Yue sat at the door of his room for a bit. He wondered what would happen if he came clean, at least to Mai and Viktor. He could only assume that both of them would immediately become hostile. The fact that he was one, not a girl and two, someone on the run from very powerful groups of people would probably make them abrasive and make them want to stop associating with him. His close friendship with Mai would probably immediately disappear as she would probably feel betrayed knowing that she had shared so much of her heart with a man and whatever kind of relationship he had with Viktor would probably completely change as he definitely wouldn't have acted as he had been if he knew Yue was a boy.

“Maybe I should just disappear before that happens..” Yue murmured and sighed. He hid his face in his arms and didn’t end up doing anything that he was planning to do. He just sat on the floor, silently looking out of the window in the room, waiting for sundown. At sundown, he put his jacket on loosely and brought both swords with him outside. Viktor looked well-rested even though he had only been asleep for an hour and a half. As Yue expected, it was awkward between them now. They didn't speak more than necessary, Viktor probably hated lies, he seemed to move his own way in life and while he probably hid things, he never lied.

The group went to check the town, asking every house if everyone was accounted for before sunset. After checking everything, Viktor’s group left into the forest, leaving Yue’s group to wait in town.

Viktor wanted to sigh, he could feel Mai’s questioning look on the back of his head. She tended to be very perceptive of things like these, she had probably noticed that atmosphere between him and Yue and wanted to know why it suddenly changed. He tried to ignore it, focusing on the matter at hand. He led the group in a direction that was a bit far from where he had seen the Chuchuna when he was with Frida. Robert, one of the group members had a compass and was marking a map with the general direction they were going in so Yue’s group would know where to go or where not to go the next day.

As they got farther and farther into the forest they noticed that many of the berry bushes that had berries in the areas near the village were completely empty, as if they had been picked. Viktor at first thought it might’ve been the Chuchunas since Werewolves were exclusively carnivorous but the berry bushes near where he had last seen one were unpicked. The group was going to go farther in their current direction but fog suddenly started to roll in.

“Shield…” Viktor murmured an incantation in Russian, making sure that the team had some protection since other than him, no one could see the werewolves through the fog.

“Mai, to your left!” Viktor said as he looked around the whole perimeter and noticed glowing eyes near Mai.

Mai cut the werewolf down with a wide swing of her blade. The swing was embedded with magic and helped clear some of the fog in the area. She and Alexius tried not to break their formation as they cut down two other werewolves that were coming from that direction.

Everyone except Elizabeth was fighting werewolves. Contrary to her tough criticism of Yue that morning, she was terrified and hiding behind Viktor, unable to do anything against the werewolves. Viktor took a step back and bumped into her while he was fighting, causing him to lose focus for a second. He had to suddenly use a concentrated flame spell to make up for it since he lost the timing to move his sword.

“Elizabeth! Don’t just stand there, draw your sword.” He scolded, cutting down the werewolves that were approaching him.

Elizabeth sputtered excuses as werewolves ran towards her, recognizing her as the weakest link. Viktor cut the werewolves down and looked at Elizabeth with a baffled look. He wanted to honestly ask why she even came with them if she couldn’t even draw her sword but he decided to keep the rest of his scolding for when they returned to the village.

“Stop going for the girl...Hair...Master wants the hair..” A werewolf that was standing off to the side said and pointed and to Viktor.

Viktor was shocked that the werewolves could speak in human language, they spoke in German and it was now clear that it wasn’t just one werewolf that had mutated to lead the whole group but all of the werewolves had mutated in some way. If their master wanted his hair it meant that they had the ability to sense magic and wanted to use his hair for spells.

All the werewolves avoided everyone and aimed for Viktor. Viktor groaned and used a multi-target attack to kill as many of them as possible but they just kept coming. Mai and the rest of the group tried to cut down some of them as well while Elizabeth moved to hide behind someone else since all of the werewolves were going to Viktor.

-

Meanwhile, at the village, Yue sent his word into the air so it would fly and disperse the fog that was starting to reach the town. Yue was a bit confused as no werewolves really started to attack or get in the area around him. No one else was seeing any werewolves either, it was just the fog.

“Everyone be on alert, If they haven’t gotten here already then they’re close,” Yue said through telepathy. The wound on his back had started to hurt the second the fog rolled in. Even though the wound was covered he could still feel the fog affecting it.

Yue sighed and closed his eyes for a second, deciding to use his eyes. He opened them, thinking only about the current situation and he saw a vision. He saw a horde of werewolves running toward the town and members of Viktor’s group chasing them.

‘Eh? Are they leading them here? Why?’ Yue thought before lifting his sword and smoothly stabbing the werewolf that was coming toward him in his moment of blindness.

“They’re here, try not to get injured,” Yue said with telepathy and started to cut down werewolf after werewolf.

-

Viktor’s group suddenly became very confused as the werewolves stopped attacking and cleared the way for a werewolf that was holding a long wooden stick with engravings on it.

“I will deal with them, get the woman with azure dragon eyes.” The werewolf said in German, pointing the stick in the direction of the town.

Viktor immediately noted the direction the werewolf pointed in and knew it was the town. He quickly added magic to his sword and swung it so it would cut down the werewolves that moved to run toward the town. The werewolf with the stick made a magic circle in the air with the stick and created a condensed fireball. The werewolf sent it toward Viktor immediately as he noticed Viktor’s attack.

Alexius panicked and jumped in front of Viktor instead of using magic but luckily the protection spell Viktor cast on him helped him survive the condensed fireball. The attack still sent him back a bit but Viktor helped him stay standing.

More werewolves appeared and started running toward the town, Viktor clicked his tongue, he couldn’t do anything until he dealt with the werewolf that could cast spells.

“If you cut off your hair and give it to me you can at least try and save the villagers.” The werewolf said with a smirk.

Viktor sighed, he would probably do it in a heartbeat if he was certain that the werewolf wouldn’t attack him or the villagers but regardless it wasn’t an available option for him. His hair couldn’t be cut by anything except a silver knife that was dipped in the blood of someone from his bloodline...it would be faster to cut off his own head than to do that.

He was curious about ‘azure dragon eyes’ that the werewolf mentioned, immediately after he heard that, he thought of Yue’s eyes. He tried not to think about it too much though. He doubted that Yue would be able to go to school if he had them.

Mai rushed forward and attacked the werewolf, her sword was blocked by the stick the werewolf held. Viktor joined her in attacking and glanced at the rest of the group.

“Go to the village!” He said through telepathy.

Alexius and the rest did as they were told, dragging Elizabeth with them. Since he only had to worry about Mai now, Viktor relaxed and used a spell, motioning for Mai to back away. The spell activated and spears made of magic fell and attacked the werewolf.

The werewolf actually got a lot of damage from it and groaned. He used his own spell to send fireballs at both Viktor and Mai but Viktor enchanted his sword and cut the fireballs. He rushed forward and continued to attack, separating the werewolf from Its staff.

“Ugh darn you, humans!” The werewolf groaned falling into the typical werewolf behavior and slashing at them with his claws. At least it seemed like that was what he was doing.

The werewolf threw a small red ball at them and then ran away in the opposite direction of town. Viktor and Mai looked at the small red ball that was now floating between the two of them and noticed how the fog was becoming bright red around them. He was going to try and dispel whatever the ball was doing but the ball suddenly let out a flash of light.

-

Yue had been fighting the werewolves for a while and didn’t seem to be struggling much today. He could feel that there was something different today though. He swiftly killed a werewolf that was in front of him and sent his Jian sword that was flying around him to kill another werewolf that was trying to sneak up behind him.

“This seems...too easy..” Yue murmured. He did notice that rather than going after him randomly or trying to escape into the town to get someone else like they did yesterday, the werewolves were exclusively aiming for his face.

“Are you guys doing okay?” Yue asked through telepathy, curious about the situation on other sides of the town.

“We haven’t gotten any werewolves over here, Should we move toward you?” Marianne asked through telepathy.

“...Yeah… I think they want revenge for yesterday..” Yue said through telepathy and used his Jian sword to decapitate a werewolf.

He continued to fight off Werewolves one by one until a werewolf that seemed a bit bigger than the rest came at him and managed to block his sword with his claws. Yue was unsettled for a second but he bounced back and sent his Jian sword to try and cut him down. The Jian sword was unfortunately interrupted by another werewolf purposely jumping in its way. Yue was confused, werewolves weren’t normally intelligent enough to strategize like that.

The strong werewolf seemed to be smirking at him.

“Azure dragon...weak.” The werewolf said in German with a wide smile. He opened his mouth to say more but his skull cracked not even a second later.

“Whoops, I don’t even know what you said but that smirk pissed me off…” Yue murmured in Chinese. He had pushed himself into the air without letting go of his sword and kicked the werewolf in the face at full force. He silently reprimanded himself for not handling his anger well and stabbed the werewolf in the heart while he was down.

“Ah, this sucks, I used to do things like that all the time but now it hurts like hell...” Yue murmured, touching his leg a bit while making his Jian sword shake off the werewolf that was pierced by it.

He got back to killing more werewolves but they seemed slightly intimidated now because the person they viewed as their strongest was taken down so easily.

“Miss Yue! Miss Yue!”

Yue turned and was confused when he saw most of Viktor’s team coming from the forest. He cut down a werewolf that had been about to hurt them with his Jian sword and one that had been about to slash at his eyes with his rapier.

“Where are Mai and Viktor?” Yue asked and healed the wounds that some of them had.

“They’re fighting a werewolf that can use magic in the forest!” Alexius exclaimed and helped cut down some werewolves after Yue healed him.

Yue wanted to curse, These werewolves just became weirder and weirder. He wanted to believe that Mai and Viktor could beat the werewolf but he was worried about what would happen if they couldn’t. He felt a chill go down his spine all of a sudden. He looked around and noticed that the fog started to turn red. He felt a piercing pain in his head but tried his best to ignore it and fight off the remaining werewolves.