Chapter 70 - 69

Chapter 70: Chapter 69 The weeks rolled by in quiet rhythm. Lumberling lived like a monk. Each morning, before the dew had dried from the leaves, he returned to the same tree—his tree—near the edge of the golden fields. His footsteps were silent, his presence barely noticed. He no longer gave orders. He no longer trained with the others. He barely spoke. He simply... sat. Cross-legged beneath the same rough bark, the roots curling like old bones beneath him, he closed his eyes and listened—to himself, to his breath, to the ghosts that still stirred in the back of his mind. The goblins came and went around him. Sometimes children peeked from behind bushes, curious, whispering. But none dared approach. Skitz would sometimes watch from a distance, silently ensuring no one disturbed him. Days bled into one another. Sometimes, Lumberling forgot to eat. Other times, he didn’t even notice the sun had set until the cold of night bit at his back. The memories still came. The instincts still stirred. But now... they were no longer storms. Just passing clouds. ’So this is what it means to be like those monks,’ he thought one day, as he slowly opened his eyes. His gaze fell to the weapon at his side, his spear. It rested against the trunk, silent, waiting. For weeks he hadn’t touched it. As if avoiding it would distance him from the monster inside. But now... He hesitated. Then reached out and wrapped his fingers around the shaft. The wood felt warm in his palm. Familiar. "If I can’t get rid of it..." he murmured, eyes narrowing, "...then maybe it’s time I used it." He stood, the spear rising with him. Then, slowly, he let go. Not of control. But of resistance. He let the memories come. He let the instincts flood his limbs. He gritted his teeth as the instincts surged through his veins like wildfire, hot, dizzying. His grip on the spear tightened until his knuckles went white. The taste of blood seemed to linger on his tongue, even though there was none. ’I could kill someone without meaning to.’ The spider’s stillness. The wolf’s sharpened senses. The gnoll’s raw aggression. The serpent’s coiling patience. He didn’t reject them. He moved with them. His feet slid over the grass, silent and fluid. His spear weaved through the air like a striking fang, each step a dance, each twist a calculated slash. It wasn’t his old form. It wasn’t monster mimicry either. It was something... else. His own rhythm. A fusion. The way a beast stalked. The way a predator waited. The way a hunter killed. He turned, swept, ducked, then lunged forward with a feral snarl caught in his throat. But then, he froze. His chest heaved. His vision was blurring. The heat in his blood... it wasn’t his. The hunger rising in his throat... it wasn’t his either. Too far. Too fast. He staggered back, dropping to his knees. His breath came ragged, each inhale scraping his throat like sandpaper. Sweat trickled down his back. The weight of his own body felt unfamiliar, too heavy, too tense. Then, his hand dove into his pocket. The stone. Smooth. Cold. Grounded. Its warmth, reminded him of who he was. Not a monster. He clutched it tight. He closed his eyes. "I am here." He breathed. "This is my body. These are my thoughts." He clutched the stone tighter as his thoughts sharpened. ’If I fail to master this... I won’t just lose myself. I’ll bring ruin to all I’ve built.’ But that fear didn’t paralyze him. It focused him. The monsters inside howled. But they did not break through. Slowly, like the tide retreating, the hunger ebbed. His hands stopped trembling. His breath steadied. He opened his eyes. And smiled. It was a small smile, but a real one. "That was dangerous," he said aloud, voice rough with fatigue. "But it’s possible." He looked at his spear again, then at the dirt beneath him. This was his answer. Not rejection. Not escape. Integration. The instincts and memories were not his enemy. They were knowledge. And knowledge was a tool. He sat again beneath the tree, slowly folding into lotus position. The spear rested across his lap now, not as a weapon, but as a symbol. He closed his eyes. He breathed. He let the lessons of monsters pass through him like wind through branches, but not define him. He sat with his thoughts. His fears. His goals. ’Who am I? A leader. A protector. A builder. Not what I devour, but what I become.’ The voices still whispered. But now they whispered to him, not through him. And as the sun dipped behind the trees, casting golden light across the fields, Lumberling remained beneath the tree... ...not broken. Not consumed. But reborn. ..... Day by day, beneath the old tree and under the watchful eye of sun and stars, Lumberling meditated and trained. The village around him moved like a different world, distant, quiet, irrelevant. The wind howled, birds called, captains sparred nearby, and he heard none of it. His spear moved differently now. It no longer danced strictly by the teachings of Pikeman’s Art, the Imperial manual he had once studied with discipline. The foundation remained, his footwork still bore the rhythm of drills, his grip still followed practiced form, but the movements had begun to shift. To evolve. He was changing it. Layer by layer, he was weaving something else into it, something unheard of, something unthinkable in the eyes of the Empire. Monster instincts. Where most warriors clung to tradition, refining their style with rigid repetition, Lumberling was doing what no commoner, soldier, or even knight was ever taught to attempt: Creating his own path. In the Empire, skill manuals were sacred. Carved from centuries of battle, recorded by ancestors, guarded by nobility. To alter one was arrogance. To make your own? Madness. And yet, he did it. Not all at once. Not recklessly. He moved with patience, like a smith forging a blade. He started slow, selecting one memory, one beast at a time. He didn’t drown himself in the chaos of a dozen instincts. He let the flood trickle, not pour. One monster. One memory. One fight. Then pause. Then breathe. Then reflect. And with each repetition, each sparring session beneath the open sky, his style grew less like a soldier’s, and more like something else. Not quite man. Not quite beast. But wholly his own. .... Outside the village. Lumberling started simple. The wolves. He had hunted them. Devoured them. Remembered their instincts, not just their strength, but their discipline. The pack didn’t survive by being savage. It survived by being unified. In the tall grass, Lumberling crouched low, moving on all fours, slowing his breath to match the pace of the wild. A rabbit moved in the brush ahead. He didn’t pounce. He stalked. One step. Pause. Another. Pause. Just like the wolves did. The scent hit his nose before his eyes spotted it. Smell first. See later. His spear remained sheathed. This wasn’t about killing. It was about learning. He watched the path the wolves would take, imagined the circular flanking, the silent signals of ears and tails. How they danced, always aware of the others, never acting alone. Later that day, he sparred against wooden dummies in the same pattern, circling, feinting, lunging low. His spear jutted like a snout, stabbed like fangs. He didn’t swing like a soldier. He bit like a wolf. Next came the spiders. Their memory itched in the back of his mind. The way they felt vibrations, even from air itself. Their legs twitched not just from movement, but from presence. At twilight, Lumberling climbed onto a tree and stood perfectly still. He closed his eyes. And waited. A fly buzzed by. He tracked it without looking. Felt the breeze shift. Counted the seconds between pulses in the ground. Practiced twitching muscle fibers, not to attack, but to sense. Then he descended into the training yard. This time, he didn’t dance like a wolf. He skittered. His footwork became erratic, unnatural. Steps that seemed too wide, yet somehow avoided every strike. He dodged low, crawled sideways, then lunged, spear darting in precise, staccato bursts like venom. It didn’t flow. It struck. Each stab a calculated surprise. Then came the gnolls. Brutal. Relentless. Not graceful, but adaptive. They hunted in chaos, yet never lost track of their prey. They learned pain and wielded it as strength. Lumberling recalled how a gnoll once baited him, feigning injury, only to pounce the moment he lowered his guard. So he did the same. ..... From atop the wooden palisade, Grokk stood watch, silent, unmoving, a living statue beneath the afternoon sun. His eyes, sharper than most, swept the tree line as they always did... until they stopped. His gaze narrowed. Outside the village walls, in a clearing just beyond the crops, stood his Lord. Alone. Training. Grokk tilted his head slightly. This wasn’t unusual, Lumberling often trained in solitude. What caught Grokk’s attention was something else: the strange stillness in the air around him. No shouts. No drills. Just movement—sharp, precise, and... unfamiliar. Skitz had ordered them a month ago after their return: "No one is to interrupt the Lord. No questions." Even the captains, known for their curiosity and boldness, obeyed without complaint. And for Grokk, who had expected the collar to be removed upon their Lord’s return—silence had become weighty. Still, he waited. Patient. Loyal. Watching. But today, curiosity stirred in his chest like a sleeping ember waking. He stepped down from the wall, careful not to draw attention, and followed from a distance, through the brush, silent as a predator. Then he saw it. His Lord moved, not in drills, not in patterns taught by knights or manuals, but in fluid, raw motion. His spear weaved through the air like a fang in the wind. Quick, brutal turns. Low crouches. Broad, sweeping strikes aimed for joints and throats. Fangs without a face. Grokk’s eyes widened. "...That’s gnoll-style," he muttered, stunned. He crouched behind a low ridge, watching intently. "How...?" It wasn’t mimicry. It was instinct. Movements Grokk had seen in his old warbands, feints meant to draw blood, pivots meant to tear tendon from bone. Tactics born from the wild. But coming from his Lord? It was impossible. It should have been impossible. "How does he know this?" Grokk whispered, awe tightening his throat. Lumberling moved like a shadow given form, ferocious, precise, unpredictable. For several minutes, Grokk could only watch as the spear danced between human technique and gnoll brutality. Then, just as suddenly, his Lord stopped, he faded into the treeline like mist dispersing in the sun. Grokk remained kneeling for a few moments longer, heart still beating with disbelief. "...He’s doing something again," he muttered, rising slowly. Then he turned, and walked back toward the village, silently guarding, and silently waiting. His Lord was changing.