As the sun set, the last stubborn ray of sunlight clung to the edge of the forest, turning the sea of trees gold.
Leonard stood atop the tip of a vine above that golden forest canopy, scattering the seeds in his hand around the castle.
The seeds took root the moment they hit the ground. Thorn-covered brambles shot upward in dense clusters, gradually surrounding the castle. Countless thorns twisted together and sealed off every entrance and exit.
Mixed among them were smooth vines, piercing into the void itself and locking down the entire area in space.
Now the whole castle had become a sealed land. Nothing could enter, and nothing could leave. Within that sealed space, the werewolves fleeing for their lives would be hunted by a pack of enhanced werewolves.
It was a one-sided slaughter. The other side had no hope of surviving.
...
Wolver burst out of the dungeon in a panic. He no longer cared about the blood all over his body. Right now, all he wanted was to find his men and get out of here as fast as possible.
Just as he was about to shout for his werewolf underlings to run, a miserable scream suddenly came from outside the castle.
Wolver's body jerked, and he looked uncertainly toward the direction the sound had come from.
He suddenly remembered that back in the dungeon, he had thought he heard a scream too.
At the time, he had assumed he was hearing things. But after witnessing Schneider's mutation and self-destruction, Wolver now had another guess.
Those wizards who had come back with Schneider.
If there was something wrong with Schneider, then there was definitely something wrong with those wizards too. Maybe they had all undergone some bizarre transformation, or had even turned into some kind of monsters.
"I can't stay here... I can't worry about the others anymore. I have to leave right now!"
Scared out of his wits, Wolver immediately pulled out his wand and tried to Apparate away, only to discover in horror that Apparition had failed.
"Damn it!" Wolver slammed a fist into the castle wall in fury. Being unable to escape at once only made him even more irritable, especially with the full moon so close.
He could not just sit here and wait to die.
Wolver gripped his wand, his eyes vicious.
If Apparition would not work, then he would use a more direct way out. A window, or something else...
There were no windows on the first floor of the castle. The nearest ones were at least on the third floor.
From here, going to the main gate would still be faster.
But the screams seemed to be coming from the direction of the great hall, and the castle's main gate was there. Going that way sounded dangerous.
Wolver hesitated for a moment, then made up his mind.
No matter what kind of monsters Schneider and his men had turned into, as long as he killed them, he would be safe.
Wolver quickly estimated the time. There were only about forty minutes left before nightfall. If he could not get out within that time, then he would never be able to leave this place.
With that thought, he ran decisively toward the source of the screams.
The best way to get rid of fear was to destroy what caused it.
Yet the farther he went, the more alarmed he became, and his pace grew even faster.
The bloody handprints dragged across the floor, the blood sprayed across the walls, every detail in the corridor showed that something very abnormal had happened here.
But something was not right.
He ran wildly through the dim corridor with a wand in one hand and a kerosene lamp in the other. Because the full moon was approaching, his eyes were already beginning to show signs of partial transformation, turning into eerie green vertical pupils.
At that point, his eyesight was already close to what it would be in full werewolf form, yet he still had not seen a single corpse or even any pieces of one.
Why was there only blood and no bodies?
Could it be...
A terrifying answer came to Wolver's mind, and he swallowed hard.
Had they all been eaten by monsters?
Suddenly, a shriek came from a dark corner of the corridor, and something long and thin shot toward him.
Wolver had not let down his guard. The instant he heard it, he dodged aside and counterattacked on instinct, firing a spell that struck the incoming thing dead on.
The long object exploded, and a rich scent of crushed greenery spread through the corridor.
A wizard stepped out of the darkness with more than a dozen plant tendrils writhing above his head. Under the dim yellow light of the kerosene lamp, a smiling face came into view.
Wolver's heart shuddered. He recognized that smiling face as belonging to one of Schneider's subordinates. Under normal circumstances that alone would not have frightened him, but the sight of a tangle of plant tendrils topped by a human face was more than he could bear.
More importantly, that human-faced monster was standing right in the only passage leading to the great hall. If he did not deal with it, there was no way through.
In the end, the will to survive and his savage nature overcame his fear. Faced with a monster he could not understand, Wolver chose to attack.
"Damn monster, die!"
Wolver's face twisted viciously as he cast Fiendfyre, summoning a great mass of flames to surge toward the monster.
The blazing fire scorched the air and lit up the dark corridor. The monster seemed somewhat wary of the flames and instinctively backed away a few steps.
Seeing that, Wolver's eyes lit up, and without a second thought he rushed forward under the cover of the fire.
The monster leaned against the wall, watching Wolver sprint away without even looking back. The smile on its face looked especially eerie.
Just then, faint footsteps came from the direction Wolver had come from.
The monster turned its face toward the sound, and soon spotted Chercy leading more than a dozen werewolves stealthily down the corridor through the darkness.
They had heard the screams too, so they had instinctively headed toward the source.
But now they were confused, because they had all seen and smelled the blood in the corridor.
What was going on? Had those werewolves been attacked? Could it really be that coincidental?
Chercy could not make sense of the situation, which only made her even more cautious. Gray fur flickered faintly across the surface of her body, ready for her to transform into a werewolf and strike with lightning speed at any moment.
Then a strange figure not far ahead caught her eye.
Who was that? Why were they blocking the corridor? Were they one of those werewolves' companions, or the one who had caused all this bloodshed?
More importantly, why were they standing there? Had they come specifically to block their path?
She raised a hand, signaling everyone to stop. At the same time, both her hands transformed into a pair of powerful wolf claws.
"Calm down, Chercy."
The shadow in the corridor spoke her name, and a burst of flame lit up the figure's face.
It was someone Chercy had never seen before. Behind them, tendrils swayed, each tipped with tiny flames.
Clearly, those plant tendrils were not afraid of fire at all.