ajfa

The world rose again from madness.

The mountains stretched on forever and ever and ever in the frosty tundra, utterly unrecognisable to him. The ice was cold under his paws — or rather, he recognised that it should be cold, that he should be freezing and there should be at least some form of discomfort. But he no longer possessed the human senses that gave him these sensations. Cold was cold, and no longer invited pain.

The wolf with eight legs picked his way through the ruins of an ancient battleground, carefully alert for any danger, even though he was infinitely more durable than anything these scarred lands could ever throw at him. Demonic wolves were the pinnacles of apex predator, dominating every lesser creature by design, whether mystical in origin or not.

He lowered his head to examine a plant — to him before his transmigration, it would be a tree, but now, it was just a shrub he could jump over.

Zhou Mingrui had transmigrated into the body of a cub belonging to the pack ruled by the Demonic Wolf of Annihilation. He had died in battle against a sibling for a prey that would strengthen them immensely: it was so valuable that blood would turn against blood for it without a second thought, and the last memory of the body he now inhabits only regretted not being cutthroat enough to get what he wanted.

He awoke to the sound of cackling howls and teeth sinking into his ribs.

In fear for his life, he did what he had to do out of crazed instinct. Blood sullied his pitch black fur, and he snapped the neck of his enemy between his jaws, holding on until the struggles eased — until victory was his, coat matted and snapping a leg in the struggle, his maw dripping in the lifeblood of a sibling that wasn't strong enough to survive the rite of adulthood. Silence had reigned when he finally released his tense jaw from the shattered remains of another wolf, eyes crazed.

He was uncertain as to what had happened: truth be told, his transmigration hadn't even registered yet, nor had his new strange body. He was simply reorienting himself from the mad struggle for life, heaving for breath in the wake of victory. It took a few moments before howls broke out yet again, louder and avalanche-like in nature, cheers and laughter for the brutal fight that had borne them a new victor.

He was congratulated, and the leader of the hunting expedition they were on gave him a nod towards the dead corpse of a… thing. He didn't know what it was or why he wanted it, but he limped his way over under the collective gaze of the hunting pod. He clawed its eye out and ate it to satisfy that yawning void inside his chest.

Then he knew no more.

The "prey" gave him more power, akin to leveling up in a video game, except it was far more different, and far more brutal. From his observations, he now belonged to a higher hierachy in the Pack, free from the life of a lowley wolf that plagued the original owner of his body. He gained bright yellow fur that dappled his forehead like a crown for his success, and a strip of a slightly warmer yellow on the base of his neck like a circlet.

He was suddenly above the rest of the other wolves, joining an upper echelon that "he" had wanted to join more than anything.