Chapter 88: Chapter 88 Blood Stone

After cleaning up on his end, Zion made his way to the nearest designated mud room—one of several scattered throughout the pack territory. These rooms were stocked with spare clothing for werewolves returning from a run or for warriors who needed a change after shifting, especially in cases where their clothes had torn during transformation and they hadn’t had time to remove them beforehand.

Zion pulled a simple pair of pants and a shirt from the clean basket, along with a towel. He wiped the blood from his body before slipping into the fresh clothes. He didn’t bother with shoes—he’d walk barefoot for now. It wasn’t the first time anyway.

After changing, Zion headed straight to the clearing where his warriors had lined up the bodies of the fallen attackers. Among his own forces, five warriors were heavily injured, three had been killed, and seven sustained minor injuries. The critically wounded were immediately rushed to the pack hospital for treatment, while those with minor wounds remained behind—letting their wolves heal them naturally as they assisted in organizing the fallen enemies in the clearing.

Those who were uninjured were promptly sent back to guard the perimeter and sweep the area beyond the borders, scanning for any remaining enemies who might be hiding and waiting to launch another attack.

Zion moved methodically through the clearing, inspecting the bodies of the dead rogues one by one. Aside from a single individual who had died in human form, the rest had perished in their wolf forms. As he examined them, he noted that about one-third was probably what they suspected, who came from another pack, judging by their scent and build, while the majority were unmistakably rogues.

While checking one of the rogue werewolves, something glinting caught Zion’s eye. He leaned closer and discovered a stud earring embedded in the wolf’s ear. A quick sweep revealed that each of the rogues wore identical earrings, each set with a small mana stone.

Zion’s eyes narrowed. This was highly unusual.

“Levi,” he called out, connecting to his newly appointed Beta. “Did the rogues on your side also have stud earrings with blood stones?”

“It looks like it… The ones pretending to blend in with the rogues don’t have any earrings,” Levi responded through the mindlink, his tone thoughtful. “Could it be a way to distinguish ranks among them?”

He, too, was crouched beside one of the fallen rogues, carefully inspecting the body for anything else that might serve as a clue.

“It could also be a tracker—or a method to control the rogues,” Zion added. His tone held no hesitation; it wasn’t a suggestion but a firm statement. He crouched low, inspecting the stud earrings without touching them.

Though the stones embedded in the earrings were classified as mana stones, these were a specific and sinister kind—blood stones. Unlike naturally formed mana crystals, blood stones were created through a gruesome process: the crystallized result of sacrificial blood from a ritual involving hundreds of lives. To form even a single stone, dark mages and witches had to perform a ritual that lasted seven days and seven nights without rest.

The process, as described in the ancient texts Zion had studied, was nothing short of inhumane. These texts recounted the dark era of history, centuries ago, when corrupted mages and witches formed a cult-like faction. In their obsession with immortality, they committed horrific acts, believing they could achieve eternal life without becoming vampires.

While vampires were truly immortal unless killed, other long-lived races such as werewolves, elves, and dragons still aged—albeit slowly—and eventually died.

Seeking to surpass those limits, these cultists resorted to unnatural rituals, creating blood stones with the capacity to store far more mana than ordinary stones. Natural mana stones, while powerful, varied in purity and potency—and even locating a mana stone mine was a rare feat. Artificial blood stones, however, were a shortcut fueled by death and suffering.

Most mana stone mines were tightly controlled by the royal families of each race. These resources were too powerful—and too dangerous—to be left unguarded. The royals ensured strict oversight to prevent dark mages and witches from acquiring the stones and unleashing havoc on their lands.

Because of this, the corrupted dark mages and witches had to find an alternative. And they did—through one of the most horrific rituals ever devised.

They created blood stones.

To do this, they performed a ritual that required living beings—preferably humans, shifters like werewolves, or other mana-bearing species. The more vitality and potential a subject had, the more potent the resulting blood stone. Victims were placed in the center of an enormous, intricately carved magic circle. Once the ritual began, they would slowly bleed to death over seven days and seven nights. Blood seeped from every orifice, drawn out not by wounds, but by the insidious magic itself.

It was a death not just painful—but prolonged, inescapable, and humiliating.

Worse still, the perpetrators saw their victims as nothing more than livestock. They captured anyone they could—children, adults, anyone alive—because the ritual required living subjects. A single dead body would ruin the process. So, the victims had to remain alive through the entirety of their torment… just long enough to die at the end.

Once blood stones were in their possession, dark mages and witches could perform countless forbidden spells and deadly curses. From what Zion remembered, the origin of this cult-like faction traced back to a dark witch—one who had been purged by the Saintess from the Sacred Land centuries ago. Her name had been lost to time, but her legacy of terror was well-recorded.

It was said this witch had committed unspeakable acts during her lifetime. She placed devastating curses upon countless royal bloodlines, ensuring they would wither and die out across generations. She also obsessively researched immortality, allegedly stealing vitality and life force from her victims through elaborate curses. Whether she ever succeeded in unlocking the secret to eternal life remained a mystery—none of the ancient texts offered a conclusive answer.

According to the recorded history, the dark witch and her entire cult were supposed to have been wiped out long ago. Yet here it was: a blood stone. Proof that something—some remnant of her cult—had survived.

Was this stone a leftover artifact from that dark era? Or worse, did it signal a revival?

Zion didn’t have the answer. But he knew one thing for sure—these things weren’t safe to touch. For all he knew, the stones could be cursed or linked to a tracking spell. It was sheer luck that he had spotted the blood stone before making contact. Had he picked it up without caution, the consequences could’ve been disastrous.

And it was even more fortunate that he’d called Levi’s attention to it when he did—because Levi had been just about to reach for it.

Zion’s gaze darkened as he scanned the lifeless bodies laid across the clearing. A grim realization settled over him—this wasn’t just a problem his pack should worry about. Something far more dangerous was unfolding, and the pieces weren’t aligning the way they should.

He could no longer be certain whether these werewolves truly hailed from specific packs within the werewolf kingdom, or if they were connected to the remnants of the dark witch’s cult.

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