Chapter 18: The Mother's Secret Order and the Demon King Hypothesis
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“As sure as I’ve ever been,” Amy replied while fiddling with a tiny eavesdropping device. “I saw He You walk into the North Tower with the Feng Yue Unit in tow.”
“That dusty old record vault?”
“Exactly.” She grinned. “Which means they’re definitely not in there discussing what to have for dinner.”
We were cramped into the floor cavity beneath the North Tower’s abandoned library—more dust than air, drafty as a broken flute.
Above us: the secret council of my mother.
And the moment her voice floated down, a shiver shot down my spine.
Soft, sweet, and glacially cold—my mother’s voice always sounded like silk wrapped around a blade.
“The Wolf King Project is nearing completion.
The first ‘Demon King’ is about to awaken.”
Amy and I locked eyes.
Demon King?
And first? That meant—
There were more.
Mother’s voice continued, calm and cruel:
“A true king must not only possess power,
but the ability to dominate the will of the masses.”
“Subject One may have defected—but Subject Zero…
has already begun to awaken.”
I clenched my hand.
Subject One… had to be Coren.
But Subject Zero?
Who the hell was that?
Before I could think further, another woman spoke up. Her voice was taut with concern:
“But she is no longer under control.
If we don’t retrieve her soon, she may begin to… contaminate the others.”
Mother chuckled, a sound I’d heard too many times behind closed doors:
“That’s precisely what I want.”
“Let her think she’s in control.
What we’re cultivating isn’t a king—
but a Demon King.”
“A monster who can devour kingdoms, devour order… devour hope.”
“And she—she’s the perfect vessel.”
My brain short-circuited.
They were talking about—
Me.
From the start… this wasn’t about destroying me.
It was about making me win.
But win not as a wolf queen.
Win as a monster.
Amy slid me a folded scrap of paper. Scrawled across it:
The further we go, the more it feels like we’re following her script.
I bit my lip until I tasted blood.
I thought I was rebelling.
But I’d been running along rails she laid from the beginning.
She never meant to kill me.
She meant to weaponize me—to make me the hammer to smash every structure she despised.
I exhaled, voice shaking, and murmured to Amy:
“We need a counter-net.”
“If she thinks she’s the only player on this board—”
“She’s in for a surprise.”
That night, on the rooftop of Gray Tower, under the tolling bells of the wind-beaten clocktower, I gathered the team.
One by one, I laid everything out. Every word we’d heard. Every shadowy implication.
“She wants to make me the Demon King.”
Firewood exploded first. “The hell!? That’s some next-level evil!”
Raccoon slammed a palm to his forehead. “So her plan is to make you the queen of chaos?”
Coren was quiet for a long time. Then finally said:
“She can’t know we’ve caught on.”
“What terrifies her most… is when we start acting off-script.”
I nodded. “So starting tomorrow, we act.”
“Act like I’m becoming unstable. Unreasonable. Ruthless.”
“Act like I’m unraveling under power.”
“Let her think I’m transforming into her perfect little Demon King.”
“But behind the curtain—”
We turn the whole Demon King Project on its head.
Raccoon raised a hand. “We need a codename.”
“Operation... Backfire?”
Amy shook her head. “Too plain.”
I smiled, lips curling with the first real fire I’d felt in days.
“Then let’s call it ‘Operation Hunt the Mother.’”
“We hunt her now.
The Mother of Wolves—
will learn what it means to birth her own ruin.”
