Pushing himself to his feet, Dominic found a spot off to the side of the groups of beasts and lay down with his back legs splayed out next to him.

  Even as he started pulling up the notification again, he felt a warm body press against his back, crushing his wings against him slightly, though not enough to be painful. He didn’t even need to look up to know who it was – Sekhmet’s musk was immediately identifiable to his nose. When another body flopped onto his back legs and a third massive presence came to encircle the three of them with her body, Dominic’s nose wasn’t needed to tell him that Jenkins and Nyx had joined too. Rumbling with pleasure, Dominic projected his desire to see his rewards to the System.

  [You have completed a Challenge: May The Mightiest Win. You have completed the Challenge by forcing all challengers to withdraw. You have no access to enhancements from the challengers.]

  That wasn’t surprising, though Dominic had been hoping otherwise. He knew he hadn’t got any Enhancements from the fight with Nyx, but he’d been hoping that might have been because of the whole vassal thing. Apparently not.

  [Error. All challengers are detected as being part of a System-sponsored Beast Wave Challenge; the winning Challenger is a beast leader not part of either faction of the Beast Wave Challenge. Rewards may be affected.]

  Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Dominic questioned himself with a hint of nervousness. And why was this an issue anyway? Was it because he was a third party interfering in a Challenge given to a whole town? Or was it because he was a beast fighting against the beasts on the side of humanoids? Probably the first, if the error message’s words were anything to go by.

  [You have led your Pride to fight on behalf of the Nature Elves. Would you like to join their faction and earn benefits which will support your allies?]

  [You have demonstrated your martial superiority over multiple other beast leaders. Would you like to join their faction and earn prestige within their group?]

  Dominic was torn. It was a difficult choice which promised far-reaching consequences. It was clear that the System wanted him to commit to one side or the other. At the same time, it didn’t seem to prevent him from answering both questions with no – he didn’t see any reason why he couldn’t stay independent. Though, with the questions, the ‘rewards may be affected’ gained an ominous tone.

  The ulla had made it clear that it gained benefits from being part of the wave, and that the benefits increased according to the ulla’s success within the beast army. Things the elves had said indicated that they benefited from the Challenges too, especially from winning them. Quite possibly, if he didn’t commit, he would be robbing his Pride of the rewards they might receive from being part of either group.

  But which side should they commit to?

  The elves, who they were fighting to protect? That way he might actually get something from his defence of them beyond what he’d negotiated for with the Elders.

  Or the beasts, where they could gain ‘prestige’ and discover what the ulla had spoken about for themselves?

  He’d already considered how if he became the leader of the beast wave, he could concede to the elves, ending the Challenge in that way. But would that then end up with them losing out on their rewards because of them being the ‘defeated’ party?

  On the other hand, he wasn’t sure he liked the sound of ‘which will support your allies’, unless it was referring to his Pride. But if it was, he suspected that it would have said so. No, based on the context, he had to guess that it would give him some things which would support the elves. Which might be a good thing if the elves would compensate him for whatever he lost by choosing that option, but considering how increasingly wary Ilastir seemed of him, he wasn’t sure he wanted to bet on that – they might even claim that it is part of their already existing agreement. So he should consider any rewards he received directly from the System to be the only rewards he would be likely to receive.

  At the same time, though, he didn’t want to risk being declared as an enemy of the elves which, if they suddenly found out that he was an active part of the beast wave, might easily happen even if he hadn’t led any attacks on them. Besides, he had given the elves his word that he would protect them – joining the beasts who were attempting to destroy them didn’t seem like a good way of achieving that. The best case scenario in that case was him managing to take over the beasts and then negotiate terms of surrender with the elves. Gaining prestige would probably help with that, assuming ‘prestige’ was indeed the strength that the ulla had spoken of. Of course, in that case, they probably wouldn’t gain any further System-rewards, which meant that he’d be in the same situation whether with the elves or the beasts.

  ‘Do we have to stay allied to the elves, though?’ Leo asked, breaking into his thoughts. ‘We are a lion. It makes more sense for us to become the King of Beasts than the ally of elves. If you wish for them to survive, we can let them continue to live and work in our new territory – just under our rule.’

  Dominic sent him the equivalent of a side-eye.

  ‘Apart from all the deaths that we’d have to cause to force them to that point – since I know you don’t care about it, even if I do – and the fact that it means we’d be breaking our word, do you really want all the hard work it would take to oppress a group of sapients who don’t want to cooperate? For as long as it takes? Haven’t you dug into my memories of history enough to realise just how much trouble sapients can wreak? And even if the elves continue their surprisingly prevalent pacifist behaviour, there are plenty of non-violent ways they could use to make life hard for us. No, just think of it. What would it gain us to win as a beast lord? More members or allies for our Pride? We’re managing to get that even as enemies of the beast wave,’ he pointed out, looking purposefully towards the ullas, harashes, trodils, and wild dogs now starting to relax a little. ‘Whereas if we side with the elves, they’re offering weapons and armour in exchange for our aid. And possibly we can trade for things like food or farming or even health potions – we’ve seen they have both mages and healers. Those could be game-changers considering how we’ve seen the land around us change.’

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Leo was silent for a long moment.

  ‘I see your point,’ he admitted grudgingly. ‘Though don’t pretend that that’s your only reason.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Dominic admitted. ‘Didn’t you hear what they let slip in the meeting? They have teleportation gates.’

  ‘And what interest is that of ours?’

  ‘Don’t you pretend you don’t realise how much I want, no need to find out what’s happened to my family! I’ll run – or fly – there if I have to, but if we are able to cut the journey with teleportation gates, that would be better.’

  ‘But the elves said it themselves – the gates are not active and they refuse to say how to activate them,’ Leo pointed out. ‘It’s a dream, brother. A hopeless dream. You say you’d be willing to run there, but run where? You don’t even know where you’re going!’

  Dominic found he couldn’t argue except that his heart was telling him that this was the way to find his dad – making allies out of other beasts was one thing, but humanoids with technology offered so many more opportunities.

  ‘Anyway, the point is that we still stand to gain a lot more by allying with the elves than with the beasts.’

  ‘But what if this prestige could help us – and our Pride – until the Challenge is finished? No one on the elven side has indicated that they get ongoing rewards in the way the buffalo-creature did. We don’t have to conquer the elves, but if joining the beasts’ side in order to become the beast lord will earn us and our Pride the most benefits, I think we should choose that option.’

  ‘Assuming that’s for everyone,’ Dominic reminded him. ‘We’re assuming that that’s the same as this ‘prestige’ and that everyone gets it, but that’s not necessarily the case. Perhaps it’s just for herbivores. He did compare it to grass, after all.’

  ‘Why don’t you check with your flying canines? They’ve been part of the other group for half a day,’ Leo suggested.

  That was an interesting point and one that might indeed prove things one way or another. Dominic was able to shift the notifications away from his direct vision while he pulled up the Pride status. Looking for the names of the three albuhas who had been with the matriarch’s group, he found his attention being caught by something.

  ‘Two of them have gone up a level – Howler and Jaws. Teeth didn’t, but from what I remember, he went up a level very recently, so I wouldn’t expect him to be going up any time soon. Not without a big battle like the one we were in when we first arrived here. And fifteen enemies dead doesn’t exactly count as that.’ He quickly switched to his own status, disappointment spiking through him as he saw that his own Prey Point count had barely budged from where it had been in the late five hundreds.

  Progress to Evolution: 615/1090 PP

  ‘We probably only got about thirty or forty Prey Points from that whole fight. It could be enough to tip someone into another level, but only if they were close to the threshold.’

  ‘We might have to fight with the winged canine again,’ Leo pointed out, his focus intent too. Dominic sent him a mental frown.

  ‘Why do you say that? I know he’s got a whole lot more albuhas under his command now, but he still defers to Jenkins and, since we fought her and showed our superiority, us.’

  ‘He’s a higher level than she is now,’ Leo explained simply. Dominic looked back at the Pride status. Leo was right! Jenkins was level 16….Howler was level 17.

  ‘Huh,’ Dominic commented eloquently, his eyes wide as he verified what he had seen. At no point had Howler ever been a higher level than Jenkins, and they’d been hunting together and sharing Prey Points equally. Which indicated that Howler and Jaws’ new levels weren’t just because of the most recent fight.

  So the strength that the ulla spoke about wasn’t just for the herbivores. And it seemed like they only needed to be nominally associated with the beast wave since Dominic’s three albuhas had still benefited, despite the Pride as a whole being a third party….

  But did that change anything? Joining the beast wave would bring suspicion upon their heads from the elves. And unless he could challenge the matriarch immediately for leadership, he ran the risk of her sending another army to attack the elves while he wasn’t there to protect them, potentially killing more of them.

  Dominic knew he’d feel guilty in that case. And on a practical side of things, wouldn’t it be better to build the relationships with the faction he wanted to be on good terms with after the challenge was done?

  Pulling up the notification again, Dominic stared at it thoughtfully. Was it as black-and-white a choice as he was thinking? Was there a way for him to gain benefits from both sides? The possibility of the albuhas only being a peripheral part of the Challenge had only appeared after all other options had been declined, after all.

  ‘Ultimately, the reason why we came here was to help the elves and earn ourselves some Prey Points while doing so,’ he mused to his companion.

  ‘The latter of which we didn’t really achieve in this battle,’ Leo pointed out.

  ‘Because we chose to offer surrender instead of going for elimination,’ Dominic fired back.

  ‘So, are you saying-’

  ‘I’m saying that partnering with the elves and earning Prey Points are not mutually exclusive. Maybe beasts earn Prey Points just for being part of the beast wave, but they’re the ones attacking and if we kill them, we’ll earn Points no matter what side of the conflict we’re on. Or, if we choose to accept surrender instead, we earn allies who can help us expand our territory and help our Place of Power progress towards the next level. If we allied with the beasts, we wouldn’t be trying to kill them, but nor would we try to kill the elves meaning we’d be restricted to whatever Prey Point gains we’d get from just being part of the beast wave. And for all we know, those benefits are lost if we actively work against the goals of the beast wave – or what else could this ‘prestige’ thing be about? Which means that allying with the elves comes out on top whichever way you look at it, based on our current information.’

  ‘Fine. Do what you think is best,’ Leo gave in with an aggrieved huff but Dominic could tell that it was just a front. He didn’t regret having the discussion with Leo, though, even if it had taken some time to settle the matter – he sensed that this was a decision which would have far more wide-reaching consequences than most.

  Curious to see what would happen next, Dominic selected the option to ally with the elves.

  here!