III：Blood Moon Reckoning

The NASDAQ MarketSite reeked of burning circuit boards and lycanthropic adrenaline. Leo Wu crouched atop the streaming studio's rafters, his claws embedded in cables that pulsed with live trading data. Below, the Pale Hand CEO adjusted his AR cufflinks, each flicker projecting Dow Jones futures onto the anchor's trembling pupils.

Wolf King's Pupils Alert: Blood Moon Protocol Active (DOW Gene Contaminant Level: 97%)

Leo's retinas burned. The ticker symbols weren't just numbers anymore—they were viral RNA sequences. Every 1% drop in the Dow mutated another wolf pack's DNA into festering hybrids. The CEO's smirk smelled like his father's lab in '98, like chloroform and betrayal.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the CEO purred into CNBC's 4K camera, "let's discuss leveraged buyouts of entire species."

The studio lights dimmed. Behind him, the Dow chart morphed into a double helix dripping CRISPR-laced mercury.

Phase One: Red Flood

The attack began at 9:30 AM—market open. The NASDAQ tower's glass facade erupted into liquid numbers, a crimson tsunami of digits swallowing traders whole.

Violence as Algorithm:

Junior analysts melted into wolf-vampire chimeras, their BlackBerrys fused to clawed hands

Bloomberg terminals sprouted fangs, devouring interns who screamed in Fibonacci sequences

The CEO licked mercury off a shattered iPhone. "Margin calls come for us all, mutt."

Leo leapt. His claws tore through Dow futures charts materializing as barbed wire. A hybrid lunged—its half-human face still wearing a J.P. Morgan intern badge.

"Victor! Viral vectors!" Leo roared, dodging fangs crackling with subprime code.

The AI's voice stuttered through a hijacked PA system: "Reverse the shorts! Convert puts into… into antibodies—"

Memory Detonation:

Mother's voice from Iceland's cloning facility static: "They're using puts to sell your…"

Leo's retinas reconfigured. Put options became glowing cure vectors in his vision.

Phase Two: Live Market Carnage

The CEO morphed. His Brioni suit split into nano-silver tendrils tipped with credit default swaps. "You're just a shorted asset waiting to be liquidated."

Leo ducked a tendril strike. His claws hooked into live Nasdaq feeds, hijacking bandwidth to broadcast Wolf King's Pupils data:

Global Short Positions → Antibody Code Conversion Rate: 63%

"Wrong playbook." Leo lunged, fangs sinking into the CEO's holographic throat. The CNBC feed glitched as his jaws clamped down on real flesh beneath the projection.

High-Octane Carnage:

Blood as Data Stream: CEO's arterial spray formatted into live K-line candlesticks

Viral Counterstrike: Antibody shorts infiltrate DOW's gene-binding algorithms

Media Pandemic: Biting the anchor injects inverse code into global finance streams

The CEO's corpse exploded. Hybrids froze mid-leap as K-line rain sliced them into Bloomberg terminal confetti.

Phase Three: Zero Point

Wall Street's charging bull statue wept molten silver. Leo staggered through the scarlet haze, each DOW percentage drop etched in his marrow:

-5%: Brooklyn Pack's howls cut short

-12%: Queens Den's pups dissolve mid-howl

-23%: Mother's hologram in Iceland flickers

Victor's final broadcast echoed through burning tickers: "X-13 Activation in 17 hours… DOW must hit zero before—"

Leo reached the bull as the DOW plunged to -99.9%. The silver tears pooled at its hooves, freezing into Elaine Wu's face—her eyes Nasdaq green, her hair streaming live bond yields.

"Should've read the fine print," Leo growled at the frozen visage. His claws found the bull's platinum heart. "Force majeure clause bites both ways."

Ephemera & Shadows

Father's Ghost in the Machine: Fed servers briefly project Wu Tianyou's remorse code before Pale Hand overwrites it

Victor's Hidden Bet: Mining rigs discovered routing 18% hashrate to unknown Icelandic wallet

Hybrid Aftermath: Captured chimeras whisper of "older debt collectors" coming for Fed's species ledger

Blood Cartography: Silver tears map new coordinates in bull's frozen base—Antarctica? Mars?

Cliffhanger DNA:

As Leo shatters the bull's core, Iceland's feed cuts to Elaine's clone mouthing two words: "X-13 welcomes you." The DOW hits zero. NASDAQ screens flatline. From the static emerges a new ticker—$BLOOD moon protocol complete.

Leo's retinas reboot with alien code. His claws now scrape against equations older than money. Somewhere beneath Wall Street, granite growls.