Throne of the North.

Chapter 731 The Second Orc War (Part 17)

The werewolf organization was in complete chaos.

Clearly, from the silver-haired King Adun to the gray-haired cannon fodder werewolves, everyone was angry at the traitor. Yet, precisely because High Priest Erdi was still alive, the entire werewolf pack became chaotic.

Where do their contradictions lie? The werewolves of each clan are always suspicious of their own clan; otherwise, why didn't the leader kill the traitor? Then, when they hear other clans loudly shouting that their traitors have been devoured, they become even more convinced that other clans are more like pure werewolves than their own.

This led to population movement between clans, which naturally resulted in endless infighting among clans, with everyone arguing about who stole their people.

This wouldn't have happened under any other circumstances, but now all the werewolves' shortcomings have converged here, naturally leading to this change. As for running away from home to join other clans...

It's not considered betrayal if no one minds. After all, when a werewolf joins another clan, the clan leader is happy, and similarly, when another clan joins this clan, the werewolf leader won't miss the opportunity to increase the clan's numbers.

Then this is not betrayal, but rather a just judgment against the failure to punish betrayal.

Abandon darkness and embrace light! How could a true werewolf tolerate the existence of a traitor? The whole world knows that wolf packs are the most united; they would even risk their lives to protect the old, weak, women, and children—something even humans cannot do.

As long as High Priest Erdi is alive, he is a suspect everywhere, especially King Adun of the werewolves.

Many clans were furious, believing that the king had protected the traitor. The werewolves below didn't care about any divine protection; they were governed by the wolf king.

Above the werewolf leader is the werewolf king, and above them are the great gods.

High Priest Erdi was also anxious; he was hoping to wait until the next full moon to have the werewolf army continue to carry out the great divine decree.

That's what it should embrace; the greatness of the Lord is what it cares about. But it didn't expect that an internal war would break out among the werewolves.

This worried Erdi, because if that was the case, how would it attack the human fortress? Its divine power was not enough for a werewolf to break through a human fortress on its own. Even if it could, what would happen after that? It couldn't possibly attack the human empire on its own, could it?
I heard that over there in the neighboring Orcish Kingdom, even the great gods have been sealed away and are being slaughtered by those damned humans. The war in the divine kingdom is incredibly intense, but every day that passes, a large part of the divine essence of the great beings that the orcs serve disappears.

He is likely to die at the hands of these humans.

Whenever he heard such news, High Priest Erdi couldn't help but be shocked. When did humans become so terrifying? They were great beings, far beyond what humans could compare to.

High Priest Erdi, who held absolute reverence for the gods, couldn't understand how the divine war at Hot Springs Fortress had turned out this way.

then.

A month has passed, and it is another full moon day. The nobles and soldiers of the Xiangshan Plain Fortress are on high alert, but they spend the whole night staring at the moon in the sky. Only the faint roars that come through make them shocked and curious about what violent commotion has occurred in the north.

That night, they were destined not to encounter the enemy they had anticipated.

Rhinoceros Horn Mountain.

Ryan stood on the flat ground, his eyes narrowed, staring at the two cages in front of him.

Inside one of the two cages, ten werewolves howled in a low voice. They couldn't suppress their voices and instinctively howled twice, but they didn't care about that. Instead, they looked at the other side in utter shock.

Opposite them, in another cage, a similar number of werewolves went berserk. Their bodies grew larger, expanding to a whole size, their fur became thicker, their eyes turned blood red, and their aura became violent. They unleashed all their blood and energy without restraint. The violent power shocked them, but that was not what they cared about.

"They were called by the wild and became savage beasts."

This is a characteristic of ferocity and rage, but it's not just a single shock.

But...

"Why haven't we changed?"

Under the moonlight, the ten werewolves looked at the opposite side and then at themselves. Their bodies were restless and agitated, not very controllable. However, apart from howling a few times at the beginning along with the werewolves opposite, they did not go berserk. Instead, they watched with reason as their companions were controlled by their wildness.

At this moment, the cage had become bloody. It was a cage forged using the unique metal smelting techniques of the Frozen Territory. Even after these werewolves went berserk, they still couldn't tear open the metal cage. In the confined space, the werewolves, having lost their minds and had no goals, killed each other.

Seeing the bloody scene, the ferocious claws knew nothing of mercy or pity. The splattering of blood and flesh made the werewolves in the other cage tremble. It was unclear whether they were afraid of the bloody scene or because it was a case of werewolves killing each other.

However, as time went on, the moonlight intensified, and the bloody scene in the seemingly nearby cage stirred the bloodlust within the werewolves watching.

They are orcs too, and what orc isn't bloodthirsty? Even without the call of the wild, they would still go berserk.

The sight of blood stirred the ten werewolves, but they instinctively resisted, knowing that if they went berserk today, they would become like their opponents.

Roar!
A huge hand slammed onto the cage, making a deafening sound. Ryan looked over, a mixture of curiosity and anticipation in his eyes.

This werewolf, with its red eyes and constant pounding on its cage, is the most powerful of the ten werewolves and was specially chosen by Ryan. It is comparable to a human Silver Knight and even surpasses a Silver Knight in some basic stats.

Simply put, it is more powerful and must receive more attention from the gods.

However, the spiritual blessings given by Ryan were fair, each only granting ten points of spirituality.

What changes will more divine power and fair spirituality bring to it?

"Ai!?"

Around them, the nine-headed werewolf watched the burly werewolf with unease. The werewolf's body was swelling, and its fur was becoming hard and sharp. The werewolf called Ay was howling and struggling incessantly, pounding on the metal cage. Its increasing strength proved its clan identity, and cracks appeared on the stone slabs below the cage.

Roar! !

It was still roaring, but it kept shaking its head, and finally, it frantically slammed its head against the cage.

"Ouch——"

At one point, the werewolf roared to the sky, looking up at the bright moon through the metal cage.

The nine werewolves around them watched the werewolf that was a head taller than them warily. Unlike the one in the cage opposite them, the other was not swollen, but it had become visibly more muscular.

The werewolf named Ai stretched out his body as far as he could, his head facing the moon and his tail standing upright on the ground. After howling, he turned around.

Its eyes were dark red, carrying a strange ferocity that terrified werewolves, yet it remained quietly in place without moving.

Ayi slowly opened his mouth, roaring incessantly.

“I…roar…I can control…the wild…power—now.”

Hearing it speak, all nine werewolves stared in shock. One werewolf even curiously stretched out its paw, only to be swatted away in the next instant. However, it quickly got up and looked at the werewolf Ay, who hadn't launched a series of attacks, in astonishment. "I...can't...completely control...it, don't...touch me."

"Ayi, can you really control the power of the wild now?"

The werewolf stared at it in shock. The tall, handsome werewolf was incredibly powerful. If it could truly control its wild power, then its savage body would be absolutely perfect.

On the other side, Ryan also looked thoughtful.

"Can spirituality suppress divinity?"

He was somewhat surprised. Was it a recent change in his spirituality, or was it something that had always been there, but he was only now discovering it?

"No, it shouldn't have appeared suddenly."

"The royal bloodline of the Kingdom of Andara is cursed by the gods, separating the royal bloodline from the extraordinary, but I can make Daryl a legend. It is not purely the power of the [Giant Mammoth] legend."

"And those members of the royal family whom I have blessed are now able to resume their knightly training."

“I always thought it was a spiritual blessing that purified the bloodline curse, but the power of purification should belong exclusively to the Lord of Dawn. What the Andara royal family has always needed is for the bloodline curse within them to be purified.”

"In that case, the curse should have disappeared."

"The real answer is that the power of the curse is suppressed by spirituality. The only difference between humans and werewolves is that the divine curses on humans only require a small amount of spirituality."

"Is it because the human soul is more complete and active? As beastmen, werewolves have different souls. After all, no matter what, humans are the believers that great beings most desire."

“Even the Dragon Emperor of the Nidhogg world went to great lengths to create Dragon Chosen to provide faith, rather than directly obtaining it from the bloodline of dragons.”

"Spirituality..."

Ryan thought about his spiritual panel and the pheromones described by the great serpent spirit.

No wonder the interdimensional war between gods is a war between gods and spirits. Is the divine origin, the Primordial Chaos, and the spirituality mutually suppressing or repelling each other? Or is the spirit stronger than the Primordial Chaos?
Ryan didn't dwell on it. He was genuinely afraid that the next moment his inner thoughts would be sensed by a great being, and then many great beings from outside this world would suddenly and harmoniously join forces to kill him.

The interdimensional war between gods is over. The spirit faction has lost. Ryan is now all alone and can't defeat those great beings.

"That's really strange."

Ryan marveled at the power of the supernatural world, then came to the cage.

Although Lord Ryan was terrified of the gods, in this mortal world, his legendary power still held sway.

With a single slap, terrifying flames engulfed all the wild and ferocious werewolves, pinning them to the ground, unable to move no matter how much they struggled.

Seeing the werewolf tearing at its head with a vicious expression, Ryan pressed his hand down on the creature's head.

"Whoever gets touched by this is a fool."

The spiritual blessing descended, granting ten points of spiritual power. The volatile werewolf before him fell silent, staring blankly at Ryan before looking down at his own body in confusion.

"I……"

Across from them, the werewolves in the cage saw it all clearly, especially Ayi, who had witnessed firsthand the struggle in the werewolf controlled by wildness—a battle between reason and savagery.

Soon, all the werewolves fell silent, staring at Ryan in shock and confusion, bewildered as to what had happened, though they still remembered their wild and ferocious nature.

They simply see things beyond their comprehension.

The once ferocious, savage, and restless werewolf lay on the ground in a daze, motionless, its body, which had swelled up due to the depletion of its vital energy, shrinking slightly.

Their wildness has been dispelled. Although they still have a restless desire to tear everything around them apart, they are different from before. They can now clearly recognize what kind of environment and what things are around them.

Instead of a blood-red expanse, they rely on their perception of blood to locate living creatures and kill unconsciously.

"I don't know if spiritual blessings can awaken the divine beings' retinue."

Ryan had no idea what the werewolves were thinking; their minds were probably a complete mess right now. But Ryan himself was pondering a question.

Those are family members.

In this world, for any kind of life, getting close to the divine is dangerous.

Whether human, orc, or beast, even dragons are no exception.

Back then, in the Kingdom of Andara, the god Surtur descended into the body of the royal crown prince Hernan, and could easily turn the kingdom's soldiers into His servants, into those monsters covered in bone.

Surtur did the same thing in Nidhogg, as did that demonic dragon, which could also mutate dragons.

And the frost giants, who became servants of the dragons, were also because they were too close to the great beings.

Even Ryan himself used Surtur's body to turn the werewolf clan that had invaded the Frozen Territory into his followers to fight for him.

These are the gods, the great gods. Mortals who approach them will have their flesh and even their souls twisted by the aura they emit, turning them into their soldiers, fighting for the gods on the battlefield of the divine kingdom.

Therefore, in the transdimensional war more than a hundred years ago, none of the armies and participants in the transdimensional world survived.

Believers get too close and become followers. The reason why this didn't happen much before was because the gods were in a state of chaos and never thought of contacting the ants inside the world.

The gods have no intention of approaching ants, so the ants naturally won't experience much of becoming their followers.

This left Ryan with no experience to investigate.

"We'll just have to figure it out ourselves later."

Ryan instinctively felt that even if it were possible to normalize the family, the spiritual energy required would be an even greater number.

(End of this chapter)