Chapter 31: Woman, you have piqued my interest!

He had not even considered this, yet it seemed entirely plausible—he had just noticed the demon wolf, Se-Se, looking at Lady Ordos’s body with a gaze that felt wrong.

It seemed filled with desire.

Not a desire to eat Lady Ordos—though one could say "eat" in a different sense—it wanted to toy with the very body of Lady Ordos that even Zohan found mouth-watering!

As a woman, Lady Ordos was sensitive to such lustful stares, and it was perhaps because of this that she had made the connection.

Yet, this might just be the truth!

"Woman, what else do you know!" The demon wolf, Se-Se, was both startled and furious.

Logically speaking, a woman with breasts larger than her head should be nothing more than a vacuous plaything; how could she speak such unsettling and incisive words?

Seeing the expression on the demon wolf’s face, the crowd realized that Lady Ordos had truly discovered something—that undergoing the transformation meant becoming a monster.

Good heavens, that was a fate worse than death!

"No, we refuse!"

"Barbarov, send someone for reinforcements quickly!"

"When will the priest return?"

"Everyone, go back and prepare to leave this place."

"Fools! In this weather, where can you go? Without enough guards, you will only freeze to death on the road, and the chances of being killed by wild beasts are even higher."

The crowd murmured in discussion, torn between the impossibility of accepting the Beast Tribe’s terms and the realization that the Beast Tribe’s sustainable exploitation of Red Hazel Town was, at least, keeping more people alive; staying in town was safer than fleeing.

Lady Ordos realized she might have hit the mark and became wary, saying nothing. At the same time, she felt a sense of triumph; her performance today had completely overshadowed everyone else in the Ordos family.

She imagined Mr. Zohan would praise her, too. It was said that a capable woman excited men more. As she thought this, the look she cast at Zohan was filled with boundless, springtime passion.

"Woman, you have successfully caught my attention. I am taking you back for interrogation!" The demon wolf, Se-Se, shoved aside Nina, the mayor’s wife who was being held hostage, and lunged forward with a sudden burst of speed.

Lady Ordos turned deathly pale. A brilliant azure light flashed, and a magic circle—a circular formation combined with a hexagram, featuring complex runes and radiant flares—appeared around her.

She was instantly teleported behind Zohan. Her high heels wobbled, and her supple body went limp, threatening to collapse, but Zohan caught her with quick reflexes.

Lady Ordos let out a soft moan. The terror of the attack followed by the sudden sense of safety left her breathless and flushed with excitement.

"You... you can actually use magic!" The demon wolf’s blood-red eyes seemed to clear for a single instant. "Impossible, it must be a magic item!"

Because of the demon wolf’s sudden outburst, the council chamber fell into chaos. No one paid any heed to Barbarov, who had been blocking the door; he was shoved aside, his head striking the wall, leaving him nearly dizzy, while his wife, Nina, took the opportunity to scream and flee.

Only Old Ding-Dang kept a firm grip on his hammer, his gaze resolute, preparing to follow the original plan and assist Zohan in the attack.

The demon wolf, Se-Se, dug its claws into the hard floor, opened its gaping, blood-stained maw, and launched an attack directly at Zohan.

[Radiant Bastion Defense Effect -1]

Finding that the magical defense reacted similarly to the attack from the magic bullet gun, Zohan quickly canceled his other defenses, leaving only [Radiant Bastion] to consistently absorb the "-1" damage.

The demon wolf’s attack speed was incredibly fast; its sharp claws were like phantoms in the air. Its size seemed to swell again, muscles bulging, its wolf-like waist straightening as its arms swung with ferocious speed.

"What is going on!" The demon wolf, Se-Se, was shocked and enraged. "This is really a defensive spell—impossible! You are at most a magic apprentice or a novice mage—how could you cast magic directly?"

"Is there something wrong with your brain?" Zohan felt that this demon wolf was likely a monster created from a human, and that its mind had been broken during the transformation process.

Was it not natural for a mage to use magic? Otherwise, why would he be called a mage?

"Wind-Slasher Blade!"

The demon wolf, Se-Se, was close enough that Zohan did not need to use "Swift Step." He skipped the incantation for "Dash Slash" and struck the wolf’s abdomen directly with his staff.

Blades formed from gale-force winds rotated at high speed, slicing through the demon wolf’s skin. The firm, ruddy muscles beneath were equally defenseless, ripped open and eviscerated by the wind blades.

"Awoo—"

The demon wolf, Se-Se, let out a piercing cry as blood sprayed like an unfurling fan. Its crimson eyes finally lost their bloody hue, turning a normal dark brown. Steam rose from its skin as its massive body collapsed with a thud.

Old Ding-Dang’s hammer lagged for a moment before it finally came crashing down, striking the wolf squarely in the head. He looked at Zohan in shock; the power of the magic was beyond his imagination.

In Old Ding-Dang’s mind, a mage represented academic knowledge and insight; he had never imagined Zohan would be such a direct combatant. Hope surged within him—perhaps the crisis in Red Hazel Town could truly be solved by Zohan.

"Hhh—" The demon wolf lay twitching, coughing up blood, its eyes filled with disbelief. As it turned out, in the face of a mage who truly mastered offensive abilities, it, as a Third-Order monster, was so fragile.

Then, what was the meaning of the transformation? The demon wolf’s body stiffened, and it died with its eyes wide open.

"Se-Se, no." Zohan sighed with a sense of boredom and crouched down to stare intently into the wolf’s eyes.

Se-Se did not revert to its original form upon death; it remained in its demon wolf state.

This indicated that if it truly was a human transformed through magical modification, the process was stable and quite mature.

This also meant that the research process for such modifications was detailed, meticulous, thorough, and refined, having undergone countless experiments—using a large number of humans as experimental "consumables."

This was unavoidable. For any magical research to reach a state of perfection, it had to go through such a process; it was just that, most of the time, the "consumables" used would not trigger disputes regarding ethics or the bottom line of humanity.

Unless the consumables were "people."

"Mr. Zohan, is it really a person?" Old Ding-Dang walked over, asking with deep concern. He did not want Gwen to end up like this.

If an agreement were truly reached with the Beast Tribe, ordinary residents like Gwen would likely be the first choice to be sent away for transformation.

"Hard to say. I have never seen this kind of magic, and I don't understand it."

Zohan shook his head. "Old Ding-Dang, go and tell everyone to prepare for evacuation. The Demon Wolf Tribe is highly vengeful. Once they realize this wolf isn't reporting back, they will likely sense something is wrong and soon come to Red Hazel Town for retribution."

Old Ding-Dang was startled and hurried off. He did not blame Zohan for killing the demon wolf; the Beast Tribe had never intended to let the people of Red Hazel Town live, and besides, the wolf had attacked the kind-hearted Lady Ordos the moment it struck.

"Mr. Zohan, you are truly powerful." Lady Ordos leaned in softly, feeling like a young maiden in love.

She felt as if she were a flower in full bloom, her petals unfurling in the breeze, shyly revealing her core.

She was waiting for Zohan, the little bee, to come and roll about in the heart of those layered petals, covered in her pollen and filled with her fragrance.