When Rurik opened his eyes again, his head was still throbbing faintly, and his body felt like it had been run over by something heavy—so sore he could hardly move.

  He let out a low groan, frowning. His eyelids were heavy, and his limbs felt like they were filled with lead. He struggled to sit up, but even his fingers lacked strength.

  The tent was dimly lit. Animal pelts were spread out on the ground, and the air was thick with the scent of herbs and a faint trace of dried blood.

  Draven sat beside him, watching intently. His gaze was less that of a leader and more like that of an elder brother—filled with concern and a faint, helpless smile.

  "You're awake?" Draven asked softly, reaching out to ruffle Rurik's hair. "The first awakening is always like this. Don’t worry, it gets easier later."

  His tone was gentle, but as soon as he said that, he seemed to realize something was off. His hand paused awkwardly on Rurik’s head for a second, then quickly withdrew as if burned. He gave a light cough to cover his embarrassment.

  Bran, crouching nearby on the pelts, was watching with shining eyes, his face filled with admiration and excitement.

  He scrambled over quickly, lowering his voice and peppering Rurik with questions: "How did it happen? Did you see anything? Did you feel anything different in your body?"

  His words fired off like a rapid barrage, spoken so fast they were almost unintelligible.

  He and Rurik were about the same age—Bran was even a few months older. Hope burned in his heart now; if Rurik could awaken, surely he could too.

  Draven ignored their chatter, stood up, and walked out of the tent with a faint, unreadable smile tugging at his lips.

  Inside, he was far more excited than he let on. Rurik’s awakening meant they finally had a true bloodline warrior—a warrior of the werewolf tribe.

  For their struggling little tribe, this was a monumental shift. Until now, Draven had shouldered everything alone—leadership, combat, negotiations with greedy neighboring tribes, and fending off the constant threat of monster attacks.

  His hands were covered in calluses and scars, his bones weary to the core. But now things were different. Someone could finally share that burden. Someone could stand at his side in battle.

  As he walked, he replayed the danger of the previous night.

  At the moment of Rurik’s awakening, the boy lost all control. His body had grown, covered in short black-gray fur, and his eyes burned with rage and crimson light.

  He had howled like a beast while Draven struggled to restrain his feral madness.

  And that’s when danger arrived silently: a monster attack.

  It wasn’t a coincidence—Draven was sure of that. Just as the troll chieftain Garruk had suspected.

  A werewolf’s awakening released a special aura—some kind of magical ripple—that could draw nearby monsters, much like the scent of blood draws predators.

  That night, the attacker had been a low-tier flying beast: the Ghost-faced Owl.

  Garruk had promptly unleashed the aura of a chieftain-level troll, driving the owl away.

  According to Garruk, it was a fully grown Ghost-faced Owl. Not very large, with a wingspan of about a meter—only slightly bigger than an ordinary owl.

  But its face bore a strange, fearsome pattern—like a demonic mask—that looked eerie and terrifying in the moonlight.

  Worse still was how it hunted.

  The Ghost-faced Owl usually hid among the treetops, silently approaching its prey before suddenly unleashing a piercing shriek.

  That shriek, sharp as a blade, seemed to cut straight into the brain, stunning the victim instantly.

  Then it would immediately launch a mental assault. The prey’s brain, as if struck by a hammer, would go blank for a split second.

  And in that instant of hesitation, the owl would dive, use its sharp talons to crack open the skull, and feast on the brain.

  It was a cruel, precise, and horrifyingly efficient method of hunting.

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  But thankfully, it had its weaknesses.

  Despite its short-range flight capabilities and powerful psychic attacks, the Ghost-faced Owl couldn’t stay airborne for long and wasn’t particularly fast.

  Its heavy skeleton and relatively small wings made sustained gliding impossible—unlike hawks or eagles.

  If it weren’t for that, it might have already become the ruler of the skies with its terrifying hunting prowess.

  Draven now stood on a protruding rock, gazing at the crimson moon in the sky. A glint of anticipation flickered in his eyes, and a subtle smile curved his lips.

  If he could capture that Ghost-faced Owl and bind it with a forced contract spell...

  He didn’t expect much use in direct combat—it was too small for that. But it could fly. It could scout. It could monitor enemies.

  Owning a flying monster meant air superiority—even in this desolate frontier, that was an enormous advantage.

  “If it were just a bit bigger, big enough to carry a rider... that would be perfect,” Draven murmured to himself, his voice full of yearning.

  But fantasies remained fantasies. The sun rose on schedule, the red moon faded, and the eastern sky brightened with pale dawn light.

  “Get up!” he called, pulling back the flap of the tent. “Wake up—time to move!”

  The tribe stirred groggily at the noise. Some yawned, others clung stubbornly to their pelts.

  Draven showed no mercy. He shook a few people awake himself, then ordered them to rouse the slaves.

  “No dawdling. We need to reach the next water source today. Any delay means camping on dry land tonight,” he said coldly.

  Nights in the wild were extremely dangerous. Not even he would risk traveling after dark. Daylight was their only safe window.

  Once the camp was mostly packed up, Draven glanced at the sky, then walked over to the slave quarters. He didn’t expect much efficiency from them—they didn’t even get breakfast.

  He himself hadn’t had a proper breakfast since arriving in this world. Among the lower classes of beastkin, meals came only twice a day—once at noon, once in the evening.

  For slaves, even one meal was a blessing. Most of the time, they labored on empty stomachs.

  But some of the slaves were anything but ordinary.

  The kobold Titus was one of them. He was more alert than the others and unusually sensitive to his master's commands.

  This time, upon learning that Draven was moving out, he had immediately selected four of the strongest, healthiest kobolds from among his kin and brought them before Draven.

  The kobolds standing before him were short—barely over a meter tall. They looked up at the young chieftain nervously, eyes filled with both fear and hope.

  At Draven’s command, not only were the boarmen he’d previously selected called over, but he even prepared simple weapons for them—longbows and quivers of arrows.

  The bows were crude in craftsmanship, and the strings weren’t very taut, but they were usable. Draven didn’t expect these slaves to be sharpshooters—he just hoped they wouldn’t shoot their own people by accident.

  Kobold Titus accepted the bow with wide-eyed delight, like a child receiving a long-desired toy. His eyes sparkled with excitement, completely ignoring the hulking boarmen standing nearby. Those thick-skinned, heavyset brutes didn’t matter to him anymore. All he knew was that this time, he finally had a chance to prove himself in front of Draven.

  He silently vowed: This time, I will bring down a proper beast—even a wild rabbit will do!

  Draven gave them a quick glance and waved his hand. “Time to move. Don’t waste any more time.”

  Truthfully, Draven had no fear that the slaves would try to escape. He had the Slave Scroll—that was far more binding than any chain.

  Every slave’s life essence was recorded in it. With a mere thought, he could activate the scroll and cause any runaway—no matter how far they fled—to die inexplicably and instantly.

  Assigning a boarman to accompany them wasn’t so much for surveillance as it was to provide a bodyguard. After all, kobolds were embarrassingly weak in combat.

  Boarmen, at least, were tough and powerful. They might not be the brightest, but they could tear an enemy in half—and that was enough.

  After sending off the hunting team, Draven nodded briefly to Bran and the others, then left the group without another word. His mind was still occupied with that Ghost-faced Owl.

  These magical beasts preferred hiding in cliffside caves during the day and only emerged at night. Typically, they would carve out a nook in the rock face, drag their prey’s skulls back to the nest to feast on the brains, and casually toss the empty husks off the cliff.

  So out in the wilds, if you ever spotted a pile of skulls at the foot of a cliff, chances were, there was a Ghost-faced Owl nesting right above your head.

  Draven had known this for a long time. After spending some time surveying the terrain, he found a broken cliff face where a heap of shattered skulls—both beast and human—lay scattered below.

  “Found it,” he muttered under his breath.

  The cliff was easily thirty or forty meters tall. The nest was hidden in a crevice halfway up—just barely visible.

  Draven could certainly climb up there. With his bloodline powers awakened, his body was strong enough, and his claws sharp enough.

  But he was now a chieftain-class werewolf, and his aura was hard to conceal. The moment he got close, the Ghost-faced Owl would sense him and fly away. At that point, catching even a feather would be impossible.

  “Need to try something else,” he said to himself, turning away.

  Not long after, he returned to the base of the cliff—this time dragging a wild mountain goat by its legs.

  The goat had clearly been caught just moments ago. Its limbs were tightly bound with vines, and it bleated constantly, its eyes filled with panic and fear.

  Draven looked down at it with cold indifference, a cruel smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You’ve got bad luck, friend.”

  As he spoke, dark red bloodline energy surged from his hand. His fingers twisted and swelled, transforming rapidly into a thick, jet-black wolf claw. The nails extended—long, curved, and sharp as blades.

  He crouched down and raked deep gashes across the goat’s flank. Blood gushed out instantly, soaking the brittle yellow grass. The goat thrashed wildly, its shrill cries echoing across the plains. A strong metallic scent filled the air.

  Draven remained unfazed. Rising slowly, he moved to a patch of tall grass nearby, crouched low, and held his breath, suppressing every trace of his presence.

  He hid well—so still he might have been a chunk of dark stone embedded in the earth.

  His plan was simple: use the scent of blood and the agonized bleating to lure the Ghost-faced Owl, then ambush it the moment it came close.

  This wasn’t a direct confrontation.

  This was an ambush.