novelraw Chapter 47 : A Werewolf Among Us?
Chapter 47 : A Werewolf Among Us?
Chapter 47: A Werewolf Among Us?
What was going on?
Who was the killer?
Where had that dagger come from?
Everyone present stared wide-eyed at the eerie scene before them, feeling an icy chill crawl down their spines.
Just moments ago, the conference room had been filled with confidence and passion — and now, that atmosphere had completely vanished.
Only a deathly silence remained, along with the shock and terror etched onto faces that had, seconds before, been glowing with fervor.
“The advantage is ours?”
Chen Mo’s impassioned declaration just moments earlier now felt like a loud, merciless slap across his own face.
And it struck the face of the Transcendent Affairs Bureau as well — even the entire machinery of the state!
One of their teammates had been silently erased right under their very noses!
“Sound the alarm immediately!”
“Emergency situation in Meeting Room A!”
Snapping out of his shock, Chen Mo’s expression turned iron-blue as he slammed his palm down on the red emergency button on the table.
“Lockdown! Seal the entire base immediately!”
He roared hysterically into the communicator, “Initiate highest-level wartime status! No one enters or leaves!”
The others seemed to awaken from a nightmare — standing up in alarm, retreating instinctively, eyes darting warily toward everyone around them.
Suspicion, fear, and the shadow of betrayal instantly blanketed their hearts.
The shrill wail of the alarm blared throughout the entire base.
At every exit, heavy alloy gates thundered down, sealing the base within seconds.
Moments later, dozens of heavily armed soldiers in powered exoskeletons stormed into the meeting room, their kinetic rifles leveled at everyone present.
“Pull up all surveillance footage of the meeting from the start until now! Analyze it frame by frame!”
“Immediately! Now!”
Chen Mo’s eyes were locked on Hailan’s corpse lying in a pool of blood. “I want to see what exactly happened just now!”
Soon, the full sequence of surveillance footage — from the beginning of the meeting up to the assassination — was projected holographically.
Technicians slowed the footage tenfold, twentyfold, even a hundredfold.
Everyone stared fixedly at the screen, trying to catch even the slightest flaw in the near-frozen images.
However, the footage showed that from the start of the meeting to the moment Hailan collapsed —
Everyone had been sitting properly in their seats, some excited, some deep in thought, some expressionless.
No one had left their seat.
No one had made any extraneous movement.
Then—
At the very moment Chen Mo had shouted, “Victory shall be ours!”, that black dagger had appeared out of thin air — and plunged straight into Hailan’s heart.
“Report! The alarm system shows no trace of external intrusion!”
The report from the tech department plunged the room into deeper silence.
That meant the killer was one of the people inside the meeting room!
He (or she) had used an Transcendent ability beyond the reach of existing technology — committing a perfect, silent assassination before everyone’s eyes!
This was no simple murder.
It was provocation.
A blatant provocation against the Transcendent Affairs Bureau, against the entire state apparatus itself!
“Seal the scene! No one moves from their position!”
Suppressing the fury and humiliation in his chest, Chen Mo forced himself to remain the calm investigator, taking command of the scene.
“Forensics! Begin a preliminary autopsy immediately!”
A forensic specialist in protective gear cautiously stepped forward to examine the body.
“The victim’s cardiac vessels were pierced clean through by a single stab — fatal injury.”
“Estimated time of death: five minutes ago.”
The forensic examiner frowned as he checked the dagger embedded in the corpse. “The murder weapon is a standard-issue police multi-purpose combat knife.”
Police dagger?
At those words, Li Wei’s heart sank heavily.
Instinctively, his hand went to his waist — where his own sheath lay empty.
“This dagger…”
The forensic specialist pulled the blade from the corpse, sealed it in an evidence bag, and turned toward Li Wei. “It has your serial number on it, Comrade Li Wei.”
Swish—!
All eyes — including the black muzzles of the armored soldiers’ rifles — instantly locked on Li Wei.
“It wasn’t me!” Li Wei shot to his feet.
“I never left my seat the entire time!”
“We all saw that.”
Chen Mo raised a hand, motioning for the soldiers to lower their guns. His gaze lingered on Li Wei for a moment, then shifted toward the cold corpse.
“Comrade Li Wei, step forward,” Chen Mo said tonelessly.
Li Wei took a deep breath and approached the body.
As a veteran SWAT officer, he had received extensive forensic training.
He crouched beside Hailan, carefully examining the wound on her chest.
“The incision is smooth — entered between the fifth and sixth ribs on the left side, severing the aorta with precision…”
“To inflict such a wound, the killer must have stood behind and to the left of the victim, striking with extreme speed — one fatal blow.”
Li Wei rose, his eyes sweeping across everyone present as he spoke slowly and firmly:
“In other words, the killer must have moved to Hailan’s back in an instant, carried out the stab, and returned to their seat without a sound.”
“The entire process had to be fast — so fast that none of us, not even the surveillance cameras, could perceive it.”
He paused, then delivered his conclusion.
“In short, the killer possesses some kind of ability akin to ‘instantaneous movement.’”
At Li Wei’s deduction, one word surfaced simultaneously in everyone’s mind — Teleportation!
Or perhaps… Time Acceleration!
Almost at once, all eyes turned toward the far end of the conference table.
There sat a youth who had remained silent and aloof from start to finish, his expression cold and proud.
【Time Walker】, Shi Yuan.
Among all known abilities, only his “Time Acceleration” could replicate the effect of teleportation!
Because if one could accelerate their personal timeflow to the extreme, to the outside world, it would appear identical to instantaneous movement!
“It wasn’t me!”
Facing the suspicious, scrutinizing, even hostile gazes, Shi Yuan’s perpetually proud face turned deathly pale.
He leapt to his feet, shouting in agitation, “I didn’t kill her! I’ve been sitting here the whole time, I didn’t do anything!”
“My ability can indeed accelerate my personal timeflow — to you, it might look like teleportation.”
“But think about it — why would I kill her?”
“We’re all teammates under the 【Radiance】 faction!”
“What benefit would I get from killing a teammate?!”
“Who knows if you’re really with 【Radiance】?!”
Qi Jiang, who had been silent until now, suddenly sneered and stood up.
Pointing at Shi Yuan angrily, he shouted, “Just now we were all celebrating our coming victory.”
“Only you!”
“You sat there with that cold face the whole time, like you weren’t happy at all about our win!”
“The 【Shadow】 faction players can verify each other, but we of 【Radiance】 can’t!”
“Whether you’re 【Radiance】 or 【Shadow】 depends only on your word! Who can prove it?!”
“I say you’re not 【Radiance】 at all! You’re a 【Shadow】 spy planted among us!”
Qi Jiang’s words ignited the room.
Anger, fear, betrayal — a mix of emotions surged through everyone. Several other players jumped up, eyes blazing with fury at Shi Yuan.
“That’s right!”
Meng Chao immediately echoed, “We just assembled, and one of us is already dead!”
“If it wasn’t you — the one who can ‘teleport’ — then who else could it be?!”
“Yeah! He’s the only one who could’ve done it!”
“I think he’s suspicious too!”
“It must be him! No one else could!”
“And we treated him as a teammate!”
“Kill him! Avenge Hailan!”
“I didn’t! I really didn’t!”
“And even if I were a 【Shadow】 spy, why would I expose myself by killing someone in front of everyone?! It makes no sense!”
Shi Yuan looked desperately around at the hostile eyes surrounding him, struggling to explain.
But his aloof, proud nature left him incapable of defending himself properly.
In the face of the angry mob, his words sounded feeble and hollow.
“Silence, all of you!”
Chen Mo’s roar finally restored a measure of order.
His cold gaze swept over Qi Jiang and the other agitated players, disappointment flickering in his eyes.
Then he turned toward Shi Yuan’s ashen face.
“Comrade Shi Yuan,”
“Please believe me — believe in the state — we would never wrong an innocent person.”
“But at this moment, you are indeed a suspect. I must ask for your cooperation.”
Chen Mo’s tone was emotionless. “Until the matter is fully investigated, I’ll need to temporarily restrict your freedom.”
“Guards, take him to the isolation room.”
“No!”
“I said it wasn’t me!”
“You can’t do this!” Shi Yuan’s despairing cry echoed through the sealed conference room.