The fortress of the Ice Fang Order towered over the city like an eternal guardian. The walls were cube-shaped and made of reinforced stone and steel. According to her father, many weapons and defenses were hidden within the walls, ready to unleash their apocalyptic wrath in times of need, but Aranea herself never saw them. Only smooth walls reflecting the moonlight rose above her. The city was built around the fortress, with countless houses in which Normies, normal-looking humans, lived.

Right now, there were only a few people on the streets, because everyone was going to sleep. That suited Aranea just fine. She turned left from the gates of the fortress and walked down the street, passing through the slums, the poorest part of the city. From the slums, she walked to an abandoned area where factories once stood. The Ice Fang Order no longer had a need in these outdated, air-polluting factories. Thanks to the technology that Wyrm Lord brought via trading with Iterna, the new factories were clean and safe for the surrounding area. Or at least this was what Dad told her. Smiling, Aranea lifted her paw to the skies, “grabbing” the distant moon disk with her palm. There was so much new to see and learn in the world!

Pretty soon, Aranea came across a small group of white-furred Wolfkin cubs. The elders of the Ice Fang Order did not like it when Aranea bothered older cubs, as the elders considered Aranea to be too young. Thus, everyone had to meet in secret.

“What took you so long!?” One asked. Wide-eyed Keyl, wolfkin of the order, snatched Aranea into a hug. He was five years older and tried his best to impress the girl with his physical prowess, but no matter how hard the boy tried, they were simply built differently. Aranea was already taller and stronger than him; she barely felt his embrace. The boy was carrying two wooden swords behind his back.

“So, uhm… about the last time.” Keyl grabbed his head. “I understand if you never want to duel me again…”

“Dummy!” Aranea laughed and bonked him jokingly on the head with her paw. “It was just a bruise! Who cares about it?”

“Oh…” the boy said, visibly relieved. He lowered on one knee and offered her a sword, as if he were some kind of knight. “Then, Lady Aranea Wintersong, will you please accept this humble challenge of mine on this beautiful night?”

“Keyl, we want to play,” said a girl nearby, throwing a black and white soccer ball in the air and catching it on her ankle. “You’re just going to lose again. Get over it and stop bothering Ari. We all lose sometimes.”

Football was something of a new thing in the Ice Fang Order. Keyl saw it on TV, on one of the recorded programs brought back from Iterna. He showed it to Aranea, and together they created a small stadium in an abandoned factory. Instead of proper gates, they used steel pipes, and instead of nets, they used ropes. Surprisingly, it was easy enough to buy a soccer ball on the market, although Keyl had to spend his entire birthday’s savings on this toy. Eventually, other kids joined the duo. The original soccer ball was long gone, but now that their group was slowly growing, it was easier than ever to buy a new one to replace the destroyed one.

“I gladly accept this challenge, good sir!” Aranea boastfully grabbed a wooden sword and jumped a few steps back. She took no stance. In combat, she never took a stance. Keyl showed her some tricks, of course, but against him, she saw no reason to be cautious.

Keyl stood up, taking the wooden sword with both hands and raising it to the level of his head, aiming it directly at Aranea. Gripping the hilt tightly with both paws, he moved the sword slightly to the right of his head and made a thrust. Aranea blinked in surprise. Usually, Keyl stuck to the “slashing” attacks. But this was a “piercing” motion, and he wielded his weapon like a spear. He covered most of the distance with a single lunge. His left paw released the sword hilt, and his right paw moved back, holding only the lower part of the hilt with three fingers and pushing his weapon forward.

This motion almost caught Aranea off guard because she had anticipated him to close the distance with a few steps rather than a single lunge. She tilted her body to the right to avoid the wooden blade. It passed her chest… And then Keyl grabbed his weapon with the full grip of his right paw and made a slash to the right. She had to admit that he executed the move perfectly, easily redirecting his attack. Aranea had never seen such a technique from him before. She should have been hit.

And yet he was just so slow! Aranea let herself almost fall back as Keyl’s sword flew above her head. In this same instance, while falling, she struck forward with her own weapon. Using her own wooden sword as a needle, she poked the boy on the wrist, and Keyl hissed in annoyance. Aranea arrested her own fall by tightening the muscles of her legs; her hair barely touched the ground.

“Touch! Ari wins again!” The Wolfkin girl with the soccer ball laughed and clapped her paws in congratulation.

“Damn it all!” Keyl shouted in frustration, helping Aranea to her feet before she could fall and hit the stones. He ensured she was standing and broke his weapon on the knee. “I train and train until my bones crack; every night my muscles arch from the strain, and this! this is the best I can do?!”

“Don’t you worry, Keyli-boy!” Aranea jokingly patted him on the head with her paw. “One day you will beat me up…”

“If only I too had the cursed barbarian blood in my veins!” Keyl tossed the broken remains of his weapon away.

“What?” Aranea asked, confused. Barbarian? What could he mean?

“If only I had the same blood as you!” Keyl threw his arms up in anger, breathing fast from irritation. Aranea felt bad for him. He really trained hard all day long. But it wasn’t her fault that she was strong, right? “Or if you never had this accursed, tainted blood in you! Then I would never have lost to you! You’re a dirty-blooded cheater—damn it, a cheater from the cursed bloodline! The savage legacy of your mother is giving you an advantage too great for me to overcome! I trained this move to reach your level, and you don’t even train, don’t even want to train, and still making a weakling out of me! The cursed blood of your savage mother is the only reason why…”

“My mother is not a savage!” Aranea screamed, pushing him back. Keyl fell on his ass, blinking in surprise. Aranea blinked, equally surprised by the sudden outburst. Everything within her screamed to keep going. She wanted to close her jaws on his gentle neck and bleed him up. Who does this male think he is? How dare he defy to a female... The girl shook off the sudden aggression and hurried to help him stand up, unsure of what had come over her. “Sorry. But my mother is not a savage! She’s... she’s caring, there’s no curse on her.… She’s a nurse!!” Aranea felt tears wetting her fur. Was this what Keyl always thought about her? That she was a savage girl? Someone with cursed blood?

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Not cool, Keyl,” a Wolfkin boy said. “I never won against Ari myself either, and yet you don’t see me raving like a madman about it.” The Wolfkin girl dropped the soccer ball and moved to hug Aranea, but the girl pushed her away and stepped back.

“I… I do not feel like playing today; sorry everyone.” Aranea mumbled, ashamed of her behavior. She cried like a stupid fool; she will never live this one down.

“Ari…” Keyl stood up on his knees. “Please, I never intended… I do not know what came over me; I am sorry, so sor…”

Aranea could not listen anymore. She could hear Keyl and a few others trying to catch up, but she was much faster than them. She ran into a building, almost leaped to the second floor across the broken stairs, jumped out the closest window, evading the broken glass, landed softly on all fours, and ran through the bushes to the slums.

“Cursed blood,” she mumbled to herself angrily as she reached the slums. “I’ll show you cursed blood. My mother is not cursed; she’s… no longer a warrior, that’s it!” Aranea wiped tears from her eyes. She was unsure what had caused such a reaction in her. The cubs always teased each other. Aranea teased Keyl as well, and he teased her back... so why did she feel so hurt now?

“I am dumb. There was no harm done,” she decided. She will apologize to Keyl tomorrow. The poor idiot probably blames himself right now. “Maybe I should buy him something? But where will I get the tokens?”

She came to a halt near a small stone bridge after hearing a whimpering sound beneath it. It was the low sound of someone suffering great pain and yet trying their best not to let it out. Without thinking, Aranea jumped down. A small river ran under the bridge; the water was clean and reflected the light of the moon. Something—no, someone—lay in the darkness. It had an enormous body and pale, almost white skin with no fur or hair. Countless scars and cuts covered the misshapen figure; some were oozing blood, which produced a strange hiss upon hitting the ground, as if weak acid ran in the veins of this strange being. A small, fat-looking tail grew out, almost from the middle of the back. Strange-looking, three-fingered, clawed hands gripped its head, covering short ears. The creature had a single blue eye and a single white eye, and tears were running from them. The shape of the skull resembled that of a Wolfkin, but the creature was so much bigger! And the rest of its body was... strange.

“Are… are you alright, mister?” Aranea asked as the creature whined again. Aranea was unsure if this was a man; she made an assumption based on the sound of whining. “Do you need me to call someone for help?”

The creature looked at her, and an unspeakable fear appeared in his eyes. There was a long, crescent-shaped cut under his left eye. He lifted his arms from his head and whispered,

“Run. For the sake of everything, run! Run fast before he comes back….”

Aranea wanted to ask who “he” was, but suddenly she felt a prick on the back of her neck. She wanted to jump, but her body refused to obey. She had become a statue, numbness running through her now wooden limbs.

“Who comes back? Me?” a male voice behind Aranea asked cheerfully, and the creature grasped his head, whimpering in terror. “Grug, mind introducing me to your new friend?”

“I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry…” the creature mumbled over and over again, trying hard not to glance at the person behind Aranea.

Something slithered. Aranea’s eyes widened as she noticed a long metallic tendril moving on the ground. The thing reached Grug, and a thin blade appeared out of it, slicing through the flesh of the beast on his back, causing Grug to cry out in pain as his skin was peeled away. The metal appendage kept traversing under the skin, like an ugly parasitic worm trying to burrow inside.

“I asked a question, pet,” the voice said, this time with a hint of anger. “And your power prevents me from easily extracting information from your thick skull, so speak up.”

“I just met her. She is only a child; please let her go, please, please…” Grug made no attempt to defend himself, while the tendril went to his arm and started cracking the skin open there. He only whimpered once more, continuing to beg the strange man behind Aranea to let her go.

“Well, let us look at her.” Someone grabbed Aranea by her shoulder and made her look up. The smiling face of a Normie appeared above her. He had black hair and wore a sand-colored cloak over his shoulders, a crimson shirt visible underneath. The whites of his eyes were pitch black, while his pupils glowed green. The disheveled black hair formed a widow’s peak on the man’s forehead. “Lookie here! A half-breed! You must be this Aranea girl I heard so much about. Such curious eyes indeed.” Another mechanical tendril appeared above the man’s head. “Can’t wait to see how you react when I take them out.”

Take them out? Aranea thought in horror. This has to be a joke, right? She tried to move, but all she could do was look at the smiling face before her.

“Hands off, Academician,” a lazy voice said. “You already got what you wanted to. This cub is mine; I still have a use for her.”

“Oh, come on, Tilden!” Academician turned away from Aranea. “It’s just one more kid. You already gave me six tonight; let me take seven back to the lab. You no longer even need her; the fool will charge into the trap on his own now…”

“I need her to deal with her bitch of a mother,” the voice yawned. “The deaths of my dear allies will be for naught if Kalaisa is not dealt with and gets her paws on me. I want to ensure that their noble sacrifice won’t be in vain; don’t you want the same? So kindly fuck off before we make you. I am taking her with me.”

“Make me?” Academician whispered, as if in disbelief. Another mechanical tendril rose into the air, and Aranea was horrified to see several cubs, children of the Ice Fang Order, sleeping in a glass cage currently held by the tendril. “Am I sensing an iota of threat here, friend?” The tentacle carelessly tossed the cage for someone to catch. The voice of Academician had changed; unmistakable aggression was once again heard in the previously cheerful voice.

“Sir, we really ought to leave.” A woman’s voice said. She sounded tired, like she was dealing with a petulant child. “You procured what you desired. Tilden will get what he wants, and hopefully we can all continue our productive cooperation…”

“Be silent, please, dear,” Academician told the unknown woman, looking down at Aranea. “Sorry, but I will have to leave you as a human. But do not worry; I will give you a nudge toward ascension.” He lifted the girl and whispered into her ear. “Everything that will happen to your family from this moment onward is your and only your fault. It will only happen because you are weak. Live with it.” He threw Aranea in the air like a doll.

Her body was spinning when someone caught her by the nape. The white-furred Wolfkin of the Ice Fang Order was holding her. A long golden chain adorned his neck, partially hiding behind the gorget, and he was bedecked in a blue-colored power armor painted orange on his chest and the back of his arms. His helmet was missing, revealing a bored-looking face with a single scar over his left eye. He held Aranea in one paw and pointed a wrist gun at Academician with the other. Several other Wolfkins stood guard behind him, their paws on the hilts of their swords.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Academician. The deaths of my dear comrades will serve a greater cause now. One that could benefit both of us if you continue to see me as a viable partner and treat me with respect.” The Wolfkin smiled arrogantly.

Academician stood in front of the Wolfkins, smiling with barely contained rage. Several mechanical tendrils protruded from the vastness of his cloak; one was currently slicing open the back of the Grug, causing the large being to cry from pain. A green-haired young woman in an austere green business suit stood beside the man, holding the glass cage with sleeping cubs in her arms.

“Well, if you choose to conclude our business, we bid you farewell.” Academician smiled thinly, and a large black oval appeared in the air behind Grug with a soft hiss. After a second, Aranea could see a large white room inside, filled with light and medical equipment. “A word of advice. Don’t lose your head, Tilden; you are not half as smart as you think you are,” Academician chuckled, turning around and walking through the portal with Grug and the woman.

“Sack of shit,” Tilden said calmly, as the portal closed. He threw Aranea’s body up, and she felt a blow to the back of her head. Everything became black afterwards.