Black Thunderstorm and the Iron Wall of Order

Gray fog rolled slowly across the wasteland.

Jarro stood motionless atop a jutting black rock.

As the werewolf leader, he was larger than the others. His body, more than three meters long, rose and fell slightly as a low, muffled breath kept pressing from his chest.

His green, slit-pupiled eyes swept the ground below. He saw human bones gnawed white, great patches of congealed black blood, and the remains of defensive lines burned through and smashed apart.

For ten miles around, there was not a trace of a living person.

Jarro's nostrils flared, then slowly tightened. He knew that smell: ghouls.

Those ghouls, fit only to trail behind and gnaw rotten meat, had gotten ahead of him and scoured this place first.

To a werewolf, those vermin had never been true kin, much less Dark Races that stood on equal footing with him.

They were parasites wrapped in rotting skin, vermin that crawled forward on sheer numbers and filth. They deserved only to follow the strong and lick the leftover bones clean.

Yet these creatures had passed him and set foot in the hunting ground he should have torn open. That alone was a desecration and a challenge.

He had not felt flesh part beneath his claws or heard prey scream in despair. The savage blood the Blood Moon had poured into his bones still burned, until all four of his limbs began to itch.

That pent-up fury kept building, until it hardened into an almost instinctive rage.

Jarro's mouth slowly spread, exposing a row of stark-white fangs. An irrepressible growl rolled from deep in his throat.

He jerked his neck up. His gaze pierced the churning gray fog and fixed on a distant speck of Platinum Sacred Flame that still shone.

Blackpine Fief.

To a Fourth Tier werewolf's eyes,