From behind, five wolves lunged at Fay. Their strength sat around peak Breath Tempering, nothing like the pack leader, but they came with teeth and numbers.

Fay answered with qi and a spray of crimson flame. It flared bright. The wolves balked midair and veered.

Two took the heat across their coats and hit the ground with yelps, fur scorched and curling.

The rest of the pack sniffed at the huge missing patch of fur and realized it had done no real damage.

The pack grew bolder. Frenzied. Their eyes sharpened with the hunger.

Fay did not give them the time to build courage. She kept pummeling the huge leader with her shield, each impact a dull jolt up her arm.

The beast was peak Cornerstone, four meters of muscle and tyranny, and even it began to sway. Dizzy. Off balance.

It rolled hard, trying to crush her. Fay shifted to dismount, to reset her footing, and her leg caught.

Something clicked. Pain flashed white. Tears pooled in her eyes, but she bit it down and forced her breath steady.

The pack tightened around her. The leader rolled again. Weight slammed into her like a collapsing wall.

Fay took a lifting stance by instinct, spine braced, hips set, refusing to be flattened.

She looked for Campion without thinking. Nowhere. Fay understood then, she could not keep conserving herself. Not here.

Qi surged through her whole body. Teal flame sheathed her skin, not a weak flicker but an aura that made the air feel boiling.

The wolves sneered and crept closer anyway, thinking it was that same harmless fire.

Fay grabbed one of the smaller wolf and hugged it tight.

The teal flame climbed its fur in a blink. The wolf howled in agony. The others rushed in, certain it was a trick, and found themselves caught in the same blaze.

Looking close, there was no smoke. No stink of burning hair. The fire did not want flesh. It wanted the soul.

Fay felt elation rise inside her. This was her own martial art. Crude, yes. Unrefined, a little. But it was hers.

The pack leader did not come in. It kept distance and chose another way.

White streaks lit along its paws as it gathered cold qi. A ball of pale energy formed at its mouth.

Fay raised her shield and forced qi into her knee, setting the dislocation as best she could. Her face twitched with pain.

The leader fired. Fay took the blast head on. Qi coated her arms and shield, but the cold seeped through anyway.

Her skin blistered under frost. Stiffness crawled into her fingers. Frostbite, even through her cultivation.

Radeon had not taught her a true defensive method yet. Coating with qi did not change the nature of the attack. It only delayed the damage.

She could not run. So she stood. Another ball of ice qi began to form. Fay felt her leg threaten to give, then felt it click back into place.

A smirk tried to climb onto her lips, and she suppressed it. Not yet.

Before the second blast could leave the leader's mouth, Fay shot forward. Her whip elongated in a straight line.

At the critical moment, she cinched it tight across the wolf's jaws, sealing its mouth.

The leader's gathered qi rebounded inside its own channels. It spasmed. Blood trickled from its nose, ears, and eyes.

Fay snapped her whip free. The leader's mouth billowed cold smoke, yet it still tried to rise and fight.

She did not let it. Fay used a technique she had watched from Radeon, then twisted it into her own.

Her devour art. The whip drove into the throat, thorns and vine like barbs unfolding inside.

Fay fed qi down the line and felt it catch along spine and nerve. Then she pulled.

The animal split from within. Half the spine and the head tore free in a wet brutal surge, dragged out through its own mouth.

Now her whip carried a wolf's head at its tip, bloodied, eyes and brain still attached.

Fay stared at it a heartbeat, breathing hard. She did not know how to fix that. Not yet. She would ask Radeon later.

Her legs finally gave. She sprawled onto frosty ground and waved the whip once, careless and warning. The remaining wolves flinched.

She could not suck life force, qi, or soul the way Radeon did. Not because she could not, but because the medical books Radeon had fed her said so.

She had not mastered any of it yet. For her to do something she had only a vague idea of would be blind arrogance.

She inspected the pack. They only stared at her. They did not flee. They looked at her differently now.

Not woman. Not prey. Wolf. Familiarity tugged them closer.

Fay felt a small gratification, even if they were animals. Their eyes stirred something like worship in her chest. She shook it off.

"What was I thinking. This is why Master thinks I'm a silly girl," she told herself.

Fay pushed herself up, dusted at her clothes with a shaking hand, and pointed at the dead leader.

She kicked the carcass once, hard enough to make a statement.

"Did this beast not let you eat properly," she said, voice rough.

The pack stared, then howled, a chorus that sounded like agreement.

Fay bit into the meat to show them. A blunt gesture. Then she pointed again and repeated the bite, again and again, until the meaning had nowhere to hide.

"Now the demon is dead," she said. "Go eat. You understand."

She skinned the leader quickly and threw chunks to each wolf. They took the offering, hackles lowering as hunger overruled old fear.

Fay did not waste what the forest had given. She caught the beast's blood in pig bladder balls and tied each one shut until it would not leak.

Then she bundled organs and strips of the rest of the meat and lashed them high onto the backs of the wolves, trophies and provisions at once, so the miners could see what she had dragged out and later feast on it.

When Fay finally stepped out of Wolves Retreat, twenty nine wolves followed in tow.

Two shivered and looked half bald where the earlier flames had scorched them, and Fay clenched her jaw as she walked.

She was hoping Radeon would fix its hair. If he didn't, Fay could only groan.

"When will the day come," Fay whispered, lifting her gaze to the heavens, "that I may be carefree and unrestrained in this world?"

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