Published at 7th of March 2026 8:55 am

Chapter 1764 The Choas

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The three ancient Vampires decided to somewhat disregard the bold comment made by Luzen. They exchanged brief, dismissive glances, thinking that the aggressive Werewolf was quite obviously lying to protect his pack leader’s fragile ego.

In their long, blood-soaked lives, they had seen exactly what ordinary humans were capable of, and it rarely impressed them. To their minds, Luzen was just trying to make it sound as if these fragile humans were actually worth having around on a dangerous battlefield. Still, it didn’t matter either way to the Family Leaders; they needed to focus entirely on the grim task at hand rather than bicker over the mortals trailing behind them.

The group moved in silence until they finally reached the first major residential area. It was a large block of towering apartments that stood like a concrete monolith on the outskirts of the city.

Before the outbreak, it had clearly been a bustling community hub. There was a sprawling underground car park, as well as a lavish inner courtyard area that boasted several communal facilities: a large walking area lined with dead trees, a playground park for the residents' children, a glass-fronted gym, an outdoor swimming pool, and more.

But as they cautiously approached one of the main entrances, the horrific reality of the lockdown became apparent. Where the wide ramps to the underground car park would have been on the sides of the complex, the gaps were completely boarded up. The terrified residents had haphazardly driven vehicles together, piling them up in a desperate blockade. Placed precariously on top of the cars were mounds of heavy furniture, vending machines, and heavy equipment dragged from the small shops around the outside perimeter.

And it was the exact same desperate, improvised fortification for the main public entrances as well. The glass doors were barricaded with everything the people could find.

“A completely useless effort,” Rowa commented coldly, his red eyes scanning the towering barricades with blatant disregard. “The Werewolves would easily be able to scale this crude entrance. With their leg strength, they could leap over it and just charge directly into the inner facilities. This wouldn't keep out even an Altered.”

Although the Howlers wanted to aggressively say something back to him, as his cold, analytical tone felt incredibly disrespectful to the desperate people who were just trying to cling to their lives, they bit their tongues. They could see, with sickening clarity, that the vampire was entirely right.

“Look at the walls,” Marie said, her voice dropping to a horrified whisper as she pointed upward. “They didn't even need to go through the barricades.”

Deep, jagged claw marks were gouged all over the outside brickwork and concrete pillars, trailing up the sides of the building. There were smears of dried, blackened blood streaking down the facade, and almost all of the lower-level windows had been violently smashed inward.

The sprawling apartment block had to be a high-density area that could comfortably house at least eight hundred residents, if not more.

Yet, as they stood there listening to the wind howl through the broken glass, it was deathly silent. It was as if there wasn’t a single living, breathing person left inside the complex. It truly did feel like a haunted ghost town.

Without saying anything to the rest of the group, Gary’s expression darkened. He decided that before heading inside the dark, claustrophobic residential block, he needed to just look around the outside perimeter first to mentally prepare himself.

Lining the street level of the complex were a series of small outlet shops. There was a bodega selling fruit, a corner cafe selling coffee, and even a small place where residents would do their daily laundry.

“Can’t he just smell what’s obviously rotting in there?” Jin asked, watching Gary approach the storefronts with an irritated sigh. The metallic tang of blood in the air was overwhelming, even to them. Jin was about to say something sharper to hurry the young Alpha along, but Haylock calmly reached out and placed his pale hand gently around Jin’s wrist.

“Leave him be,” Haylock commented, his ancient eyes watching Gary carefully. “Sometimes, a young leader just has to see the reality of the situation for themselves to truly understand the gravity of what they are fighting.”

When Gary stepped over the shattered glass and entered the ruined coffee shop, he could see the complete and utter mess it was in. The display shelves had been entirely destroyed and knocked over, chairs were splintered, and thick, congealed blood was splattered across the counters and the floor tiles.

He followed where his highly sensitive nose led him, stepping cautiously behind the barista counter. There, he could see the bodies left on the floor. Or rather, what was left of them. Most parts of the flesh had been savagely eaten and torn away from the bone. There was more than just one victim, and the mutilated bodies had been completely left there in the shop to rot.

“Judging by the extreme state of decay and the dried blood pooling around the bodies, it’s been left in this horrific state for quite a while,” Austin commented, having followed Gary inside. His large fists were clenched tight at his sides. “I honestly thought from Jin that they might have been exaggerating the severity of it all... but it looks like it’s completely true.”

Austin looked out the broken window at the empty streets. “There are no police, no heroic Altereds, no rival gangs here to try and stop any of this. They were completely abandoned.”

“And the military lockdown on the highway…” Kai said, stepping into the shop, his face pale as he looked at the carnage. “It goes both ways. The lockdown is not just to stop the enemy from getting out into the rest of the country, but it was also strictly designed to stop the innocent people from leaving.”

Kai looked back out toward where the Vampires were waiting. “No one could escape this nightmare. So the civilians were just locked in a cage and left in absolute terror in the city itself. The Vampires would rather have kept this entire outbreak a buried secret than risk exposure to save the people.”

“It’s hard to say though, Kai,” Marie said softly, playing devil's advocate as she stepped over a broken coffee mug. “If the Vampires didn’t do this extreme quarantine, then maybe the zombie Werewolves would have spilled out and caused a complete, uncontainable mess of all the nearby, heavily populated cities. Millions more could have died.”

“You're right about the risk, Marie. But we already know that there are isolated situations exactly like this happening all over the country anyway, just on a smaller scale. Centrefield is simply in the absolute worst state,” Kai added, his strategic mind piecing the puzzle together. “It means the Werewolves can escape the quarantine if they really wanted to, or they are being deliberately placed elsewhere.

“There is a very good chance that Unzoku isn't even physically here in this city right now. What we urgently need to find out is why Centrefield specifically is in a much worse state compared to everywhere else on the map.”

As Kai spoke, Gary stared down at the mutilated bodies. What Gary was desperately, silently hoping was that the answer to Kai's question wasn't tied to Midwak and the missing Strike Force. He prayed his pack members hadn't been the catalyst for this slaughter.

Eventually, the grim group headed back out and prepared to venture inside the dark residential block itself. There were solid tactical reasons for this.

The city would naturally be much more densely populated the closer they got to the commercial center. From all of the gruesome deaths they could see on the outskirts, the Vampires and Werewolves had quickly come to a unified, horrifying conclusion.

The Werewolves weren't just killing for sport or territory. They were actively feeding. They were slaughtering everything they came across, and nearly all of the flesh had been violently stripped from the victims' bones to sustain the pack's ravenous metabolism.

It also meant that the mutated Werewolves would logically stay clustered in the dense residential areas where there was more likely to be a high concentration of trapped people to hunt.

As they walked toward the shattered glass doors of the apartment lobby, all they could see was the aftermath of death all over the place, lingering in the shadows at every single corner.

“And sometimes you arrogant mortals call us the cruel ones. You call us monsters because we elegantly feed on a little blood in the shadows,” Rowa said, a sneer twisting his pale features as he gestured to a blood-stained children's toy on the pavement. “Yet, look at all of this mindless, barbaric slaughter. This is your kind's doing.”

“Rowa, enough.” Haylock sighed. “Your antics are even giving me a headache.”

“What should we do now?” Kai asked, ignoring the vampire's taunt. He looked toward their tracker. “Luzen, can you isolate and track certain human scents through this mess? Maybe we can look for a survivor hiding in the upper floors and ask them some questions about what happened.”

“No,” Gary interjected sharply.

Gary turned around, his eyes glowing with a faint, predatory light in the gloom of the courtyard. “Luzen, I don't want you tracking civilians. I want you to find the absolute closest Werewolf in this block. You can track one through this stench, right?”

Luzen looked at his Alpha, a savage grin spreading across his scarred face, and gave a single, firm nod.

“Good,” Gary answered, his fists clenching as he stared into the dark abyss of the apartment lobby. “I want to see exactly what these supposed monsters are for myself.”

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