An energy field shrouded the wilderness.
This was an overlap between a God's Realm and the Material Plane. Without a deity to govern it, the God's Realm had taken the form of a demiplane. It now clung to this stretch of land on the Material Plane, creating a strange resonance. Soren followed the adventurers' trail and soon began finding signs of battle. Beast carcasses littered the surroundings. It looked as though someone had been attacked not long ago.
The God of Hunt—Malar.
From what Soren knew of him, the core of this deity's realm should have been the [Wise Beast]. The extensions of his portfolios—lycanthropes, hunting, beasts, and so on—all served this domain. The power of his God's Realm had already begun changing the surroundings. Malar himself was a highly intelligent beast, and the energy leaking from his God's Realm would gradually transform nearby beasts, awakening their intelligence and turning them into intelligent magical beasts. They would become something like the dangerous winter wolves, capable of using spells and language, and exceedingly cunning and cruel.
An ordinary wolf had an Intelligence of 2, a winter wolf had an Intelligence of 9, and an ordinary human's Intelligence ranged from 9 to 11.
Such a change in intelligence was terrifying.
If beasts became capable of thinking and learning like humans, it would spell disaster for every humanoid race nearby.
Dozens of kilometers into the wilderness.
Soren soon found something. He sensed a planar rift.
"This is the place."
By then, it was already afternoon. Soren found a narrow spatial rift amid a desolate pile of rubble.
It was only about two meters across, with deep darkness inside. Beast carcasses lay nearby, along with some humanoid footprints. A party of adventurers had already entered the God's Realm through this rift.
—"Alter Reality!"
Soren