※ Chapter 12 ※

Yifan's POV »☆●

It's our third day travelling towards Mingluan. Although we took breaks for eating and resting, there's still a dull soreness in my feet from all the walking. When we start walking again, the frigid wind blasts through my armor. As night falls, I notice the glow of thousand of lights on the horizon.

"I didn't know there was a town here," I whisper to Tao.

He frowns, equally confused by the glow, "That's no town."

That's surely not Mingluan. We're probably taking break here for dinner. But that doesn't explain the light. It seems like there are people there already.

"Let's go find out," I implore Tao, grabbing his hands, I drag him towards the entrance.

A large army camp covers the area, thousands of tents and campfires packed in neat defensive rows. A scout leads us to the leader himself.

"I'm Do Kyungsoo. What's your business on the Jinan?" he asks looking straight at me. And while he does, I hear footsteps approaching us. Mark stands next to me.

As they both bow and greet each other like they know each other well, Tao leans towards me, trying not to turn his head, "Is that really D.O.?"

I give him a sidelong look and shrug, "He's got the fucking badge and the army. Seems like D.O. to me."

I study D.O. covertly. It's strange to see him as just a man, short and dressed in armor like us, far from the god some people claim him to be.

He's a mercenary leader, whose been leading the largest army of mercenaries in Five Kingdoms. His reputation isn't unknown to anyone. Apparently he's also a stateman now. My guess is Mark allied with him to broaden the army while promising him a position, probably the crown shield because his son is the King regent.

"Be welcome, Marshall Mark's army!" D.O. announces.

Mark bows, "We appreciate your hospitality."

With hundreds of his soldiers watching, he claps Mark on the back and smiles broadly, "My men have spent years away from the entertainment of Nanjing. Perhaps you can have your army give us a show."

The soldiers cheer and I roll my eyes. Mark looks over us, his eyes coming to rest on me.

"Sure," he smiles.

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A short while later, me and Tao are fully armed and armored in a makeshift ring.

Mark steps in the center of the ring, looking around to the gathered large army of mercenaries, "Mercenaries behold, the

Captain of our most powerful team, Adelan Antares! And against him, his brother himself, master of trident and net, Taozhu Trystan!"

Around the ring, the gathered mercenaries roar their approval. Tao and I look at each other, both of us too bored for all these fucking enthusiasm being thrown at us.

I hang back, waiting to see his first move. As he lowers his trident, I raise my axe to block it. I swing my axe lightly to the left, then as he brings his trident around, I whip it back to the right, leaping forward with a heavy chop.

Bringing his trident over his head, he charges at me. I swing my axe low, going under his trident. I soften the blow as much as I can, but the axe still bites hard into the leather armor on his legs.

"Yield," I command.

He glances at Mark, who nods imperceptibly. I know Mark isn't so fucking dumb that he'd want his army to hurt each other, even for D.O.'s entertainment.

"I yield," Tao throws down his trident. And D.O.'s army jeers.

"Boo...Give us some blood!" A woman from the crowd yells. The others follow after her and soon everyone starts chanting Give Us Blood.

D.O. raises a hand to silence his army, "Marshall Mark is honoring us with a private show. We can't expect him to risk his army in such a time, specially with no purse on the line."

The men jeer. Then suddenly, one mercenary steps out of the crowd.

"Then let us take on them!" he implores. The other soldiers cheer as he swaggers upto me, swinging his rapier. D.O. looks intrigued.

"What of it, Mark? Would you let your men try their skills on mine?" he smiles suggestively.

Mark considers, then slowly nods, "One fight with Antares. Only because I know he's immune. I don't want any of them damaged."

"And I've no more wish than to lose a force. Everyone in your army is a part of mine too," he looks down at my hand and his man's hand, "Friendly match. Chaen, blunt their weapons. Fight goes until one man yields."

The Chaen woman nods and carries the weapons off to wrap them. D.O. agrees the weapons pass muster and Mark gestures me and the mercenary to the makeshift ring.

Mark steps forward and clears his throat to announce again, "Men of Jinan! Now, you'll see a battle that we're never gonna repeat again. A battle among the allies. One of your own, Kai the first lieutenant, will take on our undefeated captain! Let this fight be a seal to our alliance forever."

"I'm not afraid of you. I defeated the Chieftain of Jinan myself when we conquered," Kai smirks.

I roll my eyes, "But only D.O.'s victory will be remembered. You're no one."

"You speak like you're not just one among Mark's army as well," he groans.

I scoff, "You think I plan to stick along with that tag? I don't follow, I fucking lead."

I take my fury at Mark and direct it into a hip throw, shoving Kai off balance. Then throwing him face-down in the dirt. He barely manages to get in fighting stance in time because I charged suddenly. I launch myself forward, driving him back with a blinding flurry of blows. He blocks the first few, but tires eventually. I drive him up against the stand.

"Counter," Mark cracks a whip to accent his command.

I ignore Mark's command, following the rhythm of the fight instead. Kai is wary, ready to defend. But as I wait, his shoulders grow relaxed, more confident. I breathe heavily, trying to release my fucking temper.

Suddenly, he leaps forward, whipping his arm out to attack me. But I anticipated the moment. I'm already there, in his guard, my hands on his fucking throat. Outside the ring, D.O.'s eyes narrow in concern.

I get in position, turning my shoulders at him. He lunges to the side, recovering his balance quickly to pivot around and strikes around my reach, targeting my ribcage. From the corner of my eyes, I notice next to Chaen, the wrapping on my axe blade has loosened, exposing a small length of lethal steel.

I lower my back, daring him to take the bait. His eyes flick to D.O., who looks away with a scowl. Confused, he charges. I wait for him to get close enough..

..then at the last moment, step to the side and swing my axe up, leaving a bright crimson line of blood across his collarbone.

"Hold," Mark commands as he hurries to reach me.

"Forfeit! Your man broke the rules of the challenge," D.O. growls.

Mark glares at me, "Yes, D.O., I'll have him flogged for it."

My lips curve up to a smirk as I breathe heavily. I turn to the crowd, looking icily at them, "You wanted blood? Here you have the fucking blood."

Chaen scowls in my twisted remark. She runs towards Kai, trying to help him up. He raises his hand to tell her he's fine, he was just taken aback. As he gets up, I wipe off the sweat in my forehead and move back.

"Bring him before me," D.O. casts a sharp a glance at me as I step out of the ring.

Mark leads me before D.O., still dripping with sweat and dust. I glare at him.

He smiles slightly, "You got great skills. Where are you from?"

Mark looks at me then back at him, "Actually he's a barbari-"

"I'm from all of China. The whole country is my fucking home," I growl.

D.O. gives me the ghost of a smile, before turning back to Mark, "I've been leading the largest army of mercenary in Five Kingdoms for a decade. I know when a man gives in completely to a leader. I can tell when a man's spirit has broken. This one's hasn't. Be careful of him. He may play along for the moment, but he has his own reasons for doing so. He can turn against you in a heartbeat given the chance."

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Sehun's POV »☆●

"Don't give them the chance!"

Dad barks commands, sitting alone at the table. If you saw him, you'd probably wonder, is he insane? But this is a perfectly normal sight in this town. Welcome to Beijing, the town where the biggest pack of werewolf resides.

Mindlink is a power commonly used among us, and few other supernatural creatures. We can communicate with our species, or our other half through mindlink. We do it to command unity during any tragedy, from small attacks to huge wars.

My father Mark is alpha of the pack. I'm next on the line. Our pack has been living in peace, masking our identity from humans. It was easy back in Taiyuan, because only werewolves lived in a large area there. We didn't have to live among humans other than for job purposes. But since we shifted to Beijing for the throne, it's became extremely hard because we live among humans all the time.

Then why did we come here? Honestly, I don't fully get it either. We don't lack anything. Other than sometimes having to battle the nearby vampire clans, we lived in peace in Taiyuan. But dad said we needed an worldly possession of authority in order to stabilize our existence. We need a throne.

Dad allies with the royal lines and other powerful people in the Five Kingdoms to get their favour. He even was best friends with the fallen king of Wuluan. Though he was a loyal friend to King Wu and thought of him highly, I still feel bad for him because he didn't realize dad did all of those things just for his own benefit. Dad tells me it's not wrong to take advantage of someone if you don't cause them harm in the process. Probably he's right. He never turned against King Wu even when he was fallen. He tried in all his capabilities to protect him till the last. In return, he got the rank of Marshall and took a whole army in his possession. After the King's death, which didn't cause any harm to King Wu. I know this factually, I just need to grow to accept it.

Dad trained me since childhood to do the same. King Ming didn't have a son so dad taught me to impress him. I've earned his favour as the successor of Mingluan. Now, I'm the King-regent of Mingluan. Just a few things left to do until I'm the King. So we had to move to Beijing, the capital of Mingluan.

King is a big word. I should sound happier when I add this tag to myself. But I don't, because I feel exhausted. Tired. Overwhelmed by the amount of responsibilities on my back. Frustrated about why I couldn't be like other nineteen year old boys.

Probably I'm being ungrateful. I'm the son of an Alpha, the most prestigious position anyone can have in our species. And I know dad genuinely loves me. I love him too. That's why I do my best to fulfill his expectations. I wanna make him proud of me.

"Morning, son," Dad smiles as I take my seat in the table.

"What's wrong? Don't give whom chance?" I ask when I notice his hands he clenching over the glass. He's still talking to someone over mindlink. He doesn't reply for a few minutes. I wait for him to finish.

"More rogues crossed the border," he says grimly.

Rogues are werewolves that have been kicked out of their pack for breaking rules or left on their own free will because they don't wanna work with a pack. Our species only have control when they're a part of a pack. Rogues lose the control and use their shapeshifting abilities to terrorize humans. And that becomes a threat to us as they reveal our existence to the humankind.

Dad always makes sure to keep the number of rogues in control. These rogues aren't from our pack. Someone's purposefully sending them here since we started to live among humans so that the humans find out about us. I think I know who's behind it.

Gaius clan.

Beijing was their target territory. They were planning to murder King Ming to take over the largest realm of China and slowly spread their authority all over the country. They've already took over many countries around the world, even Rome and Greece. But his plan to take over here failed when I became the King-regent.

Gaius is one of the most ancient and most powerful vampire that exists so it's not wise to challenge him. That's why we aren't doing anything before we find evidence. But we need to secure the throne from him or he'll have authority over our pack.

Mom enters the dining room with a bowl of venison. As she serves us, she glances at me, smiling, "Only one more month, then someone else will be serving you like this."

I know what she's talking about. I roll my eyes.

In one month, I turn twenty, and find my mate. Yeah, you heard me right. Mate..as in, soulmates. In our culture, most werewolves get the ability to detect their soulmate when they turn twenty.

I've always heard about mates, there's a bunch of cliche things that people say about them, how they're destined for each other, how they make each other complete blah blah. Most of that doesn't make sense and I don't really wanna deal with such bullshit. The way girls chase after me just makes me scared of this concept. I just hope if my mate exists, she's not like that.

As we eat silently, someone knocks on our door grabbing our attention. Dad frowns, "Come in."

Our beta walks in with some warriors. From their faces, I can tell there's some serious issue.

"Alpha," they bow.

"Can we talk in private?" Beta asks looking in between us.

"I'm going hunting," I tell dad and walk out of the door. I know when they wanna talk alone, whatever it is, it's damn serious.

Dad mindlinks me as soon as I step out of the house, "Take Linyi and Luhan with you."

Ever since this rogue issue started, dad never lets me get some alone time. It's getting on my nerves. But I understand because if it's really the conspiracy of a vampire clan, I'll be the first one they'd wanna take down.

Linyi, Luhan, Amyra and I grew up together. Linyi is beta's son, next in line for the rank. Luhan is my bestfriend and Amyra is his sister. Amyra has a crush on me which I'm very well aware of and that scares me. Moreover, Linyi likes her and I've a feeling she's his mate.

I mindlink Linyi to meet me at the riverside with Luhan. I walk inside the forest. It's time to free my wolf.

As soon as I transform, the scent of the forest rushes into my lungs. I howl and sprint deep inside the forest. When I catch the musky scent of a deer, I dart off into the woods after it. I run for a few more miles after the hunt. While running, I catch an unfamiliar scent. I poke my nose in the air as my eyes sweep the surroundings.

I shift to human form, following the place where I got the scent from, "Who's there?" I growl. But no response. I search more, but there's no trace of anyone's presence. Linyi and Luhan comes running as they hear me yell.

"What happened?" Luhan asks.

I frown, my eyes still looking around, "I smelled someone's presence."

"I didn't smell anything?" Linyi shrugs.

"Do you think I'm lying?" I growl. He bows his head in submission. He knows better than to challenge me. I'm not always this mad but since I caught that scent, I'm extremely conscious. I'm the best tracker in the pack and fastest too. How the hell did it escape me?

I sigh frustratedly, "I'm going home."

After I reach home, I inform dad everything. His eyes narrow in concern. He immediately mindlinks beta to search the forest. I dismiss myself and head directly to my bedroom.

To Be Continued »☆●