My Almighty Werewolf System

Chapter 6

The training ground behind the academy’s eastern spires was alive with motion, grunts, shouts, and the sharp clang of weapons meeting weapons echoed across the open field.

The Festival of Faction was fast approaching, and every team was under pressure to prepare. But not every team had Selene Umbra as their assigned mentor.

Kai stood at the edge of the sparring ring, arms folded, brows furrowed. Beside him, Jace was chewing through a roasted meat wrap like he hadn't eaten in weeks.

But all eyes were fixed on the center of the arena, where two figures stood opposite each other.

Selene of House Umbra.

Thalia of the Stone Born.

"She’s really going to fight her?" Jace mumbled through a mouthful. “I mean, Selene’s practically royalty.”

“She’s not doing it for show,” Kai replied, eyes never leaving the ring. “She said we needed to train seriously. That means real combat.”

Thalia stood opposite Selene in the ring, still and silent.

Her pale stone-toned skin glow faintly under the sunlight, and her golden eyes glinted with an eerie calm. Her dark emerald dress clung to her lean frame like a second skin, and her braided hair was tied back, revealing the snake tattoos that curled along her neck and down her arms.

Selene, by contrast, stood effortlessly poised, a blade of elegance wrapped in shadow.

The crowd leaned in with curiosity etched in their countenance, everyone wants to experience the duel of a Royal vampire and one of the best in the Stone Born faction.

Kai whistled from the edge of the ring.

Thalia moved first.........

She dashed forward like a serpent uncoiling, swift and sure. Her movements were almost too fast to follow, and her twin daggers, thin and curved like fangs flashed toward Selene’s throat.

But Selene wasn’t there......she moves like the breeze, too fast even for eyes to see.

With a shimmer of displacement, the vampire twisted sideways, slipping behind Thalia in one fluid motion. Her palm struck Thalia’s back, soft, but enough to send the Medusa-born staggering forward.

The crowd gasped.

Thalia rolled, caught herself, and sprang back upright.

“You’ll have to do more than dodge,” she said.

“And you’ll have to do more than lunge,” Selene replied coolly.

“Now watch my move and learn what speed really is,” she added.

With a blur of motion, Selene attacked, her body weaving through the air like smoke. Her strikes were precise, like the beat of a war drum.

Thalia didn’t blink.......she dropped low, spinning into a defensive crouch as her eyes darted across the field. Her pupils shimmered with petrifying power, the latent bloodline of Medusa flaring to life.

Selene reappeared mid-air, her boot aimed for Thalia’s head.

Thalia twisted, deflecting with a bracer of polished stone erupting from the earth. The impact sent her skidding, dust swirling in her wake, but she was still upright.

The crowd stirred, no one expected Thalia to counterattack Selene’s move.

Daggers met bare hands. Stone met shadow. At one point, Thalia summoned her birthright, a sudden burst of paralyzing glare radiating from her eyes, but Selene simply closed hers and danced through it with an invisibility speed, she knew the Medusa bloodline too well.

Cheers rose from the students surrounding the ring. This wasn’t a beatdown. This wasn’t a lesson. It looks like a real duel of domination.

One minute passed.

Then two............ Unbelievable.

By the third, even Valen and Roger had joined the watching crowd, arms folded, eyes narrowed with unspoken surprises.

Kai stood at the edge of the ring, heart thumping. Jace muttered beside him, “She’s holding out. Thalia’s actually holding her own against a full-blooded Umbra.”

Selene blurred again, and this time she struck hard, shadows pierced the ground like spears, forcing Thalia to leap. But mid-air, she was caught by a whirl of gravity that yanked her sideways.

She slammed into the ground with a grunt, Selene wants her to yield as earlier as possible, but Thalia is not yet ready to throw in the towel.

Selene’s movements began to grow more aggressive, still graceful, but sharper now. Her eyeballs glow with tendrils of shadow. Her hands, still unarmed, moved like blades themselves. It will become an embarrassment to the whole Vampire factions if she loses her guide, Stoneborns doesn’t rely on strength, but in wits and craftiness.

Thalia was sweating. Her breath came faster. Her knees dipped lower with each dodge, and the sharpness of her counters dulled ever so slightly.

Kai felt his heart beating fast as if he were the one in the ring. He didn’t know who he was rooting for.

Finally, it happened.

Selene feinted low, then vanished. When she reappeared, she stood behind Thalia, her hand lightly resting against the side of her throat.

“Yield,” Selene said softly.

Thalia stood, frozen. She could move. But she didn’t.

“I yield,” she breathed.

The crowd erupted.

Not in mockery.......but in awe.

A moment of silence followed. Then applause, real applause. Even the upper-ranked vampires watching from a distance seemed moved.

Selene stepped back, her face unreadable.

“You did well,” she said.

Thalia turned to her slowly, her expression stunned. “You didn’t go easy on me.”

Selene didn’t smile. “You wouldn’t have learned anything if I did.”

Kai felt a swell of pride he couldn’t name. Their team was more than misfits now.

But then........he saw something strange.

Across the training field, while others still buzzed over Thalia and Selene’s fight, a series of groups had begun to gather. Not the usual noisy cliques of students… but quiet, calculated clusters. Four by four. Students from all factions. Werewolves. Vampires. Stone Born. Even an elf or two, cloaked in moon-silver.

Each group broke away from the crowd and disappeared beyond the garden arch, vanishing into a corridor of shadows at the far end of the academy grounds.

And then......his system chimed.

[SYSTEM ONLINE...]

Kai gasped as a cold pulse ran down his spine.

[WELCOME BACK, HOST]

His pulse thudded once..twice..before a glowing panel of crimson-blue light formed in his mind’s eye, the voice now darker… graver than before.

[INITIALIZING WARNING PROTOCOL...]

[WARNING: PATTERNS OF UNAUTHORIZED FACTION FORMATION DETECTED]

[THREAT LEVEL: SEVERE]

Kai’s eyes widened, this is new and different from the one’s he has been experiencing.

[SYSTEM QUEST ACTIVATED]

 [QUEST NAME: MORE THAN JUST A FESTIVAL]

"The blood moon rises again over the Academy. As in ages past, chaos festers behind smiles and celebration. Dark forces move in secret, cloaked as competitors, cloaked as friends. You are being watched.

 You are in danger.

 And you must survive."

[OBJECTIVE: ESCAPE THE DANGER]

[DURATION: UNDETERMINED – UNTIL THE HIDDEN CRISIS UNFOLDS] [FAILURE CONSEQUENCE: IMMEDIATE TERMINATION FROM THE ACADEMY]

[REWARD: PRIMAL SENSE – HEIGHTENED PERCEPTION TO HIDDEN DANGER | +1000 EXP]

Kai stared at the glowing glyphs, heart pounding in his ears.

Termination?

He scanned the crowd. Everything looked normal, but he knew something was wrong.

Badly wrong.

“Kai?” Jace asked beside him. “You okay?”

“I need to think,” Kai muttered, and without another word, he stepped back from the crowd and made his way down the edge of the field, heart pounding.

He didn’t stop walking until he reached the outer field. The training grounds faded behind him, and he stood alone between the rows of dark-stemmed hedges.

“Why me?? Why me always?” he groaned painfully. The pain of always being the weakest is too saddening for him to bear alone.

He leaned against the cold bark of an old tree and closed his eyes.

And then suddenly, a whisper of wind cut past his ear.

Then she was there before him.

Selene stood in front of him, her presence as quiet as it was commanding.

“You saw something, didn’t you?” she asked.

Kai opened his eyes. “How do you always know?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she stepped closer. “You must have realized the dangers lurking around this festival. You are not that dull, perhaps your primal shadows do tell you things? I saw you temporarily blackout earlier.”

He hesitated, knowing he cannot lie to her or start explaining about his secret system. But then he got an idea and then replied.

 “It warned me. About the festival. About hidden threats.”

Selene nodded, as if she expected this.

“This festival is not what it used to be, Kai. Not anymore.”

He frowned. “How do you know all this? What do you mean?”

Selene looked past him, toward the trees. Her gaze was far away, like she was looking at something that happened long ago.

“I was here,” she said, “a hundred years ago.”

Kai blinked. “What?”

“I look young,” she said, “but I’ve lived long enough to see patterns. The last time someone awakened a shadow like yours, he brought ruin to half the bloodlines in this academy. Dozens of clans fell. He couldn’t control it.”

Kai’s heart thudded.

“What happened to him?”

She looked at him for a long moment. “He didn’t survive. And he didn’t have anyone to guide him like you do.”

“Do I? the last time I checked I have no guardian.”

“You have me now........” she whispered, and the word made Kai’s heartbeat to increase.

His mind raced. “Why did you join my team? Why me?”

“Because I saw the signs,” she said. “I joined not to play games, but to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself........and so you won't make mistakes, I was concerned about you.”

Kai’s mouth felt dry. “You think I’ll lose control?”

“No,” she said softly. “I think you have a choice. And choices make all the difference.”

A long silence passed between them.

Then Kai asked, “The one who came before me with this type of shadow, his story. Is it recorded? Is there anything left?”

“There is,” Selene said. “But access to the Academy's Historical Relics is restricted. Only the top team in the festival earns that right.”

Kai inhaled slowly.

Then exhaled.

“So, we win?”

“Yes,” Selene said. “At all costs.”

He looked at her again, really looked.

She wasn’t just powerful, she’s beautiful and dazzling. And for so many reasons, he still didn’t fully understand why she is on his side.

“Alright,” he said quietly. “Let’s win this......I’ll save the thank you words to later”.

“Well, you owe me one.......”