The energy in the farmhouse was electric. Literally.
Ever since Valeria had covered the glowing silver sapling with a bucket in the greenhouse, a low-level hum vibration permeated the air of the estate. It set teeth on edge and made hair stand on end.
It was the feeling of raw, unchecked growth.
Inside the living room, the effect on the husbands was immediate and unsettling.
Ignis sat by the fire, his skin flushed. The black veins of poison were gone, replaced by faint, glowing orange lines that traced the meridians of his arms. He was feverish, but not with sickness.
"My core," Ignis murmured, staring at his trembling hands. "It's regenerating too fast. It feels like my blood is boiling."
Caspian was curled in his trough in the kitchen, but he wasn't sleeping. He was restless, splashing water, his scales itching as new, harder layers grew beneath the old ones.
Silas was the worst. The suppression potion was fighting a losing battle against the World Tree's influence. He paced the perimeter of the room, growling at shadows, his muscles twitching with explosive energy he couldn't release.
Only Lucian seemed content. The Phoenix sat by the window, calmly sewing a new tunic for Kael, his movements faster and more precise than ever. The ambient mana seemed to soothe his frayed nerves.
And then there was Kael.
The Tiger sat by the front door, sharpening his axe. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. The sound was relentless.
He wasn't wearing a shirt. Every time he flexed his shoulders, ripples of metallic sheen washed over his tawny skin, hardening it into living bronze for a split second before fading.
Valeria sat at the table, trying to read a book she'd pulled titled "Defensive Fortifications for Dummies." She couldn't concentrate. The tension in the room was a physical weight.
"We can't keep doing this," Valeria said, slamming the book shut. "You're all about to explode."
Kael stopped sharpening. He looked up, his golden eyes glowing almost as brightly as the sapling.
"We feel... hunted," Kael growled. "Something is out there. Watching."
"The System warned me high mana would attract beasts," Valeria said. She stood up and walked to the window. The snow was three feet deep and glittering under the moonlight. It looked peaceful, but she knew better.
"Ignis," she asked. "What kind of beasts hunt in deep winter?"
The Dragon strategist forced himself to focus through his mana-fever. "Frost Boars. Ice Stalkers. Winter Wolves. Usually, they stay deep in the mountains. But a mana source like that..." He gestured vaguely toward the greenhouse. "It's like ringing a dinner bell."
As if on cue, Silas stopped pacing.
He froze near the kitchen door, his nose lifted, scenting the air leaking through the cracks. The fur along his spine stood straight up.
A low, guttural whine escaped his throat. It wasn't the whine of a frightened dog. It was the warning siren of an apex predator.
"They're here," Silas whispered. His voice was distorted, deeper than usual.
Crack.
Outside, in the frozen silence, a heavy branch snapped.
Kael was on his feet instantly, axe in hand. "How many?"
Silas closed his eyes. "Six. No... eight. Cold scent. Smell like ozone and old ice."
"Ice Stalkers," Ignis hissed, grabbing his cane and struggling to his feet. "Tier C magical beasts. They hunt in packs. They can freeze your blood with a bite."
Valeria's heart hammered. Tier C. That was significantly stronger than a normal bear or wolf. A pack of them could wipe out a squad of regular soldiers.
"Defense plan," Valeria ordered, her voice tight. "Ignis, Lucian, man the windows. Ranged support. Caspian, guard the back door. If they breach, you're the last line."
Caspian leaped from the trough, dripping wet, grabbing a meat cleaver from the counter.
"Kael, Silas," Valeria said, looking at her two strongest fighters. "The yard. They're coming for the greenhouse. We have to hold the line outside."
Kael nodded grimly. He looked at Silas. The Wolf was vibrating, his eyes shifting from grey to a chaotic, swirling silver.
"Can you hold it together, Wolf?" Kael demanded.
Silas grinned, revealing teeth that seemed longer than yesterday. "Pack hunt. Kill ice meat."
"Let's go."
Kael kicked the front door open.
The cold hit them like a physical blow. The yard was bathed in moonlight.
At the edge of the treeline, eight pairs of glowing blue eyes materialized from the snow.
They were massive, feline creatures, sleek and white, with fur that looked like crystalline frost. Vapor steamed from their jaws. Ice Stalkers.
They saw Kael and Silas emerge. They didn't hesitate. With a synchronized shriek that sounded like grinding glass, the pack charged.
They moved incredibly fast over the snow, their wide paws acting like snowshoes.
"Hold the center!" Kael roared.
He planted his feet between the house and the greenhouse. He raised his axe.
The first Stalker leaped at him, jaws aiming for his throat.
Kael didn't dodge. He swung the axe in a brutal, horizontal arc.
CRUNCH.
The blade caught the Stalker mid-air, slamming into its ribcage. The impact was sickening. The beast was thrown ten feet sideways, crashing into the snow, dead before it landed.
But three more were right behind it.
One latched onto Kael's left arm. Another bit into his thigh.
Valeria, watching from the doorway with her dagger drawn, screamed.
But Kael didn't bleed.
Where the Stalkers bit, his skin flashed a brilliant, solid bronze. Their teeth skidded off living metal with sparks of friction.
Kael roared, dropping the axe and grabbing the two Stalkers by the scruffs of their necks. He slammed their heads together with bone-shattering force and tossed them aside.
He was a juggernaut. The World Tree's proximity was feeding his evolution in real-time, allowing him to maintain the metal skin far longer than before.
Meanwhile, Silas was a blur of grey and silver fur.
He didn't fight like Kael. He was pure speed. He weaved between the Stalkers, a phantom in the snow. He leaped onto the back of one beast, sinking his fangs into its spine, then kicked off to slash the throat of another before the first had even fallen.
From the house windows, support fire rained down.
Ignis, too weak for major spells, was throwing concentrated bolts of fire the size of apples. They weren't lethal to the Stalkers, but they singed fur and blinded eyes, breaking up their attack patterns.
And then there was the thwip, thwip, thwip of Lucian's needles.
The Phoenix was perched on the windowsill. Every time a Stalker paused to reorient, a steel needle appeared buried in its eye socket or nose. He was blinding them one by one.
It was working. They were holding the line.
But they had missed one.
The Alpha Stalker - larger than the rest, with ice crystals forming a mane around its neck - had circled around the melee. It ignored the fighters. It was heading straight for the greenhouse, drawn by the intoxicating pulse of the sapling.
Valeria saw it.
"The glass!" she shouted.
Kael was occupied with two Stalkers. Silas was on the other side of the yard.
Valeria didn't think. She ran out into the snow.
"Hey! Frostbite!" she screamed, waving her arms to distract the Alpha.
It worked too well.
The Alpha stopped inches from the greenhouse glass. It turned its massive head toward the small, fragile human yelling at it.
It hissed, a cloud of freezing vapor rolling toward her.
Valeria braced herself, raising her tiny iron dagger. She knew it was suicide. A Tier C magic beast against an unawakened human.
The Alpha lunged.
Time seemed to slow down. Valeria saw the massive paws, the blue claws, the rows of teeth.
Then, a roar shook the very foundation of the house.
It wasn't Kael's usual roar. This was deeper, more primal. It sounded like metal tearing.
Kael had seen the Alpha jump at Valeria.
The sight of the "Commander" in mortal danger, combined with the overflowing mana from the sapling, snapped the final lock on his evolution.
A blinding golden light erupted from Kael's body, melting the snow around him in a ten-foot radius.
He didn't just harden his skin. He changed.
His body expanded, ripping the remnants of his tunic. Heavy, metallic-gold fur burst from his pores. His hands elongated into massive paws tipped with bronze claws. His human face shifted, the jaw pushing out, teeth lengthening into sabers.
He was no longer a man with tiger traits. He was a Hybrid - a towering, bipedal engine of destruction, half-metal, half-beast.
[System Alert: Target Kael has achieved Tier 2 Evolution: Gilded Battle Form.]
The Golden Tiger crossed the yard in one leap.
He slammed into the Alpha Stalker mid-air, intercepting it inches from Valeria.
The impact was cataclysmic.
The Alpha, a creature that terrified entire villages, looked like a ragdoll against Kael's new form. Kael drove it into the frozen ground. His bronze claws shredded its ice armor like wet paper.
He buried his fangs in the Alpha's neck. There was a sickening crunch, and the beast went limp.
Kael stood up over the carcass. He threw back his head and let out a victorious roar that echoed off the distant mountains, a sound of pure, apex dominance.
The remaining two Stalkers didn't even try to fight. Overwhelmed by the aura of a higher-tier predator, they turned tail and fled into the woods, whimpering.
Silence fell over the yard, broken only by Kael's heavy, raspy breathing.
He stood there, eight feet tall, gleaming gold in the moonlight, steam rising from his metallic fur.
Valeria slowly stood up from where she had fallen in the snow. She was shaking, cold and terrified, but also filled with a strange, wild exhilaration.
She walked toward the massive golden beast.
"Kael?" she whispered.
The massive head turned toward her. The golden eyes were wild, dilated with adrenaline and bloodlust. For a second, she wasn't sure if he recognized her.
Then, he blinked. He snuffed the air near her face, smelling her scent.
The tension left his massive frame. He chuffed - a low, tiger-like sound of greeting.
Slowly, the golden light faded. The fur receded. His bones shifted back into human alignment.
Kael collapsed onto his knees in the snow, back in his human form, stark naked and shivering violently from the rapid energy expenditure.
Valeria ran to him, wrapping her cloak around his steaming shoulders.
"You did it," she breathed, holding him up. "You saved me."
The back door banged open. The other husbands rushed out.
Silas was licking a shallow cut on his flank, grinning manically. Ignis was leaning on Caspian for support, exhausted but looking at Kael with awe. Lucian ran up and hugged Kael's leg, sobbing with relief.
They stood together in the bloodstained snow, surrounded by the carcasses of the Stalkers. They had won.
But as Valeria looked at the greenhouse, where the little silver sapling was still pulsing away, she knew this was just the beginning.
Ignis hobbled over, staring at the dead Alpha.
"Tier C," Ignis whispered. "Decimated in seconds. Kael... you just jumped a whole evolution tier."
"The tree," Kael gasped, leaning against Valeria. "It pushed me."
"It pushed all of us," Caspian noted, flexing his scaled arm.
Valeria looked at the dark treeline.
"Eight Stalkers came tonight," she said, her voice grim. "Because of a sapling."
She turned to Ignis.
"Change of plans, Strategist. We don't just need political leverage."
She pointed to the perimeter of the yard.
"We need walls. Stone walls. Ten feet high. And we need them before the spring thaw brings the bears."
Ignis nodded slowly, the fire of challenge lighting his eyes. "We'll need more limestone. And a lot more mortar."
"Then we get to work," Valeria said. "Welcome to the new Oakhaven."