Chapter Nineteen: The Underground Palace of the Weasel King

Twenty minutes later, the four crouched at the end of the waterway. From the opposite side, this place was right at the edge of the precipice.

In recent years, Chansi and Jing Xiucheng had earned some renown among the half-demon circles in Kyoto, both being regarded as promising new talents. In terms of their experiences, though neither had faced monsters of the Calamity class, they had dealt with and slain plenty of wild fiends, mutants, and law-breaking, murderous half-demons.

Yet the scene before them now left them so shaken and terrified that words failed them. It was as if they’d returned to that first time they’d ever confronted a monster—helpless and paralyzed.

Across from them, another waterway mouth faced them from a distance. The angle, height, and width matched perfectly, as if a single waterway had been sliced clean in two. Between these two mouths yawned an underground space over three hundred meters in diameter and thirty meters high, resembling a capped-off subterranean canyon.

The “birthing den” of the weasel-wolves, which Li Forth, the Ma siblings, and Niushan had seen before, seemed nothing more than a large puddle in comparison. Here, the depraved, frenzied weasel-wolves had not only dug downward, but had also burrowed upward—toward the surface—carving out nearly half the height of this underground valley.

From the waterway where Li Forth and his companions hid, everything above was lined with waterway mouths at regular intervals along the canyon walls, while below stretched a smooth, compacted, oval-shaped valley floor and dozens of uneven earthen pillars, with no apparent logic to their placement, rising straight up to the valley’s ceiling.

At the bottom of the canyon, packed tightly and even piled atop one another in places, were masses of damp-furred, hideous weasel-wolf monsters.

Within this three-hundred-meter underground canyon, their numbers were beyond counting. Not only did their forms differ wildly, but the largest measured a full seven meters—more than double the size of the armored beast they’d previously encountered. The smallest were juvenile, their numbers fewer, but most ranged between one and two meters.

As for features, these mongrels seemed to have bred in ways no one could fathom: some had wings, some bore horns, some had tails, others none; some were missing limbs, some sported tufts of all colors—a grotesque, chaotic hodgepodge of every conceivable aberration.

Yet one thing remained constant: that rodent head, with its signature jagged fangs.

Jian Dan exhaled slowly, relaxing his tense face. Keeping his voice low, he whispered to Li Forth, who was also holding his breath, “Damn it! It’s not the scene itself that frightens me, but what it means. That’s what truly scares me!”

Li Forth kept his eyes on the creatures below, glancing now and then at the opposite and surrounding waterway mouths.

Shadows flickered in those passages—likely more weasel-wolves. This was clearly their stronghold. He had to stay alert, lest they be discovered; otherwise, they’d lose all initiative and never get close to the weasel-wolf king.

Jian Dan needed no reply; he continued regardless.

“Look at the dig marks on the opposite and surrounding canyon walls. All the waterway mouths are above our level. These things have dug down more than ten meters, and up more than ten meters. Look at the ceiling—you can see sparse tree roots starting to break through. That means they’re almost at the surface!”

His voice came in a strained, hoarse whisper, laced with fury.

“What does that mean? When they’re ready, they might burst up from here and attack Kyoto!”

“Their terrifying reproductive rate means they’ll have an absolute numbers advantage. Even if Kyoto is full of powerful defenders, it’s like using anti-aircraft guns on mosquitoes. But if the existence of half-demons is exposed to the city’s residents, that would be an even greater disaster than monsters running rampant. It would shatter humanity’s worldview and trigger the greatest upheaval in our history—countless would die in the chaos that followed.”

Jian Dan lapsed again into a muttered, fevered analysis.

“These uneven earthen pillars reach all the way to the top. I don’t see any deep logic or structural sense in their arrangement, but they must help support the ground above. Weasel-wolves are expert burrowers; they’d never risk a cave-in before they’re ready.”

Suddenly, Jian Dan reached out and yanked Li Forth’s cheek, his voice trembling with barely contained terror and anger.

“Did you fucking notice?!”

He cast a glance at Chansi and Jing Xiucheng, then jabbed a finger at the center of the underground valley, urgent. “Light!”

“This space isn’t shrouded in darkness—there’s fucking lighting down there!”

Five lights, shaped like giant searchlamps, stood askew on their bases. Originally, they must have been placed not on the valley floor, but higher up, perhaps at the level of the waterway. The weasel-wolves must have dug the soil from beneath them, so that as the valley took shape, the lamps sank to the floor. In other words, these lights were already underground before the valley was ever excavated.

“Hell if I know what’s going on! Don’t tell me some weasel-wolf down here earned an electrician’s license and started wiring things up!”

“Can anyone explain this?!”

“Is there some human involvement behind the origins of this weasel-wolf pack? Who the hell is mad enough to breed creatures capable of wiping out humanity?!”

The more he realized, the more frenzied Jian Dan became. Curses tumbled from his lips without pause.

Li Forth pried Jian Dan’s hand off and rubbed his sore cheek. Jian Dan had always had this habit—one that Li Forth had indulged since they were young. The helplessness and pain behind it were understood only by a precious few, their origins buried in the most reckless, dangerous days of their youth.

For the past two years, the two hadn’t worked together. It was rare for Jian Dan to lose his composure; today brought Li Forth a strange sense of nostalgia.

“Enough. Now’s not the time for you to vent. Look over there.”

Li Forth nodded at a massive weasel-wolf—seven meters long, armored all over, squat-legged, snake-tailed, with a broad back marked by jagged ridges wide enough for an SUV to drive down. Its head was as big as a door, fangs like two interlocked pitchforks, and it dozed, snoring on a raised platform—the only one above the valley floor.

Chansi peered over, whispering in awe, “What’s going on with this weasel-wolf pack? The differences between individuals are enormous! With armor like that, I doubt my pneumatic wind blade could even scratch it.”

Jian Dan seemed to recover his composure in an instant, snorting, “You’re missing the point. He meant the one sitting on that mountain weasel-wolf’s head!”

Atop the giant’s head crouched a weasel-wolf no bigger than a juvenile. Yet there was nothing monstrous about this one—no jagged fangs, no scythe-like claws, no wings or other mutations. In another setting, it could pass for a large city rat.

But its fur was clean and dry, and its eyes were cold and sharp—undeniably intelligent.

Jian Dan proceeded to explain to Chansi and Jing Xiucheng why he and Li Forth believed this one was special.

“Look at the terrain. If you ignore the load-bearing pillars, what does this place remind you of?”

Chansi hesitated, but Jing Xiucheng answered first. “If this were above ground, an oval valley surrounded by waterway mouths like viewing platforms—it’s like a Western coliseum.”

Jian Dan corrected him. “You’re close, but you missed one thing—the raised platform beneath the mountain weasel-wolf, or the beast itself: what does it resemble?”

He answered his own question. “A throne. This is like an underground palace, with the weasel-wolf king seated on the throne, receiving the tribute of its subjects, perhaps even plotting humanity’s extinction.”

Jing Xiucheng and Chansi were both startled.

Jian Dan snorted. “What’s there to be afraid of? If these things weren’t this clever, the border keepers wouldn’t be making such a fuss.”

Then he asked, “Guess why we’re sure the one on the mountain weasel-wolf’s head is the king?”

Chansi and Jing Xiucheng exchanged glances, then shook their heads.

“There are three reasons. First, there’s a strict hierarchy among wild monsters. Even when it’s less apparent, the more social the species, the stricter it is. A juvenile would never perch atop a Calamity-class weasel-wolf.

“Second, look at its eyes—there’s the arrogance and wisdom of a ruler. Among nearly a thousand weasel-wolves here, do you see another with dry, clean fur?

“Third, this is just my intuition—the least substantiated. Do either of you know the anime term ‘Unit-01’? It means the very beginning.

“Look at this weasel-wolf—its size and features compared to the others. Doesn’t it look like the original prototype, as if all the rest were created by modifying it?”

After his analysis, Jian Dan looked directly at Li Forth.

Without turning, Li Forth replied, “I trust your judgment. But the question is, how do we verify it, and once we’re sure, how do we kill it and escape with our lives? None of us has any sensory abilities. Judging by appearances, at least half, if not most, of the weasel-wolves in this palace are Calamity-class.”

At this, Chansi and Jing Xiucheng both froze, their faces turning ashen.

Nearly a thousand below—if half were Calamity-class, that meant five hundred monsters of that level.

Jian Dan had already said these weasel-wolves had overcome reproductive barriers between species, deliberately crossbreeding for variety, mass-producing Calamity-class monsters, and unlocking a dizzying array of abilities. If left unchecked, their talents would piece together the entire power spectrum the border keepers were trying to control.

In other words, if the four of them rushed down now, they could easily be swarmed and killed by a handful—or even dozens—of unknown, terrifying monsters.

Just imagining it was enough to send cold sweat trickling down Chansi and Jing Xiucheng’s spines.

Jian Dan shrugged, tossing the problem back. “That’s your job as captain. I’m no half-demon, and I’m not going down there—anything else is just talk. Let me remind you, our goal is to kill the weasel-wolf king if possible, to leave the pack leaderless and give the troops a hundred miles away the chance they need to crush the horde, ending Kyoto’s ‘Red Alert’ with the least cost. And, of course, to get out in one piece, if possible.”

Li Forth didn’t answer immediately, sinking into thought. Chansi and Jing Xiucheng had no ideas—if they did, they dared not voice them now.

A heavy silence fell over the four, broken only by the occasional weasel-wolf screech and the thunderous snoring of the mountain weasel-wolf below.