Chapter 11

I had a busy morning.

Besides my pursuit of the Suffering-covered wolves, I had also been managing my other activities as the owl trailed the pack. While the majority of my attention was focused on the happenings in Ansvil, I had been working on my more domestic work.

Project 3: Iasgairean Development was making great progress. The first of my Bygails had been born in the various sites some way from the Sanctuary. My Caretakers were taking steps to raise the infantile Bygails into some semblance of intelligence. While the bodies might take little time to grow into adulthood, the minds were an entirely different thing.

I’ll have to give them time to adjust but in time, they will be ready to start supplying me with [Essence].

I flittered my attention away. Project 1: Exploration had also been going well. The majority of my Scouts had made it to the Bvurdrjord mainland, emerging from the sea in the dark of night. Skjra, Vurskein, Bveinilut — and the like, each further and further away from Ansvil.

Of course, that discounted the inland villages and cities. Those would require other forms of exploration that’s more fitted for land-based exploration.

Perhaps wings.

I made a note to modify the existing Scouts with flight capabilities. With but a thought, I commanded a selection of them to start collecting samples of avians. Even if it might sound weird, the wings itself weren’t too important. What I simply needed was their [Essence] that connected the concept of flight to them.

But other than that, I’ve also been building a mental map of things.

The first thing to note was that Ansvil, Skjra and Vurskein existed on an island that’s separate from the Bvurdrjord mainland, a smaller chain of islands linking the two into an archipelago. I wasn’t too sure with the geography of things but according to what Finny had said earlier, I would assume that the Iasgaireans laid between the island and the continent — where the Zweits were.

With that theory in mind, when my Scout first reached Bveinilut, which was a… city?

I had no idea what constituted a city in those days. Besides, the architectural layout of Bvurdrjordians was rather odd to begin with. They didn’t utilize things such as drainage systems or proper streets — even in a larger population centre such as Bveinilut, the civic design seemed to be cobbled together, growing organically and wildly. If I had to estimate, Bveinilut was probably twice or thrice as large as Ansvil, which in my estimate was large.

Of course, none of that could compare to the modern cities I was used to, so I had to adjust my expectations a slight bit.

Regardless, my scout spent some time exploring the city as cautiously as possible. If a remote village such as Ansvil had a Coven watching over it, I had little doubt that a bigger population centre would have its own version of its own guardians.

With my sight, I navigated the streets carefully, avoiding any [Glow] and barriers. My desire was to record down as much as possible, not to needlessly antagonise the locals. Luckily for me, it seemed that the Conclave thingy that was going on had lessened the defences, allowing me to collect more information

The most notable thing out of everything I’ve gotten my hands on was that there weren’t any signs of attacks on this side of the ocean. No wolves attacks, no excessive bloodshed or unusual population of Sufferings. All things considered, it was a peaceful winter over here.

From that, I could gather that the wolf issue was something that’s firmly isolated on the island.

Or is it an isle?

I hadn’t gotten a proper name yet.

Either way, it immediately narrowed down the possible location of the culprit.

Why would someone attack villages? What’s the point of all of that?

Something on my isle was screwing around with my research subjects and I wasn’t pleased with it at all. I haven’t had much proof yet, but I was sure that Skjra and Ansvil weren’t the only ones that were attacked.

Whatever it might be, it’s stirring things up. For whatever reason — perhaps it’s looking to collect more Sufferings, perhaps it was looking to grow in power by spreading fear. In time, a being so bolstered by fear through reputation and its own element — the winter, it might become something rather threatening.

However, despite that, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stop it at all. No matter how I thought about it, this mysterious happening could serve to be a convenient opposition — not too dangerous but suitably menacing. A shadowy monster in the dark, stalking the shadows in order to take advantage of the lacking defence of hapless villagers.

A classic, clear-cut villain.

If anything, it could be a good way to push Sophia into action.

Ah, I thought to myself, I’ll first see what the aggressor is before it all. Worse comes to worst, I’ll just have to wipe them all out.

Either way, the wolves bounded through the dense forest with the speed of the wind, slipping through the interlacing branches in gusts of white as if they weren’t quite solid. My owl had little trouble following their trail, however, as I had removed most of its [Presence] that allowed it to affect the world around it.

With each beat of my wings, we travelled deeper and deeper into the centre of the island. Through the better part of the early morning, the presence that was commanding the lot gradually faded away, allowing the pack to return to their normal activities. Instead of the abnormal speed that they had been demonstrating, the wolves returned back to their fleshy forms and slowed to a jog.

That only made tracking them easier.

But, besides the mundanity of just following them, I too took the time to properly enjoy myself. When I first appeared underwater, in the cramped and suffocating caves that led into the ocean, I was stricken by a sense of enormity, the horizon stretching out into obfuscating white. I’ve had a moment of comprehension, an odd understanding of what, where and who I am in relations to the world.

Small, but powerful.

Then, I was flying.

In the night, an owl’s eyesight was supreme. The clouded and snowy sky was no obstacle to the task I made for myself. When the sun rises, the storm trailing away at the feet of the wolves, I had my first glimpse of sunshine across the frosted canopy. It was a beautiful sight — I hadn’t had much chance to look down from a high vantage point before, as grounded as I was upon the earth.

In that particular moment, however, I simply took the time to enjoy myself. Trees, endless, climbing up a mountain-hill in the middle of the isle. Clouds parted up above as rays of white-gold shone down, glistering and reflecting off the pristine snow.

If I were to be a more literary person, I might have had sat down and wrote a poem. Perhaps some analogy about wings, freedom, an out-of-body experience, perhaps it could have published, be read by many.

Had I been skipping over the part where I gained command over my limbs? The part where I could freely walk, fly, run as much as I wanted? I was very much aware it was meant to be an emotional moment, one that should be accompanied with tears of joy but instead, I had been regarding them with obvious acceptance of one that had been born with them.

Like a bird, a fish, a rat. I flew in the sky, gurgled in the water, squirrelled in the frozen underbrush. Calloused fingers, slender arms, rough-shod fins and feathers. Here, there, I was so many that I had almost lost sight of myself, forgetting the little bits that ground me to who I am.

Elisa, I reaffirmed, Don’t float off now.

Then, I shook the feeling off.

Some dozen kilometres away, I continued my observations in Ansvil. None of what I was doing was intellectually taxing at all, especially since I had to barely pay them any mind.

In the aftermath of the cleansing, the Creightons were busy trying to stay alive. Finny had awakened scant minutes later, pulling herself up with a thoroughly frazzled expression. There were some emotional moments that went along the lines of, ‘Ah, don’t do that again!’ or ‘Thank the gods that you are alive!’. At the end of the day — or night, Uther had been left in the care of Steinoff while Finny and Sophia made their way back to the Corners in the wee hours of the morning.

Thread was back on the wall again, looking none worse for wear. The fire flickered merrily in the oven, the room warm and welcoming. For the first time, Sophia found herself carrying Finny upstairs, hooking the older girl’s arm around her shoulder and laying her down to bed.

She’s light, Sophia noted. Throughout the days and years that she had known her, Finny had always seemed unbreakable, undaunting, as constant as the sun in the sky. Abruptly, she was reminded just how soft she was, that she too was human.

Well, of course, she would, I thought. With how much [Glow] the girl had spent last night, I was surprised she could even hobble anywhere, her existence hanging on by a thread as her ability to influence the world nearly bankrupted itself.

Uther did, and he had paid the price for it.

But after that few early hours, the two slumbered till noon, their minds too exhausted to even dream, descending into the deep dark. In the back of my mind, I duly noted that I truly hadn’t had a single clue as to what family life would be like, me having been in an orphanage and Sophia being some kind of witch-in-a-closet.

In the meanwhile, I spent some time deciphering the magic that Finny had used.

First thing first, there was a distinct similarity between the style the Creightons used and the runes of Vrraet. While the Iasgaireans’ version was more akin to a linguistic equation, Finny’s circle of threaded words were much more interpretative in nature, written like elaborate poetry as opposed to a lawyer’s contract.

That part was easy to comprehend. With written definitions and words, the idea that being brought to reality had something to ground itself, which was to carry Uther’s life force within the red-soaked threads that served as a form of a conduit. With the cleansing properties of whatever brew that was the steamy water, foreign spirits were removed from Uther.

Instead of having an even more complex spell to signify the act of removing impurity, the action of scrubbing somehow managed to substitute the linguistic part. I wasn’t sure if it had the effect of saving up on [Glow] since the magic had less to do but it was certainly interesting to look at.

In fact, it reminded me of Elst’s own brand of crude, biological-based thaumaturgy, which triggered my curiosity as to what these threads were made of. Whatever it was, I was sure that it contained a hefty amount of magical properties — ones that I wanted to use for myself, if possible.

Then, the lynchpin of the entire operation was how Evelyn folded one side of the loop over another to form an entirely new set of words. Until then, we hadn’t even considered the idea of a versatile, multiusage or changing words. In a Eureka! moment, I sent this new viewpoint of Vrraet to aid him in his constant development.

Ah, I do love it when things work well.

But before any of that, there was something else that I truly had to work on — my own brand of magic that the Iasgaireans can never be capable of.

There was a critical difference between the stuff that mortals could do and things I could do. While they had to clearly define what they want and supply power, I simply had to think and wish. Of course, I could do it economically rather than just brute-forcing the issue, but that would require experiments.

One, in particular, piqued my interest.

With references to existing magic that I’ve observed so far, there was a curious lack of magic that concerned the healing of the flesh. While there was Finny’s flesh-thread thing that sewed wounds shut and Thread’s seemingly limitless vitality, it wasn’t something I had much access to.

If I had [Essence] of healing — which I didn’t — I would have slapped it on whatever wounds my minions might bear. However, it seemed the abstract idea of “healing” was rather rare underwater.

Ones that I couldn’t access without cannibalizing one of my Iasgaireans, anyway.

So, with that in mind, I decided to throw things at the metaphorical wall until something sticks. I hadn’t done something of a similar nature manually for a while so I was rather excited to get my hands dirty.

The most basic question, however, was what is magic.

Or to be more precise, what is a spell.

I’ve touched on this subject before — quite some time ago. My presumptions and theories from back then were quite accurate if my current observations of magic were correct. The ‘Castes’ of Sorcery, Arcane, Wizardry and Pact magic had been applicable so far, even if the usage of said magic were a bit more intertwined than I had thought.

Sorcery, the usage of innate magic given by blood — the Sgnirmah, me, Wutwyrms, the wolves — we would be good examples of that kind of magic-user. The aspect of magic-using was entirely ingrained to our [Essence] that it was inseparable.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t had much opportunity to mess around with that other than simply grafting. It was rather difficult to discern what exactly gave a being the ability to cast magic on its own but the results were fascinating.

Self-hypnosis. Heavy congregations of [Glow]. Self-defined [Form] that stored the parameters of magic within itself.

Essentially, it was like the spells — or to say the parameters of it were written into the flesh like a series of runes, down to the squiggly lines that served as DNA. Combined with the self-assurance that it can indeed do whatever it does, it essentially cast a spell.

A spell that’s in its own [Essence] make up.

Insane.

Then, Arcane magic.

Runes, written words, carefully defined ideas that rely on an iron-clad contract. Vrraet and Finny both utilized this particular Caste to different degrees. It was important to note that even if they were in different languages, both managed to function just fine — the words themselves were important, it was the syntax, the collective understanding of the words.

Its connotations, hidden meanings and subtexts. All of that contributed to the definitions of the spell. If the same words, directly translated from one language to another, were written down, I could guarantee that the effects wouldn’t be the same.

Even within a single language, several meanings could be derived from a single word. A flower could mean innocence, fragileness, beauty, growth, nature — and countless others meaning, dredged from the carcass of a word the way a hunter would bleed his prey.

To use this kind of magic, one must either be a very good mathematician or a poet.

Either way, it was time-consuming.

But versatile.

Wizardry stuff, however, was even more insane. By forcible forcing your perception of a subject and throwing [Glow] until something happens —

It was an insane but powerful form of magic.

It could manifest by scrubbing ropes, by stabbing a living heart, by lighting a fire. It’s a form of magic that could happen whenever whatever. I have yet to find it being used all on its own, but it was ingrained in many other Castes.

Threads, herbs, hearts.

Lastly, Pact magic. Simply put, it’s what I had been doing with the Iasgaireans.

Well.

It’s close enough.

Either way, I had access to a plethora of spell samples to base my inventions on.

First thing first, however, I need a wounded subject. Fortunately, I had plenty to work with.

A fish will do.

A thought sent a squadron of Saighgairs to retrieve suitable test subjects. Whilst they were doing their thing, I focused inward to start working.

Now, the absolute basic, I supposed, was to understand the nature of injuries. In Uther’s example, there were two different sorts of wounds — or perhaps three. With each issue, there could be a variety of solutions that could be applied.

There were the literal flesh wounds caused by the bites and scratches of the wolves, including torn ligaments and loss of blood. Then, there was the exhaustion of the body and mind, the pain, fear and flinches. Beyond that, there was the evaporation caused by a deficit of [Glow].

And, perhaps, curses.

Well, one by one.

Flesh wounds were straightforward to test. It was a simple task to create an incision in Subject One, a small wound that trailed down its back. Unlikely to be lethal, but detrimental nonetheless.

Pressing my thought into it, I focused my attention into its [Essence] makeup. Almost immediately, I became aware of the [Form] breaking apart and its physical distress. There were also signs of its limited [Spirit] registering its peril and mortality, which was also something to look into.

It was at this point I came across a very interesting phenomenon.

The [Essence] that pertains to [Form] never lies. It is deliberate, all-encompassing, a mathematical equation that isn’t interpretive. It is, at its basis, a map that perfectly describes everything about a single thing. Of course, that might sound like a paradox — no map can ever be truly accurate or else it will be describing itself.

In fact, that’s it.

The [Form] is a self-describing map without a legend. For me, I could gain a perfect understanding of what is at that moment the complete truth of a thing in terms of concepts. And for me, the fish’s [Form] clearly pertained to its destroyed scales, sliced-open flesh, the unnamed chemicals that signifies fear or self-preservation.

It never lies.

However, the interesting part wasn’t that.

It was the concept of what a wound is.

For humans, a papercut would be treated as an annoyance, a thing that happened on the skin. It wasn’t some deep-spirited analogy for split skin and spilt blood but a seemingly palpable thing — it was seemingly something that appeared on a body like a patch of dirt that would go away on its own.

A short-lived, categorized thing.

Obviously, that went against what the [Form] tells us. Simultaneously, contradicting [Essence] could exist on a single being, a wound both being actualized and also inconsequential. For a human, perhaps, I could simply bind that idea to the actual wound and take away the entire [Essence] that spoke of the injury and suddenly!

The wound would be gone as if it was never there in the first place.

Like wiping the soap off dishes, the inconsequential wound would be gone. I was perfectly aware that this ability to heal minor-cuts would be next to useless, but it was an interesting thought experiment that led to even more complex questions.

For an animal, however, it wasn’t so straight forward. Even the slightest wound would be treated with wariness, their simplistic mind incapable of thinking about it as any other than just ‘wound’. They couldn’t register things like ‘healing’ or other external ideas that weren’t instinctive — that meant that if I were to heal something that couldn’t comprehend me, I would have to do something with their [Forms] instead.

Or, I could use my own perception to enforce what a ‘wound’ is.

…

Put that in the back for a while. One thing at a time.

Obviously, the most simple answer was to pump [Glow] into the creature’s natural healing processes to massively speed-up or magnify its regrowth. For the fish, unfortunately, I would have to use my own pool of [Glow] since the poor thing barely had enough to even sustain its own existence.

However, it was easy — and cheap.

I made the equivalent of a shrug and pumped the [Glow]. Sitting around and pondering would give me no tangible results, after all. There was the quiet, soft sensation of something tearing as I focused upon the subject, allowing my [Essence] to flow within it, targeting its own as whatever meagre resistances it had failed it.

As the natural healing of the Subject One was magnified, a series of interesting things happened. Like a tape on fast forward, the flesh of the fish sewed up in a matter of seconds. New scales pushed out of the mended skin as scar tissue formed, the fish visibly thinning as some part of its biological stores were used up to supply the hyperactive regeneration.

Then, the fish promptly starved to death as its body aged, its skin sloughing off in waves until there were more bones than flesh. In but a moment, the [Essence] of natural regeneration disappeared as Subject One passed on, its body failing to sustain itself.

It appeared that I might have had made a terrible mistake. That wasn’t my intention at all.

Without proper specifications, it appeared the rogue magic instructions would carry out their task to the latter, even if it was detrimental to the being as a whole. Of course, it might be due to the intrinsic properties of [Form] that caused this catastrophic meltdown, but it seemed that just ‘dumping’ [Glow] wouldn’t work.

I had to be smart about the issue — especially since I was trying to preserve the being rather than destroying it outright. The wording and intention had to be refined, for starters. Deep in my [Library], I opened a branch specifically for these ‘spells’ to isolate it from other constructs, as well as to give the thing a tangible location rather than something that could evaporate the moment I didn’t pay attention.

After some mental gymnastics, a new unformed bulb of [Essence] was ready to be modified, like a blank paper ready for a layer to write up a contract.

Then, I started testing. Parallel to Subject One, I began the procedures with different parameters: one testing with the idea of a timer, one functioning with regard to the body’s organic stores, one linking the spell to the concept of a wound in the caster’s conception…

All of that took quite some time.

The end result, however, was quite interesting. The more I invested in my work, I began to delve discover a series of interconnectedness between different Castes. My Spell was specifically designed to require nothing other than [Glow].

If I could create my Spell as a solid mental construct that wouldn’t expire when used, I could simply use it as a template when I spread it out to other users. The major difference between a spell cast from memories and ones that used runes was that the former could be forgotten.

Like a half-forgotten dream, it would fade away unless its specifically written down.

I will never forget, however. As long as my [Library] lasts, the constructs that I left in there will never dissipate. Like a congealed pool in the fabric of reality, a stain that would never leave or change. It will stay.

With that, I could create whatever I wanted and leave it there. Nothing will shift, change, ever. I had no idea how that particular effect works but I wasn’t about to complain. Feverishly, I devoted my attention to work. It wasn’t before long that I’ve cobbled up the first version of a proper Spell.

It wasn’t anything special — unless one were to look at it and understood how it was essentially a ritual that occurred only in the mind. It had room to accommodate excess [Glow], it could accept reagents with compatible [Essence], it could be used by anyone that I could influence.

Moreover, it was cheap and it relied almost wholly on the part of the caster, not me.

{Regeneration}, I supposed, was the name this Spell should bear. On the note of 'advertisement', I could also ‘flavour’ my spells in a way that worked with my brand. A “Frayed Serpent” should be able to make and unmake, and remaking a body would be no issue.

Sounds a tad too dramatic, but what would I know about how to sell things?

I stabbed a few more fish just to test it out.

Needless to say, it was functional. The bleeding flesh sewed right up, leaving nought but scars behind.

However.

However, it didn’t work to replace lost limbs — or prevent clearly mortal wounds from killing the creature. While {Regeneration} could easily mend injuries, it couldn’t regrow entire limbs, half a body or anything that extreme.

It was a Spell that worked to boost a thing’s own natural healing. Using it on a rock or something that wouldn’t naturally heal would be a waste of [Glow].

For massive wounds, I would require my own reagents — or to say, a sample of it. I had another Spell in mind but it proved to be much trickier. Whilst {Regeneration} contained a series of mental commands that forces the [Glow] invested in it to seek out and bolster the bodies’ own healing, I seek to do something else.

If the person’s own regeneration wasn’t enough, then simply force something with better healing capabilities would certainly work. That brought the question — what things in the natural world heals? What would signify regrowth?

Plants. Crabs. Worms.

Things that could, under the right condition, regrow nearly any part of itself if needs be. There are many things in this world that could survive grievous wounds, ones that no humans could hope to survive. I only need to find the correct one.

…

Well, crabs will do for now.

In the future, if I got my hands on a troll or something that should be able to recover even quicker, I would use it. However, I was rather short of magical samples and I had no patience to spend too much time learning the intricacies of magical bloodlines.

With that, I created several more Spells based on the concept of healing, each styled differently. Most of them do not require reagents on behalf of the caster, but having one would make the process much easier. Using the limbs-regrowing [Essence] of crabs, the body-reforming capability of a pupa and the decapitation-proof ability worms, I meshed together more “spells”.

They were simple things, mostly consisting of jamming [Essence] into another body and pumping that with [Glow]. It took many tries before I could properly separate the proper [Essence] from my samples — and from the subjects.

There were many hybrids lying about for somewhile.

According to the Saighgairs, they tasted funny.

Ah well.

Either way, I’ve made some good headway in understanding how to make Spells. Satisfied, now I merely need to wait for Sophia to properly contact me.

My attention flittered.

The sun was still there, hiding behind a thin veil of clouds. The trees shook from the wind, rustling under my feathers. The woods were eerily quiet, cast in shades of black, grey and white. For a moment, I thought I had returned to the [Beyond] and its endlessly twisting tunnels —

But this wasn’t that.

The owl was unsettled.

The wolves had padded under the leaves, their pelts nearly impossible to make out against the snow, becoming more and more difficult to distinguish. In the deep recesses of its animalistic heart, the owl knew that it was nearing whatever destination it headed here for.

There was something wrong with it all. The cold was too biting, the air stank of stagnant rot, a slow poison infecting everything it touched. The bark of the trees cracked open, their innards exposed. Branches wilted, shrunken, as fragile as spun glass. The owl wanted nothing more than to leave all of this behind, to fly to safety — but despite its instincts screaming at it to flee, it felt a mysterious compulsion to investigate.

As it progressed deeper and deeper into the woods, it was apparent that the trees weren’t simply being affected by the cold but that they were dying. Eventually, the branches seemed to have fallen off entirely, leaving behind the trunks to stab upwards into the sky like so many stakes.

It was deeply unsettling.

The wolves stopped.

The owl fluttered to a branch high above, hoping that its feathers would be good enough to hide it from prying eyes.

Down belong in the deep shadows of the branches and leaves, the wolves converged into a central clearing. Their movements were unnatural, seemingly sliding across the ground on a leash. Around the circle, more beasts emerged — packs from all around the isle, five, seventeen, twenty-four, thirty-one, more.

The owl had never seen so many of them in the same place at once.

They walked stiffly, unusually subdued.

Then, they were still, arranging themselves in a half-circle around a raised boulder, the mass before a preacher. They waited, their fur frozen like puffs of steam caught in the cold.

Something creaked, branches snapped.

Cracking sounds.

We first saw its feet, a paw lifting off the ground. Shards of broken white littered the ground, drizzling down like a rain of dust.

Bones — skulls, femurs, ribs. Crushed under its weight, the sharp and soft mushing of organic bits, small strands of grey trailing behind.

A figure appeared from the shadows, hulking, bestial, looming over the congregation that looked like mere children in comparison. It was a wolf — if wolves were the size of trucks. With each step, it moved forward with an impossible weight, as if the world around it trembled at its mere presence.

Its jaws were large enough to swallow a person whole, the colossal muscles hidden behind the covering of hair but it was evidence enough. Its eyes, completely black, glimmered with a malevolent intelligence.

Even the owl could feel the presence pressing down upon it.

I, however, was starkly reminded of the Iasgairean’s reaction to the Sgnirmah. I couldn’t see it then through the eyes of Vrraet but I could summarise the effect. Whatever this being was, its [Essence] was certainly powerful if it could cow every one of these wolves so easily.

Moreover, given its size, it was most definitely magical in nature.

The wolf stalked forward with the confidence of an emperor amongst his subjects, stepping onto the boulder to raise his height even further, enough that its head scraped the lowest branches of the ancient pine trees. It looked down at the wolves around it expectantly.

One dared to approach, its head bowed down.

I allowed more of myself to seep through the Name I had carved into the owl’s heart. Swiftly, I sent tendrils of my will up its spine and into it its eyes, forcing an imprint of my eyes into its sockets, replacing it. The flesh gave way to my raw [Essence], momentarily melting away.

I looked.

Huh.

That giant “wolf” wasn’t one, that much was obvious. That wasn’t what gave it away, however, it was its face. The snout had receded into the cheeks, fur dropping away to reveal the face of humanoid. Gaunt cheekbones popped out, boney brows furrowed above the pit it had for eyes. Thin, pale lips stretched across like torn putty, rows of pristine white teeth showing underneath the fleshy grin.

It was like a badly-sculpted wax sculpture, the proportions just wrong enough to give me the creeps. Raspy breaths exhaled from its nose, plumes of grey [Essence] seeping out in a way that reminded me of filthy chimneys, slathering down onto the ground like drool

The lesser wolf before the monstrosity bowed, its own jaw opening and regurgitated something out. With sickly splats, an arm popped out, followed by a head, the torso — or to say, the [Essence] of a person. In a grotesque discharged, the ghost sloshed onto the snow like a sack of manure.

The ex-person shivered, frostbite apparent over his naked features, shivering as awareness returned to his addled mind. Wordless, unintelligently, it looked up the smiling face before it, eyes wide and unblinking.

The grin widened, a tongue flickered across the teeth. There was no goodwill in the expression at all, a mockery of genuineness.

If anything, the ghost shook even harder at that.

The lips parted, revealing the cavernous mouth. Almost tenderly, the wolf reached down and picked up the squirming body in its jaws. Loud, audible crunches echoed out as the ivory teeth slammed down in sprays of ectoplasm, the bits and pieces of the Spirit scattering into mulch [Essence].

The wolf gulped down the remains.

Then, the lesser wolf before it hic again.

Out came another body, toppling into the snow.

And another.

And another after that.

Ah, fuck. It’s the whole family.

I cast my eyes around.

Thirty-seven wolves. Skjra is gone and Vurskein is just as likely. With so many returning, the other villages on this isle must also have been attacked. That's a lot of population.

I didn’t understand why they would do something like this — it wasn’t a sustainable plan. I also didn’t understand how something like this wolf thing could seemingly pop out of the woodwork and start doing whatever they were attempting to do.

It didn’t make sense. Was it trying to gain strength by devouring [Souls]? Was this normal behaviour? Could I mimic this?

The naked [Souls] of the dead laid before my eyes, uncomprehending. Surrounding them, the wolves watched as they were given to their master.

Well. I found them, alright. Such a waste.

Now what?