The three rugged badger beastmen who had brought the stretcher stepped forward, their heads low, looking like the world was about to split open and shatter their final hope.

​"Please..." the lead badger rasped, his voice trembling. "Can we... Can we see them? The kits and our sister?"

​Hana looked at them for a second. How in the world was a rabbit a sister to a badger? Well, it wasn’t her concern. She sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

"Wait right there. I don’t want anyone trampling inside my den."

​She turned back into the cave and signaled her vanguards. A moment later, Caspian and Kulu rolled out two clean, mechanical transport stretchers.

One held the resting, heavily bandaged mother, and the other held the three tiny, squawking grey and white kits wrapped in soft sterile sheets. They were very much alive.

​"The mother will die if you take her away right now," Hana said, her voice clinical as she checked her system notification one last time. "She needs the stabilization field. But who am I to stop you?" She shrugged. "If you want to carry her back so she can return to the dirt early, that’s your business."

​The badgers looked at the steady breathing of the female and the healthy cries of the kits, then quickly shook their heads.

"No, no! We will leave her here. Please, keep them safe." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

​Hana held back another sigh. It was extra work, but the reality of the situation was forcing a data correction in her blueprints.

As she watched the badgers back away gratefully, she realized she needed to code a dedicated section for birth and medical care into the automated builders before doing anything else. Her home was not a nursing home.

​She turned her back to the crowd, preparing to head back inside to monitor the IV drips.

​At that moment, the exhaustion was so much that she didn’t see the air ripple.

​Because the fox tribe had practiced illusion arts for generations, Hana had kept a lock on the prominent figures. She even had Raiden close by because he was the only one among them who could see through illusion arts, but at this moment, he was absent, and she hadn’t calculated the sheer, irrational desperation of a grieving kin.

The four-tailed fox female—the one who had begged for her brother’s life the previous night—had used her illusion magic to completely erase her thermal signature and physical form from the surveillance network.

​A sudden, violent draft cut through the air and ​before Kulu or Caspian could even register the displacement of air, the illusion shattered right beside Hana.

The fox female materialized out of nothing, her face twisted into a demonic, tear-stained mask of pure madness, a jagged bone knife gripped tightly in her hand.

​"You hairless monster!" the fox screamed, driving the blade forward with all her weight.

PLUNGE.

The jagged blade bit deep into Hana’s side.

"He was dead this morning! My brother died because of your corruption! It’s all your fault!" She yelled.

​Hana’s eyes widened, looking down at the impact that had not yet registered as then on seeing the stab, she gasped, a sharp, white-hot burst of agony exploding through her nervous system.

The fox female had aimed for her stomach, but by some stroke of absolute luck, the blade angled upward, scraping against her ribs and missing the growing baby bump in her abdomen by mere centimeters.

It missed the child, but the sheer shock of the impact sent a violent tremor straight through her womb.

​"HANA!"

​Caspian’s roar didn’t even sound human. It was a cataclysmic, terrifying sound that shook the very dust from the cave entrance and the surrounding ground.

Before the fox female could even pull the knife out to strike again, Caspian swung his massive, heavy-scaled tail with the force of a falling meteor.

​CRACK.

​The sickening sound of fracturing ribs and a shattering spine echoed across the ledge as the fox female was slammed forcefully into the stone floor.

She didn’t even have time to scream before she went completely limp, rolling across the dirt like a broken doll, coughing up dark blood.

​"Hana! Stay with me, look at me!" Kulu was instantly on his knees beside her, his face completely horrified, stripped of all his usual stoic calm.

His large, trembling hands caught her before she could hit the ground, his crimson wings flaring outward to shield her from the chaotic fearful screams erupting from the outer perimeter.

​Hana leaned heavily against Kulu’s chest, her breath coming in shallow, ragged hitches as her hand pressed against her bleeding side, blood blooming and staining the fabric of her dress.

At this point, she regretted it. She regretted changing out of her indestructible dress and into something simple and air free just because she wanted to work.

But could she have imagined something like this would happen to her? Could she have imagined that she would be too exhausted to react to a flimsy assassination like that?

This was why she only did things that benefited her. Now, she had saved lives just to prevent her points from taking a huge blow, no real benefit, and exhausted herself in the process.

Too exhausted to even protect herself.

Her eyes turned toward the twitching, broken form of the fox female on the stone, her lips pulling back into a sharp, venomous hiss.

The system hadn’t even warned her. Some helper it was.

​"Ah... I guess good does get repaid with evil... no matter the world," she spat, her fingers digging into Kulu’s arms as the pain shot through her.

Right in her peripheral vision, the neon blue interface of her system window completely shattered, flashing into a violent, blinking crimson warning text that hovered directly over her sight.

> ​[WARNING: EXTREME PHYSICAL TRAUMA DETECTED]

> Maternal Damage: Abdominal Puncture / Intercostal Laceration.

> Fetal Threat Level: ELEVATED.

> Note: Immediate stabilization required to prevent child termination.

​Hana stared through the glowing red text, her teeth grinding against the agonising pain burning from her ribs.

The worms had finally bitten, but as she clutched her abdomen, her gaze turned completely lethal.

But a simple bite was not enough to kill her. Now, it was going to be a bloodbath.