Discovery I.

It was only when Casey saw the mural that he ignored the uncomfortable feeling he got from seeing Kristensen and looked at what was going on.

Awe. His eyes glued on the mural, and he couldn't take them off.

The same thing happened when Vince and his entourage finally caught up - he got caught up in by the charm of the mural, too.

It went without saying that Mara Ryson was a legendary figure in Crandale.

According to Trudy, she broke off her relationship when her bond-mate found his true mate and wanted to make her a concubine to let his true mate be his wife.

Mara broke out of their bond and went to form a house of her own. Since she was an alpha herself, she managed to form a legendary house - the House of Mara Ryson.

The whole thing sounded like a usual love story to Kristensen - an unsuccessful one, but from the looks she saw around everyone who came across the mural, it went without saying that Mara Ryson wasn't a simple woman.

Only looking at her mural couldn't decrypt those secrets, and tell her where the alpha's symbol was.

Kristensen narrowed her eyes as she watched Vince and Casey standing in front of the mural side by side.

To be alpha representatives meant having a somewhat recognizable power, didn't it?

"What would make an alpha leave their alpha's symbol behind?" Kristensen asked suddenly.

Vince and Casey turned to her with a reprimanding look in their eyes. So, it was blasphemy for an alpha to leave behind their alpha's symbol?

"What? We came across the Alpha's symbol here, and I've been wondering about it." Said Kristensen, an awkward air to her tone.

She wasn't merely curious. She needed to find out more about the Alpha's symbol and its characteristics. The thing almost swallowed her whole, so... she thought she owed it to herself to find out what it was exactly.

That and it had something to do with Mara, and she seemed to be connected to the former. Kristensen sighed.

"Unless they were dead, alpha's never took out their alpha's symbol." Said Vince undoubtedly.

It was as Kristensen expected, but could it really be that simple? "And if the alpha took it out while they weren't dead?" She asked slowly, each word she said deliberately more pronounced.

The atmosphere in the room paused, and everyone turned their attention towards her.

Deliberately?

Vince and Casey narrowed their eyes as they started to really pay attention to the room. They weren't rookies. Once they heard what Kristensen said, their minds started churning with countless different thoughts.

What would make an alpha take out their alpha's symbol? Death wouldn't yet what was scarier than death?

Kristensen placed her hand on the mural at the time and released her aura - it was just an injection of power into the mural, but slowly, the room started to light up.

She had thought that the first time she came across that place, she seemed to realize that the building was made out of moonstones and if the alpha's symbol was the key to keeping it lively then maybe a little of her power would also do the trick, Kristensen was trying out her theory but... it worked?

Vince eyes narrowed as he examined the room once again. After Kristensen's little action, there was palpable pressure in the room, and the mural wasn't as lackluster as before.

The veiled woman from the mural seemed to have woken up. They couldn't watch or stand close to the mural as they did before. It was only Kristensen with her hand on it that was close.

"Stop!" Vince shouted at Kristensen after some time looking at the mural. "Don't feed it anymore. Stop." He roared the stop at the top of his lungs.

The trick woke Kristensen up, and he hurriedly took her hand of the mural. Beads of sweat glistened on her forehead, and her face was a little pale.

She had exhausted herself a little bit.

"What happened?" asked Kristensen after catching her breath.

Everyone in the room took a deep breath, closed their eyes, and opened them again.

Was I just their illusion, or had the eyes of that veiled on the mural glowed with killing intent? Their hearts were shaken, including Vince and Casey.

What everyone abhorred and was most afraid of were strange rituals that heretics came up with, and it was clear the building was a formation of some strange ritual.

"Don't tell me..." Casey whispered.

His whole visage changed, and his face paled. It was clear what he thought of frightened the hell out of him.

"What?" Vince prompted, "Why are you scaring yourself? What are you shivering for? What is it?" He continued angrily.

"The... the pa-pack's sacri-crifice!" Said Casey stuttering.

Vince's eyes widened at that revelation as he too staggered back, turning pale. "It... it can't be. Where are we? How would such a thing reach here?"

The pack's sacrifice was an old banned ritual that an alpha imposed on the members of their house when they felt their alpha's symbol had reached its potential.

To be precise, they would make their house members give up their lives so they could get a chance at improving their power.

Mostly, they never succeeded - they killed their members for nothing at all.

Kristensen couldn't wrap her head around that kind of devotion after hearing Vince and Casey's explanation - she wasn't the only one.

While everyone grappled the gravity of the situation, Trudy, who had been silent until now, spoke up. "How is everything you're speculating related to Mara Ryson, though, or is she not the one in the mural but an imitation of her?"

Casey narrowed his eyes deep in thought, "Mara Ryson? But she's been missing for years. If the ritual set up here is linked to her, it might mean she's involved or -"

"- or someone is using her image," Kristensen interjected, her voice sutting through the escalating tension. "This mural might be a decoy, a distraction from the real culprit."

She hoped more than anyone that it was decoy set up by someone. The thought of being related to some lunatic or being pulled into a sinister game as this one...

Kristensen's eyes narrowed. She couldn't accept it.

Vince and Casey found themselves agreeing on this point. They temporarily forgot their feud and focused on the problem in front of them -

The pack's sacrifice wasn't a problem either of them could afford to ignore. If it escalated, they would find themselves dealing with a powerful lone wolf.

A wolf that wasn't he'd down by anything and was covered in bloodlust?

The duo shivered as they circled the room, trying to find something, some other clue.

"There's a passage here that leads to some other underground pit or something. That's where we saw Leah last time." said Trudy as she pointed at a hidden passage.

Trudy took the lead going through the passage, and everyone followed her lead. They went in one after another, and Kristensen was the last one to go through it.

She remembered the last time they went through the passage. They were too curious and looked at every inch of the walls, but this time around, it was different. She was hoping not to find anything.

As they went through the hidden passage, Kristensen couldn't shake off the unease gnawing at the edges of her composure. It was probably because she'd come in contact with the alpha's symbol before, but...

The feeling she got as they got closer to the exit was the same when Isaac was performing the ritual at the chamber. Only this time, the feeling was more pronounced.

She had to force herself to take step after step.

The underground pit revealed itself as a vast chamber, eerily silent, except for the sound of breathing from their party. Trudy led the group with determined strides, her eyes scanning the surroundings for any signs of danger.

As they delved deeper into the underground labyrinth, the architecture changed. Strange symbols adorned the walls - to Kristensen - they looked like the alpha's symbol before she realized the symbols read Ryson.

Could it be... she shook her head to get rid of those ridiculous thoughts. How could all the symbols read Ryson?

Vince and Casey exchanged wary glances, recognizing the gravity of their discovery.

"Leah was here the last time we saw him." Trudy mentioned, her voice echoing in the chamber.

The group pressed forward until they were in the middle of the room.

Kristensen turned around in circles as she observed the walls with keen interest. There was something propelling her to, and she couldn't put her finger on it. She thought the last time they were there, it didn't look as organized and in order as it did now.

The passage then seemed like a wall in a cave, without any carvings or symbols or a well refined chamber.

How did it go through face value changes so quickly? Kristensen threw Trudy a puzzled gaze.

Did she remember it wrong?

"Is this really the place?" Asked Kristensen after circling through the room. She was extremely doubtful, and it didn't help that the whole place felt as though there was a pulse of energy waiting for a probe to erupt.

She wasn't the only one, Vince and Casey, being alphas, felt it more. The energy in the room wasn't only suppressing them, but also gave them a sense of danger.

"Aaahh..!"

The scream had very one turning back towards the sound. What they saw made them gasp.

The walls with symbols on them crumbled down one by one and with each crumble, revealing a person inside.

It went beyond their imagination.

The recruits they had been clamoring about lay huddled in a breech position, their auras - powers being drawn out.

When they looked up to see where their powers were being drawn to, they saw a plate of sorts, similar to the alpha's symbol but clearly a pseudo.

Just how many were there?

Kristensen ran the way they came to the room where the mural was. When she got there, the mural no longer showed the veiled woman, but countless people in the breech position, their powers going to that pseudo alpha's symbol.

She inhaled deeply.

It was inhumane. Whoever did such a thing wasn't human at all. Kristensen took a deep breath, her fists clenched at her side.

She couldn't understand what would propel someone to commit something like that.

"This doesn't bode well." Kristensen muttered, her gaze flickering as she watched the new pictures in the mural. She wondered what would happen when that plate filled up...

The pseudo alpha's symbol was made of a thin plate the size of a palm, and it seemed to be filled with a liquid of sorts - red, green, and blue - the auras of the recruits.

It was more than half filled now, and as Kristensen watched, she saw that it filled in rather slowly. By the way things were going, when it filled up, the recruits would be dead.

Just how many of those things were filled? And who was behind all that madness? What was their purpose?

"We're going to need Mr. Ly to stop the ritual from completing." Said Casey from behind Kristensen, his voice laced with sorrow.

Kristensen didn't turn around. Her face became more solemn as she watched the mural.

The perpetrator deserved a fate worse than death, she thought.

"Why are you telling me this? You can call Ocean yourself." Kristensen responded.

A part of her held House of Caston responsible for what was happening. How could something of that magnitude happen in their territory, and they were clueless?

Their focus was on useless things and not the common people.