It was a time of stars filling up the night sky; the whole neighbourhood was strangely quiet; everyone was asleep, yet a few woke up with uneasy feelings in their hearts.

Even Phantom Claw Tiger of Zara—normally stoic—lifted its head abruptly, ears twitching, eyes narrowed at the darkness pooling in the distance.

Zara, who had been deep asleep, suddenly widened her eyes, sensing unease in her beast's heart; her pupils lit up in silver light in the dark as her gaze fell over Silas standing on the balcony outside of her room.

"... Big Brother?" She muttered, and her feet slowly landed on the ground underneath; she stood up, making her way forward, her little hands rubbed the fur of her cautious beast.

“Kitty feels strange... Is something bad happening?” she questioned

Silas didn't answer immediately. Asra and Zerath quietly climbed over the balcony with their gazes scanning the sight in the front.

"The time is here..." Silas muttered, with a serious look on his face, and just the next instant, suddenly both Silas and Zara noticed a strange, colourful aura surrounding the neighbourhood-like aurora in the skies.

The quiet night was interrupted by sudden uncommon noises emerging from all over the place.

Across the settlement, faint glows began to pulse from within creatures—pets, livestock, and wild animals skittering across rooftops. Their bodies trembled violently as if their very essence was being rewritten.

"Welp… welp..."

"Bark! Bark! Bawoooo!!!"

"Sccrrrrr!!!"

"Bruuuuu!!!"

Some whimpered softly, while others growled and hissed, as their bodies shifted under the light.

“Silas...?” Zara's voice carried a note of unease as she hid behind Silas's back.

And just then a sharp, bone-cracking howl split the air.

"Awwoooooooo!!!!"

"We need to move!" Silas immediately commanded, he grabbed the metal rod from Asra's fangs and leaped out of the balcony, landing straight over the roof ahead.

"Kitty! Protect the house, guard Zara and others!" Silas commanded before he left; the beast did as instructed, lifting Zara under its teeth. She took her inside the dark room with eyes lit up with cold traces of predator.

'Ase in the surroundings has just reached a level that is high enough to force awaken most of the creatures on earth tonight; an insane amount of beasts will be awakening tonight.

I can't say much about the world, but there is surely a way to protect my own surroundings!' Silas's eyes scanned with a resolute look in his eyes.

"There!" He spotted the danger, over a room inside some house, a hound with eyes glowing red, jaws dripping with blackened saliva. Its muscles bulge unnaturally beneath its fur.

With a snarl, it lunged at a man dragging a water bucket inside his bathroom.

"Aaaaaahhhhh!" The man spotted the creature but could only scream in horror. Before the beast could bite his head off, a metal rod shot through the glass doors of the balcony, piercing the beast's head and pinning its corpse to the wall beside him."

"Barely..." Silas muttered as he landed softly over the balcony of that man's house. Asra and Zerath immediately lunged inside the room and pulled out the metal rod along with the corpse of that hound.

"You okay, Charles?!" Silas recognised him; the other man seemed seemingly blank in his mind but nodded along quietly in a daze as he fell down on the floor with knees feeling weak.

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'... I don't have time to calm him down.' Silas thought with a frown, before leaving, he closed the curtains. "Hide behind the door..."

He instructed and left, 'The effects of awakening are way faster than expected; the good news is that most beasts that awaken tonight are of the weakest 'Grey' grade, but even so, even the lowest grade beasts can kill normal people who aren't even basically capable of fighting.'

"We need to move faster!" he instructed, looking at Asra and Zerath, who had already devoured the corpse of a whole hound in seconds while still moving along.

'They are also growing...' Silas noticed his wolves; their fur seemed to have become longer, along with their bodies, though the changes were almost unnoticeable.

They were still there; in the middle of the tension, there was still an achievement and hope in Silas's eyes. He tightened his grip over the metal rod and commanded

"Asra, take charge of the left, and Zerath over the right. We need to assist as much as possible tonight!" As he commanded, they immediately split up.

And the night of chaos continued; there were endless battles. Unlike the first night in the new world, where only a few strong beasts had an awakening, tonight was the night of mass awakening, where weaker beasts, but in insane numbers, were awakening worldwide.

There was no way of knowing what was happening in the outside world, but from what Silas could see from here, it was utter chaos.

These weak beasts carried the strength of barely a strong adult human, yet they had the nature of fierce beasts; it was a tough job to protect everyone.

"Ahhhhhhh!!!!"

There were times when Silas couldn't reach people in time; many lost their limbs under the sudden attack from beasts near them.

"Ah... Grr... Hhhh..."

Some even died before Silas could reach them; there was a limit to how fast he could have been, but there weren't just deaths and losses.

"Raaaaaawwwwrrr!"

Silas also met a few who remained sane, and instead of killing and raging destruction to their surroundings, they instead fought to protect the humans around them.

They clashed against other beasts who had fallen into a frenzy to protect their companions.

"Die, you fucker!!!"

Silas watched as humans picked up the courage when it was their own families that were now in danger; they fought back the danger of awakened beasts.

Tonight, Silas witnessed the first battle where humans and beasts fought side by side against the darkness, frenzy, and corruption.

But there were also times when mere bond and courage weren't enough, because there were also beasts above grey grade, strong as fierce tigers in the wild.

"Asra! From the left!!!"

But Silas was there to take them down, as he commanded. Asra stuck its fangs over the throat from the back of an enormous bear-like black beast with a huge white mark over the chest.

"Zerath! Grab its leg!" The black wolf immediately stuck its enormous fangs inside the bear's thick leg, making it lose its balance.

"Die!!!" Silas screamed, taking advantage of momentum as he crushed the beast's skull by thrusting both metal rods in his hands straight through the beast's skull.

"Fuu..." he sighed with relief, and taking out the rod from the skull, as the beast's body fell down lifeless, he slashed open the chest of the beast, and placing his arm inside, he took out something like a glowing stone from inside its chest.

"There was one even on this one..." Silas remarked as he crushed that stone under the grip of his hand, absorbing all the energy released from the inside of that stone.

This was a new discovery, the existence of 'Soul Core' or so Silas decided to name it; all awakened beasts have this strange crystal inside their body.

It could come in different shapes like stone, crystal, or pearls; they contain the energy of Ase and vitality, which can be absorbed by crushing them.

Zerath was the first one to find this, as he gave it over to Silas, like that Silas continued to crush and absorb dozens of these while body-frenzied beasts were devoured by the pups, and by the time the sun came back to the skies in the morning

Silas was dead tired, sitting over the roof of an apartment building, soaked in blood, with metal rods in his hands that had long broken and turned dull.

He sat there, taking deep breaths as blood dripped from his clothes. Two wolves stood behind him like silent sentinels.

They were little pups that barely reached his knees just a night before, but after devouring hundreds of corpses overnight, the pups have already grown into young wolves.

Asra's fur was pure white, sleek and smooth, with faint silver streaks running along his spine. His golden eyes glowed softly in the fading night, calm yet watchful.

Zerath was his shadow, with jet-black fur that seemed to swallow the light. His icy blue eyes pierced through the morning haze, sharp and predatory.

Though opposite in colour, the two wolves mirrored each other in size and strength—silent guardians at Silas's side.

"It was a long night..." Silas muttered as a vision of his tired eyes slowly came back to him; he lifted his head, scanning the surroundings. Unlike a day before, he could see a lot of change in the day, today.

He could see enormous beasts flying over the large skies in a friendly manner, the evolved beasts standing over the roofs and balconies along with their human companions, full of relief and smiles.

The whole place was coloured crimson with blood overnight, but the change was there. One night, that changed the whole world upside down.