The world was dark.
Warm.
...Also kind of wet.
And— SQUISH.
"...?"
Something was pressing against his cheek. It was soft. Rubbery. Kinda... jigglesome?
He didn't know what it was, but it was unacceptable. His face scrunched, a strange growling bubble erupting from one of his many mouths—though which one, even he didn't know.
The jiggly thing pressed again.
Squish. Squish.
His eyes—three of them—snapped open.
Not the ones on his head. No, those were still asleep, slacking on the job. It was the ones on his side, his belly, and that particularly judgmental eye on his right armpit that flickered open.
They looked around—separately. Each one pointed in a different direction, catching fragmented scenes: green leaves, dancing sunlight, a drooling boar face way too close to him, and...
Wait. Was that a bug in its mouth?
His body jerked up on instinct, or maybe pure newborn energy. Unfortunately, his limbs still had all the coordination of a newborn fawn on roller skates during an earthquake. So instead of standing gracefully—
Thwack.
He headbutted a tree.
"GAAH!" The boar jumped. The wolf fell back. Leaves fell from the heavens as if applauding the slapstick routine.
"Ey! He lives!" the boar grunted, his tusks twitching. He turned his head and shouted over his shoulder. "BRO, THE UGLY'S UP!"
From somewhere in the bushes, a very groggy "Huhhh??" replied, followed by a loud snore.
The wolf—still dazed, still ugly, and now also covered in mud—wriggled like a struggling worm on its back. His mouths twitched. His body twisted. His many eyes blinked out of sync, some staying open, some shuttering rapidly like overexcited camera lenses.
From his mouth came a confused, gurgly "RAH... glub..."
That's about as far as his vocabulary went.
Because, you know—newborn.
He rolled, flopped, and eventually flailed his way onto all fours. There was a brief, glorious second of triumphant silence... and then he sneezed.
All of his mouths.
At once.
It was horrifying.
It was wet.
The boar just watched, unimpressed. "...Kid needs an exorcist."
Then the other boar stumbled out from the bushes, eyes bloodshot, face looking like he'd fought a dream demon and lost. "I dreamed I was a dung beetle…" he whispered. "And I liked it…"
The first boar patted his back. "That's not even the weirdest part of our day."
---
A Proud Disaster
The wolf stood, finally steady, legs stiff as sticks. His body quivered like pudding on a trampoline, but he was up.
He blinked again—this time, consciously. Two eyes on his head opened, and he squinted at the world.
Leaves. Trees. Breeze. Something wet down below—
He looked down.
His leg.
Chewed.
Chomped.
Teeth marks still there.
He whimpered. Not from pain, but because he remembered the cold, scary wetness. The wiggly creature that went for his toes. And worst of all, that taste in his mouth—muddy lakewater mixed with panic.
He opened a mouth and cried.
And another mouth cried.
And another.
The boars were stunned. The whole forest trembled.
"…How many lungs does he have?" one whispered, shoving bugs in his ears like earplugs. "My ancestors are hearing this in the afterlife!"
Meanwhile, the wolf sniffled.
He didn't know why he was sad. He just was. That's life when you're five minutes old, and you've already drowned, gotten fish-bitten, had a mental breakdown, and been stared at by ugly pigs while butt-naked under a waterfall.
Oh yeah.
He was still naked.
Well, technically he was always naked. But the lack of fur didn't help. He was skin and eyeballs and ugly.
And he felt it.
Like some primal instinct, his shame activated. His eyes scanned for cover. Bush? Nope. Tree? Too far. Pile of leaves? Maybe—!
Fwump.
He dove into the leaves.
The leaves rustled.
Then screamed.
So did he.
Turns out, that wasn't a pile of leaves.
It was a squirrel.
And the squirrel was not in the mood to be cuddled by a screaming baby multi-eyed horror beast.
"EHHH?!" screamed the wolf.
"CHIRREEEEEE!" shrieked the squirrel.
It bit his nose.
Instant karma.
---
Boar Brothers in Crisis (Again)
"Bro," said the more well-spoken boar, now lying belly-up in the grass. "I think we've raised a demon."
"We haven't even raised him."
"True, but I feel responsible."
"Same."
They watched as the wolf ran in circles, three mouths sobbing, one laughing for no reason, eyes blinking like disco lights, and a squirrel still attached to his nose, riding him like a rodeo.
"Is this… is this parenthood?" one of them asked.
"Nah," the other replied. "Parenthood usually comes with snacks."
"True."
They both fell silent, chewing on bugs thoughtfully.
Then one of the boars slowly got up, walked to the lake, and looked at his reflection again.
"Am I the weird one for enjoying this?"
The water said nothing.
He sighed and turned back just in time to see the wolf finally slam face-first into a tree.
BONK.
Everything went quiet.
The squirrel flew off like a missile, cursing his name in squirrel language.
The wolf flopped onto the ground, twitching.
"Mmmmrrrr…."
The boars rushed over—well, ambled over, like casually concerned uncles.
"Yo. Kid?"
No response.
One sniffed him.
"He dead?"
The other shrugged. "He'll respawn, right?"
"…We're not in a game."
"Damn."
The wolf's eyes fluttered.
Then, like the world rebooting, his mouths twitched. One eye opened. Then another. Then another, one at a time. Slowly, this time. As if they were...
Learning.
He blinked again. His body trembled. He lifted one paw.
Shakily.
Carefully.
He took a step.
Then another.
He stumbled, caught himself, wobbled—
He walked.
Straight into a bush.
But this time, no scream. No squirrel.
He pushed through it and emerged from the other side, leaves stuck to his face.
"Bro," whispered one boar. "Did he… level up?"
"Nah, bro," the other replied. "That's just the power of trial and error."
They both nodded sagely, as if they'd just witnessed a rite of passage.
And perhaps they had.
---
The Dawn of Nonsense
The wolf—ugly, eyeballed, and absolutely confused—stood proud.
He had no language. No memory. No clue what he was. But he had instincts.
Instincts that told him two things:
1. Those two hairy round things nearby weren't threats.
2. He was hungry.
Very.
Very.
Hungry.
So, like a wolf on a mission, he stalked forward—though "stalked" might be generous. It was more like a toddler waddling at full speed.
He approached the boars, his face blank, his mouths drooling.
They watched him, confused.
"…He's staring at us."
"…With all his eyes."
"…You think he wants a hug?"
"…Or our liver."
The wolf's face drooled more.
He lunged.
Right into the pile of bugs the boars had been snacking on.
He scarfed them down like a vacuum.
The boars gasped.
"HE ATE OUR DINNER!"
"THOSE BUGS TOOK ME FIVE WHOLE MINUTES TO CATCH!"
The wolf ignored them. Bugs were crunchy. Wet. Kinda alive. Wriggly. He didn't love it.
He didn't hate it.
He just knew he needed more.
He looked up—twenty eyes scanning the trees.
The boars fell silent again, staring.
One whispered, "...Did he just start hunting?"
The other shivered. "Bro, I think our baby's becoming a predator."
The predator in question immediately tripped on a root and fell face-first into his own snot.
"…Nevermind."
As the sun dipped lower and shadows stretched long, the boars sat side by side again, watching the strange little wolf climb a tree by accident and then forget how to climb down.
He mewled from the branches, upside-down, tangled in vines.
One boar sighed. "We should probably help him."
"Or… let natural selection do its thing."
They stared up at the wolf.
He drooled on them.
Direct hit.
"…We're raising him, aren't we?"
The boars looked at each other. Then at the drooling horror baby above them.
The boar who once questioned life looked at his reflection again.
"…I used to dream of joining a sect. Becoming a divine beast. Ascending the heavens…"
He turned and saw the wolf try to eat a butterfly and choke on air.
"…Now I'm a babysitter."
The other boar nodded solemnly. "I once had dreams too, bro."
They fist-bumped.
As they raised the ugly wolf time passed like a fly and
Two years had passed.
That was, approximately, seven hundred and thirty days of grunting, scratching, snorting, and digesting loudly in the shade of mushrooms the size of outhouses. Seven hundred and thirty days of careless, unguided raising. Seven hundred and thirty days of watching a wolf pup grow into a beast... while doing absolutely nothing worthwhile.
The boars—two of them, both with perpetual half-lidded eyes and expressions that looked like they were still buffering—had decided to raise the newborn wolf back then for a noble reason:
"If he dies, we'll feel bad."
And also, perhaps more truthfully:
"If he lives, maybe he'll be strong enough to get us better food."
That was the full extent of their philosophical depth.
And so, began the most legendary child-rearing saga in the Verdant Wilds—a place named for its overflowing greenery and chaotic beast-life. Located in the eastern veins of the Foggy Continent, Verdant Wilds was a forest where vines had more attitude than nobles, and tree roots tripped you on purpose just to laugh. Beasts ruled here, not kings. And thankfully, no human sect had yet claimed it as their toilet.
The Foggy Continent itself was a place where mystery and mushrooms grew side by side. Named after the always-foggy peak in the north that was too spooky even for Soul Emergence realm beasts to poke with a stick. That place was off-limits. The rest of the continent? A mixture of lazy kingdoms, unruly sects, eccentric alchemists, and the occasional naked hermit running from taxes.
But in this particular part of the forest, two lazy boars accidentally became dads.
Their method of raising the wolf was simple.
"Let him do shit. He'll figure it out."
They taught him to speak, sort of. Mostly by yelling insults at each other until he learned vocabulary through osmosis. They didn't stop him when he tried to lick poisonous mushrooms. They didn't stop him when he bit a tree that punched back. And they definitely didn't stop him when he tried to eat a rock that turned out to be a sleeping turtle with anger issues.
Their idea of education was:
"If he burns, he'll know fire is bad."
"If it stabs him, he'll dodge next time."
"If it runs away, he wasn't scary enough."
Two years later...
It somehow worked.
The wolf—now a hulking, three-meter-long beast—was a glorious bastard. His fur had grown, coarse and dark like thunderclouds, with streaks of ash grey along his back. His many eyes no longer flicked around wildly; he'd learned to keep only two open unless he was hunting. The others stayed hidden beneath thick lids, scattered across his body in places too unnerving to describe without causing nausea.
His main mouth had sharpened into something terrifying, but the mouths on his palms and under his ribs? Those were just freaky. But functional. Extremely functional.
Like that one time he got ambushed by a bear twice his size. It was a short fight. The bear thought he had the upper hand when he bit into the wolf's shoulder.
The wolf stuck a claw into the bear's gut.
The palm-mouth opened.
The palm-mouth ate.
"WHAAARGGHHHH?!!" the bear screamed in confusion, pain, and existential dread.
Chomp. Chomp. Chomp.
Victory.
The wolf's name? Well, the boars just called him "Hey," or "Oi," or "You little freak." He responded to all of them.
His personality? Shaped entirely by his environment.
He was cocky.
He was lazy.
He liked to show off.
He bet on worm races.
But he wasn't dumb.
Oh no, beneath that bored, half-grinning face was a sharp mind and predator's instincts honed by failure and blood. He was a product of his upbringing, yes, but also something far more terrifying—he had potential.
His strength, speed, and reaction time were on par with some Foundation Establishment realm beasts, even though he was only two years old. Whatever his bloodline was, it was no ordinary thing. There were whispers among the forest's lesser beasts.
"He's from the Mawing Moon Tribe."
"No, no, he's got Eyes of the Devourer!"
"I heard he's the illegitimate son of the Fog King's stomach."
No one knew. The wolf didn't care.
He had boars to feed.
Yes, the two boars were still alive. Still lazy. Still smug. Still the same.
They lived like kings now, thanks to their pet project. Gone were the days of nibbling on bark and chasing bugs.
Now?
"Hey, you're up. Go get us something meaty."
And off he went, hunting with terrifying efficiency, dragging back dead beasts while the boars gave him a thumbs-up with their hooves.
They did try to teach him morals once.
"Don't eat things that beg for mercy."
He stared blankly at them.
"... Unless they're birds."
He nodded.
Speaking of birds...
The hawk.
The damned hawk.
It still lived.
High above the trees, it circled like a judgmental god, wings wide, eyes sharp, and always, always ready to drop a steaming gift of vengeance on someone's face.
It didn't matter where the wolf was. That hawk knew.
Once, he was bathing in a spring. Peaceful. Serene. He even smiled.
SPLOT.
Right on his snout.
The boars laughed for seven minutes straight.
It became a game now.
The pooping hawk's eternal feud with the wolf.
He'd tried to kill it.
He tried ambush.
He tried camouflage.
He even stacked two boars on top of each other to launch himself higher.
Missed.
And every time, the hawk would screech mockingly and drop another payload.
Somewhere, in a tree not too far from their den, the hawk sat like a war general.
It had maps.
It had poop.
It was ready.
But back to the wolf. Right now, he was lounging.
He rested under the shade of a crooked bone-tree—literally a tree that grew from the remains of dead beasts—and yawned, showing rows of teeth that probably had separate postal codes. The boars were snoring on his back, using his thick fur like a mattress.
"Oi," one of the boars mumbled, not opening an eye. "Go get food. I'm hungry."
"Mmm..."
"No excuses. You're the muscle."
"Make a bet," the wolf muttered.
"Bet what?"
"I bring back something with more than four legs, you massage my tail."
"Deal."
The wolf stretched, his joints cracking like thunder, and trotted off casually.
He sniffed the air, opened a second pair of hidden eyes to scan thermal patterns, and twitched his left ear.
Something was nearby.
He pounced.
A spider-crab hybrid shrieked.
Five minutes later, he came back dragging it by one leg.
The boars applauded.
"Masssage~" he demanded smugly.
They groaned.
Somewhere above...
SPLAT.
Right on his tail.
He snarled up at the sky.
The hawk screeched.
Round forty-seven had begun.
---
Life in the Verdant Wilds was far from ordinary. The world outside was busy with kingdoms rising and falling, sects battling for supremacy, and cultivators chasing immortality.
But here, under the dense green canopy, a strange family lived.
Two lazy, smug, no-good boars.
One sarcastic, horrifyingly powerful, freakishly-built wolf.
And a hawk with a grudge.
All raised by accident.
All thriving by mistake.
And yet, destiny had already set something in motion.
Because soon, very soon, something from beyond the fog would arrive.
But for now?
SPLOT.
"AAAAARRRGHHH!!" the wolf howled.
The boars snorted.
The hawk screeched.
Life was good"