Hi there, thank you for reading my fiction. ================ ‘BOOOOOOOOOOM’ A quarter of the mountain caved in, made it nearly impossible for the werewolves to survive, unless there were another entrance to the den. Acma didn’t bother to think about it. He dragged the werewolf 100 metres to the edge of the empty ground before he tossed it like a rag. Then he sat on the boulder, trying to calm himself down. The werewolf elder put some effort to sit up. It didn’t want to speak with its captor while lying on the floor. It tried several times, but it limbless body didn’t operate like it wanted to. Thanks to its regeneration power, the bleeding was stopped but it wasn’t enough to regrow its limbs. “Why did you do this to us? Why did you destroy our home?” It barked furiously. “Think”, replied Acma coldly. “...” The werewolf furrowed it brows, thinking of something. It look at Acma and his armour, it paused for a while. Then it look at the supreme guardians behind Acma. It took some times before it laughed a little. “You’re the monster that everyone was talking about since yesterday”, it said with a low voice. “I didn’t believe it at first, but now I’m convinced. You’re really a monster. You killed us like a monster would do. What do you want?” “Where did you find those humans?” “Why should I tell you? You’re going to kill me anyway. Do it, kill me!” “...” “This werewolf won’t talk”, thought Acma. “It’s not like I won’t be able to find the trace without its help” Acma turned his head toward Silver. When it lowered its head, he rubbed it softly. “Could you help me find the traces of those humans?” ‘Grrrrr...’, Silver rubbed its head on Acma’s palm before it turned its body, sniffed the air for a while before running to the north. “So, it’s further up north”, thought Acma while looking at the direction where Silver disappeared. “Unsummon: Stone Golem” Acma stood up and retrieved all the supreme guardians. “Let’s go Alice” “Yes, Master” Acma walked passed the lying werewolf, not even paid a glance at it. He treated it like it didn’t exist. “Hey, monster. Where are going?” the werewolf started barking when it realized that Acma was leaving without taking it along. “Hey, don’t you want to know where I captured those humans? I’ll te....” “EARTH SPIKE” Instantly, its body was covered with spikes. Acma didn’t like to haggle and he won’t beg. He already gave that werewolf a chance but it wasted it. Although his heart was still bleeding when thinking about the children it ate, he realized that it was pointless to prolong its suffering. Acma entered the forest and proceed to the north. There was no sign of Silver but he could feel the connection that it wasn’t far at the front and still moving. He moved faster so could catch up. From time to time, he would use Phantom Steps or Blink whenever he could see the ground. It was dark in the forest and his night vision equipment had a limited range, but the moonlight which penetrated through the tree canopy helped him to see the ground. It’s already half an hour but Silver was still moving. During this time, Acma was reminiscing about what happened today. He didn’t felt much emotions, but he believed that he was a step closer to successfully defending Orca Village. The villagers of Orca were strong without doubt, they were united, had a good leadership and equipment. The had varied professions such as knights, mages, scouts and healer, but their enemies were just too many and stronger. It was impossible to defend the village with a less than 120 combatants for a long time. When he departed last night, Chief Pai informed him that the elders decided to wait for several more days before making another decision about either Orca Village should relocate to somewhere safer or not. Acma respected their decision. He understand that the village had some sentimental values for them so it was hard for them to relocate. But he didn’t have a patience to just wait and see what will happen. He wanted to act. When he met the envoys last night, he already sceptical when they said they won’t attack the village. Why it said that when the envoys should be tight-lipped? After he found out their scheme, he didn’t hesitate to attack and subjugating the centaurs was just a bonus. He had no previous hatred against the werewolves. On the first encounter, he just defending the village. Either killed or be killed. On the second meeting, although the elder shouted that it would killed everyone in Orca Village and eat their heart, he only thought, “It was just an angry werewolf’s rambling, no big deal. I just need to stop him”. But what they did in their den were just unforgivable. Subjugating the centaurs and annihilating the werewolves fulfilled one of his objectives which is reducing the number of the enemies. He also hoping it would achieved his two other objectives which is planting a fear in the enemies’ heart and shifting their attention from Orca Village to him. However, these two objectives depends on either the enemies feared him or not, or they actually care about him or not. If they feared him, they might stop attacking Orca Village. But, if they didn’t fear or care about him, then he had another tribes either to subjugate or annihilate, depends on the situations. But there is another possibility which might come out from his action today. It might also aggravate the enemies’ wrath up to the point they decide to send a huge army, just to deal with him and Orca Village. “That is impossible”, he thought. “But if it did happen, I just have to convince the elders to relocate” ‘PHANTOM STEP’ He shifted his location several hundred metres to the front. After a while, ‘AWOOOOOOOOOO’ Silver gave a signal that it found its target. After running for another 15 minutes, Acma saw Silver standing near an overhang at the foot of a cliff. The height of that overhang were about 5 metres and its size were just perfect for a temporary shelter. He reached the overhang, patted Silver’s head several times and then took out several spheres. “Alice, scan the surrounding” “Yes, Master” Acma examined closely the space under the overhang. What he saw was a mess. Dried blood splattered everywhere, pieces of clothes, canned food and broken equipment, but no human remains. “Looks like the monsters has clean up everything here”, he thought. When he was rushing here, he already anticipated that he won’t find any survivors here, but he never thought it would be this bad. From the volume of the dried blood, he could deduce that the amount of people taking shelter here would be around 10-15 peoples. He looked around, hoping to find any clues about where this people came. His eyes finally stumbled upon a school bag, probably belong to a kindergartener at the deepest part of this shelter. He took it and checked its contents. He saw an envelope with a school emblem on it stuck between the workbooks. He carefully opened it and found a letter addressed to the parents of the owner of the school bag. “Boulder Town? Why does it appear here?”, he puzzled. Boulder Town originally located at more than 250 kilometres, northwest from Orca Village, but now it had shifted about 100 kilometres closer. This town was a mining town, specifically mining a taconite oand processed it into an iron pellet before shipping it to a bigger city by train. It was a town with no more than 20000 population. Most of them were miners and factory workers, but there were others who worked as farmers, educators and other jobs. “What happened to the town? Why these people took refuge here?” Questions and questions appeared in his mind. One thing he was sure that its location wasn’t far from this shelter. He was anxious. There must be something big happened that forced these people to flee away from the town. “Alice, expand the search area and look for a town” “Yes, Master” Acma kept the bag and the other broken equipment into his inventory. If there was a survivor Boulder Town, there might be a relatives to the peoples who died here. He was just hoping he might find one, although he wasn’t sure about the chances. “Let’s go Silver” He rode on the back of Silver and urged it to a nearby hill. Looking for a town in the middle of a night was much easier from a vantage point. “Master, there is a town in that direction”, said Alice who was in her high fairy form as she pointed at one direction. Acma turned his head and saw a solitary mountain, isolated from the mountains range behind him. Under a moonlight, it looks serene and beautiful. Acma shifted his gaze toward its base where he saw a faint light flickering in the middle of the night. He couldn’t see clearly the buildings, but he knew it were there. What obstructed his view was a dark cloud covering the town. What is that dark cloud, thought Acma. He had a bad feelings about that.