Chapter 128

Chapter 128: Chapter 128

Dominic’s Point of View

For nearly three months, we had remained anchored near the borders of the Fairy White Pack—a territory strategically chosen because it was situated not too far from the enemy country, yet not too close to the main trade lines, surrounded by countless jagged mountains that provided the perfect tactical cover to hide our operations and lure the thieves directly into our trap.

But for three long months, the darkness had remained entirely silent.

"Master Dominic," Blade whispered from the shadows of our hidden cave outpost. "The scouts have circled the valley twice, but we have caught no trace of the disc."

"The thief is a patient predator, Blade," I rumbled back, keeping my voice low so it wouldn’t disrupt the steady breathing of my inner wolf, who was pacing aggressively against the edges of my restraint. "They are waiting for us to grow sloppy. Keep the shadow lines anchored."

Just then, a warrior burst through the hidden hatch, his breath rattling in his throat and his uniform covered in trail dirt. He dropped to one knee before my desk and handed over an unsealed, gold-embossed dispatch seal of the Silvermoon Pack. I unfurled the scroll, and as I read the words:

“Dominic,

The clock has officially run out.

My spies have just confirmed that the Bloodmoon Pack Kingdom has successfully mobilized their entire border vanguard. They are massing their troops along the Great Rift, prepared to launch a full-scale territorial attack against the Evernight Kingdom. If the ancestral iron box and its nation-winning combination device cannot be found and returned within the next few days, a catastrophic, blood-soaked war across the entire shifter realm is completely inevitable. Find it before the winter lines break.

— Alpha Alaric.”

The pressure inside my chest tightened. "I will find it, Father," I whispered.

*

*

*

One Week Later.

Shadow, burst through the hidden gallery hatch and dropped tightly to one knee before my chair.

"Master Dominic, the trap has flared!" Shadow reported urgently, his eyes flashing with a sudden, dark vigilance. "The Fairy White Pack’s lower valley is suddenly swarming with strangers. My scouts have tracked multiple unidentified, heavily armed groups detouring deep into the uncharted mountain tracks, entirely bypassing the primary pack roads."

My instincts roared to life, a savage certainty clicking into my mind that this sudden, chaotic influx of foreign martial artists was directly related to the missing iron box. I stood straight up from my wheelchair, and strapped my twin broadswords to my back.

"Ash, Stone, you will remain behind in this plaza," I commanded flatly, looking at them. "You have one explicit task—use your lives to protect Ivy, who is currently managing the storefront under her physician disguise as Lin. Do not let a single armed person approach the Azure Leafs."

Although, there are other warriors of ours lurking around the pharmacy to protect Ivy.

"By your command, Master Dominic," Ash responded with an intense, unyielding compliance.

I took Blade, Wolf, and Shadow, transformed our pack auras into a low-frequency hum, and personally led our warriors’ strike force to chase the invaders deep into the freezing, mist-shrouded mountains.

The higher paths were treacherous, the rocky crags slick with ice that would have broken the ankles of human soldiers, but our wolf shapes tracked the momentum with a fluid, terrifying precision. As we crested the second ridge, the metallic stench of fresh blood and ruptured internal organs flooded our senses.

The mountain path before us was literally littered with fresh corpses, their shredded leather armor proving that a brutal, silent skirmish had just taken place.

"Master Dominic, look at the orientation of the bodies," Wolf whispered, dropping low behind a jagged boulder as his ears pinned back to analyze the echoes. "My tracking senses confirm that there are at least groups of highly suspicious people out there. They do not know each other at all, and they are moving in a tight, completely on guard against each other’s blades."

"Identify the targets," I hissed through my clenched jaw.

"The primary group is led by a man dressed up as a simple mountain farmer, but his wolf aura is thick and trained," Wolf reported, pointing a calloused finger toward a narrow canyon ledge. "He is carrying a backpack that never leaves his body for a single second, as if it were welded to his spine. It is highly suspected to be filled with the weight of the iron box. The second group is led by a lone, agile woman who is fighting with a pair of silver daggers."

I followed the trail of blood and broken arrows all the way to the jagged mountaintop, keeping our vanguard perfectly concealed within the winter fog. The moment we reached the summit plateau, we encountered a fierce, breathtaking battle already underway.

The masked woman and her surviving companions were surrounded by a massive, aggressive wave of black-clothed men. Her martial arts skills were outstanding, her body moving with a fluid grace as her silver daggers carved through the black-clothed attackers like a whirlwind of razor-sharp claws. With a savage, protective roar, she swung her blade upward, cleanly slicing the throat of the disguised farmer, before throwing her physical frame over her wounded companion to shield them from a hail of crossbow bolts.

"Secure the pack!" I shouted, as I launched my body over the ridge, my broadswords ringing as they parried a stray blade.

I dove directly into the center of the chaotic melee, my steel carving through the remaining black-clothed attackers in a fraction of a second. As the farmer’s lifeless body fell against the stones, I reached down with crushing force and forcefully took the heavy backpack from his shoulders.

"Brother! No!" the masked woman shrieked, her voice cracking with a raw, agonizing hurt as she watched the black-clothed leader drive an iron spear straight through her brother’s torso.

The impact was catastrophic; her brother was seriously injured, his blood pooling across the snow as his body toppled backward over the edge of the thousand-foot cliff face. Without a single second of hesitation, the woman let out a desperate, piercing cry and willingly jumped off the cliff right behind him, wanting to catch his hand before the abyss could claim him.

"Hold!" I roared, realizing she was carrying the remaining secrets of the theft.

I immediately threw my weapons aside and turned into my wolf-shape mid-air, leaping over the precipice to launch a high-speed aerial rescue to drag them back to the ledge. I snapped my jaws toward her silk cloak, but with an unyielding defiance, she twisted her torso in mid-air and aggressively avoided my grasp, choosing the void over my protection.

Her eyes locked onto mine through her mask, and a moment later, she and her eldest brother both sank completely into the black, suffocating darkness of the ravine below, their bodies swallowed by the mountain mists.

I shifted back into my human form, panting heavily as I stood on the edge of the crag, clutching the retrieved backpack tightly against my ribs. Blade and Wolf were already systematically cleaning up the scene, stripping the masks from the fallen dead.

"Master Dominic, you need to see this," Blade called out, his voice dropping to a whisper as he held up a torn, blood-stained tunic from one of the black-clothed men. "This isn’t Bloodmoon work."

I walked over, my eyes narrowing as I inspected the collar of the garment. There, stamped deep into the reinforced leather, was a distinct, stylized "clip mark" dye pattern—a unique, high-grade military insignia that belonged exclusively to the elite vanguards of the Kingdom of Howling Ashes.

My blood turned to ice as the terrifying geopolitical reality crashed over my mind. The delicate, century-old balance of the Three Kingdoms had just been completely shattered tonight. The missing iron box wasn’t just a domestic pack feud anymore.

The entire shifter realm was divided between three massive, warring empires: our own Evernight Kingdom where our Silvermoon Pack held the vanguard lines, our ancient rival the Bloodmoon Kingdom who had openly massed their armies at the Great Rift, and now, the mysterious, predatory Kingdom of Howling Ashes who had secretly intervened in this matter to steal our ancestral scepter.

I realized that the true, blood-soaked war for the throne had just officially begun.