"You don’t know?" Bramor asked, his deep voice carrying over the rushing water.

"Don’t know what?!" Nuan yelled from the other side, cupping her hand around her mouth.

"About the salmon stealer!" Bramor answered back, gesturing vaguely toward the sky.

Nuan let out an irritated groan. "Ugh, stop making me yell across the river! Just say it in one go!"

"Aerin got challenged to a fight..." Bramor said, crossing his heavy arms.

"What?!" Nuan gasped, her hand dropping from her face. Aerin? A fight? "Aerin is such a calm and composed guy! Why would anyone challenge him to a fight? By who?!"

"By the Wind Reaper—Wimon!" Bramor shouted back.

"Who the hell is that? The Wind Reaper?" Nuan asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.

"You don’t know the Wind Reaper?!" Bramor looked genuinely shocked that there is someone who hadn’t heard the name.

Beside her, Koda’s head snapped toward Nuan in pure disbelief. "Witch! You really don’t know who the Wind Reaper is?!"

"Eh? Why? Do I need to know? Who is it?" Nuan asked, looking down at the young wolf-boy.

"The fastest of all time! The Falcon clan’s current strongest warrior, Wimon!" Koda explained, his eyes wide with a mix of fear and awe.

Ah! The fighter jets of the sky! Nuan thought, her biology and survival instincts instantly mapping out the hierarchy. Eagles were the heavy-duty fighter bombers—all raw strength, heavy grip, and power. But falcons? Falcons were the sheer speed demons, built for high-altitude diving and blinding aerial strikes.

Nuan looked back across the river at Bramor, who was already losing interest in the conversation and focusing his eyes back on the shallow water for fish.

"Why did he get challenged? Did Aerin accept it?" Nuan asked, her voice tinged with genuine worry.

"I don’t know much about those sky stealers!" Bramor grunted, his paw suddenly flashing into the water. With a sharp splash, he dragged out a struggling salmon. "That is all I heard."

"I see..." Nuan murmured, her mind racing. Nine days. If it was an aerial duel, it could be happening anywhere across thousands of square kilometers of canopy.

Across the bank, Bramor sat down heavily in the mud and started eating his raw fish in silence, a profoundly depressed expression clouding his round face.

He looked incredibly lonely sitting there—a giant, solitary predator with no one to love him, no one to look for him, and no one to even check up on him.

It had already been three weeks since the harsh summer season had officially started, yet he hadn’t caught the scent of a single receptive female anywhere in his massive domain. Every single female beastman simply avoided his territory like the plague.

Nuan caught his deeply depressed mood, her empathetic side overriding her annoyance. "Hey, Bramor!"

Bramor paused, a half-eaten fish in his massive hand, and looked up at her with gloomy eyes.

"It’s just the start of summer! Don’t lose hope yet!" Nuan yelled across, putting her hands on her hips. "Keep searching for a mate! Patience is the key! And if the females aren’t anywhere near your territory, a long walk is your solution—go on a journey! Go find their territories!"

"They will just run away again," Bramor said sadly, his ears drooping in human form.

"Oh, buddy, you are incredibly cute and strong! Maybe they are just testing your efforts!" Nuan shouted back cheerfully. "Show them your stamina and persistence! Fighting!"

To emphasize her point, Nuan flashed him a classic, high-energy Earth encouragement pose—flexing her bicep with one hand, patting the muscle with the other, and giving him a bright, confident wink.

Bramor stared at her sudden motivational speech. The unexpected compliment and the burst of raw energy instantly boomed through his low self-esteem like a shot of adrenaline. Her words hit his lonely heart perfectly.

"Can I really get a mate?" he asked, his posture instantly straightening.

"Yes! Yes, you can! Just be more energetic, you big gloomy ball!" Nuan chuckled, waving her hand dismissively.

"I will find a mate more aggressively now!" Bramor declared, his voice suddenly full of thick, bear-like determination. He quickly shoved the rest of the fish into his mouth, wiped his bloody chin, and turned on his heel to march back into the woods, a newfound fire in his stride.

Koda stared at Nuan intensely for a few minutes, his brow narrowing into a deep, suspicious line as if he were trying to solve a complex puzzle in his head.

Nuan looked down at his serious little face and chuckled, nudging his shoulder playfully. "What happened? Why are you making a face like that?"

Koda quickly shook his head, refusing to say a word. He turned around and dove right back into the rushing river water, splashing aggressively to hide his thoughts.

(At Night Time)

The camp was completely still under the cold moonlight. Inside the Alpha’s den, Nuan was sleeping peacefully, buried deep under her warm elephant blanket and completely exhausted from her long day of carving and cooking.

Kael stood there quietly for a moment, watching her sleep.

The thought of her leaving after her ankle healed made his chest feel strangely tight. She had already decided to go... and he had no idea how to make her stay.

His silver eyes lowered. "I don’t want her to leave..."

Kael, moving with quiet, careful steps so he wouldn’t wake her, slipped out of the cave and into the open, starry night.

He walked a short distance away from the den entrance, stopping beside the dark, dead ashes of the central fire pit.

He stood there waiting in the shadows for a few minutes until another, much smaller figure quietly approached and stood right beside him.

"What is today’s information?" Kael asked, his deep voice barely a whisper in the night.

"I have found out how you can successfully make the Witch your mate," a young, dead-serious voice answered back.

Kael’s lips curled into a confident smirk. "How?! Tell me how to finally claim Nuan!" he whispered eagerly, leaning down toward his secret informant.

"Hahaha, sure... listen carefully, Alpha..." Koda started confidently, puffing out his small chest. "You have to... wait, what was it again... uhhh, ummm...!"

Rughhh! Kael let out a low, deeply frustrated growl in the back of his throat. "What is it?!" he barked softly, glaring at Koda’s fiercely narrowed eyebrows as the boy desperately tried to recall the conversation from the riverbank.

"Don’t yell, Alpha! The Witch might wake up!" Koda hissed, waving his hands in a panic.

Kael clenched his fists, his silver eyes flashing in the dark. "Then stop stalling and tell me! What is the secret way to claim her?!"