I Was The Only Omega In The Beast World-Chapter 150: CP: The Trip To Mountainous Area

The morning had started with such promise.

Alex stood at the edge of the construction site, watching the first real walls of the sanctuary begin to take shape. Ironwood beams rose against the ridge, their dark grain gleaming in the early light. Stone foundations had been laid overnight—wolf labor, Lucas had explained, was faster when they worked in their shifted forms—and the central courtyard was already marked out in lines of white ash.

Granite found him there, massive paws silent on the dew-wet grass.

"The hills," the bear said. "The eastern ridge opens into a valley system beyond the peaks. Good elevation. Southern exposure. If the soil’s right, we could plant mountain fruits. Berries, and the hardy vegetables. "

Alex looked at the construction behind them. The snakelings were already awake—he could hear Siddy’s voice echoing off the ridge, engaged in what sounded like a very serious debate with Sterling about the proper way to stack stones. Naga was supervising, which meant he was coiled in a position of maximum visibility while pretending he wasn’t supervising. Zale’s sphere floated near the pool, the mer-prince’s attention divided between the construction and the spring channels they’d started carving the day before.

"Sounds like a lot of work for one day," Alex said.

Granite’s expression didn’t change, but something in it was patient. "The construction will take months. The planting needs to happen before the season turns. If we’re going to have food stores by winter, we need to know what the land will support."

"You want to go now."

"I want to go today." Granite’s massive head turned toward the eastern ridge. "I scouted that valley years ago, when I was young. It was empty then. Good soil, good water, good sun. No reason it shouldn’t still be good."

Alex hesitated. The sanctuary was barely begun. There was so much to do, so much to oversee, so many small decisions that seemed to multiply every hour. But Granite was right about the timing. And Granite was never wrong about the land.

"Three hours," Alex said. "We go, we look, we come back."

Granite’s mouth curved in what might have been a smile. "Three hours."

---

The climb took longer than Alex expected.

The eastern ridge was steeper than it looked from the valley floor, and the path Granite chose was more game trail than anything a human would call a path. They climbed in silence for the first hour, Granite leading, Alex following, the forest closing around them in layers of ancient ironwood and mountain cedar.

[Elevation gain: 800 meters. Soil composition shifting from sedimentary to volcanic. The ridge is older than the surrounding range. Possibly a caldera formation.]

"That’s good for soil, right?" Alex asked, breathing hard.

[Volcanic soil is typically nutrient-rich. If the valley beyond is a caldera basin, the agricultural potential could be significant.]

Alex filed the information away, kept climbing.

The second hour was easier—the slope gentled as they reached the ridge’s shoulder, and the forest opened into alpine meadows dotted with wildflowers Alex didn’t recognize. Granite moved through them with the unhurried confidence of a creature who had walked these lands before, who knew the rhythms of them in a way Alex was only beginning to learn.

"You came here," Alex said. "When you were a cub."

He imagined Granite as a cute, small brown bear cub. But even that small cute bear cub would be bigger than Alex judging by his current size.

"My father, the previous bear chief brought me." Granite’s voice was low, thoughtful. "At that time the Curse lands were empty. No tribes, no territory markers, no politics. Just land. I thought—" He paused. " But as I took over the title of the chief, I stopped visiting this place. "

"You stayed in the cave."

"The cave was defensible. The valley was open. Good for growing, bad for hiding." He looked at Alex. "I didn’t know how long I would stay in my tribe. I didn’t knew if I would ever back."

Alex felt the weight of those words settle in his chest. Years of hiding. Years of protecting a tribe till the very exhaustion— till he was willing to give up yet still no hope. Letting go of the desire to venture— to explore for the sake of his people. "

"You kept them alive," Alex said.

"That was my duty."

"You kept them alive. That’s—" He stopped, not sure how to say what he was feeling. "That’s more than I could ever do."

Granite made a sound that might have been disagreement. "You collected the artifacts. You survived. You built a family. That was your job."

"The job was keeping them safe."

"No." Granite stopped, turned to face Alex with an expression that was more serious than Alex had ever seen on him. "The job was giving them a future. Safety is temporary. Futures are permanent. You’re building something that lasts. I just kept them breathing until you could."

Alex opened his mouth to argue, but Granite was already moving again, his massive form disappearing into the meadow grass.

---

The valley revealed itself slowly.

They crested the ridge’s final rise and Alex stopped, breathing hard, and stared.

It was a caldera—he could see it now, the ancient crater of some long-dead volcano, filled with soil so rich it was almost black. The valley floor was perhaps a mile across, ringed by mountains on all sides, open only to the southern sky. A stream ran through its center, fed by springs that emerged from the eastern wall, and the grass that covered it was the deep, lush green of places that had never known drought.

[Geological analysis: Caldera formation, estimated age 50,000 years. Soil composition: volcanic loam, high in phosphorus and potassium. Water source: permanent springs, mineral content suggests connection to the same aquifer system as the sanctuary hot springs. Southern exposure: optimal. This site is—]

"Perfect," Alex breathed.

[I was going to say ’agriculturally ideal,’ but yes. Perfect works.]

Granite had stopped at the valley’s edge, his massive head lifted, nostrils flaring. "The soil is good. I remember. There were wild berries here, years ago. And mountain parmas, the small ones, but they were sweet."

Alex moved past him, down the gentle slope into the valley proper. The grass brushed his knees, soft and damp with morning dew. Birds called somewhere in the trees that lined the valley walls. A stream chuckled over stones. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

It was peaceful. It was beautiful. It was exactly what they needed.

[Host,] System said, and there was something in its voice that Alex hadn’t heard before. A hesitation. An uncertainty. [Something is—]

And then Alex felt it.

The shift was subtle—the way the temperature dropped, the way the light seemed to dim even though the sun was still high overhead. The way the birds stopped singing all at once, the way the stream seemed to quiet, the way the very air grew heavy with something that pressed against Alex’s chest like a physical weight.

Granite was beside him in an instant, massive body blocking Alex from whatever had caused the change. The bear’s fur was bristling, his lips drawn back from teeth that could crush stone.

"What is it?" Alex whispered.

Granite didn’t answer. His head moved slowly, tracking something Alex couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, could only feel—the weight of attention, the pressure of being watched by something that had no business watching.

"We need to leave," Granite said, and the words were quiet, but they were the quiet of something that was holding back a great deal of force.

"Now."

Alex didn’t argue.

They turned together—Granite’s paw closing around Alex’s wrist, not painful but immovable—and took one step back toward the ridge.

The world went black.