Kael arrived at the bear cave, perceiving the familiar stench of the blood of different kinds of animals.
He stood by the corridor of the cave entrance, waiting…
"Can I co in?" Kael’s telepathy brushed on whatever was inside the deep cave.
"No!" A harsh answer was instantly given. Following that was the sound of heavy footsteps.
The large mother bear appeared in front of him. She was taller than an adult man even on all fours and her width was stupendous.
Her head, which was larger than Kael’s human head, faced downward so that her eyes could align with his.
Kael looked into her golden eyes, assuming an attitude of nonchalance. He didn’t mind the hot breath that was blown against his face.
"How are you, mother bear?" Kael asked, if he had pockets, he would have put his hands in them to look cooler.
"Scum, do you want to act like you didn’t attack
a few monts ago?" The mother bear asked with her teeth bared and her claws out.
"You should introduce yourself first, I don’t want to keep calling you mother bear," Kael said as he suddenly teleported away from his position, evading the massive paw that slamd the ground he was standing on.
Kael appeared again. The mother bear wanted to rush him mindlessly but the object Kael held in his arms made her stop in her tracks.
Hugged warmly in Kael’s muscular arms was a bear cub. Kael had one hand under to support the cub and another on its back.
The cub was sleeping his head on Kael’s shoulder, oblivious to the kind of danger it was in.
"I did not co here to fight," Kael said as he patted the back of the bear cub, running his fingers through the soft brown fur.
The mother bear, seeing one of her children in Kael’s arms, began to behave herself. She didn’t know how Kael managed to get inside the cave without her notice but that didn’t matter now.
"What do you want?" She asked, her eyes narrowing dangerously as she struggled to hold back her killing intent.
"First, your na, if you have one," Kael answered casually, ignoring the look the mother bear was giving him.
"Kursela," She stated.
Kael nodded, keeping the na to heart, "Another thing I want from you is your allegiance." He said.
The mother bear frowned, "What?"
"Oh, you don’t understand?
You already know that I have been eliminating our neighbors as I want to take over the mountain for myself.
Well, the thing is I am a very considerate person and I don’t want to make the life of a mother too difficult." Kael said with a truthful expression.
He continued, "I could kill you, believe , I could. I could also just chase you out, but what about your cubs?
They would suffer if I did those things to them. I’m sure you don’t want that right?
Sothing tells
that you and your sons would be valuable assets in my kingdom."
The mother bear looked at Kael calmly, "Hmm," She didn’t know how to respond to this offer at first.
"And I know what you are thinking. What if you just choose not to?
Well, then I’ll have no choice but to either kill you or expel you from the mountain.
You and I know you can’t win. Not only am I stronger than you, but we have more than one tier 3s. You will be overwheld, that is a fact."
Hearing these words, Kursela still didn’t make a move or say anything. She was still contemplating sothing else.
Kael’s eyes brightened as he guessed what she was thinking, "Even if you escaped, I could always make sure that you left with only one child."
As Kael said this, the golden claw at the end of his index finger shined ominously. The claw pressed on the head of the bear cub, threatening to do harm.
A little bit of force and the cub would have his brains pierced through.
Kursela’s eyes widened and a frightening killing intent was released. Only now did she react.
"Stop!" She shouted.
Kael just kept on staring at the bear cub, as if he was just one decision away from killing the cub in his arms.
"Even if I am willing to let you go, I won’t do so without making sure you take a loss.
On the other hand, there are a lot of benefits that I can offer. All I want is your allegiance." Kael said.
"Fine!" Kursela hurriedly answered without thinking.
The golden screen of the Primordial Record appeared in front of the mother bear and disappeared just as fast as it ca.
She didn’t even give a second glance at it, all she was worried about was her child. Her identity mark was added in a jiffy.
"That’s fine," Kael said with that familiar satisfied smile of his.
A grey spiritual light flashed across his eyes. The spirit energy entered the mind of the bear cub, forcing it to wake up.
He was startled by the foreign entity holding him. And those golden eyes that stared into his lacked purity for so reason.
The beauty of those eyes seed to only mask the malevolence within them.
Kael gently placed the little bear on the ground. He watched it scurry to hide behind his mother.
"And just know that if you try to betray
after this agreent we have made, the consequences won’t be funny," Kael stated.
Kursela could only look on. She was a War bear but her reasoning still told her that if Kael could steal her cub once, he could do it again. For her, her cubs were her life.
"I just hope you won’t regret this decision once they grow up and your motherly instincts begin to fade away.
In the anti, I’ll update you once I think of a good caste to put bears in." Kael walked away as he said that.
The mother bear could only watch him leave unwillingly.
’So day, you will fall, Kael.’ Kursela spat maliciously. Then she led her cub into the cave to continue resting.
Kursela didn’t know however that Kael had the spiritual powers, neither did she understand how it worked. She didn’t know that Kael had been hearing her thoughts all this while.
Hearing her last thought, Kael shook his head with a lancholic smile. ’You are not enough to affect the fate of the universe with re feelings, neither can your words deter
from my duty to conquer.’
Kael wasn’t just referring to the bear, he was referring to everyone and everything that had malicious intent towards him.
He was well aware of the dissatisfaction his thods usually brought. But Kael really had no choice.
It was like he was playing a kingdom-building ga on speed run. He had to prioritize the most effective thods, even if it ant dissatisfaction.
Another thing was that Kael wasn’t aiming to be a king who was loved by his people, nor did he exactly desire to be tyrannical.
If they loved him, fine. But he would rather be feared than loved.
He if all people knew just how fickle that thing called love was. It was like a drug, one mont you’re high, and the next mont you don’t feel it anymore.
Love needs to be fueled constantly by different gas, events, objects, and anything to make sure the spark never dies.
This took a lot of work and would not work out fifty percent of the ti.
His divorces were a perfect example of this. He always wondered what made the marriages of other couples last and he ca to a very late realization.
Most of those long-lasting marriages had way more than love. They had trauma bonds, they had emotional attachnts, they had financial dependency, they had cultural expectations.
So marriages even had the elent of fear. Fear of death, fear of losing insurance, fear of child support, fear of society looking down on them.
They had all this mixed together with love.
Kael who never knew this because of his lack of social interactions and the kind of perfect images society painted of marriage, suffered for it, financially and emotionally.
By the ti he knew, he had already lost the desire to ever co near that thing called love.
Love was fickle, he knew because he had the front seat experience.
Fear on the other hand worked like magic. Workers don’t respect their bosses because they love them, even though so do.
They respect him because of the fear of employnt termination and the hardship that could co with it. Not everyone had months worth of savings just in case they lost their jobs.
As an antisocial person in the corporate field with barely anyone to talk to, all he could do was observe in silence. And he observed how powerful fear was.
Not just in the corporate setting, but also in the paramilitary fields and the loan banks.
Kael knew just how powerful fear was because he also had a front-seat experience of its power.
In his opinion, being feared all the ti wasn’t a good thing. But there was nothing good about the pursuit of power.
So therefore, he concluded that if he could not be loved and feared at the sa ti, then it was better to be feared than to be loved.
He wasn’t worried that the animals feared him. They were as beastly as he was and the concept of willing obedience was foreign to them.
Kursela’s words didn’t make him feel down, it just affird that he was on the right path.
’Maybe one day, I will be so powerful that I won’t need to force anyone to swear allegiance.
They will be the ones to co to
willingly. One day…’
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