Howl of the Werewolf

Upon hearing Victor's praise, Yarrow was completely stunned. His lips moved for a long time, but in the end, he could only manage a flustered, silly laugh.

He didn't really understand terms like "Construct Studies" or "prototype."

What he was thinking was actually very simple.

As long as you work with the lord and the teacher, you'll have hot soup to drink and a place to sleep. You won't have to go back to the quarry to wait to die. That's the best life.

Shien glanced at Yarrow, then turned around and strode to the territory defense Sand Table that occupied half of the high platform.

"There are only three months left to prepare before the Blood Moon Season truly descends." Shien tapped his fingers heavily twice on the edge of the Sand Table.

"Continue to increase the production rate of standard Semi-Automatic Steam Repeating Crossbow. I want every section of the defensive line, every possible blind spot for fire, to be equipped with one of these—city walls, bunkers, outer slopes—not a single one should be left undefended."

After he finished speaking, his hand fell on the high points marked on the inner wall.

"As for this heavy Prototype, now that the deadlocks of yield rate and consumables have been resolved, let's not let it remain on the drawing board and the test firing range any longer."

Before the Blood Moon rises, I need at least one Heavy Repeating Crossbow positioned on each of the seven core high points within the inner wall.

Victor's breathing became heavier; this request was actually quite demanding.

Shien continued, "I want them to cover the front of the inner wall and the high altitude on both wings. No matter what comes up, if it dares to press into the airspace above Blackpine Fief, it will have to crash into this net first."

For a moment, no one spoke up on the high platform. Such a request was too extreme, but no one asked for leniency either. After all, in the Blood Moon Season, every extra crossbow meant a greater chance of survival.

Shien wasn't finished speaking when he turned to Victor: "And those four portions of Tier Three Sourceblood, now that the Heavy Repeating Crossbow no longer need to be used to fill the boilers, let's not let them lie in the warehouse and get moldy. Let's squeeze them dry."

Upon hearing this, Victor's one cloudy eye suddenly lit up. "Lord... to be honest, I've been thinking about how to use those few portions of Tier Three Sourceblood these past few nights, even in my sleep."

He said he pulled out several rolls of yellowed parchment from his pocket and spread them out on the Sand Table almost as if he were slapping them.

"These are all things I was working on back then. The reason I couldn't do them before wasn't because my ideas were flawed, but because my precision was insufficient."

He whirled around, grabbed the still-dazed Yarrow, and dragged him in front of the blueprints, his rough left hand pressing firmly on the boy's shoulder:

"But things are different now. With this kid around, those things that could only exist on paper in the past might actually be achievable."

At this point, Victor grinned, his wrinkles deepening. "Once it's finished, we can test it on those Werewolf and Ghoul in the wasteland and see just how hard their bones are."

"Boom!"

A muffled thud echoed from the depths of the Eternal Night Wastes.

A Mutated Dead Tree, as thick as three people could hug, was smashed and snapped in two, sending splinters and debris flying everywhere.

A Third Tier Mutated Ironclad Mammoth, its size comparable to a small fortress, was charging forward like a madman, its hooves pounding the Frozen Tundra.

Its heavy bone armor, which should have been difficult even for the Resonance Realm Knight to penetrate in one go, now had several cracks, so deep that flesh was visible, and blood was flowing down the seams.

Its thick, long nose kept spewing out white vapor with a fishy smell, clearly indicating that it had been driven to a dead end.

Following behind it were only a few burly black figures hidden in the Gray Fog.

They did not form ranks or possess any weapons; they relied solely on their explosive power to leap and pounce among the rocks, dead trees, and cliffs.

The speed was astonishing, yet it deliberately held back the final strike, as if it were enjoying the process of driving its prey mad little by little.

The armored mammoth finally retreated into a dead end between a cliff and a rocky outcrop.

It suddenly turned around, letting out a piercing screech, and its thick, long bone teeth swept out with a whooshing sound, slamming into the chest of the Werewolf at the front.

A dull, piercing sound rang out.

The Werewolf, which was over two and a half meters tall, was lifted off the ground and hung in mid-air.

If it were a human Resonance Realm Knight, such injuries would have killed them long ago.

But the Werewolf merely grinned, its blood-stained mouth emitting a low, whistling laugh.

He gripped the bone tooth piercing his chest with both hands, his arm muscles bulging. The next instant, with a crisp, ear-piercing snapping sound, the thick bone tooth was broken off by him.

He casually tossed the broken tooth into the mud, and the horrible bloody hole in his chest writhed rapidly in the Blood Moon, flesh and blood intertwining, before closing up again in just a few breaths.

Above the cliff, an even taller, darker shadow crashed down.

Jarro, the Werewolf Vanguard Commander.

Without any fancy moves, he used the momentum of his fall to swing his right arm and punch the armored mammoth squarely on the head.

The thick bone plate burst open on the spot.

The mammoth's entire body was knocked to the side, and before it could even struggle, Jarro reached into the crack in the shattered skull, and with a powerful roar, he tore the massive head apart.

Scalding hot animal blood mixed with bits of flesh was poured over them, staining the entire Frozen Tundra red.

The surrounding wolves immediately swarmed around it, their sharp claws tearing through the thick hide as they began to gnaw.

The muscles were still twitching, but their mouths were already full of blood.

A Werewolf spat out a piece of hairy flesh, its eerie green vertical pupils filled with irritation.

"It's sour and tough, like chewing tree bark. Human flesh is much better, especially that of armored human Knight."

Jarro wiped the beast blood from his face, revealing his jagged fangs, and let out a low chuckle.

"Just a few more months, until the Blood Moon truly crushes everything. The Graymist Defense Zone will be littered with flesh. I still remember the sound of that human lord's bones breaking in his mouth last winter."

Another terrifyingly strong Werewolf kicked half of the mammoth's carcass far away, exhaling hot, sparking breath from his nostrils.

"If it weren't for the higher-ups making us wait, I would have already stepped into the human walls. Making us work alongside Ghoul, using that rotten flesh to fill the human crossbow bolts and traps, is disgusting."

Jarro slowly straightened up.

His nearly three-meter-tall frame stood in the pool of blood, like a moving black wall. His bloodshot green eyes looked across the wasteland towards the unseen human defense line to the south.

"Shut up," he growled, silencing the surrounding commotion. "Since those guys like to grind down human bones first, let the Ghoul fill the trenches then. When the Blood Moon is truly full, when our blood is fully warmed..."

He raised his claws and scratched five deep gashes into the rock wall beside him. "No one in the Graymist Defense Zone will escape. Whoever gets in my way, I'll tear them apart first."

A fierce wind swept across the wasteland.

Jarro stepped onto the mammoth's mangled carcass, raised his head to the not-yet-full Blood Moon in the sky, and let out a long, drawn-out wolf howl.

"Awooo--!!!"

The next instant, wolf howls echoed from all directions amidst the Gray Fog mist.

One, two, ten, hundreds of sounds rose and fell, echoing across the wasteland.