This life just got a lot more complicated

Winters' consciousness became hazy the moment he touched the wolf crystal stone.

The smell of blood in the dungeon was suddenly dispelled by some kind of coolness, and the wolf crystals in Winters' palms were absorbing the beads of blood drifting in the air. The dark red liquids that had solidified in the cracks of the walls were like fireflies that had been awakened, tracing thin trails of light in the air.

"Watch out!" Frederick suddenly grabbed Winters' wrist.

Duke Massa, who had originally been placed in a coffin, had somehow appeared among the white orchid grass.

Duke Massa's corpse began to dry up and shrivel up, and countless swimming bumps bulged under his gray skin, as if there were a thousand silver snakes running underneath it.

Mike's wolf claws gouged deep into the cracks of the stone tiles, "It's a blood moon tide, the Duke's crystal remnants are summoning the homologous bloodline." The old butler's pupils contracted into two vertical lines, "Miss Winters, your birthday..."

Before the words left her mouth, Winters suddenly staggered and held onto the sarcophagus.

Those blood beads pulled by the wolf crystals were frantically surging into her brow, congealing into a crescent-shaped bloodstain between her forehead.

Frederick sniffed the air for the suddenly strong scent of blancmange-the same scent that had been in his mother's bedchamber when she was dying twenty years ago.

"Open the chamber."

Winters's voice became suddenly ethereal as his fingertips rubbed over the reliefs on the surface of the sarcophagus.

Those ancient lines depicting packs of wolves worshipping the moon began to flow, and the bronze casting of the moon phase diagram rotated and reorganized under her palm.

When the bloodstains overlapped with the waning moon on the relief, the entire sarcophagus suddenly cracked to the sides, revealing the deep spiral staircase below.

A sad whimper escaped from Mike's throat, "You have indeed inherited the true..." The latter half of the sentence was blown away by the night wind that suddenly poured into the dungeon, and the moonlight poured down like a silver waterfall from the top of the castle, passing through the seven floors straight into the depths of the dungeon.

Frederick unfolded the yellowed letterhead, the wolf's head insignia on the fire paint oozing blood in the moonlight.

Duke Massa's scrawled handwriting floated across the parchment:

[When the blood moon engulfs the crescent, take her to the top of the White Tower. Exchange the Star Tracker your mother left behind for the Wolf Sacred Relic, the only way to break the curse."]

The pocket watch in the dark compartment suddenly glowed, and Frederick touched the foxtail crest on the inside of the case.

In the fire twenty years ago, his mother did say something about the Star Tracker.

At the time, her bloodstained fingertips were pointing to the northern sky, saying that when the blood moon engulfed the third star...

"You knew?"

Winters' voice awakened the Fox Earl who was caught up in his memories.

At the entrance of the secret passage, the hem of the young girl's skirt was turning into flowing silver sand in the moonlight, and those pearls that had originally dotted the corners of her skirt turned into tiny wolf's teeth that tinkled at her ankles.

Mike prostrated himself on the ground, revealing the slave brand on the back of his neck, "Since the day you were born, the Duke ordered me to anoint this chamber with the juice of white orchid grass every month.

He said that when the blood moon resonates with the curse, the sealed memories will guide you to the truth."

Winters suddenly pressed his temples.

Scattered images exploded in his mind: the crystal hourglass he'd seen on his fifth birthday, his mother's silver-white hair draped over the edge of the altar, and... The blue-eyed boy hiding behind the rosebush.

"It's you?" She turned sharply to Frederick, the turquoise necklace dangling from the boy's neck in her memory perfectly overlapping with the person in front of her, "

Twenty years ago at the Midsummer Festival, your mother hid in the Stargazer's Tower with you in her arms..."

A mournful wolf howl suddenly came from the ground, and the entire castle began to shake violently.

Frederick drew his saber to cut through the falling stone bricks, and the blade collided with the flying stones to erupt in a foxfire-like ghostly blue light.

It was only then that Winters noticed that the hilt of his sword was inlaid with wolf's teeth, the same as the ones that had materialized in the hem of her skirt.

"Looks like we have company." Mike's nails exploded three inches in length, fangs piercing his lower lip, "It's the wolf elders' pursuers, they smelled the crystals awakening."

Winters gripped the wolf crystals tightly and realized that the suspended blood beads were forming a star map in the air.

When her line of sight overlapped with a particular angle, the blood beads suddenly pointed in unison towards the southeast corner of the chamber. There, a relief of two overlapping moons was faintly visible on the vine-covered wall.

"Follow the blood beads."

She tugged at Frederick's cloak, "This is where I hid what my mother left me..."

An explosion engulfed the second half of the sentence. The crunch of wood breaking came from overhead as twelve wolf warriors in silver masks broke through the dungeon dome.

The man at the head of the group held a crossbow carved with spells, the tip of the arrow pointed directly at Winters' brow.

"Give the wolf crystals to the Council of Elders."

Mike suddenly laughed out softly, the blade of his sword drawing a bizarre arc in the air.

"Do you think the Wolf Council of Elders would want her alive?"

A mechanical, cold voice rang out from behind the mask, "Mike, do you want the last of the Sutherland family bloodline to be severed tonight?"

Winters smelled the aroma of the white orchid grass turn steeply pungent, and those suspended beads of blood suddenly reversed direction, turning into a rain of blood-colored arrows in Frederick's stunned gaze.

"Winters! Be careful!" Frederick pulled up Winters' hand and flung her to the mouth of the chamber.

The rain of blood-colored swords slashed straight at Mike's body.

Within moments, he spent his wolf body and lay whimpering and twitching on the cold floor.

"No, Uncle Mike."

"Go!"