The last six months had been busy, exhausting, long, and the best damn six months of my life. All because of the little bundle I was holding in my arms. Garion, my son. Those words made my heart swell with pride, love, worry, fear, and hope. The day he was born, there had been a lot of things I wanted to say, but had been unable to do so. All that I wanted to say, was expressed in a single tear of happiness as I met my son for the first time.

Thanks to magic, the birth had been uncomplicated and relatively easy on Lily. Even then, her face was bloated and sweat stained from the exertion, her hair damp and in disarray. Yet despite that, she had never been more beautiful than in the moment when she first held our son. There was something profound, almost a divine feeling when seeing a mother with her newborn child. Nothing could be more perfect in the world.

He was a fussy child, especially at night. If not for healing magic to remove the fatigue, his mother and I would probably be exhausted all the time. Lily had just fed him and gone back to sleep, but I had volunteered to stay up with him until he fell asleep again.

At the moment I was standing on the balcony outside on a cold winter night. I was looking out at the frozen lake. Garion was ensconced in a cocoon of warmth created by my magic. I cherished these moments alone with him. They were more precious than anything else, my every little feeling was recorded on a memory spell crystal.

The introduction of my son was not the only change that the Wolf Ridge Hold had undergone in the past six months. We had the tens of thousands of new inhabitants coming in. Which led to a lot of changes in the Hold. First of all, we now had four official towns in the Hold.

One was the Wolf Ridge, the town around the original great hall. It was the biggest of our towns, stretching all the way down to the old fishing village. Next, we had a small village, Hunter’s Edge, at the edge of the eastern forest. They provided timber and game from the forest. We ignored, flaunted in fact, the laws regarding using the forest without permission.

To the north, on the other side of the pass, we had two towns. Westside and Eastside. As their names suggested, one was to the west, the other to the east. In between the two towns, we had placed the main military camp, Fort Kiril. The others were smaller permanent encampments at the border crossings to the other Holds, in the south, west, east, and then we had a single camp in the pass, next to the outpost.

Eastside was a town that focused on raising animals, while Westside focused on crops. The plains were large, and not the best place to grow crops, or raise animals. However, with generous usage of magic, it was as good as anywhere else.

The fort we had originally built, was torn down, and instead, we built a private residence for our growing family. It was mostly Lily’s idea. The small lake and nature around it would be a perfect place for Emma’s and Yathanae’s children to roam around without hiding their mixed race. So besides the residence, we also raised stone walls around a large area to ensure privacy.

A privacy I had tested often with Emma. She had taught me how to do full body transformation. It was weird being a giant panther. Especially when she convinced me to impregnate her in the panther form. Yathanae also enjoyed the privacy, by making love to Emma and I out in the open, surrounded by nature.

To my surprise, Emma and Yathanae invited Shenerah into joining their relationship. Not that I had any objection. The dark-skinned elf was a very sensual creature that fanned the flames of my lust. Though nothing ever happened between us.

On the subject of Shenerah, something weird had happened after I had connected to her mana. I was unable to break the connection again.

Garion wriggled a little. I looked down at him, and his big eyes looked back at me. I smiled. “You should be sleeping.”

I tapped his nose and he giggled. Such a delightful, perfect, and innocent sound. I did not know any nursery rhymes, and my singing voice was atrocious, so instead, I just started humming, while rocking him.

We had another town, which very few people knew about. It was far to the north and below ground, it was called Sanctuary. Underneath the great hall, we had built a secret underground chamber where Ethan had made a portal gate. He had assured me that each gate was unique, with a code engraved in it. If you did not know the code, you could not teleport to it.

Unbeknownst to him, the bracer he was wearing served two purposes. The official one that he knew about was linking him to a huge mana crystal that collected mana from almost forty thousand people without magic. The other was a memory crystal, which recorded everything that went through his mind. So I had learned how to make portals, despite him being unable to reveal the process to me.

After he had built the gate, he took an expeditionary force to the north. Where he, with their help, built the underground city and another portal. Only he returned from the north, while the rest of them stayed finishing to build the city and live there. I had sent a lot of mages with them, so we could grow crops underground and so on.

I had personally gone there a couple of times to set up permanent spell crystals fed by the mana reservoirs that were fed by the collars everyone wore. The most important thing was that I learned to create an illusory shield that blocked the collars from being detected. Unfortunately, the shield had a massive mana drain, though the larger you made them, the less the increase in mana consumption was. So I had built a big one that encompassed the entirety of Sanctuary, which was much cheaper than hiding each person’s collar signature.

A movement below caught my sight. Switching to night vision, I saw that it was just one of the Wolf Guards, patrolling inside the perimeter. My military forces had also undergone a lot of changes.

Firstly, the size was nothing compared to what it was before. Before I could barely field one and a half squadron. Now I was fielding a total of 3 battalions and two additional squadrons. One of those squadrons was under the command of Charles, my former bodyguard, and was stationed in Sanctuary. The other squadron was the Wolf Guards, under the command of Alan. They were in charge of protecting me and my family. Despite only leading a squadron, each of them were promoted to high commanders.

The three battalions were under the command of Hrothgar, Caspar, and another of my initial soldiers named Isak. Hrothgar’s battalion were all equipped with horses. It was one meant for offence and raiding. Caspar’s battalion was a defensive one. They included many mages for throwing up quick fortifications. They were mostly infantry, with only a few squads of scouts on horses. Meanwhile, Isak’s battalion was a mix, one that could function well in both an offensive and defensive situation.

I felt a pair of arms sneak around me. A pair of breasts pressing into my bare upper back, and the swell of a stomach against my lower back. Whispering right next to my ear, Yathanae asked, “Are you coming back to bed soon?”

I checked whether Garion was asleep or not. He was, so I gave an affirmative grunt. Yathanae was standing there in her naked glory, the swell of her stomach proudly on display. My heart swelled at seeing the sight. Not only was she beautiful, and I cared for her, but she was carrying my child. Despite holding my son in my arms, I could not wait to meet the child inside her.

Inside the room, I placed Garion in his crib and made my way over to the giant bed. I took in the sight of the four beautiful women in my bed. Unfortunately, one of them would not let me touch her, which I respected. However, I was starting to fall hard for her, just like I had done with the rest of the women in my bed.

Lily lay on the left side of the bed, with space for me to lie down in. On the other side of the empty space, I found Emma, curled around Shenerah, who in turn had Yathanae in her embrace. Yathanae looked expectantly at me, while the three others slept.

I leaned down and gave her a kiss before slipping into the bed again. As soon as I lay down, Emma scooted backwards into my side, her tail caressing my stomach, and she began to purr lightly. At the same time, Yathanae gave a satisfied sigh. Shortly after she began snoring again.

The greatest change that had come over the Hold in the last six months since my return was the fact that we used magic to accomplish a lot of things. We had a steam engine train, run by magically conjured water, heated by magic flames, that travelled back and forth between our northern towns and Hunter’s Edge.

Every single person who had a collar was providing their mana to the huge reservoirs crystals buried beneath the great hall. Each reservoir crystal had long lines of associated relay crystals laid out in the Hold. While there was no range limit, the further away, the less mana you provided, unless you went through a relay. A bit like a wi-fi signal.

For the first time, I felt like I was in a world of magic because we built and accomplished everyday things with magic. It felt unrestrained like magic should be. With a smile on my lips, I fell asleep.

A few days later we were playing in the snow. Building snowmen. Something that should have been meaningless, but the girls had a lot of fun with it. Just seeing their happiness was enough to make an otherwise meaningless activity, very important to me. It felt like we were a family, a weird one, but a family nonetheless.

“Aren’t you freezing?” I asked Emma for the umpteenth time. She was running around without a stitch of clothing. I did not want her to catch any illness that might affect the child.

She rolled her eyes at me, for the umpteenth time. “Quit worrying, I’m perfectly fine with my fur. So is our litter.”

My eyes followed her hands as they caressed the swell of her stomach. A sight that was strangely hypnotic to me. A sharp intake of air from Lily told me my attention had lapsed. I immediately concentrated on maintaining the warm cocoon of air around her and Garion again.

“Please stop distracting him so much,” Lily harrumphed, while Garion was happily suckling at her teat. “It’s a bit cold outside without his magic.”

“I can’t wait until it’s my turn to do that,” Yathanae added wistfully, caressing her own baby bump.

“Well, the way you go at it—” Emma started to say.

Shenerah interrupted her. Shushed her. “There’s something wrong.”

“I don’t hear anything,” Lily commented.

“Exactly,” Emma added, her hackles rising. “There should still be birds around. I can’t hear them.”

I reacted instantly. Immediately I started preparing combat magic, dropping links to stuff like memory and illusion magic, picking up wind and metal instead. At the same time, I barked an order, “Back to the house.”

Seemingly out of nowhere, hundreds of cloak wearing figures appeared, from the undergrowth of the forest that was part of our private area. Most of them were wielding swords and shields, in the elven style. While the rest carried bows. I immediately reached out to try and freeze them, or at least some of them. However, whenever I connected with one of their souls, it was like my mana just slid off. It could not take a hold of their souls and prevent them from attacking.

With a roar, they charged us, while the archers let loose their arrows. The wind magic I had prepared exploded into existence, creating a gale force that forced the arrows to be turned around and fly back from where they came.

Spikes of stones erupted in the path of the charging warriors. So did pillars of fire, as Shenerah started to get in on the action. A bestial roar sounded as Emma turned into her giant panther form.

“They’re behind us as well!” I heard Yathanae call out. Sparing a glance to look behind me, I saw that another score of armed men had appeared between us and the house. It would seem they had all intentions of surrounding us.

With a groan, I poured several pools worth of mana into the ground and made a giant pillar of stone appear beneath us, raising us up into the air. We had only gotten two metres up, when something started battling my mana, halting the growth of the pillar.

Looking around, I saw a score of the warriors kneeling, clearly, they were the source of the foreign stone magic. They were not the only mages in the group, because suddenly fireballs flew in our direction. I gave up wasting mana on battling the earth mages, and instead started trying to kill them. Because I was not opposing them, we started sinking back down to ground level.

“Give me a bow or something,” Yathanae shouted. I looked over at her, seeing her standing protectively in front of Lily and Garion. Garion was crying at full volume, the screams of pain and violence around him were not what I wanted him to grow up in. With a wave of my hand, I tried to make the swords of the fallen come to me. However, for some reason that failed as well.

Irritated, I sent a few firebolts at the approaching men, killing them instantly. At the same time, a perfectly balanced spear made of stone rose up next to Yathanae and Shenerah as well. It was the best I could do at the moment.

“Something is messing with my magic,” I loudly informed the others. Emma had just launched a swipe at someone that came to close, taking off his head. However, it left her open to an attack at the flank. A warrior was just a second away from running her through with a spear.

One moment I was staring at it happening, the next I had teleported behind him, grabbed him by the neck and thrown him to the ground. As the claws emerged from my forearm and penetrated his forehead, I noticed two alarming things.

“They’re elves, they fucking broke their promise!” I screamed full of rage. Which was when I discovered a much more disconcerting thing. Their weapons had a certain aura. A vile aura. One I had only seen on one type of weapon. “They got heretic blades, don’t let them get near you.”

I sent out a tremoring earthquake making them all drop to the ground. I quickly followed up with stone spikes and firebolts, killing ten of them with every breath I took. I heard the clang of weapons behind me and turned around to see Yathanae fighting with someone in melee combat. However, she only defended.

A quick teleport later and I had skewered her opponent with my claws. She looked panicked at me. “They’re not elves, they’re humans. I can’t attack them.”

“Same here,” Shenerah added with frustration. “I can only use fire magic when it doesn’t directly harm anyone.”

“Fucking priests,” I roared and sent a wave of destructive magic at the few warriors near us. Wind, earth, and fire worked together to obliterate their existence.

“Oh, it looks like we were found out. Your elven sluts are quite clever,” a familiar voice called out. From the treeline, I saw more people appear, as well as someone I never expected I would see again. Vernon.

The new warriors appearing were armed with muskets, something I was truly fearful of. Especially if they had managed to make the bullets the same as all their other weapons. Lily exclaimed, “Vernon?”

His face turned ugly. “I see you spread your legs for this usurper. Fucking slut.”

“Don’t talk to my wife like that,” I growled and sent a fireball and a stone spike in his direction. They were cancelled by their mages. This situation was becoming very dire. If I was alone, it was no problem, but with my family around me, I could not just run amok. “Shouldn’t you be wearing a collar?”

“Oh, you noticed that did you?” he laughed. “Turns out there’s a way to remove them after all. I’ve come to repay you for the indignities you put me through. Ready.”

The soldiers carrying the muskets cocked them. I immediately started raising stone walls around us, but their mages kept acting against me, tearing them down as fast as I could get them up. I tried to dig us down, but again the mages working in concert prevented me. I might be more powerful than them, but with twenty plus mages working together was enough to make it hard for me to succeed. I heard Vernon shout, “Level!”

With a roar, I emptied most of my mana pool, and raised a lot of walls instantly, with more mana than needed, as I barely heard the shout of “Fire!” that was drowned in the sound of fifty muskets firing simultaneously.

As I fought against the mages tearing down my fortifications, the girls screamed around me. Making me see red. I pulled out a handful of giant mana crystals, each capable of filling two or three mana pools worth of mana.

After I absorbed the crystals, I used all my mana to detonate the walls outwards. Knowing the destructive force would ruin everything within two hundred metres of me. Except for my family and I. When the debris settled, there was silence. The snow was stained red. I felt dizzy. I almost collapsed. It was the reason why I had not done it earlier. It would leave me weakened. They had left me no choice. I just hoped there was no one left.

“Yathanae!” I heard Lily scream. My body froze, my mind froze. That scream stopped my world. Almost woodenly I turned my head to where I had last seen Yathanae. She was laying on the ground, bleeding from what looked like several bullet wounds.

Groaning, I stumbled towards her, fishing out more mana crystals. Replenishing my magic, I dropped next to my lover. She was bleeding from a wound high in the chest, wounds on the arms and the legs—and one at her stomach. My world froze.

“Do something!” Shenerah screamed, unfreezing me. I poured healing magic into Yathanae, but like so many other times today, the wounds rejected my healing magic. Confirming my worst fear.

“I can’t,” I mumbled, tears streaming down my face.

“It—it’s okay,” Yathanae managed to cough out, amidst coughing up blood.

“No, I won’t let this happen.” Immediately I did what I had always done when the situation turned desperate beyond salvation. I tore down the barrier on my mana. If I could just get enough mana, I could save her. I knew that.

As soon as the barrier had been torn down. It popped up again, and I found myself in the dream glade. The woman was standing there, staring angrily at me. “Are you trying to get yourself killed? You barely survived the last time.”

“I’ve to try. I have to save her!” I shouted. “You can’t stop me.”

“The weapons that hurt her were made by the Destroyer, nothing can save her.”

“No, you’re lying. There has to be a way.”

“Not even the Creator can save her,” the woman replied with a sad shake of her head.

“Don’t stop me, I won’t give up.”

“I still have use of you, so I can’t let you throw your life away,” she said silently. “You should stop fighting, and say goodbye to her, and your daughter. You can’t save them. Not even if you were the Creator herself.”

“There’s truly no way?” I asked, knowing it was the truth, but did not want to believe it.

“No.”

My head hung in defeat. “You won’t let me even try, will you?”

“It would be for nought.”

“Then help me get revenge,” I growled. She nodded her head once, and I found myself back in the snow, kneeling above my dying elven princess. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

“There’s nothing I can do,” I whispered between sobs. Yathanae reached a hand out towards Emma who grabbed it and pressed it to her cheek. I could do nothing for her, not even lessen the pain. I could not even feel the wounds with my healing magic. I could clearly see them, but to my magic, it was like there was nothing there.

“I lo—” Yathanae started to say, but was interrupted by a fit of coughing, and then she stopped breathing. Garion was crying, Emma, Shenerah, and Lily were crying. I was crying. How long we just stayed there I did not know, but suddenly I heard boots approaching.

Looking up I saw the Wolf Guard come running in, with Alan in front. They came to an abrupt stop, staring at the carnage around us. I stared at the man who was supposed to protect my family. With a roar, I sprang to my feet and charged him. “Where the fuck were you?”

I had my hand around his throat, bringing him to his knee in front of him. “Milord, stop, you’re killing him!”

I looked at the one who dared to oppose me. It was Ethan. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Milord, I came as quickly as I could,” he stammered. I immediately switched my wind magic for that of Sap’s, so I could get to the truth.

“Speak.”

“A priest sent me a message, warning me to get away from you. I tried warning Emma, but they must have blocked my message,” Ethan explained with a sorrowful look. “I got here as quickly as I could, when I informed Alan that you were under attack he stormed in here. We found and killed a handful of priests keeping this area sealed in. No sound or messages could get in and out.”

I had forgotten there were mages that could manipulate sound. Create bubbles that sound could not escape from. I relaxed my hand, letting Alan breathe. I stared at Ethan. “Send a message to Ayda. Tell her that if she wants the Bastion to fall, then she must attack it with all her forces in five hours. No hesitation. No holding back.”

“What are you going to do, my love?” Lily asked from behind me.

“Vent some of my anger and grief,” I stated flatly. “And I’ll bring Yathanae home to her parents one last time.”

“I’m coming with you,” Emma said. I was about to argue with her, but she deserved that.

“Milord, I don’t thi—” Ethan started to protest, but a glare from me stopped him.

I turned my back to him and walked back to Yathanae’s corpse. As I looked at her, I came to a decision. “Send a message to Chione. Tell her that I am in. However, I’ll not deal with Anders.”

“Yes, Milord,” he replied woodenly. I knew he did not agree with this course of action. Neither would the me from yesterday. However, circumstances had changed my perspective. It was time to show the Church what a mistake they had made. First by bringing me here, and then taking away one of my children from me. I would show them that they did not need to fear the Destroyer, they would need to fear the hell I was going to bring to them.