Chapter Twenty: Laughter Like Thunder

The ground shook — not with footsteps, but with memories.

The bones that rose from the earth weren't just dead warriors. They were history itself, dragged from its grave, stripped of pride, chained to Mukonori's hunger.

Each one had been a totem bearer, just like them — Crocodile, Lion, Jackal, Eagle, Serpent — their spirit marks flickering faintly, memories of what they once were before they were devoured, broken, reshaped into puppets in Mukonori's feast.

And at the center of it all — Mukonori.

His smile stretched too wide, his jaws unhinged, filled with teeth carved from totem bone, each one a story cut short. His eyes held centuries, a predator so ancient even the Bvuri whispered his name in fear.

"Run, little cousin," Mukonori purred, voice wet with hunger. "Run like your ancestors did. Run like they begged me to let them live."

Ranga didn't move.

His fingers gripped both spears, knuckles white, shoulders tight. Every Hyena spirit inside him — every ancestor, every warrior, every broken soul — they all whispered the same thing.

Run.

But Ranga's mouth twisted into a wide, feral grin. His teeth gleamed in the gray light, and from deep in his chest, from the bones of his bones, came laughter.

Low at first — a growl with rhythm — then louder, sharp, cracked, Hyena-laughter cutting the silence like broken glass.

Mukonori's head tilted. "That laugh belonged to me before your kind ever learned to walk on two legs. You think you can use it against me?"

Ranga's laugh only grew.

Louder.

Wilder.

Uncontrollable.

And beneath the laughter, the earth answered.

The Hyena Totem inside him stopped trembling — it howled instead, a voice so wild and free it shattered every leash Mukonori had wrapped around it.

Ranga's spirit didn't just rise — it exploded.

Hyena Totem Form — Unbound.

It was no longer a mere spiritual projection. It was bone and fur and spirit intertwined, jaws wide, eyes blazing, fur streaked with gold and black — a beast that refused to be prey.

Ranga's body mirrored it, his skin cracking with glowing totem marks, his fingers tipped with spirit-claws, his eyes filled with the madness of the hunt — but it wasn't fearful madness.

It was the joy of turning the hunt back on the hunter.

"You think we're afraid of you?" Ranga's voice was layered — his own, and the hundreds of Hyenas that Mukonori had devoured, all laughing with him now.

"You eat us, you wear us, you silence us — but you never understood us."

Ranga's feet moved — not in retreat, but into the storm.

He hit the first bone-warrior like thunder, spears spinning, laughter ripping through the air like a song sung by the dead. The spear didn't just pierce the bones — it shattered the spirit-lock binding them, freeing the Totem inside.

The ghost of a Serpent-bearer flickered in the air, bowing his head before vanishing into light.

One after the other, Ranga tore through them — Crocodile, Owl, Jackal — spears spinning so fast they blurred, his laugh echoing in the marrow of every lost soul Mukonori had ever claimed.

With each blow, Ranga freed a soul.

With each laugh, he broke a chain.

With each step, he rewrote his entire bloodline's curse.

Mukonori rose from his throne, his smile shrinking into a snarl. "You think you can laugh louder than me?"

Ranga's only answer was more laughter.

The earth itself split open, old roots writhing like serpents, spirits rising in waves — not Mukonori's slaves, but Hyenas from every generation, every village, every forgotten story. They stood beside Ranga, mouths open, throats full of wild, broken laughter that shook the sky itself.

"You forgot something," Ranga said, his eyes glowing bright enough to blind.

"We don't run."

He launched himself at Mukonori, spears spinning, spirit-form charging beside him, both bodies — physical and spiritual — fused into one unstoppable force.

Hyena Chidawo: Laughing Storm Form.

Mukonori's jaws snapped wide, but Ranga's spear was already inside them — not stabbing, but prying them open wider.

"You fed on us for centuries," Ranga growled. "Let's see if you can stomach what we've become."

The second spear plunged into Mukonori's chest, and for the first time in millennia — the Devourer choked.

Ranga didn't stop.

He tore into the spirit itself, pulling out bones that weren't bones, names that had been erased, stories buried under fear and silence — and with every name he reclaimed, his laughter grew louder.

Mukonori screamed.

But no one could hear it.

Because the laughter drowned it all.

The skies cracked open, not with lightning, but with Hyena laughter rolling like thunder, from the earth, from the sky, from the mouths of every ancestor Ranga had freed.

It wasn't madness anymore.

It wasn't fear.

It was victory.

With a final laugh, Ranga's spears crossed, and Mukonori — the First Hyena, the Devourer of Totems, the Curse of Ranga's bloodline — shattered into dust.

The silence that followed wasn't empty.

It was the silence after the storm, when the land itself remembers who it belongs to.

Ranga stood in the center, spirit-form flickering, his own bones marked now with golden spirals — not the chains of a prey species, but the markings of a Chidawo who had claimed his own story.

Kael stepped forward, but for once — he didn't have words.

Tafara just let out a low whistle. "Hyena-boy finally broke something bigger than his mouth."

Ranga's grin split his face — wide, sharp, unbroken. "Told you," he said, voice hoarse but triumphant. "We don't run."

Nyeredzi's silver eye shimmered, her voice a whisper carried on the wind. "The spirits see you now, Ranga."

Ranga stretched, rolling his shoulders, both spears spinning back into place. "Good," he said. "Because I'm not done laughing yet."

The Bloodbound Circle stood together, with one less curse among them — and one more god among their ranks.

And in the silence after the storm, the earth itself remembered — and laughed with them.

End Chapter Twenty