Lost

2 Years Later...

Spirit wandered aimlessly through the dark, cold forest. "Mother? Arctic? ...Swift?" Her voice echoed through the silence. She paused, her large midnight-blue eyes shifting nervously. "Hello?" No reply.

She twitched her ears before slowly continuing to pad through the ice and snow, a cat-like grace accentuating her every move.

Spirit took after her mother, with midnight-blue eyes and a pure, white pelt. The only difference was that her tail faded into light-grey leopard spots, courtesy of her father, who was a leopard.

The wind blew harshly, the biting cold sinking into her bones and rustling the silvery-white leaves that clung to branches. Somehow, Spirit had wandered into the core of the Forest of Dreams.

Silver Innota like Spirit could develop elemental resistance if the environment was harsh enough to need it. In a place like the Forest of Dreams, ice resistance was essential for survival.

Silver Innota would be born with a certain amount of elemental resistance, however, the path it took was random. The two paths, light and dark, were distinctly different.

The light path allowed one to improve their elemental resistance by staying in an area with an abundance of that element, slowly improving their resistance with little to no effort. The only downfall of this was that if a Silver Innota on the light path overstepped their boundaries and attempted to enter an area where their elemental resistance wasn't enough, the backlash could be fatal.

The dark path was quite similar to the light path. Some Silver Innota never found out if their elemental resistance of a certain element was light, or dark.

It allowed a Silver Innota to comfortably live in an area suited towards their current level of elemental resistance, but if they overstepped their boundaries, no backlash would occur, instead, they would begin to feel a pain that increased the more they stayed in that area. If it increased to a certain point, physical wounds would appear.

It was possible to raise that baseline, however, it was only possible with a divine treasure or something with abundant energy, such as a soul stone.

A soul stone was the core of a shadow creature, beings that traveled across the different dimensions and to the world of the living. Some had physical bodies, while others were mere wisps of smoke, harmless, and all in all, annoying. When killed, they would drop a soul stone, something extremely precious to Silver Innota and adventurers.

Silver Innota could transform the soul stone into energy, which could be infused into their attacks, such as infusing a claw with energy. It would allow the attack to be stronger, faster, and more deadly, and if chosen, the attack could be turned into an elemental attack, infused with the energy of the user's innate element. Depending on the level and quality of energy used, the attack will be stronger.

Silver Innota on the dark path could also use soul stones to improve their elemental resistance's baseline.

Adventurers used soul stones to improve magic attacks, spells, and in order to power weapons.

There are 5 different levels of soul stones, 1 being the lowest, and 5 being the highest. A stronger shadow creature would have a purer soul stone.

"SNAP!" The sound of a twig breaking rang clearly through the silence of the night.

Spirit halted, spinning around and hissing, "Who's there? Show yourself!"

"Hahaha," Bright peals of laugher echoed eerily. The supposedly beautiful sound was layered with a cold undertone, making it seem fake and unnatural. "Hybrids are rare on the black market...How much will three wolf-leopard pups sell for?"

Spirit snarled, tears threatening to spill out. "Where. Are. They."

More laughter. "Why, dead of course. It's much too troublesome to handle live prey."

"Thud." The sound of something being tossed into the clearing drew Spirit's line of sight to a pair of corpses. The foul scent of the air was enough to tell that they had been killed slowly and painfully with a corrosive poison. The tears Spirit had tried to hold back came pouring out, blurring her vision.

Through foggy eyes, Spirit watched as a grey-blue fox slowly closed in on her. Being only 7, Spirit was far from being a full-grown Silver Innota, not yet developing her ability, which would awaken when she was 10.

The dense poisonous fog surrounding the fox grew, exuding a sense of danger to anyone near. Spirit, the only one of her siblings who had inherited an abnormal poison resistance, was beginning to feel the effects of the poison, a dull, stinging pain that encompassed her entire being.

Silver Innota had a faster regeneration rate than other beings that did not have a healing based ability, making the constant breakdown and reconstruction of her cells extremely painful.

Adventurers, on the other hand, were different from normal humans as they wielded unique combat skills and magic, one of the rarer types being healing magic. Unfortunately, healing magic did not work on others outside of the same species, and most Silver Innota would kill them on sight.

With the disappearance of the forbidden weapons, few adventurers could contend with the Silver Innota, relying on numbers to defend their cities and people, and the areas they could not claim became the Silver Innotas' territory, such as the frosty landscape of the Forest of Dreams.

Meanwhile, lurking in the dark forest was a large white wolf, her nose pointed towards to ground and frantically searching for something. Upon locating the scent, her ears perked up, and she sprinted off into the distance.