The Devil’s Cage

Amidst the buff figure’s reckless shouting, Kieran who planned to retreat to the valley for a show stopped his steps. He squinted his eyes at the muscular figure throwing himself at him.

A fire at the city gate brings disaster to the fish in the moat.

The fish was innocent yet helpless while being boiled by the water.

However, Kieran was no fish. Even if he was some being under water, it would be a primordial colossal crocodile!

The crocodile would just reveal its head on the surface of the river like a floating log, patiently waiting for its prey. When enraged, it would show its ferocious teeth and anyone responsible would not escape from its wrath.

Kieran would devour them with a single bite!

Bang!

He raised his leg and a kick landed on the buff figure that was charging at him.

The person’s teeth and bones were crushed; his head was deformed so badly even the naked eyes couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be before.

The buff figure was then sent flying backward as if he were being hit by a truck but before he even landed, he was absent of any signs of life.

His body was changing in surprising ways: his head and torso were still human but his limbs transformed into wolf-like limbs.

Not only him but the other three as well.

Bang bang bang!

One kick for each of them and Kieran sent the muscular figures flying away with their comrade.

The bodies of the other three also changed in a similar manner.

Showing mercy?

Mercy was non-existent to Kieran.

The black lady with the felt hat widened her blue eyes uncontrollably at the scene.

When she saw Kieran walking over, her face that was recovering from the disbelief was even more alarmed than before, despite the fact that Kieran was just checking the four strange bodies.

“Not a werewolf?”

Kieran was slightly shocked after checking the bodies.

His results were a lot different than his guesses from before.

Originally, Kieran thought he encountered the famous being that the books wrote about but he didn’t think it was some other being instead.

Based on his knowledge, werewolves could be distinguished into three forms: human, wolf, and hybrid.

Human and wolf form were as their names suggested.

Hybrid, however, was a wolf main body performing action patterns of humans.

In simple words, it was a wolf that could walk with two legs. Its strength was not just enhanced from its common from by 3 to 5 times, it had quite the intellect and would not be taken over by its impulsive natural instinct as well.

Nikorei’s library even had a book titled “Nightwalker Werewolf” and it mentioned a type of special werewolf-vampire hybrid.

Of course, that was a very special kind and could easily be excluded in most situations.

Regardless of which it was, Kieran never came across these kinds of half-man half-wolf weird beings.

After checking the bodies carefully and getting no results, Kieran stood up and turned to the injured lady.

“They are not your orthodox werewolves. Other than this woman here, they are just commoners infected by the wolf plague but they think they are fine and well. I can give you my prey but you must let me leave,” the lady said.

Obviously, after witnessing what Kieran did, the lady knew what correct decisions she should make since she wasn’t that naive.

Kieran shook his head.

“What price do I need to pay to leave? I am just chasing Sharly, I don’t mean any hostility or disrespect to you.” She explained but her palm was gripping her bow hard.

Looking at her reaction, Kieran could guarantee if he requested any kind of outrageous things, the lady would definitely have the resolution to risk her life over it, but…

It was useless.

Kieran appeared behind her in a flash and a clean chop knocked her unconscious on the ground.

Looking at the werewolf, Sharly beside the lady in black who was also unconscious, Kieran’s eyes were glimmering as he was deep in thought.

Supreme Road was so big, why would they appear here instead?

Coincidence?

Sorry, Kieran never believed in that.

He grabbed the two of them and returned to the valley.

He had decided to properly interrogate the two ladies.

…

Sharly felt pain on her body but after the pain, she clearly felt her strength recovering.

That suppressed energy of wildness swiftly exploded from the deepest part of her body, causing her wounds to rapidly heal and dispel the weakness from her body.

Then, Sharly opened her eyes.

She saw Kieran sitting in front of her.

“You saved me?” Sharly was asking the obvious.

Then, she looked down at her body after being treated with and carefully felt the difference.

“You’ve mated with me?”

Sharly asked again since she couldn’t confirm and didn’t know what the difference was.

“No. I bandaged your wounds.”

Kieran pointed on the broken armor on her body.

Sharly’s armor was cut in half; the upper part was enough to cover her chest and with the bottom part removed, Kieran could easily treat her wounds.

“Why didn’t you mate with me?” Sharly looked at Kieran confused.

“Why would I mate with you? And, shouldn’t you say a thank you at least?” Kieran raised a brow.

“T-Thanks,” Sharly stuttered.

Obviously, the werewolf lady didn’t adapt to how humans get along. Kieran also didn’t want to correct her on that, he only wanted to know the things he sought and it would be enough.

“Why did you come here? Or should I ask, why is she hunting you?” Kieran pointed at the unconscious hunter.

“I left my tribe to investigate the wolf plague. Then, I ran into her around Burning Dawn’s camp and she thought I was the cause of this plague. I’ve tried my best in explaining and that didn’t really work. Especially those who were infected by the wolf plague, they too assumed me as the cause, my explanation became useless.”

“I don’t want to fight her because it will only help the real mastermind behind everything. So, I left the place and the reason I ended up here is because… I discovered a large number of wolf tracks and had been tracking them down for days, in the end, it led me here. I hoped to borrow the strength of the same kind to aid me,” Sharly replied.

The same kind, a werewolf would treat wolves as its bretheren.

Because of their similar looks and some blood kin of werewolves were actually wolves themselves.

Kieran didn’t have any question on that but there were two other points in her words that concerned Kieran.

First, the wolf pack’s traces.

Second, Burning Dawn.

The former was because Kieran got the wolves less than 2 days ago and the one who controlled the wolves was Modi’s partner in crime.

Kieran couldn’t help but relate to more.

As for the latter, Kieran took in a deep breath.

Despite he had smoothly taken control of Shatterstone Town, he never had any official documents from the city that clearly stated what happened to the Burning Dawn militia, it wasn’t even better than his dungeon world background description.

Now, however, Kieran seemed to have accidentally run into a key factor.

“You are saying you ran into her near Burning Dawn’s camp? So, the so-called wolf plague went viral around the camp or… the camp itself was infected with the wolf plague?”