One-Eyed Demon Wolf

Honestly, aside from his genuine desire to play the hero, Mo Fan was thoroughly puzzled by the reappearance of these tremors.

Mingwen Girls' School's cafeteria had already experienced one. Why was another part of Bo City, not long afterward, displaying the same inexplicable vibrations? Could it really be another Giant-Eyed Ape-Rat?

Word had it that even after the Ape-Rat at Mingwen Girls' School was eliminated, faint tremors had continued appearing in other parts of the campus. The police had found nothing conclusive, the school had declared the grounds safe, and classes had resumed on schedule.

"My grandmother lives right here," Zhou Min said, pointing at an old residential house, then gesturing toward a wide expanse of rubble that had once been a plaza. "The tremors are coming from over there."

The construction crew had pulled out weeks ago due to funding problems. The entire ruined block could only be described as desolate and abandoned. Night had fallen, and the city's lights were too distant to reach this far; thick clouds smothered the sky, and the feeble starlight was no match for the eerie atmosphere hanging over the rubble-strewn site.

Mo Fan — seasoned demon-hunter that he had become — cleared the temporary construction wall in a single fluid vault. He landed with practiced ease, then realized Zhou Min had simply walked in through a small door right beside it. The moment deflated instantly.

"Ahem. So what time do the tremors usually start?" he asked.

"At night. No fixed schedule." Zhou Min, who ordinarily projected the air of a capable young woman in full control of herself, instinctively edged a little closer to Mo Fan as they stood amid the ruins.

Mo Fan walked a few steps forward and pulled something from his pocket — a small pouch, like a sachet.

He loosened the tie, releasing a scattering of crystalline powder. He blew on it lightly, and the particles drifted into the air, settling slowly, slowly across the construction site.

"Is that... Demon-Tracking Powder?" Zhou Min, true to her reputation as a top student, recognized it immediately.

"Mm." Mo Fan nodded.

*Demon-Tracking Powder — the demon-hunter's essential remedy for dark, moonless nights of monster-chasing.*

"How do you even have that on you? Do you really think there's a Demon-Beast here?" Zhou Min asked, astonished.

*What ordinary student carries something like this? And this is Bo City — it's not like we're out in the wilderness.*

"Trust the professional," Mo Fan said, gesturing toward the settling powder. "See for yourself."

The particles drifted down to a patch of dusty ground about ten meters away — and clung there, as though magnetized, tracing a shape in the grime. The shape looked like... like a footprint.

Zhou Min stared, rooted to the spot.

*There's actually a Demon-Beast in Bo City?*

The aura of a Demon-Beast was something even Mages found difficult to detect under ordinary circumstances, especially once the creature had already moved on. What made Demon-Tracking Powder remarkable was its extraordinary sensitivity to that lingering trace — it could cling to a footprint left ten days prior and illuminate it in an instant.

"What... what do we do?" Zhou Min's face had gone pale.

She had always believed what her teachers told her, always been certain that cities were the safest places to be. And yet here was evidence, undeniable evidence, that a Demon-Beast had walked this very ground. Demon-Tracking Powder didn't lie.

"I'll go check the shape of the print." Mo Fan walked straight over without hesitation.

"We... we should call the Demon-Hunting Squad," Zhou Min said, a shiver running through her.

Mo Fan was speechless.

*I am the Bo City Demon-Hunting Squad, you impossible girl. Who exactly am I supposed to call?*

And besides — the squad wasn't there to be dispatched on hunches. Without solid enough evidence, they wouldn't mobilize the whole team on a hunch.

A footprint outlined in tracking powder was only a suspicion, not proof. Some summoner walking their contracted beast through the site was still a possibility.

"This footprint doesn't look like a Giant-Eyed Ape-Rat's." Mo Fan frowned.

"Mo... Mo Fan... let's just go," Zhou Min said, her voice tight with fear.

Mo Fan, wanting to get to the bottom of it, pressed deeper into the site.

Zhou Min followed carefully, staying close at his heels.

"Looks like it's hiding in that unfinished building over there." Mo Fan pointed at a structure ahead — nothing more than a bare concrete skeleton.

The building had apparently been intended as a shopping center. Its floor area was enormous, the interior a chaotic jumble of cement bags, tools, and scrap materials. The trail of prints illuminated by the Demon-Tracking Powder ended at the abandoned shell. If something was actually living inside, it had found itself quite the refuge.

This construction site had been sitting empty for at least two months — the perfect place to lay low.

"Mo— Mo— Mo—" Zhou Min's voice suddenly locked up, and she began alerting him in the strangest way imaginable.

Mo Fan immediately followed her gaze. Through a gap in the crumbling brick wall, something shifted in the shadows of what would have been the ground floor — a mass of dark movement.

The creature was massive, with powerfully built hindlimbs. Standing upright, its head nearly grazed the ceiling of the second floor.

Its overall silhouette bore a resemblance to a Gloom Wolf Beast — but unlike a Gloom Wolf Beast, it wasn't moving on all fours. It stood half-erect, like a werewolf.

The greatest difference of all, though, was its eyes.

That massive, wolf-like skull had only one.

A single eye, gleaming in the darkness — deeply unsettling even at a distance.

"That's... that's a One-Eyed Demon Wolf!" Zhou Min barely kept her voice to a whisper.

The One-Eyed Demon Wolf. Teachers had brought it up countless times in Demon-Beast Studies — one of the most vicious creatures known. Unlike the Giant-Eyed Ape-Rat, a timid scavenger that lurked in dark corners, One-Eyed Demon Wolves inhabited remote wilderness and harbored an instinctive hatred of humanity. They actively preyed on people, reveling in the kill, driven by greed and savagery, eyeing with predatory hunger every human who dared stray beyond the safety of settled land.

"What the hell — a One-Eyed Demon Wolf this close to the city? Does nobody patrol this area anymore?!" The sight rattled Mo Fan to his core.

Not long ago, he had shared Zhou Min's belief that cities were completely safe.

And yet this was already the second Demon-Beast he had encountered in Bo City.

A Giant-Eyed Ape-Rat showing up in an urban area was unusual, but not inexplicable — those creatures had always lurked in sewers and graveyards beneath human cities. But a One-Eyed Demon Wolf? Here? There was no easy explanation for that.

"What... what is it doing?" Zhou Min's face had gone white as a sheet.

"Having a midnight snack," Mo Fan replied.

Zhou Min looked more carefully — and nearly fainted.

The One-Eyed Demon Wolf was chewing. In the dim murk, she made out the shape of a severed arm.

A human arm.

*Mo Fan, you absolute bastard — how could you describe that so casually?*

It was eating a person.

*It was actually eating a person.*