Langyao froze at the mention.. She knew who this voice in her head was now. Only one being could claim itself to be the strongest of the gods. The Immortal hero, who ended the 1st age and brought peace back to the world. The only mortal to ever ascend into divinity. The one who rose the first person in the interage period to power and brought life back into a 1st age city to the far north that survived despite the time and turmoil passed. Bringing forth the 2nd age of civilization.

  The Cerna.. Langyao had to think about where she had heard that term before.. Then it hit her. From her religious tutor. The Cerna was the word the gods used to refer to the world itself. All things that exist, exist within the Cerna. It has only ever been referenced sparingly by the gods but the divine revere it the same way that mortals revere the divine.

  Langyao had a serious chill run down her spine.. She looked back at the wall where she could feel the sheer wrongness of the mage on the other side.. The idea that whatever power it called upon was not of the Cerna filled her mind.

  “Promise me you will keep my mother safe from that thing..” Langyao muttered and the Immortal hero responded “I am currently convincing Svendar to give your mother a blessing of Vengeance. With it, she will be able to escape to fight another day. Then I will ensure the mage is dealt with.”

  Langyao looked back in the direction she was originally instructed and began running. Heading to the northern port where they only kept their fishing vessels. Vessels she had no clue how to actually sail. She was concerned about her mother and also concerned how this god was going to ensure that. She laid eyes on a rowboat and felt it would have to do. Hopefully, if it’s the actual world’s will for her to survive this, there will be calm seas. She ran to one of the fishery’s warehouses and carried stocks of fresh water, smoked fish and hard bread to the boat.. It should be enough to get her to the neighboring isle.

  “Double what you had grabbed, you are heading north to the mainland”

  As Langyao heard the god’s voice, she then felt a massive power spike on the southern docks and saw spouts of water rise from the sea, tinted scarlet red by an aura of rage. The power, she could feel it instinctually.. It belonged to her mother who was just blessed herself. That mage threw a black bolt but it failed to penetrate the rising scarlet aura.

  Langkim lay on the ground, coughing out teeth as she was knocked to the ground a third time by the teenage heir to the Hung clan. Hungkhan, a bearkin, specifically of the moon bear type. Despite only being 16, he was taller than Langkim by a good foot and had 200lbs of muscle on her, on top of a potent blessing from Ankhou the god of war.

  He growled as Langkim rose to her feet and said “Stay down, you human-loving bitch. I was directly ordered by my grandfather to spare your life.” Langkim raised her fists defiantly in an open claw stance but was too slow to avoid Hungkhan’s rush. He swept her legs out from under her as he moved faster in heavy layered armor than she had seen anyone move before. Before she even hit the ground, his large foot struck her stomach and sent her rolling back on the ground. Hitting the dead warriors she had brought with her to the docks. That damned mage had stopped firing at them at least, but she couldn’t touch him..

  “Are you going to stay down this time?” He asked, the bored tone to his voice lit a fire under her as she stared with bloodshot eyes and growled deep in her throat. But her body was getting slow and harder to command.

  “Why?” She growled with hatred in her voice. “Why does your grandfather provoke war with the Lang clan?”

  Hungkhan stood there and the most annoying smile appeared on his face. Then he began howling in laughter, setting the butt of his glaive on the ground as he bent over with a hand on his belly. He laughed for another full minute, each millisecond making the blood in Langkim boil even hotter and hotter. His laughing was cut by a loud crack of the mage’s black bolt heading towards where Langyao had run to.. Despair mixed in with her feelings of hatred and anger as she watched the mage only stare for a moment before turning its gaze behind that fucking creepy mask back to her and lower its cursed looking staff.

  “You idiot, it wasn’t my grandfather who wanted this to happen, it was me!”

  He slammed the butt of his glaive on the ground and it cracked the stone below just as an extra show of force as he began to enjoy getting to taunt Langkim more before forcing her to surrender.

  “I was told I was to be a suitor for that disgusting mutt you call a daughter” he said and Langkim immediately rushed back to her feet and ran at him, almost foaming at the mouth in anger now but he kicked up the butt of his glaive and thrust it into her stomach. Making Langkim drop back to her hands and knees and struggle to breathe as she coughed up residual blood from her lost teeth.

  “The Lang clan had abandoned tradition centuries ago. But the Hung clan remain pure of blood and of mind. We breed for strength, for fortitude, and for beastkin pride.”

  Hungkhan pushed Langkim onto her side as the red wolf clutched her stomach in pain, her body fought hard to resist her commands, but the hatred in her eyes actually surprised Hungkhan a little.. He smiled a toothy grin down and crouched down mockingly before her. Sitting on his heels as if she wasn’t a threat at all.

  “You tried to hide your husband’s illness and you did a good job fooling everyone just how sickly he had become. But you slipped up. One of our spies could see the walking corpse on your pretty little mountaintop home. He used to be as big as I am and twice as strong but we saw how thin he was and how he struggled to even carry a pail of water.”

  Langkim tried to spit on Hungkhan but had her face shoved into the dirt when he noticed her about to try.

  “I convinced my grandfather and my father both to perform this raid. Your guards were too busy preparing their ceremonial wardrobes to be prepared for a proper assault. You were too preoccupied dressing up that mutt like a doll so you can try and muddy another’s bloodline.”

  Hungkhan released Langkim’s head and as much as she hated him and hated this situation, she was struggling to remain conscious now. The pain and exhaustion were too great, her heart was beating too fast to be healthy and the only thing she could hear besides this bear was her own elevated pulse in her ears.

  “Why the fuck should we bother marrying into your clan to strengthen our own when we could just walk in and kill the filthy human, your disgusting daughter, and seat myself as the new head and grow the Hung clan immensely.”

  Langkim felt her vision darkening, her pulse became erratic and she could hear the chains of death begin to rattle around her.. Hungkhan continued to speak but she couldn’t hear him anymore.. She laid her on her back and she saw a man standing above her that Hungkhan ignored for some reason. He was very tall, wearing a cloak as dark as the shadows and skin as white as parchment. Chains slipped from his hands and began to gently hold her body still. She felt her muscles relax and the man, she now could recognize as Niohlenth, gave a sorrowful smile. In the gentlest of voices he said “Worry not, your daughter is safe.. The Cerna has willed her survival.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Langkim felt the weight holding her become free as she seemed to be able to sit up just fine. All the anger she was boiling in had subsided for peaceful calm. Though, she felt a tether pulling her back down. She looked down at herself and saw her body still laying there, her eyes rolling back and Hungkhan stopped his speech to begin tapping her cheek and trying to shake her awake. Each nudge he gave made the tether pull her back a little into her own body.

  Niohlenth pulled a small sickle from his robes and knelt down by her, but before he could move to sever the tether, a flash of crimson fell from the heavens beside him. Genuinely startling the man draped in darkness. A new man was here. Another human, short blonde hair and eyes just as scarlet red as the northern styled robes he wore. A spear of gold and crimson held in his hands. Still, no one else was reacting to their presence she could see when looking around.

  “She is not to die today, brother.” the blonde man said, Langkim remembered seeing a painting of him somewhere.. It was in their temple.. He looked a lot like Svendar the god of wrath. Why was he here? Langkim looked at him and felt in the deepest pit of her soul the boiling rage begin to spike again.

  Niohlenth looked back in the direction her daughter had ran and Svendar said “Yes, that is why.”

  Niohlenth nodded, rose, then left Langkim’s vision. The blonde man knelt down, staring into the wolfkin’s eyes with his own, both of their eyes a similar red to one another. He said “Do you hate him?” as he pointed at Hungkhan who was forcing a red liquid into her body’s mouth now. The tether tightened even further, pulling Langkim back down into her hatred. She could no longer sit straight, she was only propped up on her elbows now. She growled deeply as the feelings began to come back to her and said “Yes” firmly up at the god.

  “Do you want to kill him?” Svendar asked.

  “Yes! Him… Him and his entire clan! They will pay for what they’ve done to us!” Langkim roared.

  She then saw and felt Svendar put a hand on her forehead and he pushed her spirit back down into her body.

  “Then take your hatred, take your anger, bathe in it, and reap your vengeance with both of our wills pushing you forwards.”

  Langkim’s eyes rolled back to glare at the bear in a mild panic above her. He was saying “shit, shit, shit, I wasn’t supposed to kill you.” before Langkim let out a blood curdling roar as her pupils dilated into pinpricks. Hungkhan was pushed back a good 20 feet and that mage on the boat fired a bolt that did nothing but fizzle out before it could reach her.

  Langkim had received a blessing direct from the god she could no longer see. But she felt power unknown to her coursing through her veins. Her body was battered but no longer resisted her orders. The pain was gone as she saw genuine fear wash over Hungkhan’s face. Water rising from the ocean as Langkim jumped back onto her feet in 1 movement. The veins beneath her red fur were glowing as she tightened her muscles and took a proper stance of the Wolf Fang Style.

  The scarlet aura of rage flared even higher, higher than the spouts of water that began rocking the boat the mage was on. Langkim rushed forwards faster than she could comprehend but her body moved as if it was natural to do so. Hungkhan raised his glaive but she shattered its blade with a single strike. She stood over the scared teenager, still more than three times her size but no longer more than three times her strength.

  “You and your entire bloodline will end by my hand!” The soon to be infamous scarlet wolf roared as her claws swiped, trailing red behind them.

  Langyao finished packing the boat as the sounds of fighting continued to erupt from the southern docks. She heard her mother’s shouts but couldn’t tell what they were saying. She could feel the fight between her mother and another awakened. Her mother held the lesser of the two’s depth of power but she was fighting with such ferocity, the other was consistently on the defense and taking wounds that further weakened them. Her mother was winning.

  Langyao pushed the row boat out after untying it and hopped in it. Grabbing the oar and paddling her way away.. Tears began to well up in her eyes as she was being forced to leave her home but she couldn’t fight that mage.. Damn, Langyao turned as she saw the mage staring at her again. He raised his staff at her and she felt the energy building again. She couldn’t dodge and even if she did dive into the water to do so, the rowboat and supplies would all be gone. Just as panic set in, the unexpected happened. The sky was clear but violet energy began accumulating in the air above the island. The mage was still accumulating power but as the energy descended, Langyao watched as the spell he was forming failed. She then saw the power this mage command violently burst out as it was denied forming into another one of those bolts of energy. The color.. It was indescribable. It was not black, it was merely emptiness. The complete absence of what things in this world should be.

  Suddenly, Langyao saw the violet energy begin coalescing into a form, and it took the shape of a man wearing a cloak that hid his features. But the power within herself resonated deeply with this new presence..

  The crimson aura of her mother dimmed as Langyao soon felt the other blessed person she was fighting have their life snuff out. But her eyes were stuck on the scene on the largest of the Hung clan boats.

  Black tendrils spread out from beneath the mage’s robes to assault the new presence, but merely disintegrated itself upon contact. The mage began backing up and with an apparent desperation throwing whatever attacks it could, all of them failing to do anything more than waste his own energy.

  The presence reached out and grabbed the iron mask this mage wore and pulled it off, revealing the mutilated face beneath. The mage was an old man, absolutely ancient. Barely more than skin and bones, and resembled a skull even more with their nose cut off and eyes gouged out.

  Langyao had no reason to think this, but she was given the distinct impression the wounds were self-inflicted.. It looked disgusting but an idea wormed into her mind that it instead looked beautiful, and she should strive to be like the mage, to join him and do the same.

  Violet fire erupted around her and around everyone else she could see around the southern port as the thought was violently burned away. The immaterial form of the immortal hero spoke. Langyao could see his mouth move under the misty cloud of violet energy obscuring his face beneath the cloak and heard in her head and also vaguely from a distance with her actual ears. “That was a very potent curse.. One you didn’t cast yourself..Something I need to know more about..”

  Next, Langyao saw the purple energy that previously took the form of the god burst forth and envelop the mage, and just as quickly as he came he left. There was no sign the mage had ever been there. The violet color around them faded back to normality and the entire battlefield stood silent, Langyao was not the only one watching that. Then her people began to cheer.

  Langyao heard roars and howls of wolves erupt from the compound as their morale had skyrocketed to immeasurable levels. Their soldiers tripled their efforts to fight off the Hung clan and managed to push them back to their ships and then light them ablaze as they attempted to flee.

  Langyao knew her mother was safe, but her clan had been crippled. Her father was murdered. And she was being forced to leave as well, to head north. War would break out and her clan no longer had the strength to remain even in the top three on the island. Too many warriors had either been cut down or rotted away. Langyao paddled further and further north. She spent over a week just paddling north. The seas were calm for her trip and by the end she was exhausted, but she knew her mission.

  She needed to head to Legonia, join their academy, grow strong among their youth, and become the Immortal Hero’s champion.

  Langyao made landfall in a port town of humans. She spent the whole time gathering courage and trying to remember how to speak their language. She had been taught it but did not use it often outside of lessons from a human tutor from this country. She rose from her row boat, this style was called a canoe in this land's tongue. And she shouted “I am Langyao, Heiress to the Lang Clan! I greet the people of Legonia. I demand to be taken to your awakened academy!” as best she could. Not knowing who to approach.

  She stood awkwardly for a moment, looking around, then she met the blue eyes of an admittedly handsome boy around her age. She felt an odd connection. She felt the people around him also held blessings but without the Immortal hero guiding her personally anymore, she didn't know what kind. But the silver haired boy's power felt just as deep as her own did.. he must be the same. She tried to cool herself after such a long and difficult journey. Grabbing her stuff, then strutted over to him. He must know where the academy is.