Blood Moon

"Stop overthinking!

It's just an ordinary technological parallel world... Ordinary my ass!

Damn it, who gets isekai'd without a cheat ability?!"

Brian slapped himself twice. Only with the pain did he manage to suppress the wild thoughts in his mind again.

He quickly made himself some sandwiches.

Enough to fill his stomach.

Carrying the brewed Chinese medicine, Brian went out to the balcony.

It was about six in the evening.

In Los Angeles in September, the sky had not yet completely darkened at this hour.

The streetlights in the neighborhood were already on.

Near the public facilities, he could see families playing in the community with their children.

On the roads, exhausted office workers had just gotten off work, yet they kept smiles on their faces as they warmly greeted passing residents.

Everyone here looked polite, neatly dressed, and wore standard smiles, as if they had all put on identical masks. Yet there was something unnatural about them, like ordinary people with no real foundation trying their best to imitate the lifestyles of the upper class.

The reason was simple.

Even if the residents here were not tenants like Brian, they still could not be considered wealthy.

The truly rich would not live here.

Brian withdrew his gaze and looked up at the sky.

Dusk and night were meeting in a dim haze. The afterglow of the setting sun had yet to disappear completely, while the bright moon had not risen, making the sky seem somewhat gloomy.

It was a strange feeling.

This gloom was not the kind caused by the sky growing dark. It was more like the heavens were covered by a layer of fine, unknown dust, scattering the light so it could not properly penetrate and reach the ground.

Watching it for too long even made him feel uncomfortable.

Brian studied the sky for several seconds before looking away.

Frowning, he drained the Chinese medicine in one gulp. Only when the hot liquid churned through his stomach, radiated warmth, and seeped out through his pores as a light sweat did he let out a satisfied breath of hot air and turn back into the living room.

He went to the computer.

Brian opened the control software for the hidden surveillance cameras in the living room, rewound the footage to the moment his uncle barged into the apartment, and began analyzing it frame by frame.

The earlier scene appeared before him once more.

Before entering the apartment, Uncle Billy had walked straight toward him and had not seemed at all surprised that he was home.

That meant the man had always kept track of his movements.

This was also something Brian had never understood.

Because the fact that he had nearly been buried alive the moment he resigned proved that the family had additional informants within the Forensic Bureau.

Even if he had not joined that so-called Criminal Experiment Team, Uncle Billy had the means to arrange for someone else to join.

They did not need him at all!

The previous excuse about having him verify a password simply did not make sense logically!

The key was what had happened before Brian tried to resign.

Uncle Billy had always treated Brian kindly, valued him highly, and shown concern for him.

But after that incident, his uncle's attitude had subtly changed.

For example, after Brian's adoptive parents became seriously ill, he had asked the family for help, only to be directly refused by Uncle Billy. In the end, only a cousin he was fairly close with had helped him out, lending him some money to get through the crisis.

Perhaps it was then.

That Uncle Billy had thought of using money to put another shackle on Brian, lest he run away in secret.

And the reaction of burying him alive had been far too strange.

His attitude toward the family had always been obvious. If they had something to say, they could have just said it. Yet they had used the threat of burying him alive. It was completely abnormal, as though they had done it deliberately.

So what exactly was Uncle Billy's purpose?

As the surveillance footage progressed, it soon reached the point when Uncle Billy was preparing to leave.

Brian slowed the playback speed to its lowest setting and focused.

In the footage.

His uncle stood up and was about to leave, but then seemed to remember something. He casually turned back and suggested that Brian watch the Blood Moon phenomenon tonight, an event that occurred only once every thirty years.

Brian watched it once and felt that nothing seemed wrong.

The footage continued.

When Brian casually brought up his part-time job and gave a perfunctory reply.

Uncle Billy showed an obvious change in the footage.

Brian held his breath, his eyes fixed on the changes in his uncle's body. It seemed that Uncle Billy had been provoked by his words. His already bear-like, powerful body instantly swelled by another third, then returned to normal the moment he turned away!

"What the hell?"

If the surveillance footage had not captured it so clearly, Brian would have almost thought he was hallucinating again.

He instinctively thought of his uncle's inhuman eyes earlier.

It was not an illusion!

This was not an illusion!

With his understanding of the human body, Brian was absolutely certain that this was not a change a normal human could make!

He felt as if his worldview had been thrown into chaos.

A werewolf?

Or some other monster?

Would the more than ten pounds of explosives he had prepared.

Really be enough to deal with an uncle like that?

Besides, Uncle Billy's purpose in coming this time did not seem to be the so-called Three-Year Pact or secret at all. It seemed to be making him watch the moon???

Could it be that he was about to awaken some kind of werewolf bloodline too?

"My head hurts!"

Brian scratched his head. It felt a little itchy.

Without knowing the key information, he simply could not figure anything out.

Brian hurriedly washed his face. Only after calming down again did he begin his analysis:

According to his uncle.

He had arranged for Brian to enter the Forensic Bureau so that he could join the Criminal Experiment Team and verify whether the secret that could give the Camo Family a chance to become great again was real.

But according to the frame-by-frame analysis of the surveillance footage.

This uncle, who did not seem human, appeared to care more about today's Blood Moon phenomenon.

More precisely.

He cared more about whether Brian could watch the moon on time.

He had even come to Brian's home specifically, using the Three-Year Pact as an excuse to remind and threaten him.

Although Brian felt that his speculation was absurd.

Once all impossibilities were ruled out.

There was only one truth!

That was, in Uncle Billy's subconscious, Brian watching the moon = that so-called secret = the correct path to making the Camo Family great again.

If this was the truth.

A new question surfaced in Brian's mind: What secret did this Blood Moon phenomenon, which appeared once every thirty years, conceal?

Could it really have something to do with werewolves or something similar?

Brian decided not to work his part-time job today.

He was going to watch the moon!

Eleven at night.

Yawning, Brian sat on the balcony, his bleary eyes gazing at the dim sky overhead. Under the light pollution, there were only a few tiny stars scattered above, along with a silver moon hanging in the air, without the slightest trace of blood-red color.

It was almost midnight.

He began to wonder whether this so-called Blood Moon phenomenon would even appear tonight.

Before this, he had already searched online for records of this Blood Moon phenomenon, which was completely different from the Blood Moon in his previous life. Yet he had found nothing unusual. Instead, many folk cults had used the Blood Moon phenomenon to promote doomsday theories and cause numerous bloody incidents, earning themselves an infamous reputation.

As his thoughts wandered.

The clamor and cries of surprise from his neighbors drifted over from afar. "The moon has turned red! Oh God, it's incredible!"

A faint layer of blood-red rapidly covered the silver-gray light that had been spilling down, filling the surrounding environment with sinister oppression. It was as if Satan had descended upon the world, or as if a vision of hell had stretched across the heavens, casting down chain-like tentacles toward the human realm.

Almost at the same time.

Brian's body stiffened beneath the blood-red moonlight.

As if he had lost consciousness, he raised his head with a blank expression and stared overhead without moving, as though he wanted to brand that eerie blood-red moon into the deepest depths of his eyes.

The Blood Moon had truly descended!

Once I finish revising the saved chapters over the next couple of days, I'll try to update at a fixed time.

Good night, brothers.