Chapter 25: DNA Implantation

When the werewolf leader’s fist slammed into Ella, she felt like a fly being swatted away.

Her vision instantly blurred into streaking afterimages. 

Ceiling, walls, floor, smoke, firelight—everything spun wildly, as if she had been tossed into a washing machine on full spin.

Her body traced an arc through the air before her back smashed hard into the bulkhead at the end of the corridor.

Bang!

A dull thud exploded inside her chest. 

Searing pain radiated from her spine to every limb, as though someone had rammed a red-hot iron rod straight up her tailbone.

Her head cracked against the wooden panel. Darkness flashed across her eyes, and a loud buzzing filled her ears.

She slid down the wall and sat slumped on the floor, silver hair falling messily over half her face.

Her vision grew hazy and doubled. 

The corridor split into two, the werewolves became four, the flames doubled into twin blazes.

Everything was forcibly torn apart, like an oil painting soaked in water—the colors bleeding at the edges, losing all definition.

“Heh.”

But she couldn’t help laughing…

A warm liquid spilled from the corner of her mouth—blood, dark red and gleaming with an eerie, almost black sheen in the firelight.

She extended her tongue and licked at the blood on her lips.

Her tongue slid from one corner to the upper lip, then back again, over and over, like a cat that had just finished a meal meticulously grooming its whiskers. 

She didn’t want to waste a single drop. The metallic, salty-sweet scent of warm blood exploded across her tongue.

Her pupils glowed faintly in the darkness.

“You little shit.”

The werewolf leader stood where he was and glanced down at his abdomen. 

There was only a tiny wound, barely visible—about the size of a fingernail—with a single dark red bead of blood seeping out.

“After all that, you’ve got brain problems or something?”

The corner of his mouth twisted in disdain. He didn’t even bother covering the wound. In his eyes, it wasn’t a wound at all.

Even counting the full length of the tentacle behind Ella, the muscular force it could generate probably couldn’t match a single finger of his. 

Even with the advantage of a surprise attack and the needle-sharp tip, it had only managed to pierce his skin. Of course it was useless.

He remained standing completely unharmed. 

The tiny puncture on his abdomen wouldn’t hinder his movements in the slightest and would heal on its own in no time.

He took a step toward Ella, boots crunching over the broken planks with sharp cracks.

But he had no idea.

Inside that shallow scratch—which neither he nor any of the werewolves considered an actual wound—something was happening.

Only Ella could see it.

In her vision, beneath the pierced, still-bleeding skin, a brand-new, vigorous life was wriggling.

It was tiny—so small it was almost invisible to the naked eye, so small it would have been nothing but a blurry clump of cells under a microscope. 

Yet its rate of division was insane: one becoming two, two becoming four, four becoming eight, like a machine that had been switched on and would never stop.

It was devouring—devouring the werewolf’s flesh, his nutrients, every usable organic particle inside his body.

Ella could feel it.

Through the swarm consciousness network, she could sense the newborn, fragile, ravenous little life’s frenzied hunger for meat and blood.

That urge surged back into her own brain like an electric current, overlapping with her consciousness until her own stomach cramped, her own teeth itched, and every nerve in her body screamed for more.

The smell of blood in her nose had never tasted so sweet.

She leaned against the bulkhead, silver hair disheveled, blood streaking the corner of her mouth, her eyes gleaming with a crimson, terrifying tremor in the darkness.

“Grow up… my child…”

“Devour everything!”

The corners of her mouth curved upward.

“Grow!”

The corridor fell silent for a heartbeat.

The werewolves exchanged glances. 

Their boss was still standing, the wound nothing more than a pinprick, yet the silver-haired girl who had been punched flying and was now slumped against the wall with blood all over her mouth… was smiling.

“What the hell?!”

The werewolf leader’s body suddenly shuddered.

“My body?! Something’s biting me?!”

His hand flew to his abdomen, brows knotting tightly.

“Boss?! What’s wrong?!”

The werewolves behind him surged forward, shouting over one another, but none dared get too close.

The werewolf leader began to tremble. He bent over, hands braced on his knees, gasping for air.

Then he collapsed to the floor and started rolling wildly, like a madman. 

His claws tore into his own abdomen as he tried to rip something out.

Dark red blood gushed from the wound, streaming down his rough fingers. 

The instant he tore open his own skin, every werewolf saw it…

A tail.

A long, slender, moist tail covered in a translucent membrane poked out of his abdominal cavity for a split second.

Then it retracted, burrowing deeper into the warmer, more nutrient-rich depths.

“What the hell is that?!”

“There’s something inside the boss!”

“It’s that girl! She did something!”

The werewolves’ shouts blurred together into an indistinguishable buzz in Ella’s ears.

The leader thrashed on the floor, his claws gouging deep furrows into the wooden planks.

His face twisted—not only from pain, but from terror. 

The sensation of something slowly gnawing him apart from the inside was far more shattering than any physical agony.

“Damn it!”

His voice came out hoarse and shrill, cracking into a trembling rasp.

“What the hell did you do to me?!”

His eyes locked onto Ella, yellow vertical pupils burning with insane fury that wanted to tear her into pieces.

Even though her entire body was screaming in pain—the impact against her back, the concussion in her head, the split at the corner of her mouth, the numbness in her spine—she forced herself to stand.

One hand braced against the wall, leaving bloody streaks on the wood. Her legs shook. Her waist shook.

But she stood.

She lifted her chin, exposing her fair neck streaked with blood. Her tongue slipped out, licking away the final drop.

Crimson pupils glowed with a terrifying light in the dark corridor.

“Me~”

Her tone grew even more intoxicated, sick and exhilarated.

“I’m going to~ devour you~”

She could no longer control the corners of her mouth. A wild, manic grin spread across her face.

The werewolf leader’s pupils shrank to pinpricks.

“What?!”

His voice changed completely. 

Fear had stripped away every trace of his earlier arrogance; his eyes trembled as if he were staring at something incomprehensible.

“You?!”

His body arched violently on the floor like a shrimp thrown onto hot coals. His fingers clawed at the planks, nails splitting to reveal raw, bloody flesh underneath.

“What the hell are you?!”

His roar echoed through the corridor, shaking dust from the walls.

Then his mouth opened wide.

Blood poured out—dark red, foaming, mixed with unidentifiable shreds of tissue.

His chest heaved violently. 

Muscles twitched and jumped. Something beneath the skin struggled, writhed, and fought to break free.

His eyes bulged. 

The yellow vertical pupils dilated into near-black circles, reflecting Ella’s blood-streaked face—half-lit, half-shadowed by the flames—with that eerie smile still playing at the corners of her mouth.

Ella stared at his chest.

In her vision, the newborn life had already grown from its initial weakness into something strong and flourishing.

Inside the werewolf’s body it had developed a complete form—head, torso, limbs, tail. 

Its heartbeat was powerful and steady, each throb like a drum. 

Its stomach was full, packed with the flesh and nutrients it had devoured from its host.