Although Luzen had lost his signature bow, the weapon was not the only thing that had earned him his infamous name. Long before he was known for his archery, he was respected as a master of the hunt. He was exceptionally talented, arguably the best tracker in the country, possessing an innate ability to read the landscape. Whether he was traveling through the dense concrete of a city, the open asphalt of a highway, or the tangled thickets of a forest, he could always see the most efficient paths to take.
It was this mastery of terrain that made it easy for him to maintain his tail on the Glutton Werewolves. As he followed the pack, staying downwind and out of sight, he began to notice a troubling shift in the environment. Some of the Gluttons he spotted weren't just the ones from Centerfield; he could see movement ing from the periphery of his vision, werewolves arriving from much further out. This meant that while he was following the pack in front of him, there were now other packs following from behind, effectively sandwiching him.
To avoid being caught in the middle of a converging tide, he purposely slowed his pace, allowing the local group to pull him closer to the destination. He moved with the shadows, observing their behavior with a scout’s keen eye.
“These things... they’re not even responding to my presence,” Luzen whispered to himself, his hand resting on his side where his bow should have been. “It’s like they have one order and one order only, and that’s to head to wherever they are going. Nothing else matters to them now.”
The Gluttons were sprinting at full speed, their claws clicking against the ground in a rhythmic, terrifying chorus. It didn't take them long to reach the heart of the convergence. Luzen eventually came to a halt at a derelict entrance where the old, crumbling ticket booths stood. He looked up at the rusted, creaking sign that hung above the gates.
“Tower Land... well, I don’t think they’re all here to go on the rides,” Luzen mented grimly.
What he found truly crazy, and deeply worrying, was the sheer volume of werewolves descending upon the theme park. He could hear the sound of their movement echoing from all directions; the rustling of the woods, the thudding of paws on the old parking lot, and the low, guttural snarls. They were ing from every corner of the country.
“This is clearly the end point,” he realized. “I’ll send a message to the others now and tell them where Unzoku is. But I need to confirm two things before I'm done: I need to see Unzoku himself, and I need to identify any other hidden dangers. That’s what a true scout does.”
Luzen moved into the park with extreme caution. From the few times the Howlers and the others had dealt with Unzoku, they had learned a terrifying truth: somehow, he could feel the presence of every werewolf within a certain range. Standard hiding was useless. Luzen’s only hope was that whatever ritual was happening, Unzoku would be too distracted to notice a single outlier. He gambled on the idea that Unzoku’s "search" function only worked when he was actively looking for a specific threat.
As he moved deeper into the park, Luzen’s mind was already mapping out his escape. He made careful note of the best routes, looking for ways to use the twisted scenery to his advantage. He looked for narrow passages he could block or structures he could climb, knowing he might have to use every trick in his arsenal to get out of here alive.
“Rather than heading in closer and risking discovery, the best thing would be to try and find a vantage point,” Luzen said to himself.
The influx of werewolves was still increasing. Even just counting those that had arrived from the direction of Centerfield, they were already numbering in the hundreds. If he factored in the other directions, the numbers were staggering.
Searching the immediate area, Luzen found the perfect vantage point: a massive, rusted roller coaster that loomed over the center of the park. He began to scale the metal framework, his fingers gripping the cold, oxidized steel. When he had reached about halfway up the structure, the entire layout of Tower Land opened up before him.
It didn't take long for him to find exactly what he was looking for. Crowds of Gluttons were gathering like a dark sea around the center of the park. They were congregating near a fountain that sat just before the park's main hub. All of the beasts were heading toward that central point, and the figure they were all staring at with mindless devotion was Unzoku.
“Alright, I should send the message now. I have to plete my mission, even if I die,” Luzen said, his voice steady. He pulled out his device and sent the coordinates to the others, then focused his eyes to get a better look at the horror below.
Unzoku was standing at the base, his silhouette imposing and monstrous. He was moving with a frantic, savage energy, swinging his arms and picking up the Glutton Werewolves as they approached. With every one he grabbed, he snapped their heads off with a single, sickening bite, chewing down and swallowing the flesh instantly. He was consuming them with a terrifying efficiency, holding a lifeless body in each hand as he fed.
As if they were pletely mindless creatures, the Gluttons didn't fight back. They simply continued to move ahead, queuing up and allowing themselves to be consumed by their creator.
“He’s eating them all,” Luzen whispered, his blood running cold. “And his eyes... it’s almost as if he’s gone mad with hunger. Is he really going to eat every single one of them?”
When he looked around the park, Luzen realized the scale of the gathering. Between those already present and those still arriving from across the country, there had to be at least a thousand werewolves here, and the tide showed no sign of stopping.
“If he eats all of them,” Luzen mented, his grip tightening on the roller coaster track, “just what type of monster will he bee? By the time the others get here, we might be facing something that we can’t prehend.”
***
**
User Comments
0 comments from readers