<h4>Chapter 191: Pack eptance</h4>


    <strong>BROCK POV</strong>


    I threw myself between the Void Walker and the nursery hut.


    The creature’s touch had already killed three trees and turned a piece of ground into empty nothingness. I wasn’t about to let it get near the pups who were crying inside the building behind me.


    "Stay back!" I roared, changing into my wolf form mid-leap.


    But my teeth and ws passed right through the Void Walker like it was made of shadow. Its eyeless face turned toward me, and I felt something horrible - it was trying to erase me from existence, to make it so I had never been born.


    "Brock!" Lily’s words cut through the chaos. "Don’t touch it straight! It unravels anything it touches!"


    I rolled away just as the thing reached for me with fingers that looked like holes in reality. Around the clearing, more Void Walkers were falling from the cracks in the sky. Each one thatnded made more of our world simply disappear.


    "How do we fight things we can’t touch?" I yelled back to Lily and Caleb.


    But before they could answer, something unexpected happened. Sarah from the nursery - one of the Changed Ones who’d been infected with dimensional energy - stepped forward.


    "We can touch them," she said, her voice still echoing weirdly. "We’re partly dimensional now. We exist in the same space they do."


    Without waiting for permission, Sarah reached out and grabbed the Void Walker that had been threatening me. Instead of being erased, she held onto it tightly.


    "You’re not taking our world," she said with resolution I’d never heard from the gentle nursery worker before.


    The Void Walker struggled, but Sarah’s grip held. More of the Changed Ones stepped forward, each one grabbing onto a different creature.


    "They’re doing it," I said in surprise. "They’re holding them back."


    But I could see the strain on their faces. The Changed Ones were flickering more violently than before, trying to stay solid while wrestling with beings made of pure nothing.


    "They can’t hold them forever," Caleb noted grimly.


    That’s when I made a choice that surprised even me.


    "Then we help them," I said strongly.


    "Brock, no!" Aiden grabbed my arm. "You heard Lily. If you touch those things-"


    "I’m not talking about touching the Void Walkers," I interrupted. "I’m talking about epting the Changed Ones fully. Making them full pack members instead of treating them like victims."


    Everyone stared at me. I wasn’t usually the one who came up with emotional answers - that was more Caleb’s area. But watching Sarah risk everything to protect our home had shown me something important.


    "They’re not broken," I continued. "They’re evolved. This dimensional sickness isn’t a curse - it’s an adaptation. Our pack is changing because our world is changing."


    Alpha Marcus looked unsure. "Brock, the packws about membership-"


    "Need to change too," I said, cutting off my own father. "Dad, look around. We’re physically fighting beings from the void while reality falls apart. I think we can bend some rules."


    Lily’s eyes lit up with understanding. "The pack bond," she said. "If we officially ept the Changed Ones as full members, the bond might stabilize their dimensional energy."


    "Exactly," I said. "Instead of them fighting this alone, they’d have the whole pack’s strength backing them up."


    "But they’re not the same anymore," someone objected. "They can phase through walls, see other realities-"


    "So what?" I asked. "Lily can move between dimensions. Caleb can now too. Should we kick them out of the pack for being different?"


    A murmur went through the gathering wolves. I could see them struggling with fear versus loyalty.


    That’s when little Jake, the youngest of the Changed Ones, spoke up. "I don’t want to leave the pack," he said, tears in his sparkling eyes. "This is my home. I was born here."


    His words hit everyone like a physical blow. This kid had just turned sixteen. He’d lived his whole life as part of Silver Peak. Now he was being treated like a stranger because of something that wasn’t his fault.


    "He’s right," Elder Iris said strongly, thumping her walking stick on the ground. "These wolves didn’t choose to be Changed, but they’re still our family. Pack ties don’t break just because someone’s different."


    I felt pride grow in my chest. This was why I loved our pack - when it counted, we chose love over fear. "All in favor of officially epting the Changed Ones as full pack members?" Alpha Marcus called out.


    Hands went up around the clearing. Not everyone, but enough. A clear majority.


    "Then by packw and unanimous consent," my father stated, "I wee our Changed brothers and sisters as full members of Silver Peak Pack."


    The result was immediate. Golden light flowed out from the center of our group, connecting every pack member - including the Changed Ones - in visible ties of belonging.


    The Changed Ones gasped as the pack bond settled into them. Their shing stopped. Their eyes got brighter, but with warmth instead of alien energy.


    And suddenly, they weren’t just holding the Void Walkers anymore - they were pushing them back.


    "It’s working!" Sarahughed, her voice no longer echoing weirdly. "I can feel all of you with me!"


    The Void Walkers let out sounds like reality ripping, but they couldn’t fight thebined strength of a united pack. One by one, they began fleeing toward the cracks in the sky.


    "We did it," I said, hardly believing it. "We actually drove them off."


    But our celebration was cut short by the Architect’s voice booming from above.


    "Clever," it admitted, sounding more pleased than angry. "You’ve learned to change faster than I expected. But adaptation has limits."


    The cracks in the sky began to widen rapidly. Through them, I could see something that made my blood freeze.


    Not more Void Walkers, but full armies of them. Thousands upon thousands of creatures from the empty spaces between realities, all falling toward our world at once.


    "You saved your Changed Ones," the Architect continued mockingly. "But can your pack bond hold against that?"


    As the first wave of the army reached our reality, I felt the pack link strain under the pressure. We were strong, but we were still just one pack against an endless force.


    "Lily," I called anxiously. "Please tell me you have another miracle ready."


    But when I looked at her, I saw something in her face that terrified me more than any Void Walker could.


    She was looking at the approaching army with recognition, not surprise.


    "You know what those things are," I realized.


    "They’re not just Void Walkers," she said quietly. "They’re the souls of everyone the Council ever destroyed. Every world that was erased, every person who was unmade - the Architect has been collecting them in the null ces."


    My heart stopped. "You mean-"


    "We’re not just fighting to save reality," Lily finished grimly. "We’re fighting against everyone who’s already lost it. Including people we knew."


    Through the descending army, I could see faces starting to be clear. And some of them looked familiar.


    "No," I whispered, recognizing a scout from the River Pack who’d vanished months ago. "That’s impossible."


    "The Council has been feeding the Architect victims for centuries," Caleb said in fear. "Every dimensional traveler they’ve killed, every world they’ve destroyed - it all ends up in the void."


    As the army got closer, I saw more faces I recognized. Wolves from nearby packs who’d vanished. Humans from nearby towns who’d simply vanished. Even some pack members from our own past who’d died under mysterious circumstances.


    "They’re not evil," I realized with increasing dread. "They’re just lost. Trapped in nothingness and used as weapons."


    The first of the soul-army reached our clearing, and I found myself face to face with an old friend who’d died in a shooting ident years ago.


    "Marcus?" I said, using his name even though I knew he couldn’t hear me anymore.


    The thing that had been Marcus opened its mouth, and instead of words, only void came out.


    Our pack bond was strong, but how do you fight an army of the dead without bing monsters yourself?


    And worse - if we lost this fight, would we join them in the void, forced to attack the next world that tried to resist the Architect’s control?


    The answer came to me as the soul-army surrounded uspletely.


    We were about to find out.