WARNING: Gore and graphic detail (For real, if you don't wanna read about brutally murdered families and children, skip to the part that says [Varali POV]

I didn't want to watch what was going to happen, but it was my duty and responsibility to do so.

Like a wave, my swarm, every color of the jungle represented among them, washed over and into the village. I jogged forward, in the middle of the thronging mass, and made sure to take in the sight of this previously peaceful community. I could have activated [Combatant's Bloodlust] and absolved myself of the guilty feelings that threatened to overwhelm me, but I made the conscious decision not to. Instead, I forced myself to watch as the unaware, terrorized humans fled before the bloodthirsty jaws of my subordinates, I forced myself to listen as I heard children cry out for their parents, parents screaming in rage and panic for their children to flee or come with them, and I forced myself to feel the blood of the innocents coating my toes as I walked through the streets.

I stepped forward and made sure to remember any human face I saw. I knew that there wasn't a keelish or khatif in the area that would care about the age or innocence of any of these humans, because they saw them as prey and as a threat, which the humans were… but I couldn't help but see them as people.

I looked to my left and saw a family huddled together even in death, the father splayed, dead in front of his children and wife. I could see the despair in his face, the anguish in the tears still running down the faces of his family even as their blood painted their kitchen. The mother was hunched protectively over her two children, and her back was savagely torn apart and her head laid decapitated beside her body. Beneath her body were two children, no older than seven. Wait… there were three. There… was an infant. I so deeply wanted to look away, but I saw the tiny body, and I couldn't stop the heaving of my stomach.

My stomach was empty after the hours-long march, and only bitter bile coated my tongue as my gorge rose again and again. I knew fathers and mothers who would do the same for their children, and I could picture the absolute terror of knowing that no matter what you did, those you loved most would die, painfully. Again, my gorge rose and coated my mouth, but I stood tall and waded deeper into the hellscape of my own creation.

Looking forward, I could see and hear the evidence of my orders, the feeble cries of the elderly and infirm, the panicked carrying of children and terror-driven Callings that weren't able to stop even the weakest of the keelish. All around me were these scenes of gore and terror and grief and rage and ineptitude and…

"THIS IS FOR TREEL!"

Suddenly I heard Took's voice, cracking. I sprinted towards where it came from, and saw Took leading a charge on a small phalanx of spearmen. They stood disorganized and obviously afraid, but they were covering the retreat of a group of children led by two teens sprinting away. Took stood tall, enraged, and dashed headlong into the prickling spears. She dodged to one side then the next and then she was in the midst of the humans.

An almost unintelligible gibber kept coming, "She'll never see her children. She'll never challenge me to another bout. She'll never see our progress. She'll never…" Took's voice cracked as she whirled in the middle of the humans in a guise of absolute death. The half-dozen adults fell before her attack and the rest of the nearby keelish sprinted onward to terrorize and kill the fleeing children. Took began to follow at a dead spring when I caught her shoulder.

Instinctively, she snapped her tail out at my knees while spinning around with her jaws wide open at the height of my throat. Calling on [True Dominance], I simply commanded, "HALT."

Took froze.

I looked her in the face and stepped forward gently. "Keep calm. Keep yourself and your pack safe. You and they both need a level head."

Took nodded, and I gently inclined my head in the direction that her pack had left towards in dismissal. Now more emotionally grounded, Took began issuing quiet orders to her pack that immediately began doing what they'd been told.

I stepped forward, seeing the human children's bodies, but Took's words had shifted my perspective. Now, I saw Oncli's twisted body in front of me, his spine exposed. I saw Treel's body with the gaping holes from spears, and saw her eggs as we had extracted them. I saw Took with her arms pinned to the ground by spears and her throat run through. Then, I saw Sybil's body superimposed over those of the teens, her face twisted in fear and agony, her stomach ripped open and her entrails exposed to the sky with vultures circling around… and I realized that one teen, a girl no older than 14, was still breathing. Her eyes rolled back and forth in a panic, and I realized she saw me approaching.

I hunched over and, in my best approximation of the Veushten tongue, simply said, "I'm sorry. It was you or me." Then, disregarding the look of confusion overcoming the look of despair on her face, I closed one hand over the base of her neck and ripped my claws through the base of the nameless girl's neck and severed her spine.

…

It was nearly an hour later, with just a couple of hours left until sunset, that Rulac found his way into the ruins of the village. By now, the keelish had eaten their fill and were glorying to each other about how easily we had snuffed the life from these pretentious humans who had thought themselves capable of doing the same to us. I stood quietly to the side and nodded appreciatively to the keelish who looked my way while steeling myself. Once again, I was reminded that I was now a khatif, and that I had well and truly thrown my lot in with these reptiles over that of the humans. And, recalling the images of those I now loved dead in this same fashion, I was assured that I had made the right decision.

"No escapees." Rulac said, nonchalance oozing from him. "We killed a few as they fled, but there weren't any ready for our appearance and we were able to cut them all down. They stand out against the colors and 'colors' of the jungle, so it was easy."

I nodded distractedly, "Bring them in, have them eat their fill then we'll be on our way back home."

Rulac nodded decisively and stalked off to call his pack back.

All the while, like a taunt, the [System] notification flashed in the corner of my vision:

[Quest completed. Growth achieved. Quest board updated. Status Updated.]

…

[Varali POV]

Varali had left the town just before sunrise that day to ensure that she would get to the ideal hunting ground meadow before noon, when the scaled deer fawn was sure to be alone. Sure, the other reason she had left so early was because technically there were restrictions on leaving the town before her mother and the rest of the subjugation squad returned, but Varali needed a companion to help her develop as a Flamespeaker and this fawn was even better than those Thunder Wolfstags would have been. It was surprisingly intelligent--When Varali had begun the triggering of the snare trap, the fawn had almost supernaturally dodged to the side and narrowly escaped. Fortunately for Varali, she had placed a couple other traps and the fawn fell into the second one after being pushed there by a brief Flamecalling. Thus, she had triggered her trap successfully in the meadow and captured the fawn without too much difficulty.

Varali hadn't, however, accounted for how much more difficult travel would be lugging a 25kg, struggling creature along. Thus, it wasn't until just after dusk fell that she stumbled her way into the clearing where her village was. Perhaps it was her exhaustion, or maybe her vain hope to remain undiscovered somehow after a full day's absence from the village, but she didn't realize what had happened to the village until the trussed fawn in her arms began to struggle wildly.

Then, finally, Varali noticed the cloying smell of spilt blood filling her nostrils. She looked around wildly and saw bodies strewn about with varying amounts of flesh taken from them. In a panic, Varali rushed towards her home, unwittingly dropping the fawn onto the packed dirt street.

Her breath caught in her throat. Surely her father had run away, had escaped, right? Korali wasn't a fighter, but he was quick as he was probably the best Windspeaker in town. He must have Called the wind and fled too quickly for whatever it was that did this to do anything.

The truth, however, wasn't so. Varali found her father's corpse inside of her room, with the door sloppily barricaded shut. His face was scrunched up in pain, and he was totally alone. There were no friends around, Marata nowhere to be found, and Varali had abandoned her father so that she could go find a scaled deer. He had died here because he was so worried about his stupid daughter that had run off into the forest. Too worried about a fool to care for himself.

Falling to her knees, Varali wept as she cursed herself for her stupidity.