Chen Mo didn't rush to speak with the villagers he had just saved from the jaws of the werewolves. Instead, he stood silently among the corpses, replaying the battle in his mind.
The fight hadn't been difficult for him — far from it — but it had given him something valuable: growth.
Unlike the world of Captain America, where his strongest opponent had been Baron Strucker, a skilled swordsman but still human, the rest of Hydra's soldiers were nothing more than cannon fodder — slicing through them had felt no different from chopping vegetables. There had been no real challenge, no edge to sharpen his blade against.
Here, however, the balance of power was different.
The werewolves of this world possessed bodies three to four times stronger than an ordinary human's, their combat power exceeding even that of Strucker himself.
Even Steve Rogers, without his alloy armor and Adamantium sword, would have struggled to hold his own against three or four at once — and Chen Mo had faced several dozen simultaneously.
Yes, he'd slain them all. But their sheer strength and speed had forced him to fight at full concentration. For the first time in a while, he'd felt real pressure.
And that pressure had refined him.
He could feel it — a faint but undeniable improvement in his swordsmanship.
That alone made this battle worthwhile.
This world, he realized, was teeming with werewolves — creatures that multiplied quickly and, worse, could spread their curse. Anyone bitten or killed by them risked turning into one of the beasts themselves. Their numbers were ever-growing, a constant threat to humanity's survival.
And these weren't even the strongest ones. If such terrifying power belonged to the "common" werewolves, then this world surely held far greater monsters.
The thought didn't frighten him.
It excited him.
True strength could only be forged through combat — and only against worthy opponents could his potential continue to evolve.
Glancing at the massive carcasses strewn across the ground, Chen Mo smirked beneath his helmet. Sliding his sword back into its sheath, he turned and strode toward the wide-eyed survivors.
…
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Europe descended into chaos — a dark, fractured age ruled by feudal lords who carved the continent into countless warring fiefdoms. Each lord ruled his territory like a miniature kingdom, raising private armies and waging endless wars against his neighbors.
The result was devastation.
Poverty, famine, and bloodshed consumed the land.
And then came the werewolves.
Their arrival plunged Europe into even deeper darkness. Packs of them would appear out of nowhere, ravaging entire villages. Even a single beast could wipe out dozens.
Not even nobles were safe. Many lords were torn apart along with their families, their manors reduced to slaughterhouses. Whole territories drowned in blood.
The werewolves became humanity's waking nightmare.
Just half a month ago, one baron's domain had been attacked by dozens of them. His manor and several nearby villages were destroyed, but then — strangely — the slaughter stopped. The outer settlements were untouched.
When neighboring lords heard the news, they mustered their armies in fear, preparing for the beasts to invade their own lands. But as time passed and no further attacks came, they grew curious.
When they finally approached the ruined barony, hoping to seize its now-masterless land, they discovered something astonishing:
The territory already had a new lord.
According to the surviving peasants, the entire pack of werewolves had been slain by this new ruler — by his hand alone.
At first, the neighboring nobles dismissed it as a lie, assuming the man had fabricated the tale to win the people's loyalty after the beasts had simply left on their own.
But when scouts went to investigate, they found something that silenced every doubt.
On the outskirts of a small village stood a grisly monument — a mountain made from the corpses of dozens of werewolves. Every one of them had been killed in the same way: decapitated by a single, clean strike.
The story matched the peasants' claims perfectly.
One man had done this.
A man strong enough to slaughter an entire pack of werewolves — the kind of power no army could match.
No one dared challenge him after that.
Instead, they sent gifts, pledging their recognition of his rule.
The corpse monument — jingguan — had been Chen Mo's idea.
He had no intention of personally fighting off greedy nobles who might try to invade. The sight of a mountain of dead werewolves was more than enough to scare them off.
And so, Chen Mo took control of the ravaged territory without resistance.
…
A year passed.
Under his rule, the land changed beyond recognition.
With his overwhelming strength as deterrence, no neighboring lord dared to provoke him. Whenever a werewolf appeared anywhere in his domain, Chen Mo personally went to hunt it down.
None escaped his detection — not the lone wanderers, not the hidden packs. All were slain.
Over the year, he had killed more than fifty werewolves. The corpse monument outside the first village had grown twice its original size.
With no more monster attacks or external threats, the people finally lived in peace. Chen Mo also abolished the crushing taxes that had burdened them under their previous lords. Life improved dramatically; despair gave way to stability, and the villagers' faces no longer carried that look of hopeless fatigue.
But Chen Mo didn't stop there.
He began to rebuild.
First came the formation of an army. Using Andrew — the veteran warrior he'd saved that night — as the foundation, Chen Mo recruited young men from nearby villages. With the supplies left behind in the baron's estate, he equipped and trained a force of one hundred soldiers — the Territorial Guard.
Andrew, with his battlefield experience and commanding presence, was appointed captain, responsible for training and daily operations.
That night in the stone house, Chen Mo had seen his leadership firsthand — calm, tactical, decisive. He was a soldier worth keeping.
And under Chen Mo's guidance, this once-broken land was beginning to rise again — its people united, its borders secure, and its new lord… both feared and revered like a god of war.