As Gideon vanished, silence blanketed the mountain peak. Arthur stood still, the wind brushing against his silver hair and tugging at his tattered clothes. He turned slowly toward the cliff's edge, the setting sun bathing the landscape in golden light. The leaves rustled faintly in the wind, the only sound in the world.
Arthur, too immersed in the scene, took a deep breath through his nose and exhaled through a slit opening from his lips. His eyes darkened with the setting sun as if losing the last trace of innocence in them. Now the only thing reflected in his eyes was hate. Burning, consuming hate as he remembered every scene from days ago.
As he remembered his mother's screams—
Those soldiers—
And that power.
"I should find something to eat," he muttered darkly, turning away from the edge.
As night fell, Arthur moved through the dead forest in search of food. The darkness was suffocating, the silence so thick that his footsteps echoed like drumbeats.
Normally Arthur would have been scared, but right now he was fighting something far more terrifying—his own mind in that solitude.
The look on his face was so terrifying and full of hate that it scared even the beasts who thought of attacking him.
In the solitude, a voice slithered into his mind.
"You couldn't even protect your mother, you let her be taken away, you are a coward," said a dark voice inside Arthur's mind.
Arthur's mind cracked. Inside his thoughts, a vision formed: a younger version of himself, sobbing in a corner, trembling.
"What should I do?" asked kid Arthur, sobbing and crying.
"Accept me. Embrace me. I will give you the power to take revenge," said the dark shadow in Arthur's mind.
"I am afraid," kid Arthur replied, looking at the shadow.
"I know. But with my power, you won't be anymore," said the shadow, extending its hand further.
Hesitantly, the boy took the shadow's hand, and a smile emerged on the shadow's face—even darker than himself. Slowly turning their heads, both kid Arthur and shadow stared at Arthur together, who was watching the whole scene from afar.
And finally, he was out of his mind. His trance broken
Growl...
A low, threatening growl emerged from the bushes. A shadow wolf stood there—large, menacing, and bleeding from its hind leg.
Arthur's expression didn't change. His eyes were lifeless.
Shadow wolves only come out to hunt at night.
"It's bleeding, huh," thought Arthur while looking at the wolf's hind leg with an emotionless, dark smile.
He picked up a sharp wooden stick from the ground and pointed it toward the wolf.
"You will be dinner for tonight," said Arthur with dark emotions, as if enjoying it.
The shadow wolf ran toward Arthur with unstable balance and leapt in the air, baring its sharp fangs toward Arthur, trying to finish him in one go.
Arthur stood there, lacking emotions to such extremity that he didn't even so much as flinch. He took a step forward, trying to thrust the stick into the wolf's belly—
But the wolf disappeared mid-flight.
It reappeared behind him, its claws slashing deep into Arthur's left arm and sending him crashing to the ground without ever giving him a chance to turn around.
They are called shadow wolves precisely because they can move freely and instantly in shadows.
"Aaaahhhh!" Arthur cried out, charging toward the wolf.
The wolf sprinted at him again.
Arthur changed his stance mid-run, as if already knowing where the wolf would emerge. His instincts flared.
As the wolf emerged from the shadows behind him and leapt over Arthur—exactly as he predicted—
Arthur had fooled the wolf into believing that he was vulnerable.
And at that instant, Arthur broke the stick in two and raised it in the wolf's direction.
Momentum threw both Arthur and the beast to the ground, with its blood-dripping face just a few inches away from Arthur's.
The sticks had completely pierced the wolf's face.
The beast was—dead.
"Told you... you'd be for dinner tonight,"
said Arthur, looking at the wolf's face with a cold and dark smile, his eyes enveloped in hate without even a single frown.
He shoved the wolf's body off, staggering to his feet, trying to drag the carcass away with one good arm.
But shadow wolves were massive—easily outweighing a man.
Then he saw them.
Tiny cubs emerged from the underbrush, whimpering as they tried to nudge their mother awake, licking her face while crying. One even latched onto Arthur's leg with its tiny fangs.
"So it was protecting its children,"
thought Arthur before saying,
"Sorry guys, looks like I killed your mother," with a smile on his face and a stream of tears from one eye, his dark eyes wide open.
That "sorry" was not for apology—but for mocking the cub's powerlessness.
Arthur decided to camp there for the night. He cut off the wolf's head with repeated thrusts of wooden sticks and detached it from its body.
Blood flew all over the place in the process, covering the cubs and Arthur entirely.
He threw the head toward the cubs.
"Here, eat," he said with a dark, serious expression.
The cubs didn't eat.
They just whimpered, licking their mother's lifeless face.
There was no firelight.
Only the moon's pale glow through the trees.
And the cubs saw a horrifying scene that night—Arthur, sitting under the moonlight surrounded by trees, eating their mother raw, tearing her flesh with his hands.
He chewed in silence.
Swallowed.
Stared at the moon, blood smeared across his face.
"Beautiful," thought Arthur, looking at the moon.
He slept comfortably that night.
The next morning, Arthur stood above the cubs. His expression unreadable.
He looked down.
They still hadn't touched the head.
"I told you to eat," he said quietly.
And then—one by one—he killed them.
All but one.
The last cub, the smallest, shivered in place.
Arthur stared into its eyes.
"You'll feel what I felt."
Then he turned and walked away, leaving the cub surrounded by death.
That cub died not long after—from hunger, or heartbreak.
No one would ever know.
And Arthur never looked back
[Original work by kusan. All rights reserved]