The Divine Wolf... or?
Chapter 132: King of the Forest

The eerie quiet was scary, normally, fighting would quickly ensue following such events, but for some reason, no one was moving a muscle. From Ark's point of view, he was sure that the magical beast that had roared earlier was a prideful beast, and just taking an insult like this lying down was kind of weird.

This part of the forest was probably part of that beast's territory, and someone creating a disturbance like this would usually result in fighting and bloodshed.

Because of the bizarre situation, Ark wasn't really sure what he was supposed to do. He wanted to know what happened really badly, he didn't want the cub and the mother to suffer for no reason, and if someone actually intended to do them harm, then Ark would make sure that they would never get the chance to. The silence was a little odd, but at the very least, it was pretty nice.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't last very long.

Another wave of sound quickly washed over the forest, this time it was the sound of the bell again. Ark didn't move from where he was standing, and he just kept protecting the mother and her cub from the horrific soundwaves. This time was a little different than the first time though.

Instead of one big soundwave that hit hard, this time it was like an unending tide of sound, and a constant loud noise rang throughout the forest.

Even though it was really harmful for most animals, Ark didn't really need to divert too much attention to neutralise the force of the soundwave. Before he could think too much about it, the ground inside of the cave started to lightly tremble. At first, the tremble was small enough to go completely unnoticed.

But as seconds passed, the light trembling quickly escalated into rumbling, and it was more like a large scale earthquake rather than the ground just trembling.

The plants at the entrance to the cave were fluttering in the wind as well, creating a pretty serene atmosphere. Well, at least until you checked the surroundings, only to see absolute chaos. The originally strong and tall trees trembled to the point that some of them even fell, the ground was shaking uncontrollably, and numerous magical beasts were running around wildly.

After a couple more seconds passed, something changed!

"ROOAAAR!"

The roar that he had heard earlier was almost incomparable to this one! Even though the earlier roar had shook the forest, this one was simply in another league! From the sound of the roar, Ark could guess that the roar was from another magical beast, but it was probably the same species as the roar from earlier, but this time, the roar was a lot more majestic, and it was filled with unlimited fury.

If the earlier roar was to combat the sound of the bell, this roar was to challenge it!

Not only was the roar ungodly loud, it stirred up a weird sensation inside of Ark. The instincts that he had tried so hard to keep under control were beginning to show themselves, and his grip on his sanity was loosening as well.

He didn't let this roar affect the mother and the cub at all, as he tried desperately to keep them out of harm's way, but the longer he tried to protect them, the worse his control over his instincts got.

His eyesight even started to blur a little, and his eyes started to glint with a red hue. Before it could completely take him over, Ark's mind was suddenly brought back to normal once he heard the voice of the mother behind him.

"Are you ok? You don't look too good."

"I'm fine, thanks for the concern."

Not only was he brought back to normal, Ark was even pretty happy. It was a nice feeling, someone showing concern for him. Especially when the one who showed concern for you was someone you cared about. Ark who was originally on the brink of losing control was all of a sudden in a stellar mood. The weirdest part was that he didn't even notice these mood swings himself.

"Should we see what's going on outside?"

Hearing this suggestion from the mother herself, Ark didn't hesitate anymore.

"Sure."

With that said, the three left the secluded cave, and headed out into the forest. Neither Ark nor the mother were sure where to begin looking, and they didn't really have any plans for what to do. Fortunately, as if an act of god, a change occurred. Another roar shook the leaves on the trees, and both Ark and the mother knew what direction to head in now.

The weirdest part about this roar, was that it sounded more like a whimper than an actual roar, and for some reason, Ark started to feel a weird feeling in his stomach.

What was notable was that this roar was made by the magical beast that roared the first time, and as a response, the other magical beast roared again. This roar was filled with even more anger, and Ark felt a little stuffy just from feeling the fury second-hand. He couldn't imagine what it would feel like if he was the one who contained that sort of fury.

Loud thuds could be heard off into the distance, and Ark figured that the magical beast was on the move.

Since that was the case, All Ark had to do was follow the thuds, and then he would eventually replace what he was looking for. With the mother and the cub closely behind him, Ark moved quickly and efficiently, at a pace that the two could keep up with relative ease. The Thuds eventually stopped.

Ark didn't know what was happening, but he started running a little faster, using wind magic to aid all three of them with their running.

Soon, the trio arrived just outside the forest, on a large plain. As they did, they could finally see the majestic magical beast that managed to shake the entire forest with its roar. A pitch black bear, with some purple strands of hair was standing on one side of the plain, with a vicious expression all over its face.

What surprised Ark was the fact that he was able to see some concern on the face of the large magical beast.

When he tried to inspect it, all he was able to see was the magical beast's title, King of the Forest. The title was fairly explanatory, and it also explained the large horde of magical beasts that were surrounding the large plain, most of them were in hiding like Ark, but unlike Ark, they almost all had the same expression as the bear had, rage and concern.

As Ark noticed this, he was even more befuddled than before, what exactly was going on right now?

It didn't take long for him to figure out what the reason to all of this was though, as he spotted a rather large bear lying in the middle of the plain. This bear looked almost identical to the King of the Forest. The only difference was that it was a child, and that it was currently lying on the ground, whimpering in pain…