Chapter 5
The chamber was drenched in blood and sweat, the floor etched with old runes now pulsing faintly with dark energy. San Qi's body lay contorted, trembling violently. His skin was pale, veins black with venom and raw power. Yet the ritual wasn't complete.
The final step remained.
Awaken the Wolf.
It was the soul of every Mystic Wolf—a sacred rite most achieved in youth. But San Qi, for all his titles, had never touched that part of himself. His wolf had been dormant, silent... buried deep beneath years of training, expectation, and self-doubt.
Now, the ritual demanded he tear that barrier down.
He reached inward, scraping at the edges of his soul, clawing through pain and memory, searching for the slumbering beast within.
At first—nothing. Just cold emptiness.
Then—
A rumble. Distant. Ancient.
It wasn't one presence. It was two.
Frienor—the wolf of reason and spirit, cold-eyed and calculating, known in secret rites as the Watcher Beyond the Flame.
Amarok—the devourer of isolation, a primordial beast from before the clans, said to haunt those who stood alone, feeding on their rage and despair.
San Qi's soul had unknowingly become the battleground of both.
He screamed—not in fear, but in release—as his mind was flooded with dual voices.
"You are ours now..." Frienor whispered, voice like ice through a blade.
"You were always mine," Amarok snarled, feral and deep.
The chamber darkened. His body rose slightly from the floor, suspended in searing energy. A black sigil branded itself over his heart—half-moon, half-claw—marking the convergence of balance and chaos.
His bones cracked once more, but this time with purpose. His spine aligned. Muscles coiled with supernatural precision. His heart slowed, then restarted—beating not as a man's, but as something new.
His eyes opened, and for the first time in his life, the Wolf stared back.
A hybrid of Frienor's cold clarity and Amarok's savage instinct.
San Qi gasped for breath. The chamber was quiet. The ritual was complete.
He wasn't just reborn.
He was remade
He rose slowly, steam rising from his skin, the final embers of the ritual fading into the air like whispered vows.
For the first time in years, San Qi stood on his own.
He looked down at his hands—no longer pale and trembling, but steady and strong. Veins no longer ran black with poison; instead, faint silver threads pulsed just beneath his skin, glowing subtly with the mark of Frienor's spirit. His fingers, once gaunt, were now long and precise—elegant weapons in their own right.
His body had changed completely.
Lean muscle layered over his frame like it had been carved by the gods of war—graceful but coiled with silent power. His posture no longer sagged with sickness but flowed with quiet authority, like a predator who needed no growl to inspire fear.
Across his back, thin scars glowed faintly—etched remnants of the ritual, shaped like ancient runes. One shoulder bore the sigil of duality: half-wolf, half-star—Frienor's logic and Amarok's rage fused into one.
His skin had darkened slightly, kissed by something primal and otherworldly, as if touched by moonlight and ash.
And his face—no longer gaunt and haunted, but sharp, regal. High cheekbones, firm jaw, and piercing eyes.
Ah, his eyes.
They glowed.
One burned with pale silver—the eye of Frienor, calm, intelligent, watchful.
The other gleamed gold with a hint of crimson—the eye of Amarok, wild, unflinching, hungering.
Beautiful, but unnerving.
He was no longer merely a man, or even a wolf.
He was something in between—a spirit forged by betrayal, rebuilt in shadow, bound by power no clan had seen in generations.
San Qi stared at his reflection in a shard of broken glass and felt no fear.
Only purpose