Tommy stood alone next to the gigantic body of the fallen Storm Wolf King. His palm strike had driven his Secret Art right into the creature’s brain and turned it into pulp.

Triumphant against such a great beast, he stood proudly erect next to his prize.

The body of a powerful demonic beast is full of treasures; its pelt, claws, fangs, bones, blood, and any other part can be sold for a small fortune. Any leftover parts can be given to the Contract Beasts as food. Given the Wolf King’s strength, its flesh might be nutritious enough to help the little ones grow stronger.

The darkness that enshrouded the regular Storm Wolves disappeared the moment their king fell, and the curse upon them is broken. They recovered their minds and began whimpering with tails between their legs, knowing that the battle is lost.

The Greys did not attack. With the leader of their pack killed, the Storm Wolves can only go into exile. When none of the victors pursued, they quickly fled the caves with their lives.

Unlike humans, beasts are less likely to return with revenge in mind after they submit to you.

The Great Spirit wolf materialised once again before the boys and said gravely with its gruff voice, “Great One, there is something that feels wrong here. Be wary!”

No one had noticed that the curse upon the Storm Wolves had not truly dissipated but are gathering at a point.

“Move back!” Kairos suddenly said. He did not dismiss what the forest spirit said. Although there is no threat around yet, he sensed danger.

Everyone backed away towards the cave exit, then the Storm Wolf King that should be dead opened its eyes and looked at them.

Its yellowish pupils have now turned completely black, and it stared at them with an unnatural stillness. When Kairos took a second glance, he realised the reason. The Wolf King is not breathing.

“Impossible! My Secret Art should have destroyed it from within,” Tommy said with disbelief as he looked at his own palm. It was a powerful strike that connected solidly.

The Great Forest Spirit widened its eyes in shock.

“This overwhelming presence, it could only be that! Run, Great One. It has awoken!” The forest spirit warned with an urgency like never before, then it muttered to itself in horror, “The devil’s fragment!”

The air in the cave turned chilly as a supernatural foreboding overtook them.

But before anyone could move, Aisa, the small primordial dragon seized the initiative and appeared before the boys. She looked at the inanimate being and snarled.

“YOU!” The Wolf King barked, as it pulled itself up to its feet.

Kairos~ the bad wolf, has been embedded with a piece of devil soul. Unless that’s destroyed, no matter what you do to its physical form, it will not die.

The small dragon spoke to the minds of everyone that is present with a seriousness like never before, though, with her childish, girlish, voice she still sounded rather cutesy. But for once they could feel the majesty of her divine presence, and they developed a strange sense of reverence towards her. At this moment, she had become the embodiment of the Holy element.

Kairos, the only one who seems an exception to this veneration, continued to place his focus on the wolf king. From his observation, it is giving off a similar aura of a demonic beast, but far darker — an ancient kind of evil.

An unnatural pressure that does not belong to this world came likes waves from the gigantic wolf before them. Its power began to spike, crossing into A rank in mere moments, then several breaths later, S… double S… triple S.

In just a blink of an eye, its power has reached beyond Triple S ranks, yet it continued strengthening until it gave off a suffocating presence that is not weaker than the immortal, Old Ye.

Just a fragment of a devil could match an elder from an Immortal Realm’s clan; the original might be a Devil King.

Kairos, remember this. The devils are not supposed to exist. They are twisted and perverse beings, corrupting what is right in order to live. They will not disappear by simply destroying their bodies. What they cannot withstand is the element – Holy – for it is the power of just, purity, and light. It represents the incorruptible and the antithesis to the devils’ very existence.

Watch carefully and harness this power as your own one day.

Her voice spoke to him alone before her figure flickered and disappeared.

Aisa shortly reappeared before the wet snout of the devil wolf, her entire image now a pure and bright light.

“I WILL DESTROY YOU, DRAGON!”

The devil-possessed leapt towards her with a rage on its face that is impossible for a beast to make. Its mane had hardened into countless horns, and its fangs started dripping blood.

However, the devil Wolf King never made it to the True Holy Dragon. Aisa is the first and only of its kind, a holy-attributed dragon born of the Heavenly Laws and the single being holding the title of ‘True Holy Dragon’.

The tiny dragon placed a paw gently on the forehead of the wolf just like Tommy did, but instead of an attack, there was great sanctification that spread from the place of contact. The huge beast hissed in pain as smoke arose from its body. The darkness from its soul is fleeing in the face of the ultimate light.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Then, like a beam of sunlight scattering the dark clouds, the obsidian body of the Wolf King started fading in colour, until it became a gigantic grey coloured wolf and it fell over limply, claimed by death for the last time.

There was a great silence in the place as they bathed in the fading brightness. There was a warmth that evil had been vanquished and justice reigns.

“Hmm, don’t you feel that it looks quite similar to our forest spirit here?”

“That is because this was my body,” the great grey wolf replied, hanging its head.

The boys turned, questioning it with their eyes and causing a sign to escape from the spirit.

The phantom lowered its head and began to say, “There is a legend in this forest that aeons ago, a powerful devil was sealed beneath this place, and the gods used the Thunder God’s Ring to suppress it from ever reviving.

Back then, this is not called the Black Forest, but the ‘Heavenly Thunder Woods’. At that time, because of the divine artefact, there were many enlightened beasts here, and all of us were after the power of the ring.

But as I was once the greatest beast in this forest, I grew arrogant and did not heed the warnings in that legend, thinking it to be a bedtime story.

When I seized the ring after a great battle, everything changed. The power of this artefact enchanted me. Greed overcame me, and I wanted to be more than just its owner. I tried to snatch its power for my own.

I entered the ring with my conscious in an attempt to take over its power, but as punishment for my greed, the artefact cursed me to be separate from my body forever. My wish did come true. The ring’s power became mine, but at the cost of everything.

I merged with it while my flesh turned mindless. No, perhaps the ring did not become mine, but I was absorbed by it.

My corpse remained unsullied and undecaying because truthfully, I was not totally dead. However, over time, the crafty devil sealed in this place somehow found it and sent a fragment of itself into the body, turning it into the devilish being you saw. Since that day, the entire forest was dyed black.

Then, from his corruption, a new race spring into the forest, the demonic Black Wind Wolves…”

“Wait… Hold on. I always thought that the Devil Race and the Demonic races are separate?” Tommy asked. He had been paying attention to Snow when she lectured about Contract Beasts, after all. And the demonic beasts are treated with the same welcome as spirit and magical beasts, unlike devils.

“Did you not know, the demonic race are all descended from devils? They possess a body that is similar to those possessed; only their souls are not tainted. Any beast or man could have demonic blood flowing within them, and all of those beings could trace back their roots to a devil.

The Devil Race, however, are simply beings belonging to another plane, intruders of worlds.

They possess no physical form of their own, but therefore cannot be destroyed easily. Right after entering our world, they find a form by taking over a weaker being and corrupt it into a frightening existence. Their presence is enough to defile even the very land they stand upon.

This… old body… of mine… It is almost a full devil because of that fragment. The children bore of it also turned into demonic beasts controlled by it.”

Suddenly Kairos asked with a dangerous voice, “You knew that Tommy would not be able to slay it by destroying its body?”

“… Yes… I knew, but I believed that with only a fragment it wouldn’t be dangerous and I had a strong feeling that the Great One might destroy the devils even if no one else could,” when the forest spirit said this, it shook its head in confusion. It couldn’t understand that certainty it felt.

As expected, Kairos was infuriated and shouted, “Even the gods could only seal it! Yet you expect me to destroy this… thing?! You dare to jeopardise my friend for your sake?”

Kairos~ don’t be angry… please? The forest spirit’s instincts was correct. Without us, this devil will be hidden for a long time to gather power, and in the end, many will die. You are called to slay them, and there will be many more in the future who will seek you out to destroy devils.

Besides~ everything turned out fine this time!

“Aisa, you also knew?”

Don’t worry, Aisa won’t let anything happen to Tommy. Aisa promises to tell you more when the time is right.

Kairos sucked in a deep breath.

It took an inhuman amount of self-control for him not to lash out at the forest spirit, and as Aisa said, things did turn out alright. He didn’t blame the dragon after all that devil fragment was so utterly annihilated by her that could only mean that everything was within Aisa’s control. The forest spirit, on the other hand, acted on instinct and had no way of knowing if Tommy would be safe.

Yet, at the same time, Kairos could feel the chains of fate guiding them. This meeting with a devil-possessed wolf cannot be mere coincidence, just like Aisa’s appearance as a True Holy Dragon.

He calmed himself down. If it is his destiny to slay devils, then he needs to become strong. It is the only way forward for him.

Why do I seek power?

It was a question that the True Lord asked him, and he feels that he is on the way to find an answer.

The gigantic wolf spirit continued, “After the Black Winds came into existence, the devil had been trying to corrupt the Thunder God’s Ring to free itself of its binding. Although each attempt was met with a powerful lightning shock, it still persisted. It continued testing many ways to usurp the powers of the ring over the years. Still, everything proved futile.

Things finally changed when the first Orc war ended, and great amounts of Orcs moved into this forest in search of refuge. The Black Winds were weak back then, and the devil fragment could not unleash its full powers. They fled deeper into the forest, biding time.

It was a war-torn Orc’s soul that finally tainted the ring, though only by a minuscule amount, it was enough to give it hope. The devil fragment knew that it requires more tortured souls, but whenever they hunted excessively in the forest, the Orcs will suppress them. And thus, things progressed extremely slowly.

It patiently waited, till one day, those Orcs simply packed up and left.

Finally, without being restricted, the fragment sent out the Black Winds in numbers greater than ever before. They abducted beasts, humans, and anything they could get their maws on, and boiled them alive in this cauldron filled with dark magic.

Endless hate and fear enveloped the artefact. The Ring and I retaliated, of course, we couldn’t allow it to weave its evil magic before us. We were weakening but slowed down its corruption, and for the longest time, did not detect anything wrong. Yet things had changed. The Wolf King was secretly absorbing our corrupted powers.

Belatedly I understood its motive, and I twisted the ring’s energy and gave its offspring my curse of separation.

Though the Black Wind Wolves absorbed our power and transformed into storm Wolves, they also lost their souls and turned mindless.

But my prime target - the wolf king – was unaffected. It ate up my curse like a delicious meal, and then took control of the regular storm wolves, like its personal army.”

“Didn’t the curse lift when Tommy first killed it?”

“You are only half-correct. The wolves regained their sanity only because the devil’s fragment absorbed the curse to revive itself.”

“And now? Is it vanquished for good, Aisa?” Jim timidly asked. It would be terrible if that giant corpse moves again.

Yes, little Jim. Their spirits are made of the blackest night and can only vanish when touched by light. Didn’t Aisa do a good job? Praise me!

“A…aisa… you… know so much!”

Of course! Heh heh! Aisa lived for a longggggggg time after all!!

The little dragon puffed up with pride.

It is hard to imagine that within such a tiny body, immense power is concealed.

“Well, I guess we better go retrieve that ring,” Kairos said, looking at the dead wolf that is taller than them even collapsed on the ground.

“Ugh… You mean to cut up and take it from its belly?” Alan and Edward backed away with pale faces.

“Ew, that’s gross. Tommy, you do it! It’s your prize,” Jim said while sticking out his tongue.