The snow on Mount Iga had never felt this cold before.

Across the white expanse, now stained deep red, Hattori Zen knelt on one knee, his breath coming in ragged, heavy gasps. Warm blood flowed from the wounds covering his body, melting the snow all around him. Thin puffs of steam rose from his lips every time he exhaled.

Before him stood a dozen shinobi from his own clan, frozen in place. Faces he had once known as brothers-in-arms were now set and empty, their eyes cold and hollow—like blades sharpened for a single purpose alone.

There were no shouts. No curses. Not even a prayer of farewell.

“In the end… I was just a tool…” Hattori Zen whispered softly.

His voice was almost swallowed by the wind and the crunch of snow underfoot. His lips trembled—not from fear, but because his body was rapidly losing its warmth. The words caught in his throat as a flash of silver light streaked across his vision.

“This is because you knew too much… Hattori.”

ZING—!

The strike was fast, clean, cold, and utterly without hesitation.

In that moment, the world seemed to turn upside down. He felt no pain—none of the agony he had always imagined. All he felt was a vast, empty void, as if every meaning his life had ever held had been torn away in a single breath.

His vision slowly faded, carrying with it the sharp metallic scent of his own blood and the biting chill of winter.

He closed his eyes.

Ready to surrender to eternal darkness.

Everything grew darker, until nothing remained but absolute blackness.

But that darkness did not last.

NGIIIING—!

Suddenly, a sharp, piercing sound rang out—like a thousand crickets screaming in unison, slamming into his consciousness.

Hattori gasped. The biting cold of the snow vanished instantly, replaced by thick, heavy air that clung to his skin and burned his lungs.

‘What is happening?’ he screamed inside his mind.

He tried to breathe in, but instead of the crisp winter air he knew so well, he drew in hot air mixed with the smell of damp earth and rotting leaves.

A sharp, stabbing pain instantly shot through his ribs.

“Ghh—!”

He coughed violently, his chest feeling as though it had been struck by a massive stone. Slowly, with his consciousness still blurred and hazy, he opened his eyes.

Above him, the sky was no longer the gray winter haze of Iga, but a vast green canopy of ancient trees that towered high above. Broad leaves overlapped one another, filtering the harsh sunlight so that it fell only as scattered patches of light onto the muddy ground below.

The air around him was humid, hot, and sticky against his skin—so different from the dry, biting cold he had known all his life. Hattori reached up to touch his neck; there was no blood, and his neck felt smaller, more slender than before.

“Oi, you little runt! Don’t play dead on us!”

A kick landed hard in his stomach. All the breath was knocked out of him in an instant.

His old reflexes took over automatically; he tried to perform Ukemi—the art of rolling to soften an impact and create distance. But his body did not respond the way he expected.

Instead of rolling smoothly and fluidly, he tumbled clumsily onto the ground. Mud smeared across his face and chest.

‘What is really going on?’ he thought, still confused and disoriented. His body felt wrong. Frail. Too light. His bones felt small, and his muscles seemed to hold no strength at all. ‘Why am I still alive? Where am I?’

Hattori struggled to get into a crouch, but froze when he saw his legs—thin, scrawny, little more than skin and bone.

“Look at his eyes!” someone jeered.

It was a burly, rough-looking youth named Balun, his skin dark and weathered, a simple cloth sarong tied around his waist. “He looks like he just saw the Siampa or something! Hahaha!”

Laughter erupted all around him.

Hattori coughed again. He wiped blood from his lip and stared down at his own hands. They were rough from hard labor, covered in calluses, his fingers thin and trembling.

These were not his hands. Certainly not the hands of a Jonin, a master ninja capable of slicing through the very wind with a single strike.

When he tried to speak, the voice that came out was foreign to him—like the voice of another person trapped inside his own throat.

“I… I…”

Strangely enough, he understood every word being spoken, even though the language was not Japanese. The meaning came naturally, instinctively, as if it had been etched into his mind for a very long time.

“Trying to act tough, are you? How dare you run away!” Balun stepped closer, a cruel smirk spreading across his face. “Fine then. I’ll just break your arms. That way you’ll have a good reason not to work tomorrow!”

His massive fist swung forward.

This time, Hattori did not think. His body moved purely on instinct—instinct honed over decades of training. He shifted his head just one inch to the side; a movement so minimal, so efficient, it was almost invisible.

Whoosh—!

The fist missed entirely.

In the space of a single breath, Hattori grabbed Balun’s wrist. He used no brute strength, only technique. His fingers pressed into specific nerve points, and he twisted the angle of Balun’s arm with ruthless precision.

CRACK—!

“AAAAARGH!”

Balun’s scream echoed through the trees. The burly youth dropped to his knees, his face turning pale as ash. The pain spread through his arm like a thousand stinging wasps, leaving it completely numb and useless.

“Balun!” two of his friends shouted in unison. “Sena! How dare you do this!”

Hattori looked up at them, his gaze sharp and unwavering.

It was not the look of Sena—the boy who was usually terrified and bowed his head in submission. Instead, it was the cold, predatory gaze of a man who had died and been brought back to life.

The sight of it sent shivers down their spines.

“Get lost,” he said simply, his voice flat and calm.

There was no excessive threat. No shouting.

But it was enough to completely shatter their courage.

The two youths scrambled to help Balun stand, then retreated in a panic.

“I told you… Sena is possessed by the Siampa,” Jagu whispered fearfully to Danta and Balun. They backed away quickly, looking terrified, then turned and ran as fast as they could, vanishing into the forest.

They were not afraid of Sena. They were afraid of the Siampa—a mythical, ghostly creature covered in black fur, said to drag people deep into the woods at twilight.

Hattori let out a long breath. His body felt weak and unsteady. That one simple movement had almost drained him completely.

He crawled toward the nearest stream and looked at his reflection in the clear, flowing water.

Staring back was not the face of Hattori Zen, but that of a teenager—thin, gaunt, and dirty, with eyes that looked far too old for his age. He touched his chest. His heart was beating fast and hard.

Hattori did not know which god was playing this cruel game with him. But one thing was certain: he was in a strange land, inside a fragile young body, living under the rule of a kingdom called Singasari.

He sat cross-legged, his eyes scanning the towering meranti trees surrounding him. Damp, mossy soil clung to the soles of his bare feet. This was not the land of spring, nor the land of winter. This was a land that knew no snow.

Ngiiing…

“Arghhhh…” Hattori cried out in pain. The ringing in his ears returned.

Suddenly, his head felt as though it had been pierced by dozens of needles. Memories began to force their way into his mind—memories that did not belong to him. Memories belonging to the original owner of this body: Sena.

He forced himself to climb slowly up a small hill, panting heavily as he went. Fragments of Sena’s life flashed through his mind, one after another, too fast to grasp:

Smoke from burning straw…

The crack of a whip striking an old man’s back…

The arrogant laughter of soldiers…

A woman lying weak and frail, until she breathed her last breath…

And finally… the memory of Sena falling from a cliff to his death.

‘Sena? These memories…’ Hattori curled up on the ground, clutching his head. ‘So this is it… My soul… is inside this boy’s body… Ahh—!’ Saliva dripped from his mouth as he fought desperately to take control of his new form.

‘This body is far too weak…’

He sat up straight, forcing himself into the disciplined Seiza posture. His fingers formed the intricate patterns of Kuji-in—the Nine Hand Seals.

“SHA,” he whispered, his hands trembling as he wove the signs and pressed against the nerve points on his arms and hands. Slowly, the heaviness and pain in his head began to fade.

“ZEN,” he whispered again, changing the formation of his fingers to target different pressure points. Gradually, his tensed muscles relaxed, his emotions came under control, and his breathing steadied. Sena’s memories continued to flow into him, but they no longer caused him such agony.

Hattori synchronized his breath with his heartbeat. He appeared calm and composed now, though he still coughed now and then.

He released the hand seals and slowly opened his eyes, breathing in the cool night air. He had been meditating for quite some time; he hadn’t even noticed when the sun had set and darkness had fallen.

He stood up, his legs still shaky. Blood trickled from his nose; he wiped it away with the back of his hand. ‘I only used a fraction of my usual focus, and yet it takes this much of a toll…’ he thought.

He went back to examining his new body, but a bitter smile touched his lips when he felt a familiar object hanging around his neck.

He stared for a long time at the necklace—an item he knew all too well. “So that’s it… No wonder I could never find it again after I returned to the docks all those years ago,” he murmured. It had been twenty-two years since he lost the family heirloom of the Zen clan. Who would have guessed this small trinket would end up here, around the neck of Sena, having crossed an entire ocean.

Hattori had been given a second chance at life—reborn exactly at the moment Sena had drawn his last breath.

He sat at the edge of a cliff, wondering how far this place was from Iga. What he knew for certain was that this land only knew two seasons: the dry season and the rainy season. He was in the far western reaches of the Kingdom of Dharmapuri. And the place where he now stood was called the Harau Valley.

He sighed deeply, his gaze drifting toward the stars above. It still felt impossible to believe that his soul had survived, living on in a different body.

Standing at the cliff’s edge, he closed his eyes. The memory of Sena’s father being whipped to death flashed through his mind again. “Jeliteng…, Purwa…” he whispered, a low growl rising in his throat.

“Rest well in the afterlife, Sena… I will borrow your body and your name for this new life. And I swear… I will avenge you,” he said, as if asking permission from the soul of the boy who had once lived here.

He opened his eyes. The wind of Harau Valley brushed gently against his face, as if Sena’s spirit had given its blessing, accepting Hattori as its new inhabitant.

“Hattori Zen died in the snow of Iga,” he vowed silently, as if swearing an oath before the billions of stars above.

“From now on… I am Sena Sanjaya.” He clenched his trembling fists tight. “And Sena… will never be a tool for anyone ever again.”

[Harau, 1281 CE]

The dawn breeze drifted up from the Harau Valley, carrying the chorus of insects and the distant murmur of the river. Hattori—now living in Sena’s body and using his name—sat motionless at the cliff’s edge until the first light of day fully broke.

The oath he had spoken the night before still echoed in his mind, but words alone could not fill his empty, growling stomach.

As the sun rose completely, the sharp pangs of hunger finally broke through the calm he had built through years of discipline.

“Hah… this body is so demanding,” he thought to himself.

He descended the hillside carefully, each step feeling unfamiliar; he had not yet fully grown accustomed to Sena’s frame. The small muscles in his calves trembled slightly, and the soles of his feet were raw from sharp stones and damp soil. Hattori could well understand—life had never been kind to someone as frail as Sena.

Fragments of memory drifted in from time to time, now without the searing pain they had brought before. They flowed gently, like muddy water finally settling clear.

Sena Sanjaya. An orphan at fifteen years old. His mother had died from an illness that had never been treated. His father had perished after being sentenced to a public whipping while performing forced labor, building the stone road leading to the Singhasari garrison post in Harau.

His father’s body had never been returned whole; only whispered tales remained of a back torn open and breath failing beneath the scorching sun. From that day on, Sena had survived on the pity of the villagers.

He became a laborer, hauling timber and breaking stone, stepping into his father’s name on the forced labor register while still just a boy. His thin frame was not due to laziness, but because his food rations were always far too little.

And then there was Balun, the burly youth—son of the forced labor foreman. Sena’s childhood friend, now turned petty enforcer who delighted in stepping on those weaker than himself to maintain his own power.

Of course, everyone wanted to live comfortably—Sena no less than Balun. All were pushed by circumstance.

“Your grudge is so simple, Sena,” Hattori murmured softly. There was no excess hatred in his voice, only a cold, detached observation.

He reached the village as the morning began to stir. Raised wooden houses stood among coconut trees and clumps of bamboo. Cooking smoke rose, carrying the scent of boiled cassava and burning firewood. People glanced at him—some with suspicion, some with disdain, and others with pity.

Sena was known as a quiet, unconfident boy, often the target of mockery from his peers.

But today, they noticed something strange. His frame was still scrawny and frail, yet his gaze now held a different quality.

Sena walked toward a dilapidated hut at the village’s edge. Its thatched roof leaked, its walls leaned crookedly, and its floor was nothing more than cracked, hard-packed earth. Yet as he stepped inside, a strange warmth settled in his chest.

This was not the home of Hattori Zen, the Iga Jonin. But it was the place where Sena had clung to life.

He sat cross-legged. Regulated his breathing. Counted his pulse. Opened his palms and moved his fingers slowly.

For the first time since his death in the snows of Iga, Hattori allowed a faint smile. “Interesting,” he whispered, accepting his new reality.

In the days that followed, the transformation began.

Hattori continued to act as Sena would. He still worked—carrying timber, clearing fields, and hauling stones. But his rhythm was different.

He no longer wasted his strength. He controlled his breath, distributed his load, and shifted his weight with perfect efficiency.

Minor scrapes and cuts still appeared, but they no longer festered into serious wounds.

Each night, when the village fell asleep, he trained in silence. Not harsh exercises that tore at his muscles, but drills in posture, balance, and breathing. He re-learned how to stand, how to step, how to fall without injuring himself.

Hattori was forging this new body—Sena Sanjaya’s body—into something capable of survival.

Balun watched from a distance. The burly youth still muttered insults, but he no longer dared draw near.

His hand, once caught in a nerve-lock, had not fully recovered. The pain had faded, but a lingering fear remained—an unease he could not explain, a trauma that, if left unaddressed, often bred malice.

On the fourteenth night, as fine rain fell and the village sank into silence, Hattori awoke with a sharp premonition. The killing instinct honed over decades screamed within his soul.

Danger! his intuition warned. This was not Sena’s reflex, but the instinct of a Jonin—of Hattori Zen.

He peered through the cracks in his hut’s walls. Shadows moved in the distance.

“They have begun,” he thought. But the figures only watched, not daring to approach.

Unwilling to wait any longer, he gathered what few belongings he needed and left the village before dawn. His goal was clear: to train Sena’s body until it could adapt to high-level shinobi techniques without tearing itself apart.

Fortunately, Sena’s frame was actually quite sturdy; years of forced labor had built a rough foundation. Only the lack of proper food and nutrition had left him weak and gaunt.

The Harau Valley at dawn was like a grand painting brushed by the heavens with mist and sunlight.

Granite cliffs hundreds of meters tall rose proudly, like ancient giants guarding the earth’s secrets. In their crevices, lush green vegetation clung like an emerald tapestry, hiding all that was wild and forbidden.

To Hattori Zen, this beauty was nothing more than terrain. Atop one of the less frequented cliffs, Sena sat in seiza posture.

He drew deep breaths, passing through a throat that still felt stiff. Each exhale felt hot and heavy, like steam rising from the earth’s belly.

“Rin… Kyo… Toh… Sha… Kai… Retsu… Zai… Jin… Zen…”

These were not mere words or chants. Each syllable was an anchor, binding body, mind, and spirit together. His fingers formed the hand seals with a precision no boy of his age should possess.

For now, he only practiced to remember each seal and exactly which nerve points to press. He did not apply real pressure, for Hattori knew this body was not yet ready—it could not yet withstand such strain.

Sena’s body was like long-abandoned clay. Forced labor had given it hard but rigid muscles, like rusted old iron.

Hattori knew that Iga shinobi techniques did not rely on brute strength, but on muscles supple as rattan, responsive as a drawn bowstring.

And so the true training began. He started running, strengthening his arms, legs, and above all, his flexibility.

Days turned into weeks. In the first month, he ran to build strength in his legs. At first, he stumbled, slipped, and misstepped often. But gradually, he grew in harmony with Sena’s body, until he no longer ran like a long-distance runner. Instead, he leaped from root to root, from stone to stone.

His steps were light, almost soundless. At first, deep footprints marked the mud beneath him. Slowly, those prints grew fainter, a sign his steps were becoming lighter and his control over his feet more precise.

By the second month, he had mastered shinobi-aruki—the silent walking technique that shifts weight to the outer edge of the foot. He moved through thorn bushes without breaking a single twig, mimicking the silent stalk of a clouded leopard closing in on its prey.

By the third month, his upper body had grown firmer, and his arms could now grip firmly onto tree branches. Each evening, he stood beneath the waterfalls that crashed against Harau’s rocks. Thousands of liters of water struck his body like heavy hammers.

His skin reddened, his breath came in gasps, and several times he nearly lost consciousness.

But he endured.

“Stronger,” he whispered. “If this world is a wilderness, then I must become the unseen predator.”

Meanwhile, the Village of Harau simmered in quiet tension.

Sena’s disappearance was not merely the affair of a poor orphan. For Datuk Lagang, the village chief, it was a blow to his authority. Under the rule of Singhasari, which was expanding its reach into the Minangkabau lands, order was the most valuable currency.

One missing laborer meant less tribute sent to Dharmapuri, the small kingdom now under Singhasari’s control.

Balun walked uneasily behind Purwa Wangsa, the Bekel—Commander of the Harau garrison post. The commander’s face was stern, marked by a scar slashing across one cheek: proof of a man who had stared death in the eye and survived.

“You say he has been gone for three months?” Purwa’s voice was heavy, like stone dragged over sand.

“Y-yes, Lord Purwa,” Balun stammered.

They entered Sena’s abandoned hut, now overgrown with weeds. Purwa crouched, his fingers brushing the faint indentations in the earthen floor.

“This boy did not simply leave,” he murmured. “These are marks left by someone sitting cross-legged for long periods. Balanced—like a man in meditation.”

Balun swallowed hard upon hearing this.

“Find him,” Purwa ordered coldly. “If he is dead, bring back his body. If he lives, break his legs and bring him before me.”

Balun shivered. He was only a village youth given authority by Purwa to collect tribute—why not send Singhasari’s own soldiers instead? he wondered, but dared not speak the thought aloud.

To Balun, money was lifeblood, and comfort was all that mattered. And Sena had cut off both.

Ever since the Pamalayu Expedition was launched by Singhasari in 1275, the grip of Javanese power over the Malay lands had tightened like an iron noose.

Its reach extended far beyond Dharmasraya. Within just six years, every small kingdom in the region—including Dharmapuri—had fallen under its administrative control.

Singhasari banners fluttered from garrison posts in every village, and the laws of Java were enforced without compromise. Yet beneath this forced submission, the spirit of resistance had never truly died.

Deep within the dense forests and hidden valleys, the masters of Silek Harimau—the Tiger Style martial art—moved like hungry phantoms.

They raised no banners.

They struck from the thick undergrowth.

Their curved kerambit blades lashed out, tearing through flesh and sinew with savage precision.

Several small Singhasari patrols vanished without a trace, leaving only blood to be absorbed by the earth. This forced the kingdom’s soldiers to change their tactics.

No longer did they travel in pairs. Now they moved in large, fully armed squads, given a single, unyielding order: capture or kill anyone who dared to resist.

Amidst this rising tension…

Hattori—now living as Sena Sanjaya—had withdrawn into seclusion.

More than three months atop Harau Summit had transformed him completely. His body, once gaunt and marked by the scars of forced labor, was now tough and resilient, like seasoned rattan soaked in oil.

His muscles did not bulge excessively, but they were firm and strong exactly where they needed to be. His skin had darkened from the sun and mountain winds.

But it was his eyes—those eyes—that had lost all trace of a village boy’s innocence, replaced by the sharp, unwavering gaze of a Jonin. Hattori had finally achieved full harmony with his new body.

Early the next morning, his stomach gave a low rumble—a signal he could no longer ignore. His supply of tubers and forest fruits was running low.

It was time to test a technique he had practiced only in theory until now: Shinobi Iri, the art of moving without leaving a trace or arousing awareness in one’s target—a more advanced form of Shinobi Aruki.

Sena lowered his center of gravity, letting his body follow the natural contours of the ground. His full weight rested on the outer edges of his feet, while his toes gripped the earth like roots.

Not far ahead, a forest rabbit lapped dew from fern leaves. Its ears stood erect, twitching at every faint disturbance in the air.

Sena froze, motionless, his eyes locked on his prey without blinking.

“TOH,” he commanded within his mind.

He formed the Seal of Harmony, his fingers moving with a precision that now felt natural, pressing the nerve points on his hands with the lightest possible pressure.

Slowly, his body’s rhythm began to slow. His breathing grew so shallow it was nearly undetectable, and his heartbeat dropped to the lowest threshold a human could reach without losing consciousness.

To the senses of the natural world, Sena was no longer a living being. He was merely a mound of earth, or perhaps just a stone.

The rabbit relaxed, deceived by the false stillness.

Sena shifted to the RETSU seal. His fingers pressed against different nerve points; his pupils narrowed, his vision sharpened, and his perception intensified dramatically. The world seemed to resolve into lines of angle and trajectory.

He calculated the distance, the slope of the ground, the direction of the wind, and even the possible path his prey might take. He predicted the rabbit’s next move.

The moment the rabbit shifted its weight—just a fraction of a second, its instincts already screaming to flee—

Tap—!

In a single, almost invisible burst of motion, Sena was already in position. His hand shot out, seizing the rabbit by the scruff of its neck with exact, controlled pressure.

The animal struggled briefly, then went limp. There was no cry, no unnecessary suffering.

“Success,” he murmured, a faint smile touching his lips—though his head throbbed slightly for a moment.

But that small sense of victory vanished instantly. His sharp hearing picked up an unfamiliar sound—not the rustle of leaves in the wind, but the careless snap of dry twigs underfoot. Human footsteps.

Sena immediately dropped low, concealing himself behind tall bushes.

Down the hidden path below, three figures emerged from the thin mist. Balun walked at the front, his burly frame now seeming smaller with fear. His face was pale, his eyes sunken. Behind him came his two constant companions, Jagu and Danta. They gripped machetes and hacked away at branches blocking their way.

“I’m certain I saw a wisp of smoke coming from this direction last night,” Jagu whispered.

Balun wiped cold sweat from his brow. His eyes scanned the surroundings, a mix of greed and dread in his gaze. “Search carefully. If we can deliver Sena to Lord Purwa, we’ll be free from tribute for the next month. Understood?”

Jagu and Danta nodded. They continued climbing, Balun moving directly toward the area where Sena had been training. He pushed aside the last clump of bushes, and his eyes went wide.

There lay the remains of a still-warm campfire. Footprints were clearly visible in the dirt. He looked up, toward the towering ancient meranti trees.

“Sena… where are you? Come out…” His voice trembled slightly.

High above them, perched motionless on an old meranti branch, Sena crouched. His eyes locked onto Balun’s throat, coldly calculating distance and angle.

Balun took a hesitant step forward, his foot touching the warm ash. “Sena! Show yourself! …Don’t be a coward!” he shouted loudly—though it was more to steady his own nerves.

Sena formed the SHA seal. His control over his motor nerves and vocal cords sharpened. In the eyes of Hattori Zen, these three were no threat at all. They were merely an opportunity to test his skills.

“This place… feels wrong,” Danta muttered. “The trail… why does it just end here?”

Creak…

A branch shifted to their right. All three turned sharply, raising their machetes. But there was nothing there.

Then a soft, faint laughter echoed from directly behind them.

“Kik kik… kik kik… kik kik…”

“Who’s there?!” Balun spun around instinctively. The mist of Harau began to creep higher around them.

Sena shifted position, moving from branch to branch almost silently. The hollow trunks and rocky cliffs acted as natural amplifiers, deepening the already eerie atmosphere.

“Leave… this… place…” The deep voice seemed to resonate from beneath their very feet.

“W-Who… who is it?!” Jagu’s lips trembled as he stammered.

“It must be… the guardian spirit of the forest!” Danta cried out. His chest heaved, his breathing growing shallow and rapid, crushing their resolve further.

Sena flicked a hard seed into the bushes to their left.

Srek…

“There!” Balun pointed, waving his machete unsteadily.

As they turned their heads, Sena had already leaped to another branch and dropped a clump of damp earth onto Balun’s shoulder.

Balun yelped in alarm. The cold mud felt like the touch of a corpse’s hand.

“Sacrificeee… neeedsss… a sacrifiiiceee…” Once again, Sena used his voice technique to shatter their psychological composure.

“AAAAAH! IT’S A GHOST!”

“SIAMPA…!”

Balun turned and fled in panic. His two friends followed close behind, stumbling and crashing through thorn bushes, heedless of the cuts and scratches on their bodies.

Eventually, their screams and the sound of their frantic footsteps faded away down the hillside.

An eerie silence settled once more over Harau Summit. The mist seemed to close its curtain again, hiding what had just taken place.

Sena descended from the tree, landing firmly and making almost no sound at all. He stood tall, gazing down the now-empty path.

His breathing returned to normal, his heartbeat settling back to a natural rhythm.

“Sometimes, fear is a weapon far sharper and more efficient than any blade,” Sena said flatly.

He retrieved the rabbit he had set aside in the bushes. But his expression quickly hardened again. His eyes turned toward the village far below.

Balun now knew someone was hiding atop Harau. If he reported the place was merely “haunted,” perhaps the superstitious villagers would stay away, giving Sena more time to train.

But Sena was no fool. What if soldiers of Singhasari—led by skeptical, bloodthirsty men like Purwa Wangsa—heard tales of a ghost? Would they simply avoid the area?

It seemed unlikely. Far more probably, they would send a squad of enforcers to burn the forest to the ground.

“Purwa…” Sena whispered the name in his mind like poison. His hands clenched into fists until his knuckles turned white. The killing intent he had long suppressed surged forth, spreading like a wave of heat through his veins.