Hemmed into a desperate corner, the eight grey creatures could not be said to feel despair or fear—if they possessed such emotions at all. They merely stared at Glenn in perfect unison, frozen in the same strange posture.

  The wolf’s colossal head—towering like a living mountain—slowly lowered. From his eyes and maw, rivulets of molten gold cascaded downward like luminous waterfalls. As his jaws gradually parted, the surrounding elements stirred with violent agitation, a fearsome energy gathering at an alarming pace.

  A thunderous roar split the world—BOOM—! The cataclysmic blast was powerful enough to shatter the entire cavern; blinding radiance washed the world in pure white.

  The monstrous golden wolf Glenn had become unleashed a breath of unknown, devastating power. The gout of golden energy obliterated the reinforced walls the Evil God had once fortified, blasting them into drifting shards.

  Before him yawned an immense crater swirling with chaotic magical residue. The eight grey monstrosities were vaporized in an instant.

  Yet Glenn saw clearly—they were not gone. Their minds still writhed in the air, frantically attempting to conceal themselves, desperately trying to flee.

  The mutated Blazing Fangs ignited with a never-before-seen violet blaze and swept toward the eight lingering wills. The fire caught them effortlessly. As their soundless wails—heard only by Glenn—echoed and faded, they were at last reduced to nothing.

  Glenn did not disperse his transformation. Controlling his enormous frame with great care, he turned, mindful that even the slightest motion could bring catastrophic destruction.

  Within the passage behind him, the antlered man had already fallen unconscious—overwhelmed by the aura Glenn emitted the moment he transformed. That annihilating golden breath had blasted both him and the sorceress deeper into the tunnel. The antlered man was weakening fast.

  The sorceress, meanwhile, seemed utterly lifeless—no breath, no heartbeat—but Glenn knew there was still a chance.

  With a thought, a pool of golden liquid gathered on the floor and rose into a lean, elongated wolf-shape. It moved with incredible speed, retrieving the two bodies from within the tunnel before dissolving back into liquid gold.

  Glenn could not speak—not in this form. Even his voice could kill them. He was weaving a curse.

  In this shape, he intuitively understood every ability of the monstrous body he had assumed, as though these powers had been etched into his very being since birth.

  And one of these newfound abilities was nothing short of divine: the power to weave high-tier curses.

  All curses known to the world—including the werewolf curse—had arisen by sheer coincidence and were only later mastered by witches and sorcerers. Some scholars believed certain gods might have created specific curses, though this had never been proven.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  But at this moment, Glenn possessed that very power. Whether a curse capable of bestowing blessings was still a curse... that was another matter.

  Within mere seconds, the curse he crafted fused silently into the bodies of the dying pair.

  Glenn then forced the wolf-poison within him to contract. His titan form shrank rapidly until he returned to human shape.

  The Moonstone clenched in his hand lost all radiance the instant he reverted, crumbling like turquoise into lifeless fragments. Glenn felt a pang of regret, but there had been no choice. If he had tried to spare the stone, he would likely have forfeited his own life.

  The golden liquid on the ground dried rapidly, leaving only charred, ebony fissures imprinted in the earth. Strangely, Glenn felt no hunger—clearly his transformed body no longer relied on food to sustain its power. The true source of that strength remained a mystery even to him.

  With a faint groan, the sorceress slowly opened her eyes. The blast had torn off her hood, revealing white hair, warm brown eyes, and a striking black scorpion-shaped mark on her left cheek.

  As her senses returned, she abruptly sat up. Her gaze flew to her abdomen—there was blood on her robe, but no wound remained. Then she looked at Glenn, bewilderment in her eyes.

  "Don’t overthink it. I’m the one who saved you both," Glenn said languidly, sitting on the ground with legs stretched in a wide V, both hands propped behind him. "So—how do you plan to repay me?"

  The sorceress froze, stunned. By all logic, she should have been obliterated. That had been an Evil God’s strike—surviving even as a corpse-less smear would have been luck enough. To revive unharmed was beyond belief.

  The antlered man suddenly jolted awake, leaping to his feet in terror.

  "THE GOD! The Evil God—! The... the god... Where is it?!"

  "Gone," Glenn replied.

  "Gone?" The antlered man stared, his stern face contorting into a childlike expression of bewildered disbelief. "You should have died! Did you... did you defeat the Evil God? H–how is that even possible!?"

  "I told you I’d use my trump card." Glenn winked.

  "Trump card? Why didn’t you use it earlier!? If you had—she—Oh! You’re alive!?"

  Only now did the antlered man notice the sorceress sitting upright, perfectly unharmed. He yelped again, stunned beyond belief.

  "You don’t know her name?" Glenn asked, puzzled.

  "I don’t—and she doesn’t know mine. We both have our secrets," the antlered man explained.

  "You looked so in sync, I thought you were close."

  "We cooperated once. Nothing more. Anyway—back to you. If you had a way to kill an Evil God, why didn’t you use it sooner?"

  "My trump card comes with a heavy price," Glenn shot back with a roll of his eyes. "And speaking of price—I used it to save both of you just now. Don’t you think you owe me something?"

  The antlered man exchanged a glance with the sorceress.

  At last, he drew a slow breath to steady himself. "We will repay this debt—one way or another. If I cannot, then my descendants will."

  The sorceress conjured glowing text in the air, indicating the same promise.

  At that moment Glenn finally realized—she was mute.

  "Well then. I’ll trust your character," Glenn said with an easy smile.

  The two stared at him, struck by an uncanny sense that this werewolf was unlike any other being—neither in temperament nor in the power he wielded. Both felt an inexplicable certainty:

  One day, this werewolf would accomplish something no one in history ever had.