While Renya was getting whaled on, under the same moon Avar entered a cave in a mountainside. He told the cats that bowed to him to rally here. The grey blue cat with the white eyepatch descended into the depths of the cave. There were empty thick wooden carts and huge pickaxes jammed into the stone walls, broken railing littered the ground.

The abandoned mine smelled of rotting wood. Avar plunged further into the depths and into a large open cavern full of light from the moon. Avar looked up. Though he was inside a mountain, the moonlight poured in through an open top.

Avar couldn't see that detail from the outside. He marveled at the natural construction as Tufts, his self-appointed attendant, found him.

"Good thing your back my lord, there's much work to do, we need-"

Tufts began gesturing and talking about the cats below him. Hundreds of them, it looked like moving carpet, moonlight glinting off their fur. Avar drew his katana.

"What are you doing, my lord? Are you listening?"

"No."

Tufts voice faltered in his lord's presence. Defying the bakeneko lord's will was possible for most lesser bakeneko. However, Tufts spent many years in the employ of the former bakeneko lords before they were all killed, so much time in their presence left him unable to challenge one to their face.

"My lord? Where are you going?"

Avar walked off, leaving Tufts behind, katana drawn. He circled down from the top of the cavern to the bottom filled with his new subjects.

"Tufts, you have not seen the wonders I've seen. Power beyond my wildest imagining lies beyond my grasp, those maids, that Avalon place, it's splendor is beyond anything."

Tufts didn't like where this was going. He followed after his lord, thinking of anything to say to derail him. Avar would leave them behind? An entire armies worth? And he could easily recruit more with how the bakeneko have spread over the spirit world, though no doubt it would be difficult fighting, Avar could rule Prsuka within the week.

If Prsuka wasn't a pile of flotsam and corpses, that is.

Avar kept descending down to the cat herd. He switched his katana to his other paw, putting the other one over his eyepatch.

"If I don't have my own freedom, what do I have?"

He reached the bottom, several cats kneeled, then as if it were a ripple every cat kneeled before him. The entire place was silent.

Tufts himself struggled to stand as he asked his question.

"Then, who will lead us, my lord?"

Avar pointed his sword at Tufts.

"How about you?"

"My lord, the presence of a bakeneko lord himself is required! Without that magic, the bakeneko have rampaged across the spirit world breeding incessantly! Didn't you say how despicable our people were when we met, how'd you change us and bring us order?!"

"That was then. I came from countryside to the big city, hoping to see the world, and all I saw were more stupid cats. They can barely control themselves, not the type of people I'd like to spend time around, that's for sure."

He walked up the crowd of cats. Avar raised his sword. He cut down, slashing several cat's heads off in a single blow.

Yowls rang out and hundreds of cats began to rise, sensing danger. The rest stayed kneeling, worrying to themselves.

"However. I can't let you all go without supervision. The responsible thing to do would be to kill you all. My first and final order as your bakeneko lord, please kill yourselves."

Nearly every cat rose in rebellion. Avar's katana flashed through them incessantly under the moonlight, glittering as bakeneko fell to pieces before him. Hundreds upon hundreds came at him late into the night. In the end, Avar remained.