The large feline, a four-legged shadow, bore Fulin through the Demon Realm Forest like a low wind skimming ripples in dark roots.

It couldn’t match her mistform sprint, but it won with a river’s patience, running without end like steady rain on stone.

Even at thirty kilometers per hour for ten minutes, it didn’t pant or slow, a drumbeat beast trying to vault into the green sky.

Like penguins bursting through a sunlit sea, the cat would breach the canopy, slip into low sky, and glide on clean, bright wind.

Up there, the taint fell away; the air was dry and crisp; blue sky and white clouds smiled like fresh porcelain after rain.

But a heartbeat later, the plunge beneath was a cliff-fall into shadow; light strangled, air grew heavy and wet, and miasma clung like moss.

Overgrowth warped the interior into a haunted gallery of roots and thorns, yet one girl and one beast wove through like needles through silk.

This rhythm of run and breach was clearly its art, a hunter’s trick born from trees and wind.

Better to leap above than wander lost below; with easy peaks and long sight, the cat was an exceptional guide of forests and horizons.

Fulin judged plainly, with a grin like sun on steel: This cat-car works.

Before boarding, she’d only pointed in a rough direction, and the cat charted a perfect line like a compass finding true north.

At thirty per hour through trunks and shadows, barring mishap, she’d be back at the forest gate in half an hour.

Half an hour slipped by, the sun poured west like molten amber, and the forest’s oddness settled into ordinary dusk.

Near the entrance, the cat-car breached the treetops, and Fulin glimpsed thin blue smoke rising from the roadside post like lazy snakes.

There were too many columns of smoke, a strange hedge against the sky, but the miasma thinned to nothing; she knew the stop was near.

“Park. Stop here,” Fulin said, calm voice over a tight wire of caution.

The big cat stopped at once, a stone dropping into still water; Fulin was flung forward like a leaf in a gust.

She caught herself midair in a curl of mist; without it, a stout trunk would’ve left her crumpled like broken pottery.

“Meow…” The cat sounded aggrieved, first-time rider jitters, like a boat scolded for its own waves.

“Food. I’ll make it for you.” Fulin’s tone softened like embers under ash; a promise kept warms harder than fire.

She snared a wolf, gutted it clean as a river cut, bled it, singed the fur, and roasted it to a blushing half-done.

Rock salt and beer splashed like sea spray and barley rain; wild lettuce sliced thin fell green as spring onto steaming meat.

She wove a platter from crisscrossed twigs, set the feast, and let color and scent bloom like a painted market at noon.

“Bear Grylls–style Nordland roast whole wolf. Try it,” she said, a silver-lidded smile hiding a hunter’s teeth.

“Meow!” The big cat drooled like a waterfall and dug in, no ceremony, only appetite under a harvest moon.

Fulin knew beasts crumble before cooked meat like snow under sun, though she’d worried if magic beasts had picky rites for their meals.

If the cat-car hadn’t been so fast, she’d have had no time to cook; if the sun had fallen, she’d have skipped the debt.

Because the old butler waited at the post for Lance, and “he” needed to return now like a tide returning to shore.

Fulin triggered Dual Incarnation, slipped into Lance’s skin, and told the baffled cat, voice firm as a bell: “My other identity. Remember it.”

“Meow?” The cat barely blinked, answered, and kept eating, head down like a monk before rice, claws clean of malice.

Relief cooled Fulin’s nerves like rain on red clay; she’d braced for an attack at a stranger’s face.

Lance would lose to this standout among Grade‑B magical beasts; a forced end would snap Dual Incarnation like a bowstring.

Then Lance Morrison’s state would reset, a month peeled back like pages ripped from a ledger.

Every level earned would roll back like a spilled abacus—sunk cost drowning in a black bowl of ink.

So Lance cannot die, a line etched in iron.

Even with that etched truth, Fulin-in-Lance backed away, eyes on the cat, nerves tight as harp strings.

Cowardly? Suspicious? Maybe. But risk was a cliff at night; the last test mattered more than pride.

If the cat passed, it was truly humane, a beast with understanding, no danger to Lance’s borrowed breath.

Twenty steps back, and the cat still gnawed bone like wind worrying old bark.

Lance exhaled, turned, and ran toward the post like a runner chasing the last glow on the horizon.

He lit Battle Aura Lv.1 in his warrior blood, a clean burn, and let new power flow like warm wine through muscle.

Ten minutes later, dusk thinned the trees like a comb through hair, and the view opened wide as a field.

Soon, Lance reached the forest exit, stride steady as a drum under fading light.

Wrong, he thought, a cold pebble dropping into his stomach.

Butler Brook should be here with the carriage like a faithful star at dusk; the road lay empty like a hushed stage.

Worse, the roadside post lay quiet, a silence packed tight as snow, too still for a place of wheels and voices.

This post began as a courier’s stop—horses, beds, bread—set where the Demon Realm Forest opens and the Vanilla Duke’s lands touch.

Traffic made it swell into a traveler’s waystation, a border throat where merchants passed like shoals of fish.

Think highway service stop with a warm inn and a friendly patrol, lanterns hanging like moons above gas pumps.

It wasn’t the busiest in the Iron Duke’s domain, but ten caravans a day crossed this stone stream like ants over a twig.

They’d rest and head for Mubay City, not sleep here; even the latest would leave before the sun slid behind the hills.

Now, near dusk, not one caravan moved in or out, like a clock whose hands had been snapped clean.

Maybe they all left. Fine. But the quiet sat heavy, a blanket smothering breath.

Fulin’s gut tightened like a fist; trouble was walking on soft feet.

She couldn’t show her true face again; she edged the forest rim, a shadow sliding along darker shadow.

At three hundred meters, she saw a silhouette on the arrow tower, the tower a needle pricking the purple sky.

Yes, the post had an arrow tower, and defenses in tidy rows—capstan gate, six‑meter walls, barracks, lodges, stables—rooms like stacked chests.

The wall wasn’t for marching lines, and there was only the one tower—one eye above a circled throat.

So he only needed to fear the tower’s gaze, a hawk head swiveling on a pole.

One, two, three figures stood there; two held bow and crossbow, strings like held breaths.

The third peered through a tube, a spyglass sweeping the land like a broom over secrets.

Fulin’s heart jolted like a struck bell; this wasn’t normal—either an Iron Duke unit held it, or bandits had swallowed the post.

Her nerves sharpened like needles; Lance slid forward under the forest’s dark quilt, unseen by the tower’s watch.

Castles always keep a blind angle near a tower’s roots, a lamp’s dark under its own shade.

He slid into that shadow, breath thin as smoke, then paused—he still didn’t know the inside.

The gate would be guarded like a beehive’s mouth; he couldn’t rattle the hive—he had to climb.

Lucky, this place was more fort than castle, walls more perimeter than cliffs, though six meters is six meters.

For Lance, it was nothing. He’d climbed worse for uglier reasons, a shameless thief of windows and linens.

Now with warrior blood and Battle Aura, he sprang, hands finding protruding bricks like stones on a river’s crossing.

He topped the six‑meter wall, rolled, and slipped inside like a shadow through reeds.

The air hit him—a blood reek thick as warm syrup, sweet and sick, a perfume from a bad dream.

Lance’s eyes widened; breath quickened; Fulin’s urge exploded like a volcano under ice, heat cracking the shell.

Her body twitched toward ruin, a bowstring pulled by hunger; she forced stillness like frost on fire.

“Human blood is too sweet,” she told herself, voice inside like a cool ladle. “Calm down. Breathe. Adapt. Again, adapt.”

A few seconds, and the storm passed, the lake smoothing under moonlight.

Then she saw the courtyard.

Mercenaries with no colors—bandits by any other smoke—held the post, swaggering like dogs on stolen steps.

Dried blood crusted black as old bark; headless bodies lay like fallen scarecrows; severed heads hung for show like rotten gourds.

The dead were easy to read—post soldiers and caravan guards; a brutal melee had cut the yard like axes through wheat.

The desperadoes won, and their patrols prowled like lean wolves, eyes cold lamps in a frost yard.

Torches ringed the central ground, flames licking like orange tongues; captives sat with hands tied, piled like reeds under a storm.

Sword‑men stalked the rim, faces like carved masks; any twitch drew steel like lightning hitting a lone tree.

Several already lay in red pools, silence thick as clay over their last breath.

If no one ransomed them, once the bandits stripped the goods like locusts, the captives would die, simple as dusk.

In truth, death stood closer, a shadow just behind their shoulders.

The Iron Duke is iron not only in army but in method—hostage games shatter against that anvil.

When the Lionheart Legion rolls in, if no families march with them to redeem, the soldiers will demand the hostages.

If that fails, they’ll ignore the knife at throats and crush the seized post like a boot closing on a snake.

To Fulin, these people looked like castaways of fate, tossed and bruised by a black wave.

One certainty burned through: Butler Brook was among them.

From the tower side, Lance glimpsed the old man’s face, bruised blue and purple like storm clouds beaten thin.

Not all captives were men; several ladies sat near the barracks side, not the tower, penned tighter than trussed birds.

Wrists roped, ankles shackled with small iron balls, restraint heavy as winter on a thin branch.

Easy to guess the why—noble daughters, delicate masks for a pack of jackals.

One golden‑haired lady stood out, beauty bright as honey on porcelain, a picture that made Fulin’s heart skip.

Desire flared, a strike of flint in dry grass—leave Brook, reveal now, snatch the heiress like a hawk lifting a rabbit.

Throw her on velvet, strip her like peeling silk, bind her in red ribbons, knots neat as art on lacquer.

A birthday cake in a gift box—Fulin would lift the lid, take the cake, press it to a milk‑smooth neck.

Bite gentle as medium‑rare steak, savor and claim, whether she struggled or yielded; better if she struggled—conquest tastes richer.

That hunger wasn’t choice; it was a reflex, a knee tapping when struck—a Chaos Vampire’s oldest hunt-song calling through bone.

Shame burned first; that filthy hunter’s urge clawed at her throat.

Fulin forced it down by sheer will, shackling the beast and slipping back into Lance’s persona.

She had to free the old butler, by any means, before the Lionheart Legion’s soldiers rushed in.