The Moon Goddess' Chosen

519 An Old Enemy

Micah Chase, a renowned hunter of the Chase family, though not as well known as his brother, Thorrin Chase, had tasked himself with figuring out the mysteries that plagued the somewhat perfect uninterrupted Royal Games.

His brother was talented at a great many things… but if there was ever something that he was better at than Thorrin ever hoped to be, it was his sharp gut instincts. Despite his weakness, Micah had much sharper instincts than those of his brother.

Since arriving at the Great Arena, he’d felt something off about the place but not been able to quite put his finger on what made the place feel so eerie. Everything seemed fine and no one seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary.

Apart from the concerning way with which the two Sirius Royals reached Great Arena, everything seemed to be going smoothly.

…and yet, his gut said otherwise.

His suspicions intensified even more after he met the princess coming from a suspiciously dark parking lot. Checking through it gave him no results even though his senses had driven him there in the first place.

The parking lot was a dead end… but the princess had given him more than enough information to keep following through with his hunch.

The sighting of the famous survival series actor ‘Jack Boggle’ in the dark place was very suspicious considering the actor had been reported missing for a long time now.

He tried to make a few calls and that’s when the second weird thing happened… His signal went off, making the use of phones in the whole Great Arena virtually impossible.

.....

Panic had risen first through the human population and after a short while, the hunters were able to calm the masses and assure them that communications would be back in order.

In the meantime, a small sub-terminal had been set up within the Great Arena to allow devices to communicate. This only helped the people inside the Great Arena to communicate with each other, however, the rest of the world was still inaccessible.

Micah sighed, walking towards a large tall structure that rose up into the sky, towering above everyone and everything like a pillar of metal beams set on touching the clouds. The hunter looked up momentarily, taking in the sight with a bit of interest.

He placed his hand into his coat and felt for the weapons it concealed, shifting one of the knives to a sheath at the side of his belt for quicker access should things turn bad really quickly.

Because most of the land around the Great Arena was flat or flattened, finding a hill to raise the mast was next to impossible. As a result, a large telephone tower like this one had to be built to project signals across the vast flat land of the Great Arena.

What was more was that it had to be taller than the Great Arena itself to be effective and gave it a much more impressive look compared to the rest of the masts Micah had ever seen.

Surrounding the base of the colossal mast was a black shelter with a single metal door. Micah curiously approached the door, stopping the door hesitant to open it.

…and for good reason.

Despite the door’s weathered state, covered with moss and rust, the last person to access it had definitely used force. Four parallel cuts ran deep and diagonally across a hole that used to hold the doorknob.

‘One strike. A powerful one. A general? Or perhaps one of the beta alphas?’ the hunter thought, spreading his field of awareness in search of anything.

Once again, there was nothing. Not a single sign of an enemy. Secretly, he was hoping there was nothing. If he had to go against the rogue generals or one of the beta alphas, there was no telling how he’d fare against them.

Then again, this silence felt even worse. He could feel it in his gut that something wasn’t right… and yet he the trouble eluded him at every time. It was like his enemies intentionally stayed out of sight and only appeared at his periphery for a few short moments before they vanished again.

Pushing the door open, the hunter stepped into the shelter, taking in the state of the inside. Micah was never one for electronics and didn’t really understand anything beyond staying away from exposed wires and wet electric grounds.

Thick beams planted thrust and bolted to the concrete floor held the mast firmly planted in place, then ran up and through the roof to the upper part of the structure.

The lights inside flickered with an ominous irregularity. After searching for a short while, he came across a mess of wires at the bottom of one of the mast’s legs.

The wires had been viciously cut. When he leaned closer for a look, the hunter covered his nose as the putrid smell of charred blood and flesh invaded his nostrils.

Crouching down, he saw the source of the awful smell… ‘Electrocuted!’

The hunter sighed, looking around. The shelter was empty except for a few chairs, a table and a ladder that ran down the middle of the mast, leading up and out through the roof.

Without an experienced engineer, he couldn’t fix whatever damage that had been done here. In contrast to a report his sister-in-law had submitted a few years ago, this wasn’t the simple flip of a switch that had trapped students in a reserve.

These rogues wanted the mast to be irreparable for a very long time.

Micah walked up to the ladders and climbed up to the top, emerging through the roof of the shelter and standing on its rusty roof. The rundown shack was just strong enough to hold his weight… not like he was worried about that.

The hunter was confident he could easily escape the roof with a quick step if it started to give. Standing at the top of the black shelter, he took in the sights around the mast. Because of the dangerous waves that surrounded the mast, there were few buildings allowed closer to it and none of them was residential.

The hunter turned in all directions, a nagging feeling boring into his consciousness. ‘Someone’s watching me,’ he thought to himself. The gaze that tore at his senses was next to impossible to discern.

‘A civilian. Perhaps they saw what happened here,’ he thought.

“So, they actually sent you. Who could have thought?” a deep voice suddenly interrupted him.

Micah turned his head skyward towards the voice that had just spoken, then his blood ran cold all at once. His senses didn’t say anything about him… but his muscles tensed up and his breath hitched as a memory clawed its way back into his mind.

Seated on one of the beams high up on the mast was a man. His arm looked messed up but without a doubt healing as it should have been.

“Who are you?” Micah asked calmly, easily concealing his tension.

The man’s shifted his gaze from the horizon to the hunter, revealing a pair of searing red eyes. Micah tensed at the sight of the man’s eyes. He was, without a doubt, a rogue general. This realisation came along with a crystal clear memory.

He knew these eyes.

How could Micah forget him?!

This was the same person responsible for the bite-shaped scar on his right forearm. This was Samson, one of the Rogue King’s generals. His strength two years ago had been significantly stronger than Micah’s downing the hunter without breaking a sweat along with the devilish childlike alpha, Benji.

“YOU!!!”

“Ah! You remember. I’m honoured,” Samson chuckled, bowing slightly, “You were weak back then but I’ve heard word of your improvement. Still, that’s irrelevant. What makes you think you’ll be any different this time?”

“Two years is a long time. I’ll put you down here and now,” Micah declared, retrieving a pair of wolfsbane-laced hunting knives from his jacket.

Samson raised his brows at him in amusement, “Do Chase hunters really attack people that bear no murderous intent?”

Micah froze at the question.

Why did it feel like he was the one trying to coax the werewolf into fighting him? Samson was dangerous. He was a rogue general capable of bringing down an army of trained hunters and pack warriors. But why did he feel no more dangerous than a civilian right now?