[Dream's Perspective]

  Wolves always move in packs. Gray ghosts slipping between frozen trees, their footsteps silent upon the snow. Scouting parties usually consist of five wolves; their eyes gleam with a wicked intelligence and extreme caution. Fighting them together is suicide; they tear prey apart with terrifying harmony. Therefore, I decided to craft a plan. A plan to break their unity and play a symphony of distraction.

  I began by snapping high branches and dropping boulders from the heights, creating heavy noises that suggested the presence of a massive, clumsy creature lurking just out of sight. Something resembling the movements of the frenzied (Yuki-Guma) when he loses his mind.

  The trick worked. The wolves grew tense, their fangs bared, and they began to retreat cautiously, their noses sniffing the air for the scent of the bear, believing he had invaded their territory. In that moment, from a distance, I launched a massive ice orb, perfectly mimicking the bear's explosive projectiles, to crash among them and scatter sharp shards like glass daggers.

  That was enough. They scattered. They ran fast, tails between their legs, returning to their main territory to call for reinforcements. But one of them... was late. He was running alone, distanced from the pack, panting as steam rose from his mouth. This is my target.

  I shot after him like an arrow. I sent small, precise ice bullets to strike the ground in front of his paws, slowing him down and forcing him to change his path toward my trap. Finally... I cornered him in a narrow valley. I stood before him and drew Shakujo.

  The sound of the sword rasping against its scabbard was the only sound in the place. The wolf didn't flee. He snarled, looking around with sharp intelligence. He realized immediately it was a trap, and that he was isolated. How clever they are.

  He raised his head and let out a high, mournful howl. A distress signal that pierced the silence of the forest. But I knew: his friends would think he had fallen into the clutches of (Yuki-Guma) and wouldn't return to save him immediately for fear of the bear. They would go to inform King (Kyura) first. This granted me time... time to kill.

  The wolf didn't wait for his death. He opened his mouth and fired a volley of ice needles, fast as bullets. I parried them with my sword, hearing the metallic ring with every block. I dodged the rest. I retaliated with stone bullets (Earth Magic) to break his rhythm. He was incredibly fast. He dodged my attack, circled me, and fired another bullet that nearly struck my eye.

  I decided to close the distance. I launched a wind wave behind him to distract him and knock him off balance. The plan worked. I got close, expecting him to be weak in medium-range combat. Analysis error. The wolf didn't retreat.

  Instead, he formed a sharp, spear-like ice rod in his mouth and, with a violent movement of his neck, swung it to strike me. He hit me in the stomach. A wound that reduced my efficiency by 20%, and I felt the coldness of the ice pierce my stone skin as gray blood began to seep slowly.

  We retreated. The battle turned into a deadly dance. Bullets from me, ice attacks from him. I tried to slow him with ice, but he skated over it with mastery. I used the wind to match his speed. I used fire to melt the ice beneath his paws and change the environment in my favor, filling the place with steam. But we were evenly matched. Strike for strike. Delay is useless. I must end this before the pack arrives.

  I decided to use deception. I made him think I would attack from the left. I noticed he always dodged to the opposite side of my long sword. Not backward, but sideways. At the moment he leaped to the right to escape my illusion...

  I created a sharp earth wall that suddenly sprouted from the ground in the path of his dodge. The wolf was startled. With amazing brilliance, he tried to use the wall as a foothold to leap over me and strike from above. But that moment... that fraction of a second it took him to adjust to the wall... was enough. He was late.

  In the moment he leaped, my sword had already moved. I decapitated him in mid-air.

  The body fell, the head rolled, and the white snow was stained deep crimson. Finally. But... before he died, in the moment of his suicidal leap, he had succeeded in delivering a final strike with his ice rod. It hit my shoulder. A deep strike that reached the bone.

  "Damn it..." I panted, clutching my shoulder. I looked at the wound. My gray blood was flowing, then began to slow. My self-healing ability kicked in. The wound sealed quickly, leaving smooth skin in its place as if it had never existed. However...

  I placed my hand on the healed injury. There was no pain. But there was a strange feeling... a feeling that had no name in my data. The spot felt "heavy." As if the "memory" of the strike remained caught in the fabric of my being despite the physical wound's disappearance. A cold, annoying, uncomfortable feeling, as if something foreign had entered my body and never left.

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  I heard a collective, angry howling approaching. I must escape.

  As I ran, (404) said: < Your gray blood remained on the snow. They won't think it's Yuki-Guma. They have memorized the scent of our blood. > (Hong Min) said with a strange coldness I hadn't known from him:

  "They don't need to search for us. Because we are the ones who will hunt them." I said, touching the strange scar: "Yes. We will hunt every one of them. I’ve learned their fighting style. Next time... it will be a massacre."

  And so... my war with (Kyura)'s wolves began.

  Kyura did not accept the insult. He began moving personally along the outer edges of the forest, searching for me like a white ghost of vengeance, his eyes scanning every shadow. My previous plan (solo hunting) became impossible. But this is what we wanted. 404 and I. Kyura is intelligent, but he possesses great pride. His pride is his weakness.

  I was sitting atop a high ridge, observing Kyura's main "Den." It was a fortified site, surrounded by massive rocks and dense trees, with a semi-frozen lake reflecting the cold moonlight. There were at least fifty wolves. Some looked larger and stronger than the wolf I had killed

  . Fighting them directly is suicide. But my target wasn't the warriors. I looked at the small pups playing at the den entrance, tripping over their tails and rolling around. And at the females guarding them, licking their fur with tenderness. My target is the future.

  "I will create a fire to distract them, then... those hanging rocks above the den... they must collapse." (Hong Min) said in a choked voice, as if a hand were squeezing his soul: "I didn't mean for us to attack like this... not the children..." I ignored him. I ignored the voice that sounded like my old self.

  I created a massive, compressed fireball, glowing with a wicked orange light, and sent it toward the forest surrounding the den. The ball struck the dry trees. Foooooosh! The trees ignited immediately. A huge fire broke out, and thick black smoke began to fill the place, choking the fresh air.

  The wolves panicked. They began to howl and run to extinguish the fire with Ice Magic, distracting the leaders Kyura had left to protect the den with the warriors.

  In that chaos, I moved silently and reached a strategic position above the hanging boulders. Beneath me... the females and pups were gathering in fear of the fire, huddling together for safety. Perfect. I placed my stone hand on the rock and sent a powerful pulse of Earth Magic. The rocks shook... they cracked... then they collapsed.

  Tons of rock plummeted onto the den. The sound of the impact wasn't just noise; it was the sound of crushing... the sound of grinding bone and flesh. I saw a massive wolf, white with black gradients (a commander in Kyura's legion), desperately trying to stop the collapse with a thick ice wall to protect the pups. He was roaring, exerting all his energy.

  He nearly succeeded... but I was ready. I created another massive rock and dropped it directly onto his ice wall. CRAAAAACK! The ice shattered. The rocks fell upon him and those he was protecting.

  The commander of Kyura's legion died. The females, who were fierce warriors before their pregnancy, died. All the pups died.

  The air was filled with an unbearable smell. Not just the smell of blood, but the smell of burnt fur, the smell of mashed flesh, and the smell of mass death. It was a scent that stuck to the throat and would not leave.

  I ran away, hearing the sound of bones breaking and the death cries that gradually faded beneath the rubble. I felt something strange in my chest. Happiness. A cold, pure happiness because my plan had succeeded with terrifying perfection.

  After a period of eerie silence, the King returned. (Kyura) emerged from among the scorched forest trees, followed by his elite warriors. Their steps were heavy, their noses catching the scent of disaster before they saw it. Kyura reached the den. Time stopped.

  . There was a cemetery of rock and ash. He saw the smoke rising from the bodies of his kin. He smelled the scent of burning fur and flesh filling the suffocating air. He saw the small limbs protruding from beneath the massive rocks the intruder had dropped.

  Kyura approached a specific pile of rocks, where the scent of his own blood was... the scent of his pups and his mate. He tried to move the rock with his nose, then with his claws, but the silence beneath him was absolute.

  The King realized the truth. He had lost his family, and his future.

  Kyura raised his head toward the gray sky. He opened his mouth and let out a howl. It was a long, rippling funeral howl, carrying an ancient and heavy sorrow that shook the entire mountain. It was the sound of a heart breaking, and the sound of a soul being torn apart.

  The remaining wolves responded, and the valley turned into a funeral of heart-wrenching howls. Even the other mountain beasts in their dens trembled, not from fear, but out of respect for this great pain.

  I was sitting in my small cave, shielded from the wind, cleaning the blade of my sword, Shakujo, with a piece of cloth. The blade was black and gleaming, not stained by a single drop of blood in this "clean" and tactical battle.

  Suddenly, the sound arrived. A distant howl, but it pierced the cave walls and settled in my bones. My hand stopped wiping the sword. I listened to the howl. It was so full of pain that the air in the cave seemed to grow heavier. I involuntarily placed my other hand on my shoulder, over the healed injury.

  I wondered at that moment with abstract curiosity: What is the meaning of family?

  (Hong Min) had been completely silent in my mind the whole time. He didn't mock, he didn't comment, he didn't laugh. I asked him, breaking his silence: "Usually you mock everything... what’s wrong with you?"

  He replied in a quiet, sad voice, a voice coming from a very distant place: "Do you really, Dream... feel nothing from this howl? Does this sound tell you nothing?"

  I looked at him in the reflection of the black blade and said with absolute sincerity, my face devoid of any expression: "I felt happiness... because my plan succeeded perfectly."

  Hong Min looked at me with that strange look... a look I never understood.