Overnight, the colossal structural damage caused by the toddlers’ explosive magical mishap had been entirely, miraculously erased.

Zarek and Caspian had spent the midnight hours utilizing their overwhelming draconic and aquatic powers to not only clear the wreckage of the collapsed grandstand but to forge an even grander, vastly superior royal viewing platform from the very earth and stone of the arena.

Now, as the horns blew to signal the beginning of the continental event, the Iron-Wood festival grounds were a sea of vibrant, chaotic life.

Roxy was escorted up the wide, sweeping stone steps of the newly erected royal pavilion. She was dressed in a breathtaking gown of spun gold and deep, rich emerald, the fabrics completely complimenting the radiant, maternal glow of her transmigrated pregnancy. She took her seat upon the beautiful, raised Matriarch’s throne, a massive chair crafted from polished iron-wood and draped in the softest, thickest dire-wolf pelts.

She did not sit alone. She was entirely flanked by her five devoted Vanguard Kings.

Zarek stood immediately to her right, the Dragon Alpha’s heavy, scarred hands resting possessively on the back of her throne. Kaelen and Torian took the immediate flanks, their massive, heavily armored frames acting as impenetrable, towering shields of Northern ice and feline muscle. Syris and Caspian stood just behind them, their elegant, lethal postures radiating a deep, ancient authority that blanketed the entire arena.

As Roxy settled into her throne, the roaring, bustling noise of the festival grounds completely, entirely ceased.

From the silken pavilions below, the noble representatives of the continent marched into the sandy arena. The hardened Alpha of the Northern Wolf Pack, the proud Lords of the Tiger Kingdom, the fiery draconic generals of the Peaks, the aristocratic serpents of the Swamps, and the fluid, graceful emissaries of the Southern Seas all gathered in the center of the stadium.

They looked up at the Matriarch’s throne. They didn’t see a fragile, terrestrial human woman who had been dragged into a world of beasts. They saw the woman who had defied the celestial formatting. They saw the mother of monsters, the unbreakable soul who had tamed the apocalypse and forced the Heavens to completely yield.

In perfect, absolute, and deeply synchronized reverence, the foreign shifter packs, their nobles, and their hundreds of feral children dropped to their knees in the dirt.

They bowed to her, fully recognizing Roxann of the Vanguard as the true, undisputed heart of the Beastworld.

Roxy’s breath caught in her throat. She looked down at the bowing continent, a profound, beautiful warmth blossoming in her chest. She raised her hand, offering a soft, radiant smile that completely dissolved the lingering political tensions, officially granting them permission to rise and begin the festivities.

The children’s showcase kicked off with an explosive, breathtaking display of Vanguard superiority.

Axel and Onyx were the first to enter the massive combat ring. The twin wolf pups completely shed their human forms, shifting into sleek, magnificent silver-black wolves. They did not rely on elemental magic or cheap tricks; instead, they demonstrated flawless, lethal pack coordination.

The elite Iron-Wood guards released enchanted, heavily armored training golems into the arena. The twins moved like a singular, terrifying entity of liquid shadow and ice. Onyx would drop low, sweeping the golems’ massive stone legs out from under them, while Axel used his brother’s back as a springboard to launch himself into the air, his jaws completely crushing the magical cores of the targets. They dodged, wove, and struck in absolute, terrifying tandem, proving to the visiting Wolf Pack that the true apex predators of the North resided entirely within the Vanguard.

Next, Iris stepped onto the sands.

The visiting nobles leaned forward, entirely expecting the young girl to shift into a beautiful wolf and do something. But Iris had something else to prove. She wanted to showcase the lethal, physical discipline her fathers had instilled in her.

Iris raised a beautifully crafted, heavy recurve bow that was almost as tall as she was. Without a single ounce of hesitation, she drew the bowstring back to her cheek. The elite guards tossed dozens of tiny, wooden targets high into the spring air. Iris didn’t just stand and shoot; she moved. She sprinted across the arena, sliding gracefully through the dirt, spinning, and leaping into the air.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

Her arrows flew with blinding, terrifying precision. She pinned every single target directly to the thick wooden barricades of the arena before they even had a chance to touch the ground. The foreign nobles gasped, completely stunned by the flawless, lethal archery skills of the young wolf.

But the true terror of the Vanguard bloodline was unleashed when Tanith took the field.

The ten-year-old stepped into the center of the arena, her golden-green eyes flashing with an ancient, dark arrogance. Without a single word of warning, Tanith violently shifted. The cracking of bone and the massive expansion of scale echoed through the stadium as she transformed into her massive, terrifying basilisk-serpent form.

Her dark, shimmering scales caught the sunlight, her massive fangs dripping with a highly potent, corrosive venom. To demonstrate her skills, the guards released a massive, heavily armored wild mountain boar—a beast that usually required a dozen seasoned hunters to take down.

Tanith did not play with her food. She showcased exactly how she hunted. She moved with a blinding, terrifying, and utterly silent speed, her massive, serpentine body coiling entirely around the screaming boar in a fraction of a second. The sickening sound of crushing bone echoed through the silent stadium as she completely constricted her prey, her massive jaws unhinging in a display of pure, unadulterated apex dominance.

In the foreign grandstands, absolute, sheer panic erupted. The visiting noble children were completely scared shitless. Feline cubs were hiding their faces in their mothers’ furs, young drakes were whimpering, and wolf pups were scrambling backward over the wooden benches in sheer terror of the giant snake.

But up in the Matriarch’s pavilion, the reaction was entirely different.

Roxy leaned forward on her throne, completely unbothered by the violence. Beside her, Iris, Axel, Onyx, and little Zale were jumping up and down, pointing at the arena.

"That’s our sister!" Iris cheered at the top of her lungs, completely drowning out the whimpers of the foreign packs.

Roxy clapped her hands enthusiastically, a bright, beaming smile on her face. "Wonderful form, Tan Tan! Beautiful execution!"

Among all of Roxy’s children, the only ones who did not display their powers in the arena that day were little Fedor and Tyara. Fedor was still incredibly traumatized from the explosive grandstand incident the night before, choosing to curl into a tight, fiery-red ball entirely hidden beneath the thick silk of Roxy’s dress. Tyara, despite her desperate, feral desire to fight the visiting cubs, had been strictly benched by Torian, completely forbidden from entering the arena until she learned not to bite people’s ears off.

But the final performance of the day belonged to young Zale.

The little merman-shifter hybrid waddled up to the edge of the massive, deep-water basin constructed at the end of the arena. He didn’t shift into his aquatic form. He simply raised his small, chubby, webbed hands toward the still water.

Zale’s luminescent eyes glowed with a blinding, deep-sea blue. He didn’t just manipulate the water; he demonstrated how he completely commanded the sea to do his absolute bidding.

With a joyful, bubbling giggle, Zale thrust his hands upward. The water in the basin violently erupted. It didn’t just splash; it formed into three massive, hyper-realistic, towering water dragons that roared silently into the sky. They completely defied gravity, swirling and dancing above the stadium, raining a gentle, cooling mist over the awe-struck crowd. The water then crashed back down, instantly reforming into a perfect, crystal-clear replica of the Iron-Wood Manor itself.

The visiting nobles from the Southern Seas, the Iron-Wood children, and the entirety of the foreign packs were left in absolute, stunned awe. The sheer, overwhelming elemental mastery possessed by a Vanguard toddler was entirely unfathomable.

Up in the Matriarch’s pavilion, the Warlords had completely lost their minds.

Zarek, Kaelen, Torian, Syris, and Caspian had entirely abandoned their dignified, stoic Warlord composure. They were leaning aggressively over the stone railing, literally roaring from the stands. They were puffing out their massive chests, entirely flexing their Warlord pride for the entire continent to witness. They were completely uncontainable.

"Flawless trajectory!" Kaelen bellowed, pointing down at Iris’s arrows.

"Did you see the constriction force?" Syris mocked a visiting Swamp Lord below, his velvet voice practically dripping with insufferable arrogance. "Your entire adult guard couldn’t manage half that pressure!"

"The water dragons were perfectly structured!" Caspian boasted loudly, his bioluminescent scales flashing brightly with paternal ecstasy.

They were behaving exactly like children themselves, completely consumed by the absolute, hilarious need to brag about the overwhelming superiority of their transmigrated Matriarch’s bloodline.

Torian, utterly overcome with feral, tiger-blooded pride at the sheer dominance of their pack, slammed his massive hands onto the stone balustrade. The White Tiger Alpha threw his head back and let out a massive, deafening, earth-shaking roar that completely silenced the stadium.

"Now that’s our children!" Torian roared, completely puffing his chest out.

The joyful, chaotic noise in the royal pavilion violently halted.

Zarek, Kaelen, Syris, and Caspian slowly, deliberately turned their heads. The four towering Alpha Kings stopped their cheering and leveled Torian with perfectly synchronized, deeply unimpressed, and entirely flat glares.

Torian blinked, dropping his hands from the railing as the four terrifying Warlords continued to stare a hole directly through his thick skull.

The White Tiger Alpha frowned, looking between his brothers in absolute, genuine confusion.

"What?"