28 years ago, in a nameless vilge in the north of the Vanaras Kingdom.

  It was snowing heavily, and the ground was covered in a deep yer of snow.

  “Hurry up! Drag him into the forest!”

  “B-big brother, do you think the adults will scold us after this?”

  “They will not if they do not find out!”

  A group of young children of various ages gathered farther from the vilge in the nearby forest.

  The oldest one seemed to be around ten years old, while the youngest was just a little over eight.

  There were five of them as they dragged something on the ground deeper into the forest.

  “Don’t move, you wretched beast!” When the oldest boy, who was called "brother" by one of the kids, felt resistance in his hands, he got angry and started viciously kicking the thing he was dragging.

  Muffled groans resounded as the kicks connected.

  The so-called wretched beast was just a small child. In fact, he was the youngest among all of them, only around four years old—too small to endure such hardship.

  The young child had broken bones and bruises all over his body and couldn’t do anything except stare at his assaints with his bloody red eyes, which unsettled the group.

  “Ugh… Don’t look at me like that!” One kid was scared as he took a pointy branch in his hand and closed in on the body.

  “Shouldn’t we go a little deeper? What if his brothers find us? They have been looking for him for a while…” one of the kids suggested, as if scared.

  The kid with the branch was angry at this suggestion and yelled back at him.

  “Why should we!? We are doing nothing wrong! This monster shouldn’t live in the same vilge as us humans!”

  The injured child started to wriggle on the ground while crying when he heard this, but two other children stepped on him to keep him down.

  The kid’s bones were broken, so he couldn’t muster much strength, but surprisingly, the bruises were slowly disappearing as his skin turned clear once more.

  The kids stared at it with disgust.

  “What a freak… It’s no wonder our parents hate him so much.”

  “Hold him for me for a little bit! If we’re done quickly, we can just say we didn’t know anything,” the kid with the branch said as he came closer to the incapacitated boy, the branch closing in on one of his eyes.

  The child wanted to turn his head away, but the kid grabbed the boy’s short and unevenly cut hair to force him to look in his direction.

  “Maybe I should poke out this disgusting eye first?”

  Now, the branch was just a small distance from his eye as his pupils trembled with fear.

  “Hahaha! The monster feels fear too!”

  “Kill him!”

  “No! That thing doesn’t deserve to leave this world so easily! Make him regret even being born!”

  The little body, who was none other than little Illyan—known as Stone at this time—looked at these kids with little fear. But as time passed and they continued tormenting him, the fear turned into anger.

  And the anger turned into a desire for blood.

  Why should he suffer like this just for being born?

  He was innocent!

  If they called him a monster…

  Then…

  He would show them what a real monster looked like!

  When the kid with the branch turned around to talk with the others, little Stone gritted his teeth and mustered all his strength to lunge forward.

  He was still held by the other two kids, but it didn’t matter to him.

  His face, close to the hand holding the branch, turned fierce as he opened his mouth and bit down with as much power as he could!

  “Agh!?” The kid felt extreme pain in his hand as he hurriedly turned around.

  “Kent!” The others called out to him as they tried to pry Stone off him.

  They managed to do it in the end. However…

  “Aghhh! M-my fingers!” Kent sat on the ground, holding his bloodied hand as he cried.

  “You!” In wrath, the others started to pummel Little Stone even more.

  Using fists and kicks, even stones and branches lying around, they tried to end his life.

  His body took the entire brunt of their attacks. His head, in particur, was covered in blood as his skull cracked in pces.

  A normal child would die sooner or ter if they suffered such injuries.

  The more he suffered, the angrier he became.

  “Argh!” Thus, he roared as he resisted all the more!

  “T-this fiend!” The oldest kid looked on with fear as he held the bloodied stone.

  As they bashed the boy, he tried to retaliate, but he was too weak—just a little boy with a fragile body.

  What the other kids didn’t know was that several ravens were flying and cawing above their heads, watching them.

  It didn’t take long for them to disappear as they flew away.

  They didn’t leave without reason. They went to call for reinforcements.

  Ravens were very smart animals. To survive in a harsh environment like this snowy forest, they lived in symbiotic retionships with completely different species of animals. This time, they flew away as they found potential prey to feast on…

  “Growl!”

  A sudden growling startled the children as they turned around, only to be horrified at the sight of several wolves surrounding them with a greedy look in their eyes.

  “W-wolves!”

  They froze in horror, not knowing what to do.

  The wolves looked emaciated and sickly, likely having had little food in recent days, but the ferocious look in their eyes and their wild, long fur made them seem much bigger to the kids than they were in reality.

  They started to circle around them, prepared to strike at any moment with their fangs bared and cws ready to tear them apart.

  Little Stone, who finally got some respite, observed all of this while lying in his puddle of blood, which even the snow had trouble absorbing.

  He saw the beasts, and he saw the children’s fear. He felt resentful.

  He didn’t understand why they did this to him. He didn’t even know some of them!

  What was the point of being human if he had to live like this? The feeling of loneliness gnawed at his heart as tears flowed from his eyes to the ground.

  He looked at the leader of the wolves.

  Its long cws brought fear, and its long fur was disheveled yet majestic.

  A look of longing showed on Little Stone’s face.

  It would be better to live like a beast if they decided to treat me like this…

  Such thoughts passed through his mind as he slowly stood up. His body was already numb, so he didn’t feel much pain.

  Only the hatred he felt pulsed through him.

  A sudden pricking pain spread through his palms. His clenched fists loosened as his nails, which had been burying into his flesh, started to wriggle.

  His hair, originally short, also showed changes as it slowly grew.

  But Little Stone didn’t notice at all as he lunged at the closest kid.

  “Argh?!” The kids, frozen in fear, didn’t know what had happened and started to panic.

  On the other hand, the wolves watched the show as the ravens cawed at the kids with ridicule.

  Little Stone didn’t care as he cwed and bit at the kid, leaving him with deep scratches as rivulets of blood fell on the ground, coloring the snow red.

  His nails broke and sometimes even fell off completely, but he didn’t care as he continued.

  The nails regrew almost instantly. The more he attacked, the more his bubbling emotions burst out, and the more violent his emotions, the stronger his ability became—albeit temporarily.

  “W-what a-are you doing?! Crazy!” The kids became scared as Little Stone attacked anyone who came closer to him.

  Normally, the kids would beat him down immediately, but now they were surrounded by wolves.

  “Grrrrrowrl!” In the end, some impatient wolves growled, wanting the leader to give them permission.

  And so, he did.

  “Argh?!”

  “M-mom…”

  “S-sob s-sob…”

  The children, who had been acting tough all this time, were just prey in front of so many wild animals and were quickly bitten and torn apart to death.

  One of the wolves also attacked Little Stone and tried to bite him in the neck.

  But Little Stone barely managed to move aside, causing the wolf to bite him in the shoulder. It was more of an instinctual move, as he didn’t seem to be in the right state of mind.

  He completely ignored the crushed shoulder as the adrenaline made him forget the pain.

  Instead, he used most of his focus to attack!

  Bite

  He bit off a piece of the wolf’s ear as his nails scratched its snout, and one of his nails even buried deep into the wolf’s eye socket.

  A pitiful whimper resounded as the wolf retreated with a bloodied head.

  The wolves went to reinforce the injured wolf but were wary of the sight of the little kid in front of them.

  He stood there savagely, chewing on the piece of the wolf’s ear, covered in blood from head to toe.

  One of his most prominent traits, however, was his long, lush hair, now reaching down to his knees. It covered his entire body, making him look like a ferocious beast preparing to attack.

  The leader growled at Little Stone but didn’t get closer. Instead, he chomped on the closest body and started to drag it away while warily staring at the little boy.

  The others did the same as they dragged all the bodies of the children away, leaving only Little Stone standing there.

  He just watched the wolves leave and didn’t know how to feel.

  In the end, he fell to the ground. He was feeling too sleepy, but his survival instinct told him that if he fell asleep here, he would die.

  And so, he crawled. He crawled through the forest for who knew how long until he got right in front of the vilge, where he finally lost consciousness.

  There, Evan and Olen, his dear brothers, found him a few minutes ter. Horrified, they hurriedly brought him to their home.

  Unfortunately, at that time, Granny Meddie didn’t live there yet, and the vilge didn’t have any other doctors.

  Even if they had, the brothers didn’t have the courage to bring Little Stone in front of the other vilgers, seeing him in the state he was in.

  Secretly, they brought him home without the knowledge of their parents, who worked in the fields, and tried to help him recover. Fortunately, it wasn’t necessary, as he started to recover at a rapid pace despite being unconscious.

  They were also bewildered by his hair and used a knife to cut it back to its original length, but it would magically regrow in a few minutes…

  Later that day, when some of the vilgers couldn’t find their children, they started to look for them. Then, the vilge hunter found bloodied traces of the fight.

  Concluding it was the act of a starving pack of wolves, the entire vilge began to grieve.

  Any traces that Little Stone left behind when crawling back were either covered by a new yer of snow or erased with the help of his brothers, who realized how big a problem this could cause.

  They did all they could to hide this from the other vilgers. They washed the clothes that Little Stone wore that day and let him rest in bed.

  When their parents returned in the evening, they asked about Little Stone, but Olen told them he was too tired from pying outside too much.

  They then went to check on him. His visible injuries were already gone, and the brothers could sigh in relief. They were also surprised at his hair and longer nails, but they just shrugged and bmed it on his inexplicable ability.

  The parents were obviously aware of his devilish ability, but they were still his parents, and he was their son. They stopped thinking about it as they lovingly caressed his long hair.

  “There are wolves nearby, so you guys shouldn’t go outside so often anymore. Several kids from the neighborhood disappeared today. Even Latel, who you guys said was harassing you, was among them.”

  In the end, nothing else happened, and the vilge returned to its usual flow. Nothing could be done anyway, as the vilgers could only wait for the hunter to try to kill the wolves.

  But it was too difficult.

  When Little Stone finally woke up, his head hurt badly.

  It was a strange feeling, as he was used to being in perfect condition after a night of sleep, so his mood was terrible.

  However, when he tried to remember what happened, he couldn’t think of anything.

  Only a weird dream of him pying in the snowy forest with wolves. But it didn’t st long, as the wolves suddenly turned crazy and started to bite him.

  This left Little Stone covered in cold sweat. He felt awe, fear, and even a little anger when he thought of the dream.

  But he didn’t dwell on it for too long and continued with his life.

  Little did he know, this was the beginning of his love-hate retionship with wolves. These feelings wouldn’t disappear despite him not remembering.

  Only the strong emotions remained…