Chapter 719 Alpha’s Strenght

Irina looked at the force field.

She could not see it, not even a faint shimmer in the air, yet she could feel its presence clearly. It stood between her and Eldric like an invisible wall, separating them by only a few meters while preventing her from reaching the man responsible for Liam’s current condition. The barrier gave off no visible light, produced no sound, and appeared to have no physical form, but when Irina extended her hand, her palm met an unyielding resistance.

She pressed against it gently at first, testing its strength. Then she increased the pressure, feeling the energy beneath her palm resist her efforts without giving way even slightly. Her eyes narrowed as she examined the empty space before her, and after a few seconds, the corners of her lips gradually curled upward.

A smile appeared on her face.

It was not the warm smile she sometimes gave Liam, nor the playful expression she wore when teasing him. It was the smile of someone who had just discovered something interesting, something that had convinced her the situation was not nearly as hopeless as it appeared.

Behind her, Voss watched with growing uncertainty. Mira stood beside him, her hands clasped nervously in front of her chest, while her gaze kept drifting toward Liam’s motionless figure. The young man remained near the wall where Irina had lowered him, his breathing so faint that she could barely tell whether he was still alive. Every passing second made her more anxious, but she understood that rushing forward without knowing what awaited them could make matters worse.

Irina slowly withdrew her hand from the barrier and glanced over her shoulder. Her expression remained relaxed, almost cheerful, which only made Voss more suspicious. He had seen enough of her power to understand that her calmest moments often came immediately before something disastrous happened to whoever had earned her anger.

"Both of you, step back," she instructed.

Voss immediately looked from Irina to the invisible barrier. "What are you planning to do?"

"Something simple."

"That doesn’t sound reassuring."

Irina gave him a brief smile. "It wasn’t supposed to."

Voss hesitated for only a moment before grabbing Mira’s arm and guiding her farther down the tunnel. Mira glanced back at Irina, clearly reluctant to leave her alone, but Voss gently pulled her along until they had put a considerable distance between themselves and the barrier. He knew better than to interfere.

Once they were safely away, Irina turned back toward Eldric.

Then she rose into the air.

A thin layer of frost spread beneath her feet as she lifted herself from the ground, her long dark hair flowing behind her in the turbulent currents of energy gathering around her body. The temperature dropped almost immediately, and the damp walls of the underground chamber began to collect a delicate layer of ice. Her expression remained composed, but the atmosphere around her grew increasingly oppressive as she concentrated her power.

On the other side of the force field, Eldric watched her with open amusement.

He had been expecting anger, desperation, perhaps even a reckless attempt to attack him with the same ice abilities she had used against his underground creature. What he had not expected was the smile on her face. It irritated him more than her threats ever could, because it suggested that she had found a way out of the situation he had carefully prepared.

Still, he trusted his barrier.

He had spent considerable effort making certain that Irina could not reach him. Whatever power she possessed, it would not matter if she could not cross the distance between them. He had already accounted for her ability to manipulate ice, and the force field was strong enough to withstand attacks that would have devastated ordinary cultivators.

Eldric tilted his head back and laughed.

"Do you honestly think you can break your way out of that?" he called, spreading his arms as though inviting her to try. "Foolish!"

His laughter echoed through the tunnel, bouncing off the stone walls and mixing with the faint crackling of ice forming around Irina’s feet. He looked entirely confident in his victory, convinced that she was about to waste her strength against a barrier she could neither see nor properly understand.

Irina simply smiled.

That was the problem with people who encountered her for the first time. They saw the ice, witnessed the way she manipulated the temperature around her, and immediately assumed they understood the limits of her abilities. They categorized her as an ice user and judged every possible outcome according to that single fact.

It was a mistake she had allowed countless opponents to make.

Her greatest advantage had never been the strength of her ice alone. It was the fact that most people knew nothing about what she truly was.

Irina had been a werewolf long before she became an ability user. Her supernatural abilities had expanded her strength and given her powers that ordinary werewolves could never possess, but they had not erased her original nature. Beneath the cold elegance, the sharp intelligence, and the terrifying command over ice, there remained a beast whose physical strength could turn a seemingly impossible confrontation into a one-sided slaughter.

And she was not an ordinary werewolf.

She was an alpha.

Strictly speaking, the title had never been something she had sought for herself. Her father had disappeared, leaving a position of authority that could not simply remain vacant forever. When the strongest werewolf was gone, someone had to step forward, and there had been no one stronger than Irina back on Earth. The responsibility had fallen upon her as naturally as breathing, regardless of whether she had ever wanted it.

She had accepted it because she had possessed the strength to do so.

Now, standing before a barrier designed to keep her helpless while the man she loved lay dying behind her, Irina had no intention of allowing Eldric to dictate what she could or could not accomplish.

Her smile widened slightly.

"You’re right about one thing," she said, her voice carrying effortlessly through the chamber. "Breaking through this barrier would be foolish if I relied only on my ice."

Eldric’s laughter faltered for a fraction of a second.

Irina’s eyes began to change.

The dark color of her irises faded beneath a growing, luminous brown glow, and the atmosphere around her shifted so abruptly that even Voss felt an instinctive warning crawl down his spine. The cold did not disappear, but something else emerged beneath it, something raw and primal that had little to do with the elegant control of a mage.

A low growl vibrated through Irina’s chest.

Her hands began to transform.

The change started at her fingertips, where her nails lengthened into thick, curved claws. Dark fur spread across her skin, racing over her fingers and the backs of her hands before climbing toward her wrists. Her fingers grew longer and heavier, their proportions changing as muscle and bone expanded beneath the fur. Within moments, her hands had become enormous werewolf paws, each one equipped with claws that looked capable of tearing through thick steel.

The transformation did not stop there.

Her forearms swelled beneath her sleeves as powerful muscles emerged, straining against the fabric. The difference between her transformed hands and the rest of her body was startling. They looked almost disproportionate, far too large for her otherwise slender, athletic frame, yet there was nothing clumsy about them. Every movement carried a frightening sense of control, as if the strength concentrated within those limbs could be unleashed with absolute precision.

Voss froze.

He had seen Irina command ice with astonishing power, but he had never imagined that she possessed another nature entirely. His mind struggled to reconcile the woman standing before him with the enormous, fur-covered hands now hanging at her sides.

Mira stared too, her lips parting as she instinctively took another step backward.

Neither of them spoke.

Irina paid them no attention. Her glowing eyes remained fixed on the barrier, and she began gathering everything she could into her transformed arms. The muscles beneath her fur tightened, growing denser as she poured her strength into them. Energy surged through her body, and the stone beneath her feet creaked under the increasing pressure.

She could not remain suspended in the air for long while concentrating so much power. Her ability to lift herself was useful, but it was not limitless, and the force she was gathering demanded a firm connection to the ground.

So she descended.

Her feet touched the stone with a heavy impact, sending a thin ring of frost outward. For one brief moment, she stood completely still, her enormous hands hanging at her sides while the force field remained invisible before her.

Eldric’s expression began to change.

The confidence in his eyes weakened as he sensed the difference in the power gathering around Irina. This was not the familiar energy of her ice attacks. It felt heavier, more direct, and far more dangerous. He could not understand what she was doing, but his instincts were beginning to warn him that the situation had slipped beyond the boundaries of his calculations.

"What are you?" he muttered.

Irina lowered her body slightly.

Then she burst forward.

The stone beneath her feet shattered from the force of her acceleration. Her figure became a blur as she crossed the short distance between herself and the invisible wall, her transformed arm swinging forward with every ounce of strength she possessed.

BOOM!

Her fist struck the force field.

The impact exploded through the underground chamber like a thunderclap. The entire tunnel shook violently, sending dust cascading from the ceiling and loose stones tumbling across the floor. Cracks raced through the ground beneath Irina’s feet, while the air itself seemed to buckle around the point of collision.

Eldric’s eyes widened.

For the first time since revealing himself, the man looked genuinely afraid.

He stared at Irina’s enormous, fur-covered hand pressed against the barrier, then at her glowing brown eyes, as though his mind had suddenly encountered a truth it could not accept.

A werewolf?

She was a werewolf?

His gaze flickered toward the ice coating the chamber walls, then returned to the monstrous strength concentrated in Irina’s arm. He had witnessed her use magic powerful enough to drive back the creature beneath the ground, and he had assumed that her abilities belonged to a single category. Everything he had observed had reinforced that conclusion.

Yet the woman before him possessed the physical strength of a transformed werewolf while wielding the powers of a mage.

How was that possible?

This was not in his calculations.

Every precaution he had prepared had been based on what he believed Irina could do. He had accounted for her ice, her speed, and her willingness to sacrifice herself to save Liam. He had even anticipated that she might attempt to overwhelm the barrier with a concentrated magical attack.

But he had never considered that she could strike it with the raw physical might of an alpha werewolf.

Across the chamber, Voss stood motionless, his masked face turned toward Irina. Even through the Cryovail Veil, he could feel the tremors passing through the ground. His knowledge of the village’s hidden dangers had taught him to recognize powerful beings, but Irina had just revealed something that forced him to reconsider everything he thought he knew about her.

Mira had gone completely silent. Her eyes were wide with disbelief, and she could only stare as the woman who had rescued her from years of darkness demonstrated a strength that seemed almost impossible.

Then the force field broke.

The invisible barrier shattered beneath Irina’s strike, its resistance collapsing all at once. A violent pulse of energy burst outward, scattering fragments of light that vanished almost as soon as they appeared. The pressure holding the space between Irina and Eldric together disappeared, leaving nothing but the dust and fading vibrations of the impact.

For a moment, no one moved.

Irina slowly lowered her arm. Her enormous claws scraped lightly against the stone as she straightened, her glowing eyes never leaving Eldric’s face. She could feel the remaining energy of the destroyed barrier dissipating around her, but she had no interest in examining it.

Her only concern was the man standing on the other side.

Eldric took an involuntary step backward.

Irina noticed.

The smile returned to her face, colder than before, as she advanced toward the line where the barrier had stood. Every step was deliberate, her transformed hand hanging beside her while the frost beneath her feet crackled softly.

She had spent enough time listening to Eldric boast about how far ahead he was, how carefully he had planned every detail, and how impossible it would be for anyone to outmaneuver him.

Now he could look at her properly.

Now he could understand what happened when his calculations failed.

Irina took one final step and crossed the line where the force field had been.

She was through.