Patrick could control wolves. He could not only communicate with them but also make the pack obey his commands.
Quincy’s harsh words had inadvertently revealed Patrick’s true abilities.
"You had the wolves bring us here. What exactly do you want?" Evelyn Ford walked up to Patrick, her face cold as she looked at him.
Once they entered the Rocksea Forbidden Zone, they had fallen under Patrick’s watch. His real goal was to have the wolves lead Evelyn’s group to this forest.
Evelyn Ford and Ronan Kendrick had both misunderstood. The wolves weren’t going to lead them out of the Rocksea Forbidden Zone, only bring them here.
"Aren’t you afraid?"
Patrick smiled wickedly. He made a hand gesture to the wolves on the cliff, and the pack retreated back into the woods.
"Afraid of you, or of these wolves?"
Patrick took out some Dried Meat from a wolf-skin pouch. The other children swarmed him, staring at the Dried Meat in his hand with longing and anticipation.
He distributed the Dried Meat, then sent the other children away.
"The last people who came here not only pissed their pants in fear but also knelt and begged me to let them go. You all have some guts."
As Patrick spoke, his gaze fell upon Zoe and Wendy.
"Those two look very healthy."
Evelyn Ford whipped out the gun from her lower back and pressed it directly against Patrick’s forehead.
"If you die, these wolves will lose control, won’t they?"
Patrick’s expression didn’t change. He just stared at Ronan Kendrick for a long time.
"If I die, you won’t live either. Once the pack loses control, they’ll go crazy. If you don’t believe me, feel free to try." He then gave a provocative smile.
Just then, the sound of a ringing bell came from the distance. Patrick glanced at the group and continued, "It won’t rain tonight, but it will snow. You’d better just follow me obediently."
He led the Red Wolf forward. Evelyn Ford glanced at the people behind her. They were badly shaken by the sudden turn of events. Joelle Finch and Peter Owens were pale, looking as if they were about to faint.
"What do we do? Are they going to kill us?"
"He mentioned people who came before. That means other refugees have been here. They must have killed them. Let’s run."
The cliffs were full of gray wolves, eyeing them hungrily. No matter how capable a person was, they couldn’t outrun a wolf.
"Scared?" Seeing that no one was following, Patrick turned back to look at them, his voice laced with mockery.
Quincy was about to speak, but a glare from Evelyn Ford made him shut his mouth.
"Let’s go. Since we’re here, we’ll deal with it. Let’s see what he’s really up to."
Seeing them follow, Patrick patted the Red Wolf’s head and led the way into Stone Village.
In Stone Village, every house had its door shut. The children from before were gone. Occasionally, they could hear the sound of voices from inside, but not a single person came out.
Patrick led them to a stone house. He pushed the door open. The middle-aged woman they’d seen in the woods was inside, cleaning. When she saw Patrick, she flinched and quickly lowered her head, continuing her work.
"You’ll stay here. Don’t even think about running. You can’t escape."
After speaking, he grabbed the woman’s arm to leave. Before closing the door, his gaze lingered on Zoe, Wendy, and Ronan Kendrick for several seconds.
"What’s wrong with that guy? What the hell did he mean by that earlier?" Quincy started cursing. The thought of a monster like that sizing up Zoe made his blood boil.
Evelyn Ford pushed open a door and found that the beds inside were just piles of stone. The house was small, with only two bedrooms, two stone beds, and no other furniture.
Just then, the main door was pushed open and a man suddenly peeked his head in. Everyone was a little surprised to see him, because he was a normal person with no deformities.
"I knew it! I knew something was wrong. More people have come."
He looked at the group and started muttering to himself. Ethan Dawson walked over to ask what was wrong, but the man suddenly rushed forward, looking at them anxiously.
"You have to go! Get out of here, quickly! Wait, have you eaten any of the food or water they gave you? Spit it out! That stuff is poison! Hurry, hurry, leave! Don’t spend the night here! No, there are wolves outside, you can’t get away. Anyone who tries to escape gets dragged off and fed to the wolves."
The man was about five-foot-seven and looked extremely thin. He wore a filthy set of clothes and had a piece of wolf skin wrapped around him, creating a bizarre look.
He was so anxious he stomped his feet and spun in circles. He grabbed Ethan Dawson, telling him to hurry and leave, then said they couldn’t go out because of the wolves.
"Are you one of the people they captured before? How long have you been here? What is this place? Why do the people here look so strange? What was their purpose in bringing you here?"
Ethan Dawson fired off a barrage of questions. The man clutched his head and collapsed, writhing in pain on the ground.
Evelyn Ford took out her Silver Needles and inserted two of them into his head. The man slowly began to calm down.
"Are you okay?"
The man looked up at them, his eyes instantly welling with tears.
"Why did you come to this forbidden zone? You can’t get out now. You’ll be just like us. If you disobey, you get fed to the wolves. The obedient ones are used for breeding."
Breeding?
To have children?
The group was stunned by this information, completely bewildered. "What does that mean?"
The man clutched his chest, his expression one of pure agony. "This place is hell. Once you’re in, there’s no way out unless you die. No, even in death, you get fed to the wolves. The wolves eat people, and *they* eat people too."
Seeing he was still agitated, Evelyn Ford took out a bottle of medicine, shook out a sedative, and stuffed it into his mouth.
"Don’t get agitated. Just try to calm down."
The man pounded his chest, gasping for breath. A thought seemed to strike him, and he said hurriedly, "If you can’t leave, remember this: do not eat anything they give you. If you eat their food, you’ll go crazy at night, and they can torture you however they please. I’ve been here for six years. I was just a refugee passing through. Everyone who was with me is dead. After that, they captured hundreds more people, bit by bit. The ones who survived are either insane or just numb. There aren’t even twenty of us left alive."
After speaking, the man started coughing again. "I’ll tell you what I know. Because of a problem with the magnetic field, you can’t find this place, the Rocksea Forbidden Zone, on any map. The natives who live here are all ugly and deformed. Some are intellectually disabled, too. It wasn’t until a few decades ago that two exploration teams came here and discovered them. They reported it to their superiors, and then scientists came. They set up a lab here and locked up the natives to study them."
"The final conclusion of their research was that a chaotic magnetic field and inbreeding caused the people here to be deformed and short-statured. But the people they locked up for research either died or went insane. This whole affair couldn’t be revealed to the public, so this place became the Rocksea Dungeon. They locked all the natives inside and left them to fend for themselves."
After he finished speaking, the man glanced at the door.
"It wasn’t until that devil, Patrick, was born that they regained their freedom."