Online Game: Starting With SSS-Ranked Summons

Arthur's gaze drifted toward the dense heart of their territory, where golden fur and gleaming eyes prowled beneath the canopy. His voice was calm as he spoke to the beetle, though his intent was anything but passive.

"I'll give them a chance, but if they force my hand, then they will serve in another way," he said.

Every interaction was a choice, ally or summon. Either way, he would walk away stronger.

...

Unfortunately for Arthur, or perhaps for the Golden Manes themselves, Arthur had no way of knowing that he was about to cross paths with the most arrogant and volatile member of the entire pack. What he assumed to be routine patrolling behaviour was, in truth, a consequence of inner-pack conflict.

This particular Golden Mane was not simply standing guard. He had recently been involved in a serious altercation with the pack leadership over a transgression that had violated one of their fundamental laws.

The result of that altercation was temporary exile from the main group. Stripped of his standing and denied the comfort of his brothers, he had been ordered to patrol the outer perimeter of the territory alone while the more powerful members of the pack debated whether he deserved formal punishment or a more lenient disciplinary reprieve. His pride had been wounded, his reputation diminished among the others, and his temper seethed just beneath the surface.

Despite the loyalty that bound the Golden Manes together, there were rules even blood could not ignore. Their strength as a society relied on discipline, and when one of them stepped out of line, consequences followed.

No exceptions.

So when the disgraced lion caught wind of Arthur and the Golden Beetle approaching through, it was not with caution that he reacted, but with venomous delight. In his wounded pride, he saw them not as potential threats, but as perfect outlets for his festering resentment.

A cruel grin tugged at his features, lips parting to reveal razor-sharp teeth. His golden eyes shone with anticipation, and a low growl rumbled in his chest, a sound that carried both challenge and thrill.

Here were intruders, striding boldly into his domain at the exact moment his pride demanded retribution. And unlike his fellow pack members, who might have weighed the situation, this lion had no such restraint left in him.

He turned fully to face Arthur, muscles tensing beneath his golden coat, and let out a low, deliberate roar. It was not a warning. It was a declaration. He would not wait for permission, nor listen to reason.

He was going to fight.

[Golden Mane]

Level: 23

Rank: Superior-Boss

Details: This particular Golden Mane stands nearly four feet at the shoulder, his muscular frame rippling with barely contained aggression and wounded pride. Unlike his pack-mates, who are more emotionally stable, he isn't. He doesn't act with his brain, but with his heart. His current isolation from the pack has only amplified his tendency toward reckless aggression. He represents everything dangerous about Golden Mane pack mentality without the tempering influence of pack discipline.

His tail lashed behind him with anticipation, while his muscles bunched in preparation for what he clearly intended to be a violently satisfying encounter.

Arthur immediately recognised that his negotiation plans had just become significantly more complicated.

The Golden Mane began approaching them with slow steps, each massive paw hitting the forest floor with enough force to create small tremors that rippled through the floor. His golden mane flowed like liquid fire as he moved, catching fragments of sunlight that filtered through the canopy and reflecting them in brilliant, almost hypnotic patterns.

Arthur watched him with cold eyes, his experience immediately understanding the creature's aggressive body language, the way his muscles coiled, ready for violence, and most tellingly, the expression in those amber orbs that burned with fury.

He could tell immediately what kind of creature he was dealing with.

Arthur had seen those eyes before...too many times, in faces he could no longer forget. The same gleam of contempt wrapped in confidence, the same twisted look of someone who believed that he was less than them. He had been on the receiving end of that gaze when he was weak, when his voice didn't matter, and his strength wasn't enough to stop it.

That look reminded him of the days he was stepped over, used, and dismissed. It wasn't just arrogance; it was the cruelty of those who thought he existed only to be broken beneath their feet. He remembered what it felt like to be treated as less, to scream inside and still be ignored.

Arthur had grown stronger since then. He had become someone people feared, someone they respected.

He didn't like the way this beast was looking at him, at all.

The way those amber eyes stared at him with dismissal and barely concealed contempt made Arthur remember fragments of his past that he had worked hard to bury.

The feeling of being assessed as prey and found wanting by creatures who had never truly struggled, never truly suffered, never truly understood what it meant to claw your way up from nothing.

Arthur's expression darkened as those unwelcome recollections surfaced, his jaw tightening with growing anger that had little to do with the current situation and everything to do with every moment in his life when someone had dared to look at him with such dismissive superiority.

The frown that crossed his features carried depths of coldness.

Fury that went far beyond simple irritation. This time was one of the very few times that Arthur truly felt such anger, such fury...such hatred.

When Arthur spoke, his voice emerged as an ice-cold whisper that seemed to lower the temperature of the surrounding forest by several degrees.

"Who are you to dare stare me down, beast? I am Fateless, and wherever I go, ruin follows in my wake. If you possessed even the slightest trace of sense, you would have turned and ran the moment you laid eyes upon me." Arthur's tone held no warmth.