Part II — The Wolf and the Mirror
It happened in an alley painted in shadow and rain.
The rival Alpha found him there — tall, scarred, the scent of divine blessing rotting beneath wolf's musk. His name was Roth, once a guardian of the Alpha Order, now a zealot set loose.
"I was sent to end a heresy," Roth growled. His teeth flashed silver. "But I wanted to see it first. The Wolf of the Moon. The one who makes gods tremble."
Kai exhaled, steam coiling in the cold. "Then look close, old dog. I'm just tired."
Roth lunged.
The impact cracked concrete. Sparks flew as claws met metal pipes. Kai ducked under a strike, feeling the rhythm of the fight — heartbeat, footstep, breath. Everything was percussion.
Roth's voice echoed through snarls. "You're desecration. You think rebellion makes you righteous? You are divine rot."
Kai blocked a blow with his forearm — bones fracturing, then instantly knitting back. He tasted blood and electricity.
And then — the trigger.
Roth drove him into a wall, claws inches from his throat. Somewhere behind that fury, Kai saw his own reflection in Roth's eyes — the predator, the god, the fracture.
The sound erupted not from his mouth, but from his soul.
A low frequency rolled out — a subsonic growl that cracked the air, splitting every window on the street. Light warped. The lunar fire bled through his skin.
Fur tore through flesh. Bones realigned. His golden eyes burned into twin eclipses.
Roth tried to move. Couldn't. The sound pinned him like gravity.
Kai didn't think. He became.
A blur of silver claws and moonlight — divine, monstrous, perfect.
When the silence returned, Roth was gone. Not vanished — erased. A smear of blood where theology met entropy.
Kai stood panting, steam rising from his body.
He looked down at his hands — still shaking, still smoking — and whispered, "That wasn't a fight. That was an ending."
The wolf within him didn't answer. It only watched.