357 Wait And See
Selma Payne’s POV:
The Lycan pack had entered a state of emergency.
The arrival of the royal family’s newborn brought joy to the werewolves, but it did not completely neutralize the panic about the wanderers, which had once again ignited chaos. An unspeakable tension lingered in every inch of the air among the packs.
This time, my father’s warning order was strictly followed by every pack, not all Alpha would protect his will from the bottom of their hearts, but no one would want their pack to become the next Floodwater, Saber Tooth, or Yellow Leaf Packs.
Even if they had now merged into Spring Rain Pack and were thriving, it couldn’t hide the fact that there was no Alpha there, and it had become my sphere of influence.
The Evaria Family was temporarily out of business as if they did not care what kind of disaster their clansmen in the dungeon would bring to the family. Judging from Emma’s expression, that was becoming more and more relaxed by the day, be it their sudden change of mind or Earl Marlowe finally willing to reorganize the family ruthlessly, everything was developing in the direction I wanted.
The werewolves seemed to be peaceful internally, but they were extremely fortunate. We had encountered unprecedented difficulties in tracking down the Azazel party.
The wanderers who had attacked the palace seemed to have evaporated into thin air. No reconnaissance means, or witchcraft could capture any clues about them. This meant that the power that helped them escape and hide their tracks was much stronger than the current strength of the werewolves. Since they were a group of cultists, it might be Azazel himself.
Although I took away his divine persona, a divine persona was only a form of identification. Any god who wasn’t so weak that they were about to disappear could re-condense their divine persona after some time, even if the price was the loss of some authority or power.
Some hidden history and myths recorded such events. A god who had condensed his divinity for the second time would be greatly weakened, but he was still an existence that mortals could not compete with.
Of course, it was not like we didn’t have a chance. As long as Azazel was not crazy enough to declare war on the Moon Goddess, he would not be able to come to the world in his true form. He would most likely need his believers to sacrifice a body that could walk on earth like the one sealed in the Rocky Mountains.
However, a sacrifice was more complex than drawing an array and throwing a sacrifice. The more powerful the sacrifice, the more precious the things needed to be prepared, and the more complicated the preparation process was. The right time, place, and people were all indispensable. It was not easy to find a body that could withstand the descent of Azazel. This meant that we could sort out the cultists’ potential targets based on the relevant records of our ancestors. Then, we could use this as a basis to wait for them to come and destroy the possibility of Azazel’s arrival at the root.
Of course, everything was easy to say, but there were many hidden difficulties.
After a day and night of emergency investigation, the Intelligence Department and the Sorcery Research Association worked together to compile a five-centimeter-thick list of more than 400 sacrificial candidates. Some of the 400 or so sacrificial candidates were precious, some were ordinary, and some were so rare that they could be found all over the streets. However, in terms of importance, they were all indispensable.
The problem was that we didn’t have enough manpower to monitor these sacrificial candidates individually. Furthermore, many of them were located in the territories of other races, even in uninhabited places like the north and south poles. Before the fire reached their homes, most people would watch it from the river’s other side. It was impossible for other races to cooperate with us.
Although the advantage of this situation was that we could put our limited manpower into the sacrificial candidates in our territory, the disadvantage was that the number of sacrificial candidates under our control was greatly reduced. In conclusion, there were only twelve choices left.
So be it. We spent the whole night discussing the plan and immediately sent people to camp around the twelve candidates. The rest could only be negotiated with the other races. I hoped that they would take this seriously, not only for the interests of the werewolves but also for themselves. Those cultists didn’t care whose territory they were in when they go crazy.
On top of that, my return to the Spring Rain Pack was delayed as I was under strict protection.
Not only me but my newborn child, Maxine, Aldrich, Dorothy, and all of my family members were under strict protection. This was because our physical fitness was far superior to that of ordinary people, and we were good choices to hold a god’s descent.
Although the matter of his followers was strictly kept a secret, I had snatched away Azazel’s divinity. He might know how we had been revived in the Rocky Mountains. If he knew, there would be no reason for him to give up on the ready-made, high-quality ‘container’. He would command his claws in the human world to attack us.
However, I had a vague feeling that this might not be that simple because the black cocoon we had not found anything about had gone missing. Was it really dead as it seemed?