The grey wolf gazed at her six newborn pups, a sudden, profound realization washing over her: nothing else mattered. Neither life nor death. Even the profound heavens and the vast earth had to be content with second place.
The first five were mirrors of their heritage: bundles of charcoal-tinted fur evolved to vanish into the shadows of the forest. The sixth emerged as a ghostly anomaly, a snow-white runt dwarfed by its kin, a glaring beacon of defiance against its grey heritage. Its eyes were a bright, piercing yellow, and its hairs were thinner than normal. The grey wolf mother inspected the eerie creature with predatory intensity, searching for a lie, yet the undeniable scent of her own blood clung stubbornly to its white fur. She licked the little thing until she was fully satisfied that it was hers, and would always be.
To stave off starvation, the grey wolf mother was forced to hunt far beyond her usual limits, preying on foxes and rabbits to keep the milk flowing. The hunt was exceptionally time-consuming and stressful, since she had to make absolutely sure that she stayed away from creatures even more powerful and vicious than she was. She stayed deep in the shadows and crept through bushes, her instincts on high alert and her eyes always on the lookout for anything that could stop her from returning to her den.
Even though she was a demonic beast with a truly inferior bloodline, the grey wolf still possessed a few bloodline abilities. She controlled the wind, allowing her to form and shoot out sharp wind blades that cut her prey into pieces. She also had an incredibly powerful sense of smell and sight; she could see perfectly in the dark and could track her target's scent from as far away as ten kilometers. Once she locked onto a scent, she did not give up until she had eaten every piece of her prey, including the bones. This relentless drive allowed the grey wolf mother to produce all the rich milk her pups needed.
This primal struggle went on for a few weeks until the pups were finally old enough to feast like the carnivores they were. When the mother returned from a successful hunt, the pups would eagerly lick their lips, and she would regurgitate the fresh meat for them. After two months, all but the little white wolf were fully weaned. Strangely, while the others transitioned completely to blood and bone, the white runt remained anchored to its mother's teat, refusing to let go of its infancy. It was as though it instinctively understood that this fleeting peace would not last for long.
When the pups turned two, their mother began teaching them how to hunt. She taught them to track by scent, obliterate every whisper of their passing, and the many other survival skills needed to survive in the malice of the Endless Forest. Soon, they were throwing out wind blades just like their mother. With the help of their inherited bloodline memories, they quickly got used to life as both hunter and prey.
Time passed, and the young wolves became seasoned hunters, capable of living entirely independently. Yet, they chose to stay with their loving mother, who never once chased them away. The den became cramped, but the small pack stayed together and was, by all accounts, genuinely happy. With time, the pups grew as powerful as their mother, and the family became a unified pack of hunters willing to do whatever it took not to starve to death. They hunted together, and their combined skills and strengths allowed them to take down larger prey and expand their territory. Even with their newfound power, they did not become arrogant. They knew all too well that far stronger beasts roamed the deeper forest, so they kept their territory a manageable size and actively avoided conflict.
Their happiness, however, was short-lived. A passing white tiger decided to claim their territory. In this green hellscape, the weak had no voice, and the strong had no ears. A level two Nascent demonic beast, the tiger simply showed up at the wolf den one day and launched a brutal, unprovoked attack. The wolf pack was strong, but seven level one Fearless demonic beasts were simply no match for a single opponent of this caliber.
The battle was hard and long, lasting the entirety of the night. It was the night the idyllic wolf pack came to a devastating end. When dawn finally broke, the white tiger retreated into the thick forest, leaving behind three members of the pack shredded to bloody pieces and the rest heavily injured, with one on the absolute brink of death.