Chapter 78: Chapter 78: Werewolf “Enhancer

Lila’s POV

Zoe’s fingertip tapped lightly on the cool metal casing. It was like the final warning before the gears of some ancient machine engaged.

The sound was faint, yet it beat like a silent drum deep within my ears.

Then, she rose. Her skirt brushed against the Persian rug with a soft rustle. She walked toward the door of the lounge, her steps light and her smile as bright as ever, as if the plotting and confrontation between the three of us had never happened.

“Everyone—” She stood in the center of the deck, her voice clear, cutting through the sea breeze and the afterglow. “The party’s ending early! ’The Mommy’ isn’t docking tonight. We’re sailing straight back to Jade Sea Bay!”

As her words fell, the laughter floating across the deck was abruptly frozen, as if an invisible hand had slammed the pause button.

The sea breeze was still gentle, caressing everyone’s hair and clothes, but a tense, indescribable silence had quietly settled into it.

The champagne flute in Lilith’s hand, beaded with condensation, suddenly cracked and shattered, splashing her moon-white skirt.

She forced a smile. “So soon? But I haven’t…”

“Haven’t had a dance with Caleb yet?” Zoe cut in instantly. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes; it was like a thin layer of glaze on porcelain. “Next time, perhaps. After all—” Her gaze swept over the Wolf Head Pendant on my neck, her eyes calm but carrying an undeniable weight. “Some things are far more important than dancing.”

Lilith bit her lower lip and said no more. In the sunset, the deep berry-red of her lipstick seemed all the more pale and fragile.

Martha stood quietly to the side, her cream-colored cashmere cardigan billowing slightly in the sea breeze like a silent, unfurling flag. She didn’t ask why. She simply placed her hand gently over her daughter’s clenched fist. Her touch was steady, possessing the kind of certainty only a seasoned veteran has when calming a restless mount.

She lifted her gaze to the distance—

At the edge of the horizon, the dark silhouette of a mountain was slowly emerging. Its outline was stark and cold, like a great beast lying in wait. That was Eagle’s Beak Cliff. The location of Moon Hidden Villa. The most treacherous, isolated, and inviolable point in these waters.

She knew the real storm was just beginning.

————

In the study of Moon Hidden Villa, the heavy oak door closed without a sound.

The soft CLICK of the turning hinge was like an invisible floodgate, shutting out all the noise, the sea breeze, and the last rays of twilight from the world outside.

Pine logs crackled in the fireplace, their warm light dancing and flowing over the towering, wall-to-wall bookshelves. The yellowed spines of ancient books, scattered manuscript pages, and a few framed, boldly-lined totems of wolf heads all revealed the heavy weight of time itself in the glow.

Jasper hadn’t changed.

He sat behind the large walnut desk, his posture ramrod straight. The shoulders of his dark gray turtleneck still held a few fine specks of ocher dust from the red soil of Black Water Town, like tiny, solidified scabs of blood. Spread before him was a yellowed parchment map: the original survey of Black Water Town’s underground drainage system. Its edges, worn soft from repeated handling, seemed to exude a tired but stubborn vitality, as if soaked in the touch of countless eyes and fingers.

I sat in the armchair to his left.

Zoe, meanwhile, was lounging on the daybed by the window, her bare feet on the Persian rug. She was toying with a copper gear that Jasper had brought back from Black Water Town. It was only the size of a thumb, with coarse teeth and edges covered in fine scratches and dark brown rust. If you got close, you could even catch a faint, acrid smell of gunpowder mixed with rust—the smell of Black Water Town, the scent of death and madness.

Jasper spoke.

His voice was low, like a rumble from deep within the earth’s crust. Every word carried an undeniable, crushing weight:

“We found Derek’s secret weapon in Black Water Town.”

His fingertip tapped on a cross-shaped structure in the center of the map, which was marked with a red circle. The circle looked like a fresh, unhealed wound.

“In Black Water Town, there are thirty-seven abandoned mine shafts, an old railway sealed with concrete by Derek’s collaborator, the drug lord El Jefe, and a place called the ’Holy Mother Sanatorium’ built over a sulfur spring.”

He slid a photograph to the edge of the desk.

The picture showed several rows of stainless-steel cultivation vats. The tanks were cold, reflecting a ghastly white light. The liquid inside glowed with a strange, nauseating, ghostly green fluorescence, like a polluted, living swamp. The wall of each vat was etched with a miniature wolf head pattern, its lines twisted with a blasphemous fervor. The vats were connected by thick tubes that converged into a humming centrifuge in the center. A faded German label was printed on its body: “Volksheld Pharma – Batch #7.”

“This isn’t medicine,” Jasper said, his gaze sweeping over me, his voice terrifyingly calm. “It’s an ’Enhancer’.”

He paused, his Adam’s apple bobbing as if he were swallowing a mouthful of bitter sand.

“It amplifies adrenaline and synaptic activity—making a Werewolf obey commands while fully conscious. It increases their strength by forty percent and raises their pain threshold to three times the normal level.”

He pulled out a second photograph and placed it next to the first.

In this one were several men in black combat gear. Their muscles were knotted, their eyes were empty, and their faces were devoid of any expression. All that remained was a pure, inhuman obedience, as if their souls had been completely drained. One of them was on one knee with his hands on the ground. Beneath him were several shattered pieces of five-centimeter-thick bulletproof glass.

“The first test subjects were from Derek’s ’Gray Wolf’ commando unit.” Jasper’s voice was like a cold knife, slowly dissecting the truth. “They can now tear through bulletproof glass with their bare hands, yet they’ll instantly shatter their own kneecaps for Derek at the simple command, ’Kneel.’”

My stomach clenched violently, as if seized by an invisible hand. A thick, metallic sweetness rose in my throat.

Zoe tossed the copper gear up and caught it. The crisp clang of metal in the silent study was like a bullet piercing an eardrum.

“What about the Elder Council?” She frowned. “They can’t just stand by and watch him turn the Wolf Clan into a living army.”

Jasper tugged at the corner of his mouth.

The curve held no warmth, like a cold fissure torn open by force.

He pulled out a third document. Its pages were charred at the edges, as if licked by fire, and gave off a faint, unsettling, burnt smell.

“A handwritten letter from Great Elder Darius.” His voice grew deeper, tinged with a strange, almost pitying weariness. “He called Derek’s sanatorium ’a purgatory that blasphemes the Moon Crown’ and ordered that no Wolf Clan resources be directed to Black Water Town.”

My heart leaped, and I subconsciously held my breath.

“Then…”

“That order became void three months ago.” Jasper flipped over a bank statement and pushed it toward us.

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