Published at 19th of January 2026 8:44 am

Chapter 1692 The Shackles of Choice

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Kai had been checking his mental interface every few minutes, half-expecting a system notification to flicker across his vision the moment the sun began to dip toward the horizon. He had anticipated that the parameters of their mission would shift at either the start of the day or precisely at midnight, but the timing was irrelevant now and a bit odd to say the least.

The messages that finally manifested in his mind were so impactful that they shifted the very foundation of their strategy.

The system provided two distinct, powerful updates that changed everything.

First, the threat of the full moon, the primal, uncontrollable urge to shift and lose one’s humanity, had been neutralized for them. Tonight, they were immune to the lunar madness. This was a monumental relief; it meant they no longer had to endure the agonizing pre-moon fast to keep their beastly sides sluggish. They could eat, they could recover, and more importantly, they could act as a stable vanguard if the city descended into chaos.

But it was the second message that truly made Kai’s heart hammer against his ribs:

[Suppression Lifted].

The invisible weight that had been crushing their potential since they arrived in this era, the dampening field that had made their muscles feel like lead and their senses dull, was gone.

“Is it true?” Lupus whispered. He gripped his fists, his eyes widening as he felt a rush of raw, unbridled strength returning to his hands. He squeezed so hard the air seemed to pop in his palms. “I feel… I feel like I could tear the whole world apart.”

“I can feel it, too. It’s real,” Kai answered. As a special class type, Kai’s power was tethered to the presence of his kind. In the high-density environment of the dungeon, surrounded by hundreds of werewolves, a massive surge of energy was flooding his system. His specialized class skills were vibrating, waking up from their forced slumber.

For Gary, the realization was even more visceral. His vision flickered as the full System UI expanded before his eyes. The blacked-out icons for his skills suddenly glowed with lethal potential. He could see his stat points, his health bar, and the passive nighttime buffs that came with his specific class.

“From the look on your face, it’s the same for you, right?” Kai noted, watching Gary’s eyes dart across the invisible floating screens. “You’ve got everything back.”

“To a degree,” Gary replied, his brow furrowing as he scrolled through the menus. “There are still sections that are blanked out. Anything tied to my Alpha status is restricted. I’m guessing it’s because the world still recognizes us as Omegas based on our eye color.”

They looked at one another, acknowledging the bittersweet reality. They had their personal strength back, but the hierarchy of this world was absolute. Skills like the Alpha Bite were locked behind a red wall of system errors. Gary couldn't even access the Pack Link to assign pawn points or check on the status of his members back home.

“Remember what I said, though,” Kai cautioned, his voice dropping to a serious tone. “The System is trying to tell us somethign. If our powers are back, it’s because we’re going to need them. To protect the Red Wing Kingdom tonight… it means things are about to get messy. Very messy.”

The three shared a grim nod. The mission had just upgraded from a babysitting job to a potential war zone. However, they faced an immediate hurdle: Jack and Steve. They had to convince the Alphas that they were safe to be left unsecured, despite the terrifying reputation of werewolves on a full moon that they had just informed them of.

“How are we going to do that?” Lupus asked, glancing toward the heavy iron doors.

“We can’t,” Kai said flatly. “Jack might trust us, but the others in the room would riot if they saw three of us roaming free while everyone else is locked up. It would look like favoritism, or worse, a conspiracy. No, we stick to the plan. We go eat now to replenish our energy, then we come back and let them tie us down. If the situation turns south, we simply break the chains.”

They approached Jack, who was already looking frayed at the edges from the stress of the impending moonrise. He trusted them now, his earlier suspicion replaced by a desperate hope that these three strange men knew what they were doing. He allowed them a final reprieve to leave for a short period.

They gorged themselves, Gary feeling his Stamina and Energy bars refill to 100%, the sluggishness vanishing.

When they returned to the dungeons, the atmosphere had shifted. The reinforced doors groaned shut behind them, the sound of heavy bolts sliding home echoing through the damp stone corridors.

Kai opted to go to the section where Steve was stationed. He had already given those prisoners a thorough beating earlier; he figured he wouldn't feel too bad about giving them a few more bruises if they tried to break out. Besides, Kai was the fastest of the three. If prisoners escaped in multiple directions, he was the best suited to hunt them down in the labyrinthine halls.

“It takes about ten minutes to sprint from one section to the other at full speed,” Gary calculated, looking at the stone walls as if he could see through them. “Lupus, you’re the middleman. If things are stable here, move between the two sectors and support whichever side is struggling.”

“And since when did you become my Alpha?” Lupus joked, punching Gary lightly on the shoulder. It was a brief moment of levity before the darkness of the night truly set in.

They stepped up to their assigned positions on the wall. The other werewolves were already shackled in a circular pattern against the cold rock, their breathing heavy and rhythmic. Gary lifted the heavy beast cuffs. He snapped two around his wrists, two around his ankles, and one thick collar around his neck.

He leaned back against the stone, feeling the bite of the metal. Around him, the air was filled with the sounds of suffering. Some wolves were groaning in anticipatory pain, their bodies already fighting something; others were snarling insults at their neighbors, trying to lash out despite the chains.

Gary closed his eyes, focusing on the timer glowing in the corner of his vision. The seconds ticked down, and the ambient light in the dungeon seemed to pulse with a pale, silver glow.

[The Moon is at its fullest]

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