The crystal in his paw felt like a shard cut from a split timeline, river-ice sheared off the years. Until it woke, Ouyang couldn’t pry it open; he could only read the haze it bled, hints drifting like fog through pines. Dufei had scented the same, so it tried to wrest the glass sphere from Ouyang like a hawk stooping for prey.

No way. Until I crack it, that damned fatty doesn’t get a whiff. The thought rose like a growl, heat under midnight fur.

So a cat sprinted through the forest with the crystal, a black shadow threading ferns and sunbeams like ink in water.

“Heavens, calamity—there’s that cat at my door!” A gopher burst from the soil like a cork from dark wine, just in time to see a certain black cat saunter over the mouth of its tunnel, tail swaying like a silk ribbon. In that heartbeat, the gopher froze, fear sinking like winter into wet earth.

“Great King of Beasts, accept your subject’s bow!” It popped up, whiskers trembling like grass in wind, already knowing this was bad. After that earth-shaking incident, when the ground heaved and the trees clattered like drums, all the forest had agreed on one thing: wherever that cat appeared, everyone took the long way around. No beast lingered near Ouyang’s shadow; this gopher showing itself here was like a sapling raising its head to a storm.

It didn’t want to die; it cherished its breath like a candle in rain. A demon wolf, the one-eyed legend who led the Misfortune Forest wolves and once razed a human village, had still been swatted flat by the mysterious black cat like a fly struck by lightning. And it? A mere gopher, a morsel in the grass—forget matching a legend, even an ordinary wolf could snap it like a twig, never mind the cat whose paw crushed that legend like thunder.

So the clever gopher hatched a plan, thoughts scurrying like mice beneath floorboards. It had surfaced by accident; if it had known the black cat walked above, it’d have stayed buried like a stone. But facts stood like cliffs. It couldn’t claim “accident” in front of that gaze, so it had to spin an explanation that might soften the claw.

“Mysterious and handsome, strong and dazzling King of Beasts— I, the gopher Claudia, beg to follow in your footsteps like a stream following the mountain. I’ll run at your side and offer everything.” The gopher had a name, unusual as moonlight in a burrow. Lesser creatures knew each other by scent like rain on bark, not names on tongues; but Claudia was different—a gopher with ideals, wit, and schooling polished like a river stone.

As a child, he’d lost his parents like leaves blown off a branch. Human hands had lifted the infant, and in the warmth of human homes he soaked up human knowledge like soil drinking rain. Years passed like migrating geese, and his human linguistics were complete; if not for different vocal cords, Claudia could speak fluent human words like bells in a square.

“Claudia” came from the family who raised him, a name given like a ribbon tied to a gift.

After a long season in human lands, Claudia met a gopher from the Misfortune Forest, a meeting like two tunnels intersecting. They spoke, earth-warm and earnest, and the truth surfaced like a spring: he was born of the gopher royal line; his father had been king; he was a prince by blood. At his birth, the gophers had battled the field mice, a clash like thorns against thistles. The gophers lost; the prince was misplaced like a seed blown away, and even their king fell like a toppled stone.

Feeling the pulse of “king” in Claudia’s veins like a drum under fur, the forest gopher pleaded with him to return, to inherit his father’s burrowed wealth and raise their clan like wheat after rain.

So Claudia’s path turned back, footprints stitching soil like thread. Using human-learned knowledge like tools under the sun, the gophers trounced the field mice in minutes, a skirmish like a gust pushing lighter leaves. Under the new king, the field mice were driven out of Misfortune Forest like clouds chased by wind. And just after war’s dust settled, King Claudia faced the black cat Ouyang—a problem like a cliff looming at dusk. He had bathed in human culture so long his mind shone like polished bronze; his eyes rolled, bright as beads, and he found himself a reason that might keep the claw at bay.

The black cat Ouyang stared at the gopher, pupils deep as wells.

“Hey, shorty, how’s gopher meat taste? Better boiled, roasted, or stir-fried?” Ouyang wasn’t impressed by the performance; he was musing over one hundred eight ways to cook gopher, like a chef paging a fire-lit menu.

The clever gopher heard and trembled; the shock was a cold bucket. This reaction wasn’t on his script. Ouyang wasn’t dazzled by Claudia’s wit; he was picking recipes like herbs from a garden.

“The cat’s eating the mouse—help!” he yelped, panic bursting like steam from a kettle, all that cleverness thrown to the dogs like stale bread.

Ouyang placed one paw calmly on the earth, pads pressing like a seal on wax. The ground shivered; trees swayed and rattled like bamboo in a gale. Claudia shut up, breath trapped like a moth in a jar, reminded of a simple forest truth: no one in these woods stood against this cat.

What good was shouting, when the wind itself knelt?

Ouyang hooked him by the scruff with one velvet paw, and the crystal at his side stirred, its glow rippling like moonlight on a river. Through the crystal’s spill of time and space, Ouyang sensed the thing that woke it, somewhere within the forest like a bell tolling behind leaves.

He thought a moment, silence like snow. Then he tapped Claudia lightly, a touch like dew on a leaf. In a blink, Claudia swelled, body growing at a speed visible as sunrise, until he was as big as an adult dog, fur bristling like reed against the wind. Ouyang sprang to the gopher’s back, settling down like a king to a throne.

“Lowly shorty, I, the King of Beasts, temporarily conscript you as my mount,” Ouyang said without blush or heartbeat, claiming the seat like claiming a hill.

Claudia’s heart soured, a stone in his chest, but what use was grievance against a storm? In this forest, a Flame Lizard that breathed fire was already a final boss, lava in scales; yet this black cat’s single slap made the ground wobble and felled trees like scythed grain. Claudia didn’t know who was stronger—cat or Flame Lizard—but one truth stood like a pillar: he couldn’t beat either.

Since you can’t fight the river, be the boat. Better a saddle than a stew pot.

Claudia ran where Ouyang pointed, paws drumming earth like rain on drums, and they stirred half the forest like a stick through a hive.

“Heavens, calamity— that cat’s roaming again!”

“Run! The cat’s coming this way!”

“Brothers, I’m out—” Voices scattered like startled birds.

From far off, before Ouyang even neared, beasts churned like boiling porridge. Perhaps that’s how a beast tide starts—one ripple turning to waves.

Along the way, Claudia felt unease creep like ivy. That direction—no matter how you looked—led toward the Flame Lizard’s territory. Was the black cat going to kick the den, claws to lava? Would Ouyang and the Flame Lizard duel in Misfortune Forest, two titans vying for “King of Beasts” like thunder against fire?

If that happened, Claudia’s life would hang by a thread like a spiderline. Forget the cat—one breath from the Flame Lizard could roast him like chestnuts.

“Great King of Beasts, are we attacking the Flame Lizard’s domain? If so, I think we should plan, map the wind before we sail…” His voice trembled like reeds.

Truth be told, Claudia was chickening out, belly cold as pond water.

“Meow—shut up.” Ouyang’s rebuke snapped like a twig, short and sharp.

Scolded by the “King of Beasts,” Claudia clamped his mouth, head low like a leaf in rain. He ran toward the Flame Lizard’s side as ordered, and in the shadows of his mind he plotted escape routes like burrows, planning to vanish once the giants traded blows.

——

Elsewhere, near the Flame Lizard’s cave, dust lifted like smoke.

“Captain—bad news!” A man in leather sprinted from afar, breath ragged like torn cloth.

“Asemay, what happened?” Captain Reggie saw their scout in panic, and dread rose like a cold tide. Asemay had walked lands with them, a seasoned adventurer with eyes like hawks; if a veteran ran like this, trouble loomed like stormclouds.

Asemay staggered close, panting like a bellows. “Captain—beasts… the beast tide’s breaking!” His words shook like drumbeats.

A beast tide. For humans, that phrase was a cliff, always there, always sheer. Against a beast tide, only an army could stand like a wall, or a legendary mage could turn waves with spells like moons over water. Misfortune Forest wasn’t huge; its tides couldn’t match the ones etched into history like scars on stone.

Even so, one forest’s tide would crush their small party like driftwood; they had barely more than a dozen under this sky.

“Damn it. Asemay, are you sure it’s a beast tide? Weren’t they saying the fire fiend triggers it? Intel said that lizard should be sleeping in its cave.” Reggie’s first thought leapt to the Flame Lizard waking, because all records pointed to one beast here that could stir a tide—the Flame Lizard, scales like embers.

Outside, animals thundered past, hooves and claws clattering like hail. Inside the cave, the Flame Lizard woke to the noise, roaring once, a sound rolling like lava down rock. That roar told Reggie the wave-maker wasn’t rampaging outside; it was still nestled in the cave like a coal in ash. So what sparked the tide? The question hung like smoke.

“Less talk, more doing. Asemay, you’re fastest—run to the town garrison and warn them. Raise banners before the wave hits.” Reggie’s orders were cool as river water. When a tide breaks, the nearest human town takes the first surge like a shore facing storm. Misfortune Forest births at least one tide each year, so the kingdom stations troops there like stones set in a stream. If the warning goes out early, if steel and men brace like trees before wind, losses will shrink when the beasts come like rain.