Chapter 45 — Endurance

  The training didn’t stop.

  After I finished healing, Borin didn’t give me time to settle. The moment I straightened, the pressure returned.

  Gravity.

  The space around me compressed instantly, invisible weight slamming down until the snow beneath my feet compacted and cracked. My posture locked, muscles tightening as I braced.

  Fire came next.

  The flames surged forward without warning, violent and unrestrained.

  I didn’t dodge.

  I let it hit.

  Heat tore through my chest, pain biting deep—but I didn’t retreat. I focused inward, not on resisting the fire, not on enduring the damage, but on the same thing I had felt yesterday.

  That refusal.

  Something inside me tightened—not sharply, not explosively, but with grim insistence. My body held itself together under the impact.

  And without planning to—

  I forced the breath out of my lungs.

  Not a shout.

  Not a scream.

  Just air expelled violently, stripped of hesitation.

  The flames still burned.

  But they didn’t overwhelm me.

  The pressure didn’t deepen.

  The attack ended.

  I was still standing.

  For a moment, I thought it had to be coincidence.

  Then water came.

  The gravity field formed again, locking me in place as compressed blades of water slammed into my arms and shoulders. Cuts opened instantly, blood darkening the snow beneath me—but this time, the damage felt contained.

  I forced the breath out again, harsh and instinctive.

  The water tore into me—but my stance held. My body didn’t buckle the way it had before. The pain stayed where it struck instead of unraveling me entirely.

  Nearby, I felt a familiar presence.

  Varya.

  Her voice slipped into my mind through the link, sharp and unimpressed.

  You know making noise won’t help, right?

  Before I could answer, Borin raised a claw slightly.

  “No,” he said. “Let him.”

  Wind followed.

  A violent surge ripped around me, sharp enough to flay flesh. I planted my feet and expelled the air again, refusing to give ground as the pressure carved into me from every direction.

  Borin watched closely.

  “I can see a difference,” he said.

  The wind faded.

  Varya went quiet for a moment before speaking again, curiosity edging her thoughts.

  That’s… odd.

  Borin didn’t look away from me.

  “Our life force doesn’t depend on sound,” he said calmly. “We’re used to it. Our bodies already know how to hold themselves together.”

  He glanced briefly toward Varya.

  “But for him,” Borin continued, “this is new.”

  His gaze returned to me.

  “That breath isn’t strengthening his life force,” he said. “It’s removing hesitation.”

  That clicked.

  It wasn’t power.

  It was permission.

  Permission to endure. Permission to commit. Permission to stop pulling back without realizing it.

  I exhaled heavily, steam rolling from my mouth, and nodded once.

  “Borin,” I said hoarsely. “You get it.”

  A faint, approving huff escaped him.

  “I knew I would.”

  The pressure returned.

  And this time—

  I didn’t resist it.

  I held.

  The rest of the day didn’t slow down.

  If anything, it got worse.

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  Once Borin was done, he handed me off without ceremony—to Cera, Flint, and Raze.

  I became their target.

  They were training to improve their attacks, and Borin clearly saw no issue combining their progress with my suffering. The three of them spread out, circling me in the snow, eyes sharp and focused.

  They were already strong.

  That fact became painfully obvious very quickly.

  The attacks Borin had used earlier—fire, water, wind—the pups could recreate them in their own way. Not with the same control. Not with the same pressure.

  But with more than enough force.

  Flint went first.

  Fire surged forward in a rough, aggressive wave—less refined than Borin’s, but no less dangerous. I braced instinctively, forcing my breath out as the heat washed over me, pain flaring across my chest and shoulders.

  Raze followed immediately.

  Wind tore across the field, sharp and violent, cutting from the side before I could fully recover. Snow exploded upward, visibility vanishing as the air itself seemed to shred everything in its path.

  Then Cera.

  Water struck last—but it struck hardest. Compressed, heavy, relentless. It slammed into me and knocked me backward through the snow, stealing breath and balance alike.

  They didn’t stop.

  They rotated.

  Over and over.

  Each attack came from a different angle, different timing, different rhythm. There was no pattern to adapt to—only endurance.

  Borin was going easy earlier. That much was obvious now.

  If he had used his full strength, I wouldn’t have struggled.

  I would have been gone.

  And yet—

  Even without conscious life force control, the pups’ attacks were already far stronger than mine. Flint’s fire burned hotter than anything I could currently produce. Raze’s wind carried killing intent. Cera’s water struck with terrifying precision.

  That gap was humbling.

  And motivating.

  I didn’t counter.

  I didn’t attack.

  I endured.

  Little by little, something began to change.

  Not dramatically. Not visibly.

  But the moments where my body wanted to give out—where posture should have collapsed, where pain should have scattered my focus—those moments shortened.

  The damage didn’t stop.

  But it stopped unraveling me.

  By evening, the sky had darkened and mana lights flickered faintly through the den as others returned from patrol. My body was beyond exhausted. Every movement felt heavy. Every breath burned.

  So I stopped.

  I climbed onto the roof of the house and sat down, legs crossed, spine straight despite the protest screaming through every muscle.

  Below me, the pack rested. Some slept. Some kept watch. Others quietly patrolled the perimeter.

  Above—

  Snow began to fall.

  Slow. Silent. Uncaring.

  I closed my eyes.

  This time, I didn’t focus on wounds.

  I didn’t focus on mana.

  I didn’t focus on pain.

  I focused inward.

  On what remained steady despite everything else.

  Breathing slowed.

  Thoughts thinned.

  The noise of the day faded, replaced by something quieter—something constant.

  I didn’t feel my ki.

  Not directly.

  But beneath the exhaustion, beneath the damage, beneath the strain—

  Something held.

  And as the snow settled gently around me, I focused deeper.

  Just to test what would happen, I focused inward—past the steady rhythm of my breathing, past the faint awareness of my ki—and reached toward the second core.

  The moment I went deeper—

  The voice returned.

  Not violent like the first time.

  Not explosive.

  Worse.

  It was familiar.

  Terrifyingly so.

  It didn’t shout. It didn’t rush.

  It echoed softly, as if it had all the time in the world.

  You can’t stand beside them like this.

  The words settled heavily.

  You never could.

  My breath caught.

  Use it.

  Fear crawled up my spine—but I didn’t pull away.

  I wanted to know.

  I stayed.

  For a moment, there was only the quiet fall of snow and the distant presence of the pack below. Then the voice spoke again, closer this time—not louder, just clearer.

  You are weak.

  The words struck deeper than any blow.

  You always were.

  That was enough.

  I recoiled instantly, forcing my awareness back, cutting the connection before it could go any further. My heart hammered as I opened my eyes, breath uneven, hands clenched tight against the cold.

  I didn’t know what that voice was.

  But I knew one thing with absolute certainty—

  I never wanted to recognize it.

  The thought alone made my skin crawl.

  At that moment, the second core wasn’t power.

  It wasn’t temptation.

  It was something else entirely.

  And it terrified me.

  As I was replaying everything that had just happened, Fenn’s voice cut in through the link.

  I flinched.

  The timing alone was enough to jolt me—my thoughts still too close to that other voice.

  “What happened?” Fenn asked quickly. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you alright?”

  I exhaled and forced my shoulders to relax.

  “Nothing,” I replied. “I was just thinking.”

  There was a brief pause. Then, before the moment could stretch any further, I spoke again.

  “Back then,” I said, “when the Devourer attacked me… when the pack dealt with it—Kael used a strange attack. The one that ended it.”

  I hesitated for a fraction of a second.

  “Was that also a ki-based attack?”

  Fenn answered without delay.

  “Yes.”

  Hope stirred before I could stop it.

  “So… if I train enough,” I asked carefully, “could I use something like that too?”

  The response came immediately—and crushed that thought just as quickly.

  “You could,” Fenn said. “But for that, you would need at least a thousand cycles of training.”

  I blinked.

  “Maybe then,” he continued calmly, “your life force could be condensed purely by will. Even I can’t do that.”

  That landed harder than I expected.

  “I can infuse ki into mana,” Fenn went on, “and use it to strengthen attacks. But striking with nothing but pure life force… that’s an advanced technique. And even I can’t use it as perfectly as Father. It only comes from time. From accumulation. From endurance.”

  There was no pride in his voice. Just fact.

  “Father has lived long enough,” he added, “and trained hard enough, for it to be possible.”

  I let the weight of that sink in.

  “That makes sense,” I said quietly.

  Then, without thinking too much about it, I added, “I wonder if I could even live long enough for that to be possible.”

  Fenn didn’t hesitate this time either.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “You will. You’re not in danger as long as you remain with the pack.”

  I shook my head slightly.

  “Not that,” I replied. “I meant… in my world.”

  There was a brief silence on the link.

  “The average lifespan of a human there,” I continued, “is around seventy to seventy-five years.”

  I paused, then corrected myself.

  “Oh—right. For you to understand… that’s about fifty to fifty-five moon cycles.”

  The link went quiet again.

  And for the first time since I arrived in this world, the distance between what I was…

  and what they were…

  felt impossibly wide.

  “That’s… strange,” Fenn said after a moment. “Most Fenrir-blooded are still considered pups at that age.”

  I let out a small, humorless breath. “Figures.”

  There was another pause. Not awkward—thoughtful.

  “Still,” Fenn continued slowly, “I’m curious.”

  “About what?”

  “Mana,” he said. “And conscious use of life force.”

  I frowned slightly, listening.

  “In your world,” Fenn went on, “neither of those existed. You lived without them. Grew without them. Aged without them.”

  “Yes,” I said. “We didn’t have anything like this.”

  “And then you came here,” he said. “And everything changed.”

  The words settled heavier than I expected.

  “You began circulating mana,” Fenn continued. “You became aware of life force. You started reinforcing your body in ways your species was never meant to.”

  I didn’t interrupt.

  “I wonder,” he said quietly, “how that changes you.”

  My grip tightened slightly against the cold stone beneath me.

  “You mean… aging?” I asked.

  “Growth,” Fenn corrected. “Endurance. Decay.”

  He didn’t sound certain. Just curious.

  “Our bodies are shaped by what flows through them,” he said. “Mana doesn’t just empower. It sustains. And conscious life force… even more so.”

  That idea hadn’t occurred to me before.

  “If that’s true,” I said slowly, “then I might not age the same way I used to.”

  “Perhaps,” Fenn replied. “Or perhaps you already aren’t.”

  That sent a quiet chill through me.

  Neither of us spoke after that.

  Snow continued to fall, settling softly across the roof, across the forest, across everything that was changing far faster than I’d realized.

  Whatever I was becoming—

  It wasn’t bound entirely by the rules I’d grown up with anymore.

  And I didn’t know whether that should comfort me…

  …or scare me.