Attacked

The year of the fated day had arrived.

I should have been terrified. The memory of the foresight burned in my chest like a warning bell—bandits, blood, my parents falling. No. I swallowed that future down and forced myself to prepare. Before I left the house that evening, I made sure my parents were asleep. They had no idea what fell on our village, and I wanted it that way.

I didn’t hide from them because I was afraid; I hid because a child who can’t yet explain the world has to buy time.

The forest smelled of wet earth and distant smoke. Wolves howled somewhere deeper inside, and the trees whispered. I was heading toward a cave on the mountain’s flank—not for shelter, but because one of the books in the god-room had described a creature that might be able to help me: an ancient beast called a Deity Wolf. Its aura, the book had said, was like a collapsed Rebirth King’s light—powerful, sacred… and rare.

As I stepped into the mouth of the cave, a low light pulsed deeper inside. The light felt warm and strangely weak at the same time—like an old lamp still sputtering after a long night. I followed it.

When I saw the wolf, my breath stopped.

It was huge—five meters from shoulder to tail—and its fur was a shining white threaded with gold. Black-gold hair swept across its forehead like a crown. But what caught me most were the wounds: a deep, ragged cut across its chest that bled dark on that white fur. The beast lay sprawled on a bed of stone, breaths shallow and uneven. Its golden eyes opened and fixed on me.

A voice slammed into my head: Human child, what are you doing in my territory? Do you not know to stay away?

Telepathy. The wolf was speaking in my mind, and to hear it so plainly made my chest ache with awe—and fear. The voice was female: furious, proud, and old as mountains.

“Please—senior,” I managed, dropping to my knees. “My name is Yan Yan. I’m a child, but… I can help. Please, I can heal you.”

For a moment she only stared, and the cave felt smaller under her gaze. Then she scoffed. You? A child offers me healing? Are you joking? Who taught you to talk like that, little fool?

I swallowed. I wrapped what mana I had into a small, steady glow and nudged it forward—no big spells, nothing reckless. If the books were right, even basic restoration could soothe wounds if the channeling was correct.

“Don’t assume I trust you,” she snarled, the cave trembling with the word. But I swear by the Fenrir line—by the blood of Ancient Beasts—if you dare harm me, I will kill you and sleep on your bones.

I flinched at the threat. “I won’t,” I said. “I just—please. Let me try.”

She watched me for a long, heavy breath. Then, with the slow, reluctant motion of someone who had been betrayed by kindness before, the beast lowered her head.

I focused. My hands—tiny in the world’s eyes—moved the way the books had taught: gathering, smoothing, guiding. I chanted a gentle incantation I’d copied verbatim a thousand times in my mind: Heal Drip. The light I made spilled into the wound, seeping into torn muscle and charred vein. The pain in my chest tightened when the beast’s breath caught and then eased.

The Deity Wolf’s eyes fluttered. Her aura—once a roaring, inviolable sun—paled to a dim ember, then steadied. She breathed deeper and sat up slowly, the cave echoing with the sound of her intake. I barely dared to move.

She blinked, and the arrogance in those golden eyes cracked into something softer. “You… are not entirely foolish,” she admitted, voice wary. “You can channel old blood-mana with… precision. Who taught you? Who—”

“Books.” I felt stupid saying it, but it was true. “Books in a sacred room. I read too much.”

She huffed like wind through branches. “Most small humans can barely light a candle with intent. Yet here you are… a child who speaks telepathy and mends a Fenrir’s chest.”

“Senior—?” I began, and then stopped. I wasn’t going to call her that if she hated it.

She bared teeth like a grin and the corner of the cave cracked. “I will not be your teacher. But if you help me, I owe you nothing. That is how Fenrirs live—alone and owing no debt.”

I wanted to protest, to promise her meals and shelter and my loyalty, but a tremor ran through the mountain and a distant, ugly noise reached us: the clanging of armor and the shout of men who smelled like greed.

Outside the cave, the bandits had reached the village.

I stiffened. I should have been terrified. Instead, with a childish, reckless certainty, I unclenched my hands and whispered to the wolf, “They’re coming to our village. They’ll kill—”

The words barely left my mouth when the cave’s entrance filled with light and a chorus of rough voices: “Boss! We’re in position. Let’s take everything—no one escapes!”

From the dark, a voice answered: “Kill them all. Not a single woman or child left.”

My stomach turned. In the clearest second of my life, anger rose—pure, animal, terrible. I didn’t think. I didn’t plan. All the images from that terrible foresight crowded my head like knives, and something in me snapped.

Outside the trees erupted in roars not from wolves but from fear. A stunned silence came down—then a sound I’ll never forget: the cry of a beast and the scream of men cut short. Heads flew like rotten fruit. Light flashed, a white column stitching the night.

I felt the world tilt. The bandits’ tunnel erupted as if the earth itself had rejected them. Those who streamed upward to surface looked up and saw something that stole their breath: an enormous white wolf rearing under the full moon, and on her back—a child no older than five, fingers pinched like the spark of a new star.

Their leader snarled, and his head split clean as a bell. Panic broke the ranks. Men who’d stormed villages for a living dropped and scrambled, but their bodies were already leaving the ground as if the air were a blade.

From my cave, I pressed my forehead to stone and watched the scene unfold: perfect, brutal, and swift. The white wolf—my Fenrir—roared, and the night swallowed their cries.

Later, when the adrenaline settled, three things burned in my mind:

The wolf was real and enormous and far beyond anything the bandits expected.

Someone—some child—was on her back.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that the silhouette I’d seen was my own reflection in some strange mirror.

When the last of the bandits fell and the forest went quiet except for my own ragged breathing, the Fenrir sat back on her haunches and regarded me with a new look—one tempered by survival and curiosity.

“You,” she said slowly, mental voice now softer, “you will bring me more than food, small human. There is something about you. Remember this: if you value life—if you truly want to protect others—then you will need every ally you can find.”

I nodded. My hands were trembling, but my resolve wasn’t. My mind flicked to my parents asleep under the roof of our small house. I will protect them, I vowed again, louder this time.

The Fenrir gave a low, almost amused rumble. “Names matter little to the mountains. But if you must have one—tell me yours.”

“Yan Yan,” I answered without hesitation.

“Yan Yan,” she repeated, almost tasting the sound. “Very well, Yan Yan. Let us see what your future is made of.”

Somehow, listening to a god-wolf speak felt… right.

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