The alley behind the Lupus Den was too warm.
Not from sunlight—there wasn't any in the subterranean warren of the city's underbelly—but from something humid, metallic, and alive that pulsed in the air. Sai Ji's newly sensitive wolf ears twitched, isolating the deep, rhythmic thump… thump… thump… that vibrated up through the cobblestones from below.
A heartbeat?
No.
Music.
His claws, black and sharp, clicked a soft counter-rhythm as he moved. His nose was assaulted by a layered scent trail—cloying sweet perfume, the salt-tang of sweat, the faint, unmistakable pheromonal signature of arousal, and beneath it all, the old copper whisper of blood.
"What is this place…?" he muttered, more to himself than to his escorts.
Fen and Lura walked beside him, silent as the shadows they seemed to cultivate. They had insisted this route was the fastest shortcut back to the relative safety of the Shattered District's ruins. A convenient omission hung in the air: they had failed to mention it cut straight through a forbidden zone.
Ahead, a flickering neon sign buzzed like an angry insect, casting a sickly pink glow over a rusted metal door.
「LUPUS DEN — 18+ PLAYER ZONE」
Sai Ji froze. His tail, which had been a low, anxious sway, stiffened into a rigid line. His heart didn't sink; it tried to flee his chest entirely.
"Wait—" he began, his voice rising. "This is an adult area? Why are we—?"
The decision was taken from him. The metal door groaned open before he could finish.
Warm, blood-red light spilled into the alley, carrying with it a thick cloud of fragrant smoke and a wall of sound so physical it made the fur along his arms vibrate. And then, she stepped into the frame.
She was all elegant lines and deliberate exposure—long legs, a flat, bare midriff, silver hair swept into a messy high ponytail. A black velvet collar sat snug around her throat, a tiny, polite line of text glowing upon it: NPC — Entertainer Class. Her eyes, a startling shade of mercury, found his. They widened. Her lips parted.
"…My king?"
Sai Ji's ears shot straight up. "N–No—no no, I'm not here for—this is a misunderstanding—!"
But she was already moving, dropping smoothly to one knee in the damp alley filth, her head bowed to expose the vulnerable, pale line of her throat. A gesture of absolute submission.
Behind her, the Den's interior was a haze of movement and low light. Dancers, male and female and shapes in between, moved with hypnotic grace around poles of glowing crystal. Players lounged in deep booths, glasses in hand, their expressions ranging from drunken amusement to predatory interest. A few near the entrance glanced over.
When their eyes landed on Sai Ji's massive, eight-foot-tall werewolf frame, their whispers cut through the bass like sparks from a live wire.
"Is that… a mod skin?"
"No way.That's a legacy model. Ultra-rare…"
"Holy hell,look at the size of him."
The silver-haired dancer lifted her gaze, her eyes shimmering with something that looked perilously close to awe. "Your aura… it's overwhelming the local ambiance scripts. Please, my king—come inside. Let us… honor you."
Sai Ji's tail curled so tightly around his own leg it ached. "I—I don't need honoring! I'm not— I didn't come for— I don't even know how any of this works!"
To his horror, his own bodyguards bowed deeply from beside him.
"Your Majesty," Fen rumbled, his voice infuriatingly calm. "This establishment is a known nexus. It offers information, can broker loyalties… and other, more direct services."
"I don't want other services!" Sai Ji hissed, the words laced with a growl.
It was too late.
The dancer rose and slid forward. She was close enough now that he could feel the warmth of her breath through the fur of his abdomen. Her fingers, delicate and cool, reached out and brushed against the dark silver pelt of his forearm.
The contact was a shockwave.
It was too real. Too warm. Too intimate. The simulation didn't have a setting for this granular, electric sensitivity.
"A king's instincts should not be restrained," she whispered, her voice a honeyed trap. "They are your compass. If you desire, I can show you how to—"
Sai Ji jerked back as if branded, his shoulders thudding against the alley wall. "N–NO. I'm just here for information!"
Her smile curled, transforming from submissive to sultry, knowing. As if she'd just confirmed a private hypothesis. "Then information you shall receive… but in here."
She turned, the movement a study in deliberate, hip-swaying grace that had to be part of a premium animation set. Or perhaps she was just naturally this dangerous. She disappeared into the roiling light and sound.
Sai Ji swallowed, a difficult motion in his bestial throat. The hunger his instincts had whispered of earlier—the one that was not for food or violence—roared to life, hot and insistent. It was a magnetic pull deep in his gut.
Nope. No. I am not catching feelings for an AI dancer in a virtual strip club. I refuse.
But his body refused his refusal. The scent of her perfume—jasmine and night-blooming cereus—hooked into some primal part of his brain. Without conscious thought, his claws were already scoring the damp stone floor as he took a step, then another, across the threshold.
The door slammed shut behind him, sealing him in.
Instantly, a club-wide system ping washed over him, visible only to his enhanced senses:
「SPECIAL STATUS DETECTED — WEREWOLF KING NPC」
「PRIORITY TREATMENT PROTOCOLS: ENABLED」
Every dancer on the floor, every server gliding between tables, froze for a microsecond. Then, as one, their heads turned. Dozens of NPC gazes, programmed for allure and attention, locked onto him with eerie, unified intensity.
From just behind his shoulder, the silver-haired dancer's voice breathed into his twitching ear, "Welcome to the Den, my king… Let us see what you truly hunger for."
Then the club swallowed him whole.
Heat, perfume, and the musk of sweat became the only elements of reality. The bass wasn't just heard; it thumped directly against his ribs, a second heartbeat trying to synchronize with and override his own. The dancer—she'd given no name—led him deeper into the labyrinthine space, her movements slow, sinuous, and utterly predatory. The feeling was disorienting: he was the apex predator here, yet he felt like prey being led to a private slaughter.
"Forgive the stares," she said over her shoulder, her voice somehow cutting through the noise without effort. "We have never had royalty step through our doors."
"S–Stop calling me that," Sai Ji muttered, forcing his eyes to fix on a cracked wall sconce, a stain on the velvet drapes, anything but the hypnotic sway before him.
She glanced back, her eyes half-lidded, a smirk playing on her lips. She knew.
They passed a booth where two players in mid-tier guild leathers froze, their mugs halted halfway to their mouths.
"Bro… that's the wolf," one breathed.
"The one from the global alert?The bounty post?"
"Wait—why is a world boss in a—"
Sai Ji's ears flattened against his skull.
"I. AM. NOT. HERE. FOR. THAT."
The dancer only giggled, a soft, melodic sound. She reached back, her fingers finding his wrist. Not gripping, just the barest brush of her fingertips against his fur.
His entire body jolted. The sensation was electric, profound, and terrifyingly real. In that moment, he understood she was dangerous in a way no monster in the forest had been.
She stopped at a sunken booth shrouded in thick velvet curtains, lit from within by a dim, amethyst glow.
"Please. Sit."
It was not a request. It was an invitation that carried the weight of a command, a warm hand pulling him into a dream from which he might not wake.
Sai Ji hesitated. The beast in him, intrigued and hungry, warred with the man who was screaming in embarrassment. The man lost. He slowly lowered his massive form into the booth. It was obscenely soft, the cushions molding around him, hugging him from all sides with plush insistence. He hated how good it felt.
The dancer flowed into the seat beside him, crossing her legs with a fluidity that sent warning sirens blaring through every human neuron he had left. Her scent changed up close—less perfume, more a natural mix of jasmine and something cold like moonlit frost.
She leaned in, her lips a breath away from the sensitive fur of his ear. "Your energy is destabilizing the room's ambient magic. Your instincts are waking. Don't be afraid of them."
"I—I'm not afraid," Sai Ji lied, his voice tight.
Her fingertips came up, tracing the line of his jaw where fur met the thicker mane. The touch was slow, experimental. He froze. He couldn't have moved if the roof caved in.
"Sai Ji…" she whispered.
He went rigid. "How do you know my name?"
"Your aura writes it in the air. Your bloodline sings it. And," she added, a ghost of her professional smile returning, "your status screen floats above you. For NPCs with the right permissions, it's quite legible."
He nearly choked. The transparency was absolute.
"Tell me…" she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur that the music could not touch. "What does the Wolf King seek?"
"Information," he blurted out. "That's it. Just… information about this city. The factions. How to survive."
"Mmm." The sound was a vibration of pure amusement. "Then I shall give you more than information."
Her hand descended, coming to rest with impossible lightness on the thick muscle of his thigh.
Sai Ji saw his life flash before his eyes—or at least, the last twenty minutes of it. He nearly levitated off the plush seat.
Before he could form a protest, she leaned in again, her breath a warm tide against the side of his neck. "You're resisting. It's… adorable."
"I'm NOT— resisting— I just— this isn't— I don't—" The words died in a splutter.
She giggled again, a wicked, playful sound that coiled straight around his spine and tugged at the beast slumbering beneath. "Relax. Let me show you how to enjoy the world you're so trapped in."
He didn't trust her. He didn't trust this place. He didn't trust himself. But her touch…
He felt it then. A deep, visceral stirring in his core. The beast wasn't just hungry. It was interested. It stretched against the confines of his will, pressing against his ribs with a possessive, proprietary heat. He clenched his claws into the velvet upholstery, tearing silent rents in the fabric, trying to anchor himself.
"Can… can I at least get a drink first?" he managed, a last, desperate gambit for normalcy.
Her mercury eyes sparkled with victory. "As you wish… my king."
A flick of her slender fingers summoned a bartender NPC. Moments later, a shimmering, cerulean drink was set before him, cold enough to make the air shimmer, glowing with a soft inner light, tendrils of magically-chilled steam curling from its surface.
Sai Ji lifted the glass, a bizarre artifact of civilization in this den of primality. For the first time since the transformation, since the run through the forest, since stepping into this charged atmosphere… a fragile sense of control, of calm, began to settle over him. He was handling this. He was navigating the madness.
He took a slow, deliberate sip.
The liquid was like biting into a winter mint fused with starlight.
And at the exact moment it hit his tongue, every light in the Lupus Den—the neon, the crystals, the amethyst glows—stuttered and flashed a violent, alarming RED.
The music cut out.
Into the sudden, deafening silence, a metallic, soulless voice boomed, not from the club's speakers, but from the fabric of the world itself, echoing in every player's and NPC's mind:
"GLOBAL ALERT: SOVEREIGN ENTITY DETECTED"
"IDENTITY: WEREWOLF KING — AWAKENED"
"ALL PLAYERS: PREPARE FOR WORLD EVENT"
Sai Ji choked, the drink catching in his throat.
The dancer froze, all artifice melting away into stark, system-level shock.
The entire club was a tableau of stunned silence.
Then—
BOOM.
The far wall, the one leading to a back alley, ceased to exist. It exploded inward in a shower of shattered brick and magical containment foam. Through the dust and debris stormed a squad of six armored figures, their armor clean, tactical, and emblazoned with the burning eye sigil of the game's Administration. Not players or Hunters as their weapons were drawn, humming with null-code energy, and every lensed visor was locked directly on him.
"CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL ENGAGED!" the lead Hunter shouted, its voice synthesized and hollow.
"NEUTRALIZE THE ANOMALY!"
Sai Ji's pupils contracted to vicious, hungry slits. The delicate glass slipped from his claws, shattering on the floor in a burst of cerulean mist.
The fragile calm shattered with it.
And deep within, behind the crumbling wall of his human anxiety, the beast he had been desperately holding back finally snapped its chains.