Rebirth Of The Rejected Luna Chapter 158: Creatures Of War And Destruction

**Tiana's POV**

The fire had burned down to little more than embers, glowing like molten rock in the pit, their quiet crackles the only sound in the still night. The air smelled of charred wood and the faint, lingering traces of magic—the kind that left a tingling sensation on the skin, a whisper in the bones. I still couldn’t quite believe what I had seen.

Cecilia had wielded magic as if it were as natural as breathing. She had shaped the fire into a dragon—an actual, living, twisting beast made of flame—and then dismissed it as though it were nothing more than a trick of the light.

I wanted to ask her about it and demand an explanation, but before I could open my mouth, her voice cut through the silence.

"You should see your face," Cecilia mused, her voice carrying the weight of both amusement and patience. She sat across from me, the firelight dancing in her sharp eyes. “You look like a child who’s just seen their first snowfall.”

I swallowed, my thoughts still tangled. “Because I just saw magic—real magic. That wasn’t some sleight of hand or illusion.”

Cecilia exhaled, the sound almost wistful. “Magic isn’t a trick, girl. It is in the bones of the world, in the marrow of our history.”

I stared at her, my curiosity outweighing my nerves. “And what does that mean?”

Cecilia shifted, her old joints creaking slightly as she poked the embers with a stick. “It means you are looking at the surface of something far deeper than you realize. You think you understand what you are, but tell me, Tiana—do you know where werewolves truly come from?”

I frowned, glancing down at my hands. “From the first wolf? The Moon Goddess? That’s what I was taught. Oh, and Lycans maybe?"

Cecilia huffed a dry laugh. “Stories. Tales meant to soothe restless minds and hide the truth.” She leaned forward, her gaze sharp. “You were not made by the moon, girl. You were made by blood, by war, by something far older than your kind dares to remember.”

A chill skittered down my spine. “Older?” I asked with a raise of my brows.

She nodded and then gave a little sigh. “Before there were werewolves, there were Lycans. And before them, there was the First Blood.”

The words sent a strange ripple through me as if something inside me recognized them before my mind could catch up.

“The First Blood?” I echoed, still with a raised brow.

Cecilia’s expression turned distant as if she were peering back through time itself. “They were neither man nor beast, neither mortal nor god. They were the firstborn of the wild—the first creatures to bridge the divide between predator and something more.”

I swallowed. “You mean… they were the first werewolves? The first of our kind?"

“No,” Cecilia said, her voice heavy with something I could not quite place. “They were not werewolves. They were not even Lycans. They were something else entirely.”

The fire crackled between us, filling the silence as I tried to piece her words together.

“They did not shift like you do,” she continued. “Their bodies became the beast. They only shifted with their rage, their grief, their hunger. There was no control. No order. They were monsters in the truest sense—gods of war, creatures of nightmares. And for a time, they ruled.”

I shuddered at the thought of them. “What happened to them?”

Cecilia’s lips pressed into a thin line. “The world could not hold them. They were too powerful, too untamed. The gods, the spirits, and the very balance of nature rebelled against them. And so, they were hunted.”

A cold weight settled in my stomach. “Hunted?”

She nodded. “By their own kin. By those who feared them. By the same forces that had allowed their creation. They were slaughtered, driven into extinction—but not before something new was forged from their blood.”

I leaned in. “Something new?”

Cecilia’s gaze found mine, sharp as a blade. “The Lycans.”

My breath caught.

“They were the first attempt at balance,” she explained. “Stronger than men, faster than wolves, but with control. They could shift at will, no longer cursed to lose themselves to the beast. But they were still warriors, still powerful beyond measure.”

I nodded slowly, trying to keep up. “And werewolves?”

Cecilia sighed. “Lycans, too, were feared. Their numbers grew, and with them, new wars. Kingdoms rose and fell in their wake. And so, once again, the gods—or fate, or the will of the world—softened them. From the Lycans came the werewolves, weaker still, made to live in packs, to rely on structure and order. They were given Alphas, a hierarchy, a bond to the moon to tether them.”

I exhaled shakily. “So… werewolves evolved from Lycans, and Lycans came from the First Blood.”

Cecilia nodded. “A slow dilution of power. From gods to kings, from kings to hunters, and from hunters to what you are now.”

The words felt heavy, pressing down on me. “And the First Blood? They’re completely gone?”

For a long moment, Cecilia said nothing.

Then, softly, she murmured, “The last was seen centuries ago.”

I should have felt relief. But something in the way she said it made my skin crawl.

“Seen,” I echoed. “Not killed?”

Cecilia met my gaze. “No one knows. But the blood never truly disappears. It lingers in the old bloodlines, waiting. And sometimes… just sometimes… it resurfaces.”

I swallowed. “You mean… rogues?”

Cecilia’s expression didn’t change. “Some, yes. Some are merely lost. But others—those who lose themselves completely, who become more beast than man—sometimes, that is not just madness. Sometimes, it is something older waking up.”

A shiver ran through me.

“But surely… if the First Blood were still alive, we’d know, right?” I asked.

Cecilia’s gaze drifted back to the fire, her expression unreadable.

“Would we?”

The fire crackled again, the flames licking at the night air.

I suddenly wasn’t sure if I wanted to know the answer.

"So we're still beasts like the first blood, just able to shift at our will?" I said, trying to take my mind off the thought that the first bloods could still exist.