The crowd pulsed with primal energy, the cheers and stomps of Batangara's people reverberating through the arena like a heartbeat of war. Even Kaien, seated beside Ari under the shade of their anonymous cloaks, leaned forward with anticipation.
Today's duel was Hooven's.
Ari had heard stories—of the man with Threads etched into every inch of his skin, who could shift into six distinct beast forms. But stories were pale things. They lacked the thunder. The scent of scorched air. The visceral clarity of combat.
And now, the arena gates groaned open.
Hooven stepped out.
Average in stature, short-haired and thickly bearded, Hooven didn't carry the presence of a typical warrior king. But his body… his body was inked with a living tapestry. Thread tattoos swirled across his muscles like flowing rivers, glowing faintly with amber and bronze. His gait was slow, grounded, like a predator with no need to rush.
Ari narrowed his eyes. That calm… It's not confidence. It's trust—in the beast within.
His opponent was a massive shield-bearer from Batangara's northern border, clad in ceremonial furs and wielding a tower shield twice Ari's height. He roared a challenge.
Hooven didn't answer.
He simply shifted.
In one blink, he was gone.
No dramatic surge of light. No drawn-out transformation. Just an instant—flesh warping, Threads flaring—and he was something else.
A wolf-beast, lean and long, fur shimmering like iron. He lunged under the first shield bash, his claws scraping sparks off the stone floor as he danced low, fast, weaving in circles around the shield's blind side. The crowd erupted.
But then the warrior pivoted—countering.
And Hooven shifted again.
The air cracked as his form exploded upward, becoming a tusked bear, twice his original size, landing heavy and shaking the earth. His fists—now clawed mauls—crashed against the tower shield with a weight that forced the defender back.
"Did he just change mid-motion?" Kaien muttered.
Ari didn't respond. His eyes were wide. Hungry. Inspired.
Hooven's third shift came when the opponent tried to grapple—a serpent-beast, sleek and scale-armored, coiling around the man's leg with whip-fast speed before unraveling again into something winged, a bird-beast with jet feathers and talons made of crystal.
He didn't just react.
He anticipated.
Every shift wasn't just a counter—it was a conversation. A response to the battlefield's language. Each beast held a different rhythm, a different breath, and Hooven danced through them like a maestro of war.
"He's not fighting like a Threadbearer," Ari whispered. "He's… composing."
The shield-bearer roared again, this time with desperation, and drove his full weight forward—but Hooven, in his final shift, took on a boar-beast form. Bristling. Brutal. All momentum. His charge shattered the shield in one decisive strike, the collision sending a concussive shockwave that silenced the arena for a breathless second.
Dust swirled.
Then the beast walked forward again… as a man.
Hooven stood over his opponent, arm extended, offering peace.
The crowd exploded.
Kaien clutched his cloak. "That wasn't just power. That was instinct, memory… calculation."
Ari exhaled. His heart was racing.
There was elegance in that chaos. Not just in how Hooven fought, but why—his Threads were not weapons. They were selves. Layers of identity made manifest. A wolf's cunning. A boar's charge. A serpent's flexibility. He wore them like masks, like parts of a poem, and recited each line with bone, claw, and heart.
"Batangara," Ari murmured, "You forge beasts of honor."
And as Hooven left the arena, nodding humbly toward the roaring masses, Ari felt it deep in his soul