature imprints a specific baseline onto it. A human aura is the absolute foundation—the neutral canvas, if you will."
James focused on one specific sentence.
"When a soul is born into the physical realm, Mother Nature imprints a specific baseline onto it."
Mother Nature.
Nature itself.
He deliberately ignored every other possibility.
Artificial souls.
Abnormal creations.
Anything that existed outside the natural order.
None of that mattered.
Then something clicked.
Wait... that's it.
If nature was the one that placed it there...
Then maybe nature was also the key to reaching it.
James took a slow breath.
Then another.
His muscles relaxed.
His heartbeat slowed.
Completely unaware of the aura beginning to seep from his body.
Deeper.
And deeper.
He pushed his awareness inward, pulling back the curtain of his own mind.
Reaching toward the deepest corner of his psyche.
The world shifted.
Suddenly, he was standing in a beautiful garden.
James blinked.
He recognized it immediately.
It was the exact same garden from his dream.
The lake.
The flowers.
The moonlight.
Everything.
The only difference was the figure standing before him.
A massive beast.
Twelve feet tall.
Watching him.
James slowly looked up.
The creature snarled.
Rows of fangs flashed beneath the moonlight.
Power rolled off it in suffocating waves.
James felt his instincts screaming.
This thing could crush every bone in his body without effort.
He could feel it.
This beast was stronger than any form he had transformed into so far.
Far stronger.
Maybe ten times stronger than his last transformation.
It was hard to tell.
James still didn't know where his actual limits were.
But one thing was obvious.
This creature stood at the top of the food chain.
Its physique was massive without being bulky.
Lean.
Efficient.
Built entirely for violence.
Dark black fur covered its body.
Four sets of massive canines gleamed beneath the moonlight.
Brown eyes stared down at him with unsettling intelligence.
Its claws were fully extended.
Six inches of razor-sharp talons capable of carving through steel like paper.
For several seconds, James simply stared.
Then a grin slowly appeared on his face.
"Majestic."
The word escaped before he could stop it.
For years he had been obsessed with werewolves.
Read about them.
Watched movies.
Played games.
And now one stood right in front of him.
Or rather...
Considering he was a werewolf now...
This was him.
His inner beast.
His wolf.
James slowly reached out.
Wanting to touch it.
Wanting to see if it was real.
The moment his fingers made contact—
The world flipped.
One second he was standing.
The next, he was staring upward.
Confused.
Huh?
Something felt wrong.
Then he saw it.
His body.
Still standing several feet away.
Headless.
Blood erupted from the severed neck in violent streams.
James slowly looked up.
The beast stood over him.
Its jaws were dripping with blood.
His blood.
The wolf stared down at him.
Completely expressionless.
One massive foot rose into the air.
And came down.
CRUNCH
Everything went black.
GASP!
James's eyes snapped open.
His entire body jerked violently.
Both hands immediately flew to his neck.
Then his face.
Then the top of his head.
Checking.
Verifying.
Making sure everything was still attached.
His heart hammered inside his chest.
For several long seconds, he simply sat there breathing heavily.
Then relief washed over him.
"Oh thank God..."
He grabbed his face again just to make sure.
"My head's still there."
He blinked rapidly, his eyes slowly adjusting to the light that was now flooding them. His head hurt like a motherfucker.
Looking up, he noticed Talia standing near him with a deep frown on her face. A thin layer of aura visibly covered her body.
As his gaze drifted further, he saw that Mira also had a thin layer of aura radiating around herself.
Even Caius had it, though his energy also enveloped the book he was reading, as if he was actively shielding that shit.
James, however, could not see whatever it was they were seeing.
"Hey there," he said wryly, completely unsure of how to make the scene any less awkward.
Talia seemed to snap out of her musing, her gaze turning sharply to him. "The hell was that?"
James wore a wry look, scratching the back of his head. "I… did what you said and went deeper.
Wasn't that what I was supposed to do?" Without context, the wording sounded outrageous.
"Yeah, I know I said that," Talia frowned, racking her brain. "But that does not lead to that. Sure, I told you to look deeper..."
"That's a lot of power you got there, newbie," Mira interjected.
She clearly didn't give a fuck about the logistics; the concept of the Fade was just growing bigger and bigger in her mind—especially after what she had just witnessed.
"Thank you, I guess." He really didn't know how to respond to that.
"I didn't know you would bring out your inner beast," Mira added.
James raised an eyebrow. Huh? "Bring him out?" He was confused. It was all just in his mind, wasn't it?
Talia pondered for a moment before demanding, "Tell me exactly where the hell you were in there."
James thought for a second. "In where?"
"Your mind, dumbass," she retorted. Her annoyance was clearly evident, though it didn't seem directed at him so much as at herself.
Why is she annoyed at herself? James thought, but he decided to shove those thoughts to the back of his mind for now. Seeing her curious look, he decided to spill the details.
Maybe they could actually help him.
"Well, I was inside a garden. It had bamboo trees around it, a lake... I could hear the sound of cascading water.
The water looked crystal clear, the air felt incredibly fresh. It literally looked like I was in the middle of a hidden garden.
" James paused for a moment, trying to find the right words. "Everything felt good in there."
His voice dropped a few degrees.
"That was until I turned around and saw a twelve-foot-tall, majestic creature. Bipedal, two pairs of canines, luscious black fur, and yellow eyes that seemed to pierce right into my soul."
So he went into his soul den, Talia thought.
That was great—but didn't that also mean she was a phenomenal teacher if her student got there on the first try?
"When I tried to reach out and touch him," James continued, "my vision flipped.
Before I knew it, he had bitten my head off and crushed my skull under his foot."
"He must really hate your ass," Mira chuckled to herself.
"Wait, is this common?" James asked. The casual way Mira said it made it sound like this shit happened every day.
"Well, they usually just growl at you the first time," Talia explained.
James raised an eyebrow. "He bit my head off."
Talia understood the implications.
"It's easier to tame them the more you understand yourself. And from what I've gathered, you clearly don't know much about yourself."
"So, I just have to know myself more?" James sounded way too giddy for someone who had just been mauled by his own inner self.
"In a sense, yes," Talia said, looking at him. He was getting excited way too fast. "Don't get your hopes up too high. That shit takes years to get a grasp of."
Oh. Damn.
"How long did it take you?" he asked, genuinely curious.
Talia puffed up, looking proud of herself.
"Five years." The fact that she was bragging meant that timeline was genuinely impressive.
"Unlike miss 'no-brain' over here, who took eight years."
Mira looked pissed. "The fuck did you say to me, you little bitch?"
Huh… James thought. Would that be considered a slur against a werewolf? Since female dogs are bitches, and wolves are part of the same family?
James raised his eyes and noticed both girls suddenly glaring in his direction.
"What did I do?" He felt like he was being interrogated for something stupid.
Then it hit him—he had just thought of something about them that wasn't exactly nice.
Wait, can they sense thoughts directed at them?
He wanted to test out this theory.
"You thought of something weird," Talia said, locking her eyes onto him.
James had to come up with a cover story fast. "I was just thinking... you guys don't look a day over twenty, so like, five and eight years must be a really long time."
The silence that followed was incredibly awkward.
Then, Talia burst out laughing. James blinked, completely confused.
"Aw, cute," she said.
He felt like he was being teased all over again. "How old are you two, really?" he questioned, looking between them.
"I am fifty-two," Talia stated casually.
James's eyes nearly burst entirely out of their sockets. He staggered back half a step, his focus completely shattering. "Huh?! You're fifty-two?!"
"I know, I am quite mature for my age," she said with a smug smile.
A split second later, the entire clearing erupted.
Mira burst into a loud, mocking laugh, slapping her knee so hard the sound echoed off the barracks wall.
"Pfff—haha! Mature?! Did you seriously just use the word mature to describe yourself, you oversized toddler? Look at you, your ass was literally just riding the newcomer like a piggyback pony five minutes ago! Fifty-two years old and still acting like a hyperactive pup!"
Talia's face flushed a deep crimson, her fangs lightly extending as she stamped her foot into the grass.
"Shut up, Mira! I am plenty grown! Fifty-two is basically legal adult status in pack years. I am not a damn child!"
She snapped her head back toward James, locking him in a ferocious, red-eyed death glare that threatened immediate physical violence.
James offered a thoroughly wry, sheepish smile, quickly holding his hands up in a defensive gesture to save his own skin.
"Hey, look, I didn't mean anything bad by it. It's just... you look incredibly young. Like, seriously, you look like you're maybe nineteen at most. I completely thought you were a bit younger than me. Honestly, it kind of made me feel slightly better thinking I wasn't the absolute youngest person in the squad."
Hearing the genuine compliment, Talia's aggressive posture instantly softened.
The feral glare vanished, replaced by a highly amused, self-satisfied smirk as she tossed her hair over her shoulder.
"Well... I suppose your baseline evaluation is fair," she purred, her tone completely flipping.
She gave him a playful, patronizing look. "But make no mistake, newbie—you are roughly thirty years too late to ever be my senior."
James let out a quiet sigh of relief, wiping an imaginary bead of sweat from his forehead.
Safe.
"So, if you're fifty-two... how old is everyone else around here?"
"The old hag over there is eighty-one," Talia said, pointing a thumb at Mira.
"Who the hell are you calling an old hag, you little bitch?!" Mira barked back, her eyebrows twitching with irritation.
"I am in my absolute physical prime!"
"Rowan—the creepy shadow guy—is sixty-four," Talia continued, completely ignoring Mira's outburst.
"And our glorious, book-reading vice-captain over there is ninety-six."
James blinked blankly, his brain desperately trying to recalculate the timeline. Ninety-six? Eighty-one?
He turned his gaze toward Caius, who looked like a calm, twenty-something university student, and then toward Mira, who possessed the flawless, athletic build of a peak twenty-five-year-old human.
And these guys are considered the 'young' vanguard generation? he thought grimly.
A heavy realization finally settled deep into his chest, making him let out a long, defeated sigh.
"Ah. I see. I completely understand why everyone keeps calling me 'the pup' now."
Talia's eyes suddenly lit up with intense curiosity. She leaned forward, inspecting his face. "Wait, we never actually asked. How old are you in human years, James?"
"Twenty-three," James muttered.
Talia's grin widened until it practically split her face in two. A look of supreme, unadulterated triumph washed over her features.
She looked like she had just won the ultimate cosmic lottery. The absolute joy of no longer being the baseline "baby" of the Ironmaw unit was clearly radiating through her aura.
"Twenty-three!" Talia cheered, clapping her hands together. "Oh, you are an actual infant! A literal toddler!"
She reached up, giving his arm a reassuring, highly enthusiastic pat.
"Don't you worry about a thing, little baby pup. Big sister Talia is going to teach you exactly how to use your spirit. You just follow my instructions perfectly, and we'll make sure Raze doesn't completely delete you in a fortnight."
A/N I did it, 45 chapter, next week back to regular schedule of monday, wednesday and friday
Vote with powerstone ofcourse, this arc is proving longer than i thought.
2k words for this.