The Laws of Werewolf Hunting

Chapter 381 Feeling like old friends at first sight

When he walked downstairs, Clayton heard the sound of a speedboat breaking through the waves, and he finally felt relieved.

With Julius gone, there were fewer clues that could expose him, and he could concentrate on getting what he wanted from the Black Claw Clan.

But before that, he still had to find a way to deal with this woman, Lydia.

"You smell good, why do you use those mortal perfumes to cover yourself? I almost missed you before." Lind's daughter came close to him, almost greedily sniffing his scent, while also spreading her own unique scent to him, inducing Clayton's animal instincts as a werewolf.

Lydia was a real beauty. Her solid body and agile demeanor showed an extraordinary wildness and vitality, which could not be concealed even in a long dress. Although her face was not the most beautiful face Clayton had ever seen, when this face was combined with the smell she exuded, it became a deadly potion.

Even though he had been on guard for a long time, instinct was irresistible.

His eyes were bloodshot, and he took out a bottle of perfume from his pocket and sprayed it into his nose several times, disrupting his sense of smell. Only then did he get rid of the burning desire.

Lydia also got out with him, but this was obviously not what she wanted. She looked at Clayton with disappointment.

"Because this scent is cool and peaceful, it helps me concentrate and think."

Clayton forced a smile and said, "Just like now, with a beautiful lady like you next to me, if I didn't have this bottle of perfume to help me, I would have no time to do anything except admiring your charm."

He complimented her half-heartedly, and Lydia quickly forgot her previous unhappiness and indulged in his sweet words.

If his search for a lover had continued as it had in the past, Clayton would have slept with her in the same bed after a while, but now he was resisting doing so in his heart.

The bodies of Edgar and Ginger were disposed of by the Black Claw werewolves - perhaps they were eaten, and who knows if Lydia got a piece of the meat.

Clayton admitted that he had done something similar. When he re-examined himself, he found that he had been cursed and slowly assimilated without realizing it, and had become corrupted to a point that his past self could not tolerate. Now when he thought of those things, he no longer felt disgusted. All dead animals had the same status in his heart, and there was nothing he couldn't eat.

But Edgar and Ginger were people he knew after all, and he could never accept that their bodies were eaten by their own kind.

It felt like he was eating them himself.

Two werewolves were walking side by side on the river bank. They looked intimate, but their thoughts were completely different.

"You are really good at talking, Mr. Edwards. Maybe you have said this to many girls, so you are so skilled at it." When Lydia smiled, the wildness on her face faded, and she looked no different from a girl in the city.

Clayton's smile was equally refreshing. When people looked through his thick king-like beard, even when it was shaved thin, they could see a young man in his twenties who was deeply in love - he was pretending.

"No, I was actually worried that you were tired of such poor compliments. There must have been many men who said these things to you, and I am just a latecomer."

"That's going to surprise you. Not many people would say that to me."

"No way, there are no men in the clan?!"

"Mr. Edwards, you're really good at making jokes." Lydia chuckled and then leaned in. She was actually very tall, about six feet, and even the workers in her father's boat rental shop were not as tall as her. She looked like a petite woman when she was with Clayton.

"The men in the clan are either my brothers or already engaged. They can't say these things to me."

"It sounds like you don't care about free love."

"Yes, the marriages of all members are arranged by the clan leader. It's a pity, but it's also for the development of the clan." Lydia said habitually: "My brothers will marry young women from the families of new members, or daughters from other clans. And my sisters will marry new members and sons from other clans."

Laws cannot control everything. If you want loyalty, you need some more practical connections.

Marriage is the most effective means throughout history.

Hearing this, Clayton's fake smile faded. He vaguely sensed something was wrong: "What if the new member and the women in his family are married?"

"Then divorce."

Lydia said cheerfully, "Either he marries a woman arranged by the clan, or his female relatives marry unmarried members of the clan. We only need one."

"By the way, I have to remind you that it's my turn to choose the groom this year."

Clayton finally understood why she was so close to him. It turned out that it was not just because of the season.

"Sounds like I have no choice."

"I also hope you won't make any other choice," Lydia said.

Her father was Lind's right-hand man and the "tooth" of the clan. As his daughter, she could enjoy some privileges. Last year, she was supposed to marry the new member, Lavin, but she looked down on the man who had no sense of honor, so she begged Opiros to postpone the engagement for half a year before making a decision. This was the wisest decision she had ever made, and good luck really came to her.

She looked sideways at Clayton, imagining that their future would be smooth, ignoring that Clayton did not answer the question.

Before they knew it, they had reached the end of the journey. They stood side by side on the wooden boardwalk at the pier and looked towards the other side of the river.

Behind the dark river water, there are still plants growing tenaciously on the river bank. They are yellow in color, distributed in clusters, with slender leaves spreading out in all directions, reminiscent of spiders in a pile of straw.

Having grown up here, Lydia did not dislike the smell of the river. She calmly pointed to the brown shallows with ugly plants growing on them, and brought Clayton back to his senses: "Elder Maxim told us that before Viodi became a steel city, there was a beautiful forest there. Our ancestors would put the captured prey in it and let the children practice hunting. When the great lord summoned them, they would tear his enemies into pieces according to the lord's orders."

"That period of history was as beautiful as a fairy tale. We didn't have to worry about the law and could indulge our nature on the battlefield. Later, the times began to change. The kings ended the civil war and restarted the Age of Exploration. The ocean became a new stage, but it was not suitable for werewolves to fight. As the situation changed, the great lord we were loyal to began to decline. Today, everything is different."

Clayton had studied that period of history and felt deeply moved at this moment.

After the infamous "bloody half century", the countries were exhausted, many nobles who were attached to the royal family declined or even removed from the throne, and the citizen class took advantage of the situation to rise. Without the strongest army, the development of local forces and the unique nature of the market economy based on the ocean made the kings make more and more compromises with the common people. In order to maintain stability, the Magna Carta was issued, which guaranteed the freedom and property of local nobles and common people. Then the bureaucratic system began to sprout, forming the prototype of the modern government.

Behind the great Magna Carta lies the decline of many noble surnames and the extinction of the families of many founding heroes. However, this is almost a natural law, and no one has anything to complain about except the parties involved.

The old go and the new come, and there are many people who cannot keep up with the tide of the times and are still struggling.

"This elder must be hundreds of years old," said Clayton.

Lydia nodded. "He is the oldest in our clan. I heard he is over 230 years old. This is simply a miracle."

"I thought he would be older. I heard that werewolves can live to be three hundred years old."

"Maybe, but not many werewolves can live that long." Lydia said, "Most werewolves, when they realize they are getting old, will start looking for opportunities to die in battle, or try to absorb more curses to extend their lifespan and strength. Their end is either death or disappearance, but even so, there are still newcomers, not many werewolves want to die of old age in bed."

For a species that is instinctively bloodthirsty and warlike, feeling their own strength weakened is the greatest torture.

Clayton feels the same way.

Even if he hadn't aged, he would already feel dissatisfied with this weak body during the day. If even his real body began to age and become weak, he would definitely be very depressed.

Having seen enough of the scenery on the other side of the river, Lydia turned around and looked beyond the desolate canopy of dead trees to the sharp, jagged shadow of the castle.

Even from hundreds of meters away, it still looks quite large.

The windows on the stone tower are like black holes on horse teeth or wormholes on tree trunks, giving people a feeling of accumulation of years.

"That castle didn't employ many craftsmen. Except for the raw materials, most of the work was done by my ancestors themselves. It was passed down from generation to generation until it was completed a few years ago. The rooms at the top of the castle tower belong to the elders and leaders. They sometimes overlook the surroundings from there. Maybe they are observing us now."

Clayton squinted at the windows, but they were too far away to see if there was anyone behind them.

“It’s like a local legend,” he commented.

“A lot of the legends come from true stories.”

"Hound Knight too?"

"That's true, but the facts are somewhat different from what those mortals saw." Lydia said. "That knight was the ancestor of the Conlionai family. We recorded that period of history, and the animal next to him was actually a black she-wolf."

"The knight's real wife is either that human woman or this she-wolf. The so-called wife is actually the marriage contract appointed for him by the great lord."

"The families of humans and werewolves are no different. In order to obtain complete loyalty, the great lord required my ancestor to marry the family of another knight who was loyal to him. His original wife could only follow him in the form of a wolf, waiting for the third party to make a fatal mistake. Until the long war was over, she became pregnant with another man's child."

"In wolf form?" Clayton didn't care to be surprised by this complicated relationship. He tilted his head slightly and interrupted Lydia rudely: "So his real wife is also a werewolf? But how can she transform in the daytime?"

Lydia looked at his inquiring expression and couldn't help but smile again: "You are really a wild wolf."

"There are differences between werewolves. The curse takes effect on us in different ways. Maybe you have heard of the legend that some wild beasts can transform into beautiful men and women at night. There are even some werewolves that can only appear in the form of human-wolves during the day and can only switch forms at night. People like them cannot survive in human society. It is very inconvenient."

Her explanation evoked a distant image in Clayton's mind, and his expression became a little solemn.

"What's wrong?" Lydia asked.

Clayton shook his head. He suddenly remembered that one of his ancestors who dismantled the railroad tracks had never revealed his human form. He didn't even know whether it was a man or a woman, but it later went to the city in this half-human, half-wolf form.

How does it find a mate?
“I was just thinking, our ancestors had a really hard life!”