3 3.Vow

During the day, the wolves were in great sorrow over the deaths of their brethren but none were more sorrowful than the grey wolf mother who seemed to have aged twenty years overnight.

This was not the first time she had seen her family torn apart by creatures with more power. The first time was when a green mountain lion killed and feasted on her first six pups and even mate did not survive the ordeal.

The green mountain lion was a great hunter with the intellect to know that it should not eat all its food in a single night. For this particular species of mountain lion, hunting beasts such as wolves which lived in large groups was the way to go. The lion would memorize the scents of all members in the group and then begin hunting them one by one until the group is nothing but the memory of a meal well utilized to sate its hunger and taste buds.

The grey wolf mother had only survived this encounter with the green lion mountain because the lion chose to let her off.

In the lion's calculations, one does not eat pregnant prey, it is far more profitable to let it give birth to more prey so that one does not run out of great meat. The only reason the grey wolf mother had been able to keep her resolve to live was because she needed to take care of her pups. She sealed away these bad memories and allowed herself to take care of her pups without a cloud over her head. To protect her pups from the fate of their dead siblings, she had moved thousands of kilometres away from her old den and started living in this den because it was hidden by the forest trees finding it was almost impossible, but nothing is impossible and the den was still found by another predator and her pups eaten and to make matters worse, she could not decide whether the white tiger was crueller than the green mountain lion.

The lion had eaten her pups slowly while the tiger chose to eat as many as it could in a single night.

The grey wolf mother lay on the ground next to her dying pup with tears flowing out of her yellow eyes. Although the wolves had grown up, to be the grey wolf mother, they were still her beloved cute pups.

The remaining two pack members, the white wolf and one grey wolf stood over their dying sibling with great pain in their eyes.

They had just finished burying their three dead siblings, at least what was left of them when the tiger was done eating and now they had to stand around as their brother died and their mother wished to die.

The two siblings the grey wolf and the white wolf had ventured into the forest and gathered all kinds of herbs but nothing worked and they also knew that nothing would work. Their dying sibling was beyond help, his intestines had been eaten by the white tiger and one of his limbs was missing. The only reason he was still alive was due to his willpower and somewhat useful healing bloodline ability. The dying sibling was their eldest brother and since their father was long dead, this elder brother of theirs had taken over the role of protecting the family. He had killed many beasts who sought to harm his pack in the past but this time, it was a level two nascent demonic beast, nothing could be done even with the strength of this powerful elder brother.

For days, the eldest brother lay dying in agony. He saw his siblings try all kinds of herbs to try and save his life.

One night, he made up his mind. He knew what had to be done but he had still held some hope of survival. Not for his sake but for the pack. He knew that his death would mean that the pack would have to go through even more suffering with the lucky ones dying early.

That night, the dying wolf looked into the eyes of his younger brother the white wolf, and communicated a single sentence, "Kill me and take our pack away from this place before the white tiger returns ."

On getting his brother's request, the white wolf was stunned before tears started flowing out of his yellow eyes.

His only remaining sister also started crying and at his moment, their mother who had been unresponsive for the past few days got to her feet and looked outside the den. The white wolf had always been the smartest in the pack. He knew that their time was up.

He raised his foot and slashed down at his brother's neck with his sharp claws. Blood splashed all over the white wolf turning it red. As its eldest and most beloved sibling lay dying, the white wolf made a single vow. 

It vowed to protect what was left of their pack, to seek vengeance from those that had caused the pack to suffer so greatly and to make the pack powerful enough to never suffer from a similar calamity.