Chapter 578: The Last Mercy of the Wolf

Rose turned around, walking farther away from the village with her daughter cradled in her arms.

She gently rocked the little girl, humming a soft lullaby to keep her asleep.

"It’s alright..." she whispered, brushing a strand of black hair away from the child’s face. "Mommy and Daddy will always protect you."

Rose kept walking, putting more distance between herself and the village.

She never looked back.

Behind her, Edmond stood alone, facing the furious crowd. The villagers raised their weapons and rushed toward him.

"Kill the monster!"

"Take back the Saintess!"

Edmond slowly closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the last trace of hesitation was gone.

"I’m sorry," he whispered.

He wasn’t speaking to the villagers, but he was speaking to himself.

Moments later, a terrifying aura burst from his body. The ground cracked beneath his feet as a violent wind swept across the village.

The villagers froze and shouted, "W-What’s happening?!"

Edmond’s body began to change. His muscles expanded beneath his clothes. White fur spread rapidly across his skin.

Sharp claws burst from the tips of his fingers, while long fangs grew from his mouth.

His blue eyes slowly turned into the glowing eyes of a predator, but the transformation didn’t stop there.

His body grew larger and larger until his clothes tore apart completely.

He opened his mouth and let out a deafening roar at the terrified villagers before him.

"Monster! He turned into a monster!"

"Attack him! Attack him!"

Some of the villagers—most of them strong, fit men—ran toward Edmond with weapons in their hands. But before they could even reach him, his massive claws tore through their flesh.

The giant wolf ripped them apart without a shred of mercy, as if he were taking back every bit of kindness he had ever shown them.

The moment they realized they had no chance of defeating the monster, the villagers broke into a panic and ran for their lives.

But it was already too late.

The wolf raced through the village, knocking down the burning torches that hung along the roads. Then he flung fire onto the villagers’ homes one after another. Within moments, a massive fire spread through the village, swallowing everything in its path.

He heard screams rising from beneath the ruins, mixed with the cries of frightened children. At that moment, he stopped attacking.

It was unfair.

They had called him a merciless monster, a creature that had to be killed without hesitation.

Yet the monster himself tried to calm his own anger. He convinced himself that these villagers only wanted to save the Saintess from what they believed was a monster.

Yes, they wanted the reward promised by the Cardinal and the Holy Temple. But even if they had managed to take Rose away from him, they would never have dared to hurt her, right?

These people simply didn’t understand that returning to the Holy Temple would trap Rose in a nightmare she could never escape.

These people were only ignorant, and the monster shouldn’t punish them for something they didn’t know.

But then, in the middle of the chaos, Edmond suddenly overheard several villagers talking.

"We should just pretend we don’t know anything!"

"You never should have told them about the Cardinal’s reward in the first place! If you hadn’t, we wouldn’t be in this situation!"

"We should have taken the Saintess away during the night... and killed their cursed daughter."

"Now we’ve let their daughter leave this village. Who knows what kind of monster she’ll become in the future!"

For a brief moment, the flames around Edmond seemed to grow quiet.

His blue eyes slowly turned toward the voices.

There, huddled behind a collapsed wall, several villagers were trembling in fear.

Even now, with death staring them in the face, they weren’t worried about what they had almost done to Rose, but they were worried that they had failed.

His cursed daughter.

Those three words echoed over and over in Edmond’s mind.

His little girl had done nothing.

She had never hurt anyone. She had never stolen, lied, or even raised her voice at the villagers, and yet these people had already decided that she deserved to die.

Not because of anything she had done, but simply because she had been born as his daughter.

At that moment, the last bit of pity inside Edmond disappeared.

He didn’t try to tear them apart again. Instead, he trapped them inside the sea of flames.

The villagers screamed as the fire closed in from every direction. They desperately searched for a way out, but every path had already been swallowed by the burning houses. Thick smoke filled the air, and the blazing heat forced them back again and again.

Edmond watched them in silence. His eyes reflected the fire, but there wasn’t a trace of joy on his face.

When the last of their screams finally faded into the crackling flames, the giant wolf slowly turned away.

Without looking back, he ran toward the forest.

Rose was waiting for him there, holding their daughter tightly in her arms. The little girl was asleep against her mother’s shoulder, completely unaware of what had happened behind them.

Edmond’s massive body gradually shrank as he returned to his human form.

Rose looked into his eyes, but she didn’t ask what had happened because she already knew.

Edmond gently brushed a hand over his daughter’s soft hair before speaking in a tired voice.

"The fire will draw outsiders here sooner or later," he said. "But at least... there won’t be any witnesses left to tell them about us."

He glanced toward the thick smoke rising above the trees. "They’ll probably think the village was simply unlucky," he continued quietly. "That a fire broke out and destroyed everything."

He took Rose’s free hand and held it tightly.

"No one will know that you were here."

"No one will know that I was here."

"And no one will come after our family because of those villagers."

Rose lowered her eyes to their sleeping daughter and gently pulled her closer.

Without another word, the three of them disappeared deeper into the forest, leaving the burning village behind.