NOVEL WEB Chapter 112: War! 2
The first rank of werewolves exploded into motion—charging forward with savage speed, snarls tearing through the air.
The humans did not run.
They braced.
They activated arrays.
And the sky screamed with magic as the first volley of long-range Soul Attacks was unleashed.
The moon hovered overhead, stained a crimson red that bathed the earth below in an ominous hue. It pulsed like a heartbeat. Each beat closer. Louder. More suffocating.
In the Outlands—where civilization thinned and the true wilds began—the earth trembled. Cracks spiderwebbed through the stony plateau that held the dimensional rift. Winds howled unnaturally. Trees bent backward, shivering violently though there was no breeze.
Then the portal flared.
A towering obsidian gate shimmered to life, vibrating with pure, chaotic energy. The ground around it became scorched black, Qi and mana being sucked from the very atmosphere. The world trembled, holding its breath.
From the other side, growls and snarls emerged like whispers of death.
And then—they came.
The first werewolves emerged with explosive speed. Towering, furred monstrosities with eyes that glowed red in the night. Their muscles bulged with unnatural strength, and their claws dug into the stone like hot blades through ice. They didn't roar. They didn't howl. They simply marched, a tide of shadowed death.
And then their leader stepped through.
The Progenitor of Werewolves.
His form was magnificent. Towering above his kin, he had silver-white fur streaked with lines of crimson, veins pulsing with celestial bloodline energy. His eyes were cold as iron, filled with ancient contempt and boundless pride. The air seemed to bow around him.
Behind him, legions more emerged. Tens of thousands.
He raised a hand, and the entire army stopped.
"Sons and Daughters of the Moon," the Progenitor's voice boomed, echoing unnaturally across dimensions, carried by the red moon's light. "This is the day our ancestors dreamed of. This is the world the Goddess promised us. Soft prey. Unbroken soil. Blood untouched by our kind."
A murmur of anticipation rippled through the army.
"For too long, we have been caged in our world of mist and bone. For too long, we were but shadows of what we were meant to become! Today, we bare our fangs not in hunger... but in conquest."
He raised his claws to the blood-soaked sky. "We are the storm that the humans cannot weather! We are the extinction they never saw coming! Rip their world apart!!"
The werewolves howled.
The sound shattered the air.
And they charged.
---
On the human side, the Great Lumen Empire was a fortress.
Countless formations lit the air with magical runes. Floating fortresses had taken position in the sky. Ice pillars circled the outlands' ridges, erected by Empress Ivana herself to serve as support positions. At the heart of it all stood Ivana, clad in war regalia lined with frosted silver, the emblem of the Eternal Pyre stitched into her long, flowing cape.
Behind her were generals, Souler commanders, and foreign dignitaries from across the globe. Among them, Lancelot stood in gleaming black armor, his fists glowing faintly with chained lightning. His beast soul pulsed with anticipation.
Ivana stepped forward, her voice cold and commanding.
"Today... they come to our land not with diplomacy. Not with curiosity. But with hunger."
She raised a hand, and the wind around her twisted into icy feathers. Her moth beast soul fluttered faintly behind her.
"Let them learn the cost of invading a world guarded by Soulers. Let them taste the frost of our wrath. Let the fangs of beasts snap against the shields of civilization."
She turned, facing the full coalition army. Her eyes, crystalline and sharp, surveyed every face.
"You stand here not just as warriors of your nations. You stand as defenders of this realm. No retreat. No surrender. No mercy!"
The army roared.
Lancelot stepped beside her, nodding faintly. "Well said, Empress. Reminds me of when I rallied the south alone with half the soldiers."
"And now you're not alone," she replied.
He smirked. "Then let's make them regret ever crossing over."
The battlefield began to rumble.
The portal flared brighter.
And the first wave came.
Thousands of werewolves burst forth from the rift like a tide of nightmares. But this time, they met steel, frost, and fury.
The first footfalls of war echoed through the outlands like a drumbeat of doom.
The werewolf army had crossed.
From the blood-red light of the full moon above their portal, the progenitor emerged first — tall, regal, and cloaked in a mantle made from the pelts of defeated beast kings. His crimson eyes swept the horizon as the mist from the portal curled at his feet. Behind him, the werewolf clans surged like a tide of muscle and fury — thousands of them, snarling, armored, weapons raised, the gleam of predatory bloodlust etched into every motion.
But their howls — they faltered.
Because standing before them, in formation upon the hill of blackstone, was not a panicked, scattered human resistance…
But a force ready for war.
A wall of gleaming steel. Thousands of Soulers drawn from across the world — Lumen, Dame, Astrel, Daraq — standing shoulder-to-shoulder beneath the billowing banners of their empires.
They stood unified, not divided. Ordered, not broken. Hardened, not shaken.
Ivana Frost stood at the fore, her hair caught in the wind, her armor a crystalline weave of froststeel. Her presence was still. Terrifying. Unshakable.
To her left stood Lancelot — his golden gauntlets glowing with essence as he surveyed the battlefield. Behind him were the Seven Bounty Hunters — deadly, diverse, and silent as death itself.
To her right, the Emperor of Astrel, clad in robes of shifting flame, rode upon a burning phoenix soulbeast. Beside him floated the twin monarchs of Daraq, their twin serpent-beasts circling them mid-air.
The humans were not alone.
They were prepared.
---
The progenitor narrowed his eyes. His troops snarled and shifted. But the old wolf did not fear. He raised his hand, calling his army to hold for just a moment.
Then… his voice boomed across the battlefield:
> "Wolves of the Red Moon!
Do you see them?!
These fragile creatures dare think their walls can hold! They think we are no different from the beasts they've slaughtered!
But we… are Werewolves of a risen world! We are strength! We are evolution!
We are the sharpened fang in the dark!
Today, our claws mark history!
Today, we show them the fury of a world forged in conquest!"
Howls rang out like thunder.
The earth shook from their charge.
The sky roared as spells were launched and beast souls roared to life.
---
The First Clash
The moment the werewolf army surged forward, Ivana's voice echoed cold and commanding, amplified by soulforce:
> "Formations Alpha and Theta! Breathe and release! Defensive front line, brace for charge — and HOLD!"
At once, dozens of frontliners knelt low, their beast soul phantoms overlapping in spectral defense.
BANG—!!
The first wave of werewolves crashed into a shimmering wall of summoned phantoms — bears, gorillas, serpents, and frost-armored tortoises, all merged with their users. The impact of claw against reinforced soul barrier sent shockwaves through the battlefield.
Ivana didn't flinch. With a single graceful motion, she threw one of her fans forward.
A sweeping tide of ice raced across the ground — sharp, jagged frost spears exploded upward, skewering the legs of dozens of wolves mid-pounce.
"Lancelot!" she called sharply.
"On it."
With a wild grin, Lancelot moved.
His beast soul — the Undying Dread-Warden — surged forth behind him, four arms glowing, necroflame swirling. As Lancelot leapt into the sky, the Dread-Warden followed, launching a volley of soulflame bolts that tore through the advancing second line of the werewolf formation.
Every bolt that struck was absorbed into the undead core of the Warden, and with a cry of fury, Lancelot landed in the heart of the battlefield — fists exploding with power.
One punch.
One werewolf crushed beneath him, its ribs shattered, body flung back like paper.
The Seven Bounty Hunters followed next — each one claiming a zone.
— Lone Wolf, with his werewolf-phantom soul, broke the neck of a feral wolf with a spinning punch. — Sashira the Blademaiden danced through the air, dual blades humming, carving through three foes at once. — Corvin the Spear Monk, activated his beast soul — a massive white crane — and blinked through enemy lines with each thrust of his spear, racking up clean, surgical kills.
Above, the Emperor of Astrel unleashed his Phoenix Phantom — it shrieked across the sky, raining fire and molten light down upon the back ranks of the werewolf horde.
At the same time, Queen Levia of Daraq conjured serpent-lightning from her beast soul, targeting the incoming war-beast transport units used by the werewolves to ferry their berserkers.
The battlefield became chaos — divine, strategic chaos.
The humans were not just defending.
They were countering.
They had learned.
---
But the Werewolves Were No Less Mighty
A monstrous howl shattered the sky as one of the elite werewolf lieutenants — a berserker from the Ancient White clan — went into a full rage state. His fur turned silver, his eyes gold.