"That boy’s name is Patrick?"
The man nodded. "That’s him. You’ve seen it for yourselves, haven’t you? He can command the wolf pack because he has the ability of Beast Taming. The people here are all afraid of him. Everyone does whatever he says, including his own parents. They’re terrified of him."
The man started coughing, and Evelyn Ford gave him another pill.
"He’s fifteen this year. I heard that when he was three, a large pack of gray wolves came to the dungeon and mauled all the guards and experts to death. Those wolves rescued all the natives. They were seen as heroes. All the wolves that died are given a grand burial, but their pelts are kept. Wearing the wolf pelts symbolizes receiving the wolves’ blessing."
Evelyn Ford and Ronan Kendrick had guessed this part correctly. The people here regarded the wolves as heroes and saviors, which was why there were so many stone mounds in the forbidden zone, with bones pressed between the stones and wolf heads placed on top.
"You said before that they captured several hundred people and brought them here. The disobedient ones were fed to the wolves, and the obedient ones were forced to breed and have children. What does that mean?"
Perhaps recalling something terrible, the man clutched his head and began to writhe on the ground again. Ethan Dawson and Quincy pinned him down while Evelyn Ford gave him two more injections.
A long while later, the man calmed down again.
"Because the magnetic field affected their genes, their genes are inferior and defective. The children they have are born with increasingly severe defects with each generation. So they set their sights on outsiders. They use the wolf packs to kidnap people from the outside and bring them here. The main reason is that they hate those experts, they hate normal people from the outside, so they retaliate against them in the most brutal ways."
As the man spoke, his gaze swept over everyone present.
"The elderly are dragged off to be fed to the wolves. The young ones are assigned to the natives here and forced to pair up and have children. They want to improve their genes and make their descendants healthy. But the magnetic field here hasn’t returned to normal. As long as you live in the Rocksea Forbidden Zone, the people here, no matter how many generations they have, and even if they breed with healthy people, will never produce healthy children."
As the man said this, his eyes were filled with disgust and hatred.
His gaze finally landed on Ronan Kendrick. "You..."
"You’re the best-looking one. That demon has definitely taken a liking to your skin. The last time, he flayed a young man alive, trying to transplant the skin onto himself, but he failed."
The man’s words sent a shiver down everyone’s spine.
"Do you have any children here?" Evelyn Ford suddenly asked.
The man sat down on the ground, dejected. "I was passed around between them like a slave. The children they bore are as disgusting and ugly as they are. They are not my children."
"Then you could have just not had children with them."
The man glanced at Peter Owens and gave a bitter, self-mocking smile.
"I told you, the food they feed us is poisoned. As soon as night falls, everyone turns into a lunatic. Lunatics with no morals, no reason."
Evelyn Ford believed about seventy or eighty percent of what the man said. He did indeed have toxins in his body, and the poisoning was severe. The man was skin and bones, his body clearly hollowed out by the poison.
"Why did you risk everything to tell us this? Aren’t you afraid we’ll betray you?"
The man shook his head. "You won’t betray me. Because you’re normal people."
He struggled to his feet. "I have to go. Be very careful. Don’t eat anything."
After he spoke, he staggered toward the door. After making sure no one was outside, he slipped out quietly.
The next second, however, a scream came from outside. Evelyn Ford and Ronan Kendrick rushed to the door, but they were too late.
Patrick stood a short distance away, a dozen or so gray wolves behind him. The Red Wolf had already snapped the man’s neck. The man’s eyes were wide as he looked at Evelyn and the others, waving his hand with his last ounce of strength.
Evelyn Ford pulled out her gun. At that moment, she couldn’t care about the consequences. Watching the man die in front of her, rage consumed her thoughts. She fired six shots at Patrick. Two hit his arm before he quickly dodged the rest. The gray wolves behind him instantly charged toward Evelyn Ford and Ronan Kendrick.
Ronan Kendrick charged the Red Wolf with his knife. After slicing off one of its ears, he snatched the dead man’s body and quickly stored it in his space.
The man who had just been warning them, who had risked his life to bring them information, was now dead. He had died such a gruesome death right in front of Evelyn Ford and Ronan Kendrick.
"Ethan Dawson, Mr. Graham, close the door! Protect the others."
With no time for anger or grief, Evelyn Ford tossed them two rifles, made a swift decision, and ordered them to shut the door.
"No matter what happens out here, don’t come out."
Evelyn Ford raised her rifle and aimed it at the gray wolves in front of her. ’Hundreds or thousands, I don’t care if they’re wolves or rabbits. I’m going to slaughter every last one of them today, and I’ll level this whole damn place.’
"Ronan Kendrick, whether they’re wolves or people, finish them all."
Ronan Kendrick saw the murderous look in Evelyn Ford’s eyes and froze for two seconds. Then he raised his knife and swung viciously at the Red Wolf.
"Alright."
BANG! BANG! BANG! Gunshots rang out, and the frantically charging gray wolves fell one after another. Just then, the door that had been closed swung open.
Ethan Dawson, Peter Owens, Miles Vaughn, and Quincy all came out.
"We can’t let you two protect us all the time. We left the guns with the others. We’re teammates, so we fight side by side."
Evelyn Ford tossed the rifles to them. "Everyone stays alive."
"Yes, ma’am." Even at a time like this, Quincy couldn’t resist joking around.
Evelyn Ford shot him a glare, then fired two shots past him. A gray wolf collapsed heavily to the ground, still twitching and spitting up blood.
Just then, a strange sound arose. It was Patrick summoning more gray wolves. Ronan Kendrick’s expression changed, and he leaped onto the roof of a nearby stone house.
"I’ll deal with him. You guys handle the gray wolves."
Gray wolves leaped down from the cliffs, rushing toward Stone Village at top speed. Their eyes had turned red, and they were all snarling, baring their teeth ferociously.
The dozen or so gray wolves from before had all been killed. Watching the new pack surround them, Evelyn Ford took a Gatling gun out of her space.
Seeing the Gatling gun, Ethan Dawson’s eyes went wide. If the timing weren’t so bad, he would have dropped to his knees and kowtowed to Evelyn Ford.
Evelyn Ford didn’t actually know how to operate a Gatling gun, but she had read the manual before. She recalled the instructions: the magazine could hold two hundred rounds, and it could mow down a huge area in one go. But its destructive power was immense; the surrounding houses probably wouldn’t survive.
Moreover, the fired bullets could easily start a large fire.
"These wolves have gone crazy."
It wasn’t the wolves that had gone crazy, but the people.
A RAT-TAT-TAT... sound erupted. The gray wolves at the front all fell to the ground. Compared to a regular handgun, the machine gun’s range was not only farther, but its destructive power was also far greater.
Evelyn Ford was very satisfied. She hadn’t made any mistakes on her first try.
Screams came from the nearby stone houses, and Evelyn Ford saw several people with disfigured faces charge out, brandishing long knives.