Starting Out As The God of Beasts

”An all out war huh?” Roy chuckled softly, ”Well I expected much from those western barbarians” he grinned.

”Leak this information to the Governors and make sure to leave some trace so they’ll know you sent it” Roy instructed.

”By your will” Alisa bowed her head.

”Good, now fetch me Eurenia” Roy waved his hand, in a split second....Alisa had vanished back into the shadows.

Leaving Roy alone in the room.

”Hmmm....” Roy inhaled deeply, ”Since I have Telvanus by my side, I don’t need to worry much about being exposed to those True Gods above”

”But I still need to be careful” his eyebrows slightly furrowed, ”We’re dealing with a True God after all”

”I barely know anything about Damascus and how to deal with him”

”This is going to be hard” he smiled, ”Should I infiltrate Norona myself? I can take on the disguise of an Orc and check things out myself”

”That should be better”

After making up his mind, Roy without hesitation brought out a piece of paper and feathered ink pen.

He wrote a few words on the paper, in the paper. He instructed Alisa and Eurenia to head back to Tempest City without hesitation.

They must strengthen their borders and prepare more Varanium steel armors and blades as they wait for the armies of the west.

He also told them clearly that they mustn’t search for him. When he deems it right for them to see him.

He’s going to find them himself.

Once he was done with the letter, Roy placed it on the wooden table, open for everyone to see, then he vanished.

Taking the form of a Sun-fly, he flew out of Yeren City.

The moment he was far across the reach of Tempest City. Roy returned back to his original form.

Draped in leathered black trench coat, his golden curly hair cascading down his waist and his crimson eyes flickered.

He raised his head, staring into the sky, ”This won’t be easy” he inhaled deeply, ”Sometimes I just wished I could storm into Norona City by myself and wipe them all out”

He clenched his fist, ”It is very much possible for me but that would be a foolish decision, I won’t be able to escape the notice of the True Gods”

”It won’t be easy even with Telvanus support” he sighed, ”I shouldn’t make that guy’s life more difficult than it is now”

”I should start going now”

Roy immediately transformed into a falcon, a Sun-fly was the perfect cover for him in the day but it wasn’t fast.

He doesn’t have the leisure of taking his time while war is about to break out.

He needed to move fast.

***

The biting, unnatural frost of the northern wastes clung heavily to the jagged peaks surrounding Norona City.

High above the ice-sheathed fortresses, a solitary mountain falcon drifted lazily on the freezing thermal currents, its keen eyes cutting through the thick layer of arctic mist below.

To the heavy frost mummy sentries and the automated defense arrays guarding the city’s perimeter, the bird was nothing more than a native scavenger hunting for scraps.

They had no way of reading the sophisticated system laws masking its identity.

Beneath the feathered guise, his golden-crimson eyes scanned the frozen architecture of the Troll King’s capital.

The city was a sprawling fortress of bone and obsidian, heavily fortified and teeming with thousands of colossi preparing for war.

But as he angled his wings to glide lower over the industrial quarters, a sudden surge of chaotic, heavy mana caught his attention near the eastern transit gates.

A squad of four massive, eight-foot-tall Ogre vanguards was marching through the snow, their heavy iron boots churning the frost into a muddy slush.

Dragged between them by a thick, rusted choke-chain was a battered, blood-stained figure.

It was a golden haired Fox-man.

His pristine, rust-gold fur was matted with frozen gore, and his tail dragged listlessly in the dirt.

Through the faint, residual mana signature radiating from the prisoner’s collar, Roy instantly recognized him.

He was a deep-cover operative from the newly established Mandraxx Intelligence Network, a specialized spy sent from Tempest City weeks ago to map out the inner sanctum of the Northern Coalition.

Somewhere along the line, his infiltration had been exposed by a mundane mistake.

He had been caught.

Yet, as the Ogres roughly hauled him forward, Roy’s divine eyes flickered, showing the active, hidden mana signatures of three other Mandraxx spies still embedded perfectly within the city’s alleys, watching helplessly from the crowd.

The Fox-man knew their positions.

He was the anchor holding their secrecy together.

”Speak, little vermin!” the lead Ogre grunted, his gravelly voice rattling the icy air as he violently jerked the choke-chain, sending the spy crashing face-first into a frozen snowbank.

”We know there are more of you hidden in the bazaars. Give us the names of your shadow cells, or we will peel your hide and line the King’s boots with it!”

The Fox-man let out a weak, coughing laugh, spitting a mouthful of dark blood onto the ice.

He kept his jaw locked, his slitted eyes glazing over but remaining fiercely defiant.

He was being methodically tortured to expose the rest of the network, but his silence remained absolute.

The squad dragged him deep into the maze-like, destitute alleys of the Norona Slums—a dark, crowded district filled with crumbling bone-brick hovels and the desperate, lower-class tribes of the north.

It was the perfect, isolated place to break a prisoner away from public eyes.

With a brutal kick, they threw him into a dead-end courtyard filled with garbage and discarded animal bones.

Two Ogre soldiers unhooked heavy, spiked leather whips, while another hoisted a massive iron club.

CRACK.

The first strike tore through the Fox-man’s leather tunic, painting the white snow in fresh, steaming crimson.

The spy shrieked, his body convulsing against the stones, but no names left his lips.

From the deep, shifting shadows of a crumbling clay wall barely five paces away, a tiny, dark-scaled desert lizard sat perfectly motionless on a frozen ledge.

Its slit pupils, burning with a faint golden-crimson light, watched the brutal scene with absolute, predatory detachment.

”Tch” Roy growled.

Regardless of his situation, there’s no denying that this Fox-man is his follower.

What kind of God would he be if he could not protect his followers?

The Ogres laughed, a disgusting, clicking sound, as they raised their whips for another strike, entirely oblivious to the fact that the absolute architect of the north was sitting in the dark right next to them.

Roy had transformed back into his original form, unseen by anyone yet watched everything.

”Should I save him?” Roy lingered, ”No” he shook his head.

”That Fox-Man is quite stubborn, he won’t expose his brothers to the Trolls and they won’t kill him either”

Roy turned his back to leave, ”When the time is right....I’ll release him from.....”

Before Roy could complete his statement, a loud shriek echoed through the air, ”What the.....”

Before Roy could complete his sentence, his gaze darkened. An enraged Ogre had decapitated the Mandraxx spy.

The severed head of the Fox-man rolled into the shadows, landing right before Roy’s feet.