The last drops of the mushroom broth had barely settled warmly in Lin Xiao’s stomach. Just then, the underground deep gap announced its presence to the heavens.
It began not with thunder, but with an eerie, breathless hush that swept across the entire expanse of the Grand Desolate Forest. The night breeze died away in the branches of the iron-bark pines. In the corrals and timber pastures nestled below the central pavilion, young shadow-wolves whimpered in sudden confusion, and horned spirit-deer shifted nervously against their cedar fences. Their velvet antlers glowed with faint defensive sparks.
From the high watch-rock above the corrals, a deep, ringing rumble echoed through the night. Xiao Hei, the Celestial Eclipse Moon-Wolf King, didn’t bark or roar. He simply stood atop the crag, his glossy black coat drinking in the starlight while ribbons of silvery lunar mist drifted lazily from his massive paws. His crimson eyes swept across the valley, and with that single sovereign rumble, every startled beast in the safe hall settled into quiet, disciplined stillness. If the pack’s father was calm, there was no cause for fear.
Then, from the throat of the thirty-yard fissure on the southern ridge, the light burst forth.
