"To be honest, Ward," Harcon stammered, his words nearly drowned out by the crackling flames. “My mind’s as clear as it’s ever been. Tits, I haven’t been this sure about anything in ages.”

  "What the fuck are you talking about, you lunatic? The core? You made your deal with the dame, so knock it off or you'll bring the whole damned forest down on us!"

  A grin spread across my face. 'That’s the idea.' I hauled myself to my feet, ready for another mind strike that never came.

  "Pretty sure, I didn't agree to any such deal...t-tits..."

  "Tsk! H-How? How can a mere city guard have such mental defenses," the mind-twisting bitch muttered under her breath, bewildered that she didn't get inside Harcon's head as easily as she thought. "Was it you who taught the mutt?"

  "Well, no," Harcon grinned, sending a fireball in her direction while quite easily deflecting two arrows fired at him by the Shadowbreakers under her control. "But I guess we had the same teacher."

  Captain Rayden. I wasn’t some clueless rabbit not to realize he meant her. Insulting, though. My proofs were hard-earned. But whatever. He had no way of knowing that the only teacher I had was myself - or in a way, my accursed array and collar around my neck. A collar put on me. Again.

  "Kill him! Kill that brain rotten imbecile!" the mind-bitch barked, hunkered on the mossbear’s back, safe from the blaze. Ward, mostly throwing up defenses with his magic - likely still wary of excessive use of mana, bellowed similar orders. "Draven, Rhea! Stop the bastard before it's too late!"

  One man against nearly a dozen and a massive beast. No wonder Harcon was hesitant to go with this madness. There was no way he could get out of this alive, short of a miracle - or the beasts.

  'Where were they, anyway? What was taking them so long? Wasn't my might enough?'

  While I racked my mind for what to do, the seven brainwashed Shadowbreakers, yes all seven, as the two previously lit on fire recovered from their burns, threw everything they had against the fiery wall, surrounding the former Master Guard. The mind-twisting bitch obviously wanted to end this just as quickly as Ward did. Yet, despite comparable strength to the fire-wielding male according to the Lattice, they did not fare with the ease their numerical advantage would suggest. Guess brute strength alone wasn't everything. Lattice, Arrays, Weaves - none of that had been able to replace experience, and Harcon, that fire-wielding bastard, clearly had plenty of it to back up his strength.

  'Is that why I was able to resist that bitch's attack? Even if it's just for a little while.' The number of sigils on her array was undoubtedly close to three hundred sigils, and mine? It barely scraped up a hundred. [Indomitable Will] was a bit better off in this regard. Even so, the difference between her weaves and mine must have been staggering. But unlike me, she didn’t have to fend off someone else clawing at her mind, day in and day out, for a year and a half straight.

  Sure, she had years of experience and would no doubt get in my head, eventually. But that was where the beast came into play. It seemed to pull from experiences not just mine but its own too - likely stretching back decades, maybe centuries.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Not that any of that would do me a damn bit of good if they slapped suppression shackles on my paws.

  As such, while Harcon seemed to have stopped Ward's swordstress in her tracks and gave pause to the mossbears to approach his blazing flames, the heat of which was quickly turning the clearing into an inferno, I dashed for the shackles lying on the ground. It went against the fat human's orders to stay still - the collar’s unseen tentacles in my mind twisted, tightening to force the will of that craven. Just plain irritating, that’s what it was, making my moves clumsy. Didn’t stop me, though. I grabbed the shackles and...

  'W-What should I do with them?'

  My stomach dropped - I hadn’t planned this far ahead. There was no chance I would be able to break the shackles. Back when I was fully turned, I had clawed at that metal and barely left a mark. 'The spatial ring?' No, I didn’t have it on me - not that it was big enough to stash the shackles, anyway.

  'Maybe I could dig a hole and...'

  ?Stupid! Easier to throw away.? The beastly side of me had a point. The only question was... where? Forest or fire? Neither seemed like it would do the trick. The fire, blazing as it was, certainly didn't burn hot enough to destroy these things. 'Forest then?' I might as well have left them where I picked them up.

  ?Trees!?

  'Good thinking.' Pressed for time, I didn’t waste a second and chucked the first shackle into the treetops with all I had. To my relief, the chain that had been nothing but trouble when I first got here hooked around a branch, just as I had hoped, and stayed there. The other three quickly followed, each flying off in a different direction. Two snagged in the branches; one tumbled down. Dumb? Waste of time? Sure, but worth it.

  'Where the bloody fuck are they?' Scanning the clearing's edge for any sign of mossbears I found nothing. The same, though, could be said of the little fat human's pack. The big female, just a moment ago holding me by the neck, was nowhere to be seen, nor was the male with the sword, the fighter.

  ?Pack!? My pack! Those cravens may have tucked their tails between their legs and ran, but my pack could not. Vara and Elira were still locked in the cage, watching their former colleague's brave stand with terror in their eyes. As such, irritating as it was, I needed that craven. I needed his keys. 'Where to look, though?’

  Fortunately, all it took to find the little fat rat was strain my ears and grit my teeth through the din of battle and the raging flames rapidly eating away at the greenery. He was perched on one of the scalehoofs, squealing like the rat he was, while the young male pushed the animal from behind.

  "Come on, you stupid fucking mule! Move it!"

  "Boss, I-I don't think this is gonna work. They..."

  "Just shut up and push!"

  Honestly, I couldn’t believe the scalehoofs weren’t freaking out, trying to escape the ropes tied to the trees. Well, I got my answer as soon as I closed in on them.

  ?It is Lady.?

  ?Lady is here.?

  ?I told you she come.?

  They all stayed because of me. 'But why?'

  ?Hil'ren, stay.?

  ?Beast in the trees, Lady here.?

  ?Do not let the humans draw you away.?

  ?Lady, help, Hil'ren,? one scalehoof neighed over the other, plainly worried about the only one not tied up, now a bit deeper in the woods with that spineless rat on his back. Refusal danced on the tip of my tongue. This stupid prey didn't give a shit about me when I was in the cage and now they wanted my help? The nerve! They were in luck, though. I needed that little fat craven dead, and…

  'Not dead!’

  ?Stupid not to kill!? I growled, doing my best to keep my focus locked on the keys. That was what I needed. Not to have some craven's blood on my hands.