Chapter 1589: Unzoku’s Limits When Gary heard the ultimatum, forcing one Alpha pack to destroy another, he immediately thought of the familiar curse that dominated their own time. It was the same relentless pattern. For some ancient, unknown reason, if the Two Alphas didn’t fight against each other, that was when Unzoku would try and personally get involved, using threats and manipulation to force the hand of both parties. The sheer consistency across time periods was terrifying. Still, Gary listened closely, allowing Steve to finish his unbelievable story on the lonely mountaintop. “So what did you do?” Gary asked, leaning in, the suspense of the ages heavy in the air. “Well, at first, I wanted to know why,” Steven replied, the memory of that fear still raw. “Because Unzoku was clearly strong. In a way, his strength showed he was stronger than even my brother, Jack, who was at the time the most powerful Werewolf I knew. So why didn’t he just do it himself? Why did he need to search for my small pack to carry out this terrible task? It didn’t quite make any sense, yet there he was, standing across from me, threatening to erase us.” Steve looked down at his hands, remembering the crushing fear. “At that time, the truth was I was simply frightened, frightened by Rogan’s cautionary story, and utterly frightened by Unzoku’s sheer, casual display of strength. So I had made a terrible decision. In order to save my pack from immediate destruction, I decided to agree to his terms.” The three travelers were momentarily stunned by the answer, especially considering the current situation where Steve was now their host and ally. But they listened on, understanding the impossible position he had been in. “However, when it came down to it, how could I truly fight against Jack?” Steve lamented, his voice tinged with the guilt of the past. “How could I force the pack to go into a devastating, unnecessary war with another Alpha when I was the one who had stopped Rogan from doing that very thing years earlier? I couldn’t be a hypocrite, not when the lives of my people were at stake.” He continued to explain the strange progression of events. “Time passed, and Unzoku would pay us a visit again. When he did, he would always question why I hadn’t done anything, why I hadn’t attacked Jack’s pack. I would explain the worries of those getting hurt, the lives that would be lost, and somehow, using every ounce of courage I had, I would manage to convince him to simply go away.” This cycle repeated itself. “He would then wait, and he would come back again, and again, there would be no result. Yet,at the same time, Unzoku would do nothing. He simply left us be. And finally, after several visits, Unzoku had just stopped coming altogether.” Steve concluded with a weary sigh. “Unzoku had come asking me to face the other Alpha, but he never did follow through with his threat of destroying the current pack either, leaving us to the current situation we are in now. But I have to be honest, I still live in fear. I believe that any day he could come back, that he could decide to fight against us, and the fact that Unzoku hasn’t tried anything yet, that just makes me worry even more. The silence is deafening.” Unraveling the Paradox Kai, Lupus, and Gary were thinking about the entire story now, openly analyzing the implications. Since Steve already knew about them not being from the current time, a secret he had accepted, the three felt comfortable speaking openly about their knowledge of the curse. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞 “The situation seems to be almost the same, but with one critical difference,” Kai said, immediately getting to the core of the problem. “It makes me wonder a few things. For one, with us in our time, Unzoku had actively tried to use the power of the Vow to force us to fight. It seems in doing so, it allows him a level of overwhelming strength and control over us if we don’t complete the conditions of the Vow. However, both Jack’s Pack and Steve’s pack in this time don’t suffer from the same curse as us.” “Right, so there was no reason for them to make a vow in the first place,” Lupus contributed, connecting the dots quickly.“There’s something else as well that bothers me. When I fought against Unzoku, it felt like he was actively controlling me. He could stop my movements, and then he could directly influence my mind. It makes me wonder why he didn’t just do the same thing to Steve when he didn’t get his way.” Then, Gary raised his hand, a look of revelation on his face, as if he was in a classroom and had just solved the complex equation. “I think I have the answer to that,” Gary said, speaking with the authority of someone who had faced the being. “When I met with Unzoku, and from what we have heard so far, his powers with us aren’t limitless. Each time he does something that’s actively invasive, like manipulating minds or altering the world, it must use a large amount of power. So Unzoku always tries to get the two packs to fight against each other with the least amount of energy expenditure possible.” He elaborated on his deduction. “If he’s so careful with his power, then the reason might be that it’s something that takes years to grow back. Maybe even in this time, he simply doesn’t have the same amount of power to do such a thing like mind control on a large scale. My other guess is that although Unzoku is strong, Jack is strong as well, he’s the other Alpha. So, fighting directly against him would be hard, especially since Jack had the protection of not just his pack, but the security of the Kingdom as well. Which was why he had strategically approached the easier target, Steve, rather than Jack.” All of their deductions were adding up, forming a clearer picture of Unzoku as a strategic, power-conscious puppet master, apart from one frustrating detail: they still had no clue why Unzoku needed the two Alphas to fight so desperately, and what the objective was in creating this eternal conflict. “Although I don’t have the same information as all of you about the Vows and the future,” Steve admitted, a look of relief washing over his face, “you seem to harbor the exact same strategic worries as I did back then. I had come to the same conclusion: Unzoku wants us to fight, but he desperately doesn’t want to get his own hands dirty, likely due to a self-imposed limitation.” He revealed his final, terrifying thought. “So then the question that popped into my head was this: if he can’t get me to fight against Jack, then what if he tries to convince Jack instead?” The parallels between past and future were starting to violently merge, and that subtle, insidious move was certainly an Unzoku-like thing to do. **** Follow Jksmanga on social media for updates! Instagram: jksmanga P.a.t.r.e.o.n: jksmanga When news drops about My Vampire System, My Werewolf System, or any other series, you’ll hear it there first. Feel free to reach out, if I’m not too busy, I tend to reply.