The forest was silent.
Everything around them seemed frozen in stillness; only the distant howls of wolves echoed faintly through the trees. With the rustle of leaves and the crunch of branches underfoot, Kevin emerged cautiously. Ahead of him, Jin moved with a confidence that bordered on casual swagger.
They reached a hillside and crouched at its edge, peering down at the dark jungle below. Occasional flashes of light suggested movement among the trees.
"There are four poachers," Jin murmured. "They have hunting rifles and pistols tucked into their waists."
"What? How did you see them?" Kevin asked, incredulous. Darkness and dense foliage should have hidden the intruders completely.
Jin didn't pause. He moved through the jungle like a predator in its natural habitat, completely at ease. Kevin, in contrast, felt exposed and clumsy.
A piece of equipment was handed to him—a device resembling binoculars. "Here, use this to observe."
Kevin took it and gasped. "Holy crap! What kind of black technology is this?"
Even when he lowered his voice, his astonishment persisted. He had seen night vision equipment in videos, but this device transformed the darkness into something that looked like broad daylight. Clearly, this world's technology was advanced in ways he had never imagined.
After a few moments of focused observation, he could make out the figures below, exactly as Jin had described.
"What are you going to do? Call the police? Or scare them away?" Kevin asked, still engrossed in the sight.
Jin turned slightly in the darkness, glancing at him with a calm expression. "I know where they're going. We'll wait for them there. You just need to observe from the side."
Originally, he had intended to force Kevin into battle to test him, but that decision had been abandoned.
Following a hidden path, they arrived at the mouth of a cave. Kevin immediately noticed a faint scent of blood, mixed with something unfamiliar. Moonlight illuminated the darkness, revealing a wolf's head emerging from the shadows.
Kevin froze. Its silver, horn-like protrusion, about an inch long, glimmered faintly in the moonlight.
Then the wolf fully emerged. Kevin's eyes widened in disbelief: it had two heads. One horned, silver-grey fur reflecting the moonlight—majestic, almost sacred.
Another wolf appeared nearby, smaller, with a horn on its right-side head, shorter and more rounded. Then several wolf pups scrambled into view, all double-headed, but without horns.
The Double-Headed Wolves didn't seem hostile. They merely watched Kevin warily before gathering around Jin, circling him like loyal pets. The pups even tried to climb onto him.
Jin stroked one wolf's head with evident pride. "They are Double-Headed Wolves. Almost extinct a few years ago. We found the only pair and successfully bred them through technology, preserving their bloodline."
Kevin realized, suddenly, why he had died. Poaching a nearly extinct creature—it was no wonder he had been killed.
Jin's attention remained on the forest below.
Soon, the poachers arrived.
"Boss, are we there yet?" asked a scrawny man.
The leader, a scarred figure with a shifty expression, snapped, "Quiet. We're almost there—should be right around here."
"I say we just buy tickets home. Can't contact that treacherous pretty boy anyway," said a young man with golden, broom-like hair.
The last member passed silently, his expressionless face betraying nothing. "If we don't want to stay in this business, we could just leave."
"Tsk, unromantic," the broom-haired man muttered, bored.
Then came a sharp whoosh.
Something sliced through the darkness. The broom-haired man was struck instantly, his body collapsing backward.
With a thud that cut through the night, the broom-haired man hit the ground, unconscious. His cheek was sunken, and a dark stream of blood ran from his mouth.
"Watch out!"
The four-person team was clearly trained; almost instinctively, they took cover in their surroundings. One of them drew his gun and fired toward the source of the attack. The piercing crack of gunfire ripped through the forest.
— — — — — —
Inside the dark cave, Kevin carefully pushed a wolf pup clinging to his shoulder. "Stop licking," he muttered, holding the binoculars with both hands, eyes fixed on the scene outside. He didn't even blink.
He had just seen Jin scoop up a stone from the ground and throw it with incredible force. The stone struck one of the poachers. Though it didn't pierce the body, it sent him flying three or four meters before he crumpled to the ground, unable to rise.
Gunfire erupted from the poachers' direction.
Jin, moving as if taking a leisurely stroll, picked up a few more stones and launched them. The chaos intensified. Tree trunks splintered, and the poachers hiding behind cover were hit repeatedly.
"Is that it?" Kevin whispered to himself.
Not yet.
He spotted the apparent leader of the poachers. The man had tried to block one of Jin's earlier throws, crossing his arms to absorb the impact and sliding back a meter or two. He made a sound, like he was preparing to counterattack.
Before he could, another stone came—this one silent, almost instantaneous. The leader flew backward four or five meters and crashed into a tree with a deafening impact. He did not move again.
Kevin's mind raced. Holy cow… Stones like bullets. Based on what he observed and the fragments of his memory flashing in his mind, this was clearly not a normal world.
He thought he had glimpsed a layer of something strange surging around the poacher—something unclear but palpable, as if internal energy or some other force was at work.
The view was briefly blocked by the wolf pup licking the lens. "Oh, don't block it!" Kevin exclaimed, reaching out to gently drag the pup away. The small creature whimpered at the rough movement.
A sharp, almost dangerous gaze met him, and Kevin shivered.
"Haha, your son is so cute, Wolf Bro," he said awkwardly, hugging the little wolf pup he had just moved. He stroked its head, relieved to see it respond playfully rather than angrily.
The pup didn't hold a grudge. It immediately began to romp around him, tail wagging, licking Kevin's hands as though nothing had happened.
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