Knight soon fell headfirst into the grassy ground. He was still catching his narrowing breath when he heard another sharp yell of anguish. His closed eyes flickered open when he recognized the voice.
"Mother…"
Still weakened, he ran toward the burning banquet just in time to witness a blue-haired witch slice his father's wolf form with a fiery long blade. The wolf was already weak, staggering to stand, marred with dirt, wounds, and blood in its once grayish fur.
Knight rushed toward them, hoping to aid his father. But his body was thrown back when a bolt of solid energy slammed directly into his chest.
Before he could recover and stand, another searing hit knocked him nearly unconscious, and then another, and another. The onslaught was relentless, numbing him to the pain. When the attack finally stopped, Knight saw the blue-haired witch hauling her long blade, aiming at his injured father lying helplessly on the ground.
Knight sat frozen. He could not move. It was too fast, like lightning passing by and then gone. In the last split second, his father's bluish eyes locked on his.
He regained enough strength to stand. He was about to run at his maximum speed and do everything he could to save their Alpha, his father, despite the impossibility of it.
But he ran nevertheless, and everything around seemed to blur. He was a few moments away when he heard his father's voice inside his head.
He was communicating with Knight using their Pack's Mindlink. "Protect the Night Howler," he ordered. "Protect the Pack…"
Those were the last words his father whispered. Knight halted, gasping, his heart stopping for fatal seconds.
Knight's chest tightened at the nightmarish sight. The Alpha. His father. He was gone.
"No!" Lumellyana's guttural scream echoed around the chaos. She leapt, turning into her wolf form mid-air. Her fangs emerged, with yellowish eyes glimmering in the fading moonlight.
Without hesitation, Lumellyana attacked with one swift paw. But before she could touch one of the witches, her body froze and was pulled down by a suffocating wind.
Knight saw from afar how her wolf form vanished into the night as dark smoke enveloped her motionless body, inch by inch, until nothing was left of her.
The colorful hair of the witches reigned the night, and their eerie laughter echoed until Knight's body snapped into immeasurable anger.
How dare these wicked beings paint his home with blood and ruins?
Knight's body growled in agony. But it was a strange kind of pain, surging from within. It was as if something contained was about to break free. The moment when the Beast was about to be born.
Then, swiftly, Knight's pinkish nails blackened and curled into long, sharp claws. His bones seemed to shatter and reform. His muscles swelled with overwhelming strength, and the anger he felt intensified.
Kill. Revenge. Dominate!
Knight's vision turned crimson. His fangs desired the taste of terror. With blinding speed, he soared into the sky, faster than a blink, faster than lightning.
The cloaked witches glimpsed him, and they began murmuring, gesturing with their hands, and pointing their fingers at him.
But his heightened senses warned him when to jump to dodge the ground that suddenly turned into bubbling lava. He ducked when cold walls seemingly appeared out of thin air, almost enclosing him.
Knight seemed to know the exact moment to maneuver himself right and left, as if he could foresee what came next, escaping the clutches of the dark smoke that emerged behind him.
His massive form shadowed the witches' faces overhead. He saw their eyes glint with terror.
He did not give them a chance to gasp or blink.
One by one, the witches fell to the ground in silence.
Just as Knight was about to kill the remaining witch in his sight, another scream crept into his very soul. He saw his mother's once-lovely face. His body was consumed by fear. It flooded his entire being like he had never felt before.
The fear was so great that it rendered Knight weakened. "No!" He composed himself and ran on all fours, reaching for his mother. But a second later was already too late. The witch had her in her arms.
Andra's body descended, and the raging fire licked her feet. It crawled up her thigh like a snake, embracing her chest, and with an open mouth, devoured her terrorized face.
Knight growled and sunk to the ground. Tears streamed down his face. She was gone. His mother was gone. He suddenly felt an indescribable emptiness. He could not control himself. Everything was pain. Everything was numb.
When the moonlight touched his wounds, the seething anger roared. The soft giggles of the witch awakened Knight from his grief. With determination, he stood mightily and roared at the blazing moon.
He charged. His movements were sloppy, driven merely by anger. He was too furious to think, he slammed everyone along his way. He dragged down every witch he encountered until there was no one else he could see.
With tears streaking down his face, Knight knelt before the ashes of his mother. There was nothing compared to the one he felt seeing the suffering of the woman who meant the world to him.
He howled, cried, and silently prayed for a miracle. He wanted his mother back.
Now, he knelt alone in the darkness. There was nothing else to destroy, no one to direct his anger toward. His primal instinct seemed to subside, leaving him with nothing but inconsolable grief.
When tiredness caught up, five figures who had been observing the gruesome scene from a distance snatched the weeping, wounded boy.
The last thing Knight saw was his mother's ashes waving at him as the morning breeze carried them away. Then there was nothing but silence and nothingness.
Knight woke up feeling the pain throbbing in his back. He opened his eyes, but all that greeted him was absolute darkness.
Where am I?
Each breath he took felt like a chore, the thin air dragging a knife against his chest.
Soon, he felt the cold metallic chains around his wrists, rattling as he tried to sit up. They felt heavier than the last time he remembered.
They must have changed them again.
It was the same as the last time before he slept. Nothing had changed. Hunger and thirst were still not satiated. He felt more dead than alive.
"The dog's finally awake."
The same high-pitched voice he had heard from the very first time he woke up here spoke. There was emptiness in her voice.
Then a metal clank sounded close by, and something heavy squeaked. The orange light flooded the darkness slowly, inch by inch. Knight squinted his eyes to adjust.
"Where is the Night Howler?" asked a green-haired lady.
Knight had already lost count of how many times they had asked him this. He did not know how many days, weeks, or months he had been imprisoned.
But no matter how much they tortured him, he gave the same exact answer every time, nothing more or less.
"Rot in hell."
"Where's the Night Howler?" she repeated, her gritted teeth audible.
But Knight's answer never changed.
The interrogation continued on. It felt like forever, though it must have been just a couple of hours.
"One last time, boy." The green-haired witch seemed to have lost her remaining patience. "If you do not answer me seriously, you will sleep in the fire pit."
Knight only smirked at her threat. When the witch asked him once more, he spit on her face this time.
Her eyes widened. She squinted, her frustration almost leaping out of her mouth. But despite that, Knight did not back down.
"You dog is so annoying." She soon began murmuring in a language Knight did not understand, hissing. Then she flicked her wrist, grinning mischievously at him.
Knight had already felt it before he realized it. It was a prickling sting at first, tickling his sweat-soaked skin, biting his delicate bones.
"Not so strong and brave now under my spell, eh?" The witch's laugh went straight to Knight's heart, squeezing it tightly.
It reminded him of what he had lost the night he heard that same sinister laughter. He lost everything he once had: his home, his pack, his father, his mother. Himself.
Mother.
These witches. They took everything from him, and he despised their very being. He abhorred their kind. He vowed that once he finally got out of here, and even if he died here, his soul would desperately kill every last breathing witch who massacred his clan.
He would avenge them. He promised himself he would, no matter the cost or means. But how was he supposed to do that now when he could not even protect himself?
Knight wanted to cry, but his eyes betrayed him. It was not due to the pain consuming him entirely, but because he felt so hopeless. They should have just killed him like the rest.
At first, he thought he could break free. He was hopeful he could do something, though it was quite impossible. He thought he could do it. But then the days passed, turning into grueling months. And yet, he was still there, chained like a pet.
Months turned into years. He thought someone would arrive to save him. But no one came. No one. He did not know what to do anymore. He did not want to give up, but everything inside him screamed for the relief of death. As much as he wanted to live for revenge, he'd be better off dying with his loved ones in the Underworld.
"Guards!"
A dozen muscular men wearing masks emerged from the shadows and dragged him.
When they first did this, Knight fought for his life. So did the second and third times, until countless times. But soon, Knight stopped counting and fighting back, letting them have their way with him.
His first excuse was that he needed to save his remaining energy to use it to escape. But then, who was he fooling? He would never escape this confinement.
Now, Knight just let them drag him around like a ragdoll. He was too weak, too lonely, to even have the willingness to fight and save himself. All that remained within him was vengeance and nothing else, not even love.
He wanted to laugh. If his father could see him now, wherever he was, he would certainly abandon Knight. He was disgustingly weak, unable to even breathe on his own.
He had already familiarized himself with the passageway. He had been here countless times and long enough not to be surprised when he saw the colossal pit at the center of the cavern.
All the witches passing by were laughing at his misfortune. He had not actually seen so many witches since he was held, perhaps less than a dozen.
The first time he found himself in the dungeon, he tried to sense his surroundings. But he could not identify any presence other than the ten witches and a few unidentified guards.
That was why he thought it would be easy to get out of here. He found it peculiar not to feel any Life Essence in the witch's lair, as he knew they lived in covens.
After a few months, while attempting to escape, he overheard a conversation between two guards. That was when he discovered they were at the Forgotten Fjords.
Every child had been warned about the mystical creatures that inhabited its expansive lands. It was the Unknown Wilderness of the world of Quailsham. Hope was abandoned upon entry, and none ever returned.
It was the continent at the farthest south where all beings banished the sickest and most ruthless. This was the Hell of the Living, not merely a mystical place veiled with mystery to scare children into sleeping early.
It was a reality where everyone soon ended up dying unimaginable deaths. And Knight was presently there and had been dying.
The guards soon surrounded the huge pit. Its width was unknown, but its height was twice that of Knight. Surely, it could at least fit twenty of him.
Soon, the man wearing a red mark pushed Knight. But Knight stumbled, too weak to walk. He fell, colliding with the man in the black mask in front of him.
The man's roar shook the entire area. Knight attempted to stand, but the man stepped on him.
"That's enough," an older man intervened. "We need him inside. Just do it later, but spare him death."
Soon, they dragged him down and locked his chains on the pit's wall ring.
Knight knew they wanted him alive. They still needed to find and retrieve the Night Howler, which he had hidden in a secret space in his future Mate's chamber beside him.
It was a century-old tradition to secure a space for the Alpha's Mate inside their Pack's home, even before she was found. Once their bond was sealed, that sacred chamber became the private haven of the firstborn and Heir to the Throne.
By the time they locked him up again in his cage, his skin was slowly healing, but his energy was not enough to suppress the pain. It hurt so much. He lost consciousness, only to wake up to the pain's nagging nudges.
Knight wanted to muffle his groans. He did not want any of them to hear his agony. But then his bones snapped.
With dizzying vision, he searched for the witch who might be bewitching him, but he found himself alone. His lower back cracked, and the pain reverberated. He collapsed for the second time that night.
The next hours were nightmarish. The pain did not stop even for a fraction of a second. It came to a point where Knight would knock himself out just so he could not feel the excruciating pain, albeit briefly.
His heightened senses were overwhelming. Everything was too much. His sight, his hearing, his smell were more than he could handle.
Knight thought that after winning the Night Howler, all he had to do was practice more, train severely, impress his father, protect his pack, find his Mate, and settle down with their lovely children for the rest of their lives.
It sounded so pleasant in his mind that all he wanted was to achieve just that. But now, he could never have that. He could not even have his wolf. His wolf was supposed to show up on his sixteenth birthday, at full moon. But how many years had really passed? There was still none. It seemed he was so weak that even his beast did not want him.
Knight was about to knock himself against the sturdy wall to attain another temporary relief. Suddenly, out of nowhere, his nose caught a scent—overwhelming, fleeting, immense. Finally, he smelled her. His Mate, his fate, his Luna… had finally arrived.