Beast riot

As Edward formulated his plan, he moved out of the compound and started to follow the guard sent by William to find the place holding the slaves. Much to his convenience the guard followed the route close to the beast woods of his village, after following the guard for 15 minutes Ed found a makeshift camp near the border area, he can find a large cage filled with little children, the entire camp was heavily guarded but to Ed's level these guards would not even make him break a sweat.

The guards were preparing the children and as Ed knew the location he left to draw in the beast.

Ed had a general idea about the wood fringe but even an idiot would know that the mightiest beasts lived in the deeper reaches of the wilderness, so Ed covered himself with a layer of Mana so that his scent is not caught by the animals. Ed was sure his plan would work because wild animals unlike magical beast were not intelligent and didn't have mastery over Mana control so it was easy to hide from them. Ed slowly traversed to the center of the woods, Ed was not aware that the animals had just left their hibernation and were out looking for food so their nests were left unguarded and this made things easier for Ed who could sense the beasts and easily avoid them and entered the deepest part of the woods. Before Ed was a large cave and Ed entered it without a second thought , it took some time to get adjusted to the darkness and Ed saw that the cave was very spacious and the ground was littered with fur and bones of dead animals. This was not enough to frighten Ed as he made his way into the cave , at the end of the cave Ed could see a nest and within it was single pup, the creature looked like a bear cub but Ed didn't know that it was a spirit bear wolf king's cub, you see when wild beasts consume a lot of spiritual herbs they begin to mutate like the cub before Ed, the common mutation are generating small level of spirituality/intelligence , tougher hides and some times the beast may start to cultivate Mana becoming a terrifying existence.Ed wanted to incite a large number of beasts so he decided to steal their babies and drop them into the children's cage and the beasts would track it to William's compound.

Ed masked his scent so he raided dozens of such nests nearby and left for the camp without knowing what he had done.

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The cave

The spirit bear wolf king had just returned from its hunt with its pack, since it attained its spirituality it chose to move deeper into the woods so that its confrontation with the humans will be nil. It wanted to avoid pointless blood shed as it deeply cared for its pack. Today was especially a pleasant one because they had a good hunt that will last them for a week. As the wolf king entered its lair it found that the cave had a foreign scent which it knew too well , the scent of a human. It was left behind by Ed purposefully and it was not his own sent but that of William, when Ed left the compound he stole a pair of William's shoes and dropped it conveniently inside the cave. The wolf's worst nightmare had occurred, its pup was stolen by a human. Rage filled the air as the wolf king howled in fury, soon other members of its pack also howled as their own cubs were missing.

The spirit bear wolf king wouldn't take it lying down so it howled to gather all the powerful beasts that were living in the woods it also made contact with other similar spiritually awakened beasts and started to track down the scent of their cubs. The determined eyes of the wolf king showed that it was going to orchestrate a massacre that will make the humans fear to set foot in its domain again.

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Back at the camp

The guards had finished preparing the children and started to clear out from the camp as they made their way back to William's compound. But it was unknown to the guards that a bag filled with unconscious wild beast cubs where tied to the back of their carriage. Ed after dropping the package left and took a different route and reached the compound before the package arrived. The party was still going on and William was serving all the dignitaries there with a smile on his face while cursing their eight generations of ancestors in his mind.

The Enforcer was getting impatient and inquired William and William assured that the package will arrive shortly.

William was beyond exhausted as he had to fake the courtesy to these group of people since when has a young master like himself became a errand boy, he did this because his father had warned him about this group of people and this was the first time William was carrying out the auction on his own, at first he was excited but now he loathed this job as he had to be courteous to all manners of people even some powerful commoners like the Enforcer, whom he loathed the most.

But there was a silver lining here because he had found a beauty that he will enjoy tomorrow, he was sure that poor women like Jennifer will easily succumb to his pressure that's why he didn't force himself on her and just gave her an ultimatum, he liked to break strong willed women and he has destroyed many such families before but he would never imagine that his long life would be cut short today because he had lecherous thoughts towards some random peasant women. He would die without a complete corpse.But for now William was fantasizing about Jennifer without knowing that a large group of blood thirsty beasts zoning in on his location.