While Liam Price, the anxious father, was frantically searching for his son, the two mischievous little brats were actually secretly up to their own business.
Mere artillery shelling couldn’t hurt a born Super Saiyan and a Primarch.
If little Broly didn’t yet know how to control Ki to form a wider protective shield, those shells wouldn’t even have breached the factory walls!
Even so, with just a slight effort on his part, little Curze and Ah Fu, who were within two or three meters of him, were entirely unharmed.
However, the sound of the bombardment was still a bit too loud, and the exploding flames along with the collapsing factory walls terrified Ah Fu.
The dog cowered close to its young master’s legs.
Fortunately, Broly noticed in time and covered Ah Fu’s ears with both hands, keeping him from wetting himself on the spot.
Seeing his lifelong companion wronged, little Broly grew angry and wanted to go outside right then to beat up the bad guys.
It was little Curze who stopped him.
“Broly, I have a better idea…” As it turned out, whenever males gather, an “idea guy” is bound to emerge—and young boys were no exception.
The idea little Curze had for his big brother Broly was that they should follow the bad guys back to their main lair, just as Liam Price had done with the previous batch of villains.
“…Only by brutally ‘cool-killing’ the worst bad guys will the other bad guys learn fear.” Well, this young Night Lord’s understanding of “cool-killing” remained strictly defined as “cruelly executing.” And so, the two kids plus the sled dog hid quietly in the factory for a short while.
Sure enough, an opportunity presented itself.
Nandor “the Relentless” was summoned and scampered off to see the vampire elders.
Nandor’s departure naturally didn’t escape little Broly’s Ki lock.
The boy immediately used the Sky Dance Technique to give chase, carrying Curze and Ah Fu the sled dog along.
He brought Curze and Ah Fu because Liam Price wasn’t home, and little Broly felt that as the big brother, he had to take good care of his younger brother and pet.
Little did Broly know what his brother was truly capable of.
The moment he took little Curze’s hand and soared into the sky, Curze instantly rendered them both invisible.
This stealth was neither optical nor a simple sensory illusion.
Its principle was rather obscure: it rendered them “indeterminable,” achieving the effect of being completely unobservable.
This was an innate ability of Curze’s, a byproduct of his powerful psychic foresight, and almost impossible for anyone else to learn.
With this super stealth hack active, Nandor flying ahead was completely oblivious to the little tail following him—and it also completely blinded their old father, who was used to sensing Ki signatures.
…
“Looks like he’s landing,” little Broly suddenly said to Curze as they flew.
He noticed the vampire Nandor’s shifting posture.
Though it surprised him slightly that this vampire could fly, the guy’s flying speed was so pathetic that little Broly had to hold back his flight speed just to keep from overshooting him.
Nandor hadn’t flown far anyway—just from Hell’s Kitchen across the Hudson River to Jersey City before touching down.
That’s right: the New York Vampire Council wasn’t actually in New York, but in New Jersey.
As for why the grandest vampire council in North America was set in such a “backwater”?
The official excuse was that the environment was nicer and the air cleaner than in New York, where high-society “old money” lived in large estates to show off their status.
In truth, however, aside from New York occasionally attracting Blade to farm mobs, the main reason the council elders chose this location was out of sheer terror toward a gang of battle mages living in New York.
Those guys were an absolute disgrace to mages everywhere!
What kind of proper mage has only one spell—a portal—and routinely casts it just to leap out and start hacking away with conjured melee weapons?
Utterly brutal!
Vampires were few in number, and purebloods were fewer still.
All told, there weren’t even a few dozen pureblood vampires in the Big Apple—not enough to fill a modest movie theater.
In a war of attrition, vampires couldn’t hope to compete with a gang of muscle-brained mages.
And even if they could beat those battle mages, could they possibly beat their boss, the Sorcerer Supreme?
Thus, the vampires of New York fully embraced their fine tradition of “bullying the weak and fearing the strong.” Everyone sent to New York to handle expansion was either a half-breed like Deacon or a thick-skulled pureblood like Nandor.
Nandor, however, didn’t see it that way.
On the contrary, he felt the old geezers in the council lacked vision.
Instead of preparing a decent welcoming ceremony for Count Dracula, they were persecuting a hard worker like him.
“All of this must change!” After landing, he tidied his several-centuries-outdated robe and entered the council’s estate under the lead of the familiar security guards at the gate.
Looking at the luxury cars parked in the driveway—all belonging to the elders—Nandor said nothing, though envy burned in his heart.
Before he even stepped into the main hall, however, he saw numerous “people” prostrating outside the entrance.
The vampire elders were all flat on their faces, trembling on the ground, not daring to rise.
Nandor walked over curiously, took a peek into the hall, and with a *thud*, dropped to his knees as well.
Inside the hall, a tall, bare-chested vampire wearing chainmail was gorge-eating like a wild beast.
Several humans served as blood food—some were being bitten at the neck, while others had been torn into bloody chunks.
“Dammit!
Count Dracula is here, why didn’t anyone warn me in advance!” Nandor burned with rage toward the elders beside him, feeling betrayed, isolated, and convinced those bastards were deliberately setting him up.
As Nandor grumbled internally, Count Dracula—who had been busy gorging—suddenly lifted his head and cast a sideways glance toward the doorway.
The vampires outside were terrified out of their wits by this single glance, hastily pressing themselves flat, not daring to make eye contact with their progenitor.
Yet Dracula was not looking at his bloodline fledglings, but behind them…
Where two young children and a dog seemed to appear out of thin air.