The Umbrella Corporation—or more accurately, the Blue Umbrella Corporation—had every single one of its business lines precision-engineered to dance directly on the razor’s edge of human morality.
Items like cell culture fluid and artificial blood were barely acceptable enough to bring to the open market.
Cloning, gene editing, and bioweapons, on the other hand, were far harder to justify.
As for cloning technology, it wasn’t entirely inherently evil; at least on paper, Blue Umbrella had only ever claimed to clone cattle, sheep, and the like, never publicly admitting to cloning humans.
The same went for gene editing and bioweapons.
So long as these technologies didn’t involve human subjects, they actually held immense potential.
Yet the moment human beings entered the equation, they unequivocally crossed the line of human ethics.
Before the Raccoon City Resident Evil incident, things had been easier to manage.
Back then, Umbrella was at its peak, surrounded by “friends” everywhere, making cover-ups a trivial matter.
After the biohazard outbreak, however, Blue Umbrella had kept a considerably lower profile.
The most telling example was the cloning division, which had been practically dormant for nearly two full years.
If the grand scheme for vampire farming hadn’t encountered severe roadblocks, Mark wouldn’t have reactivated the cloning department in the first place.
On the train to Hungary, Mark pondered much about the future of the Blue Umbrella Corporation.
Cloning technology was vital to sustaining the vampire farming operation.
Gene editing and bioweapons were equally essential for refining his Dao Soldiers.
Development of these technologies certainly couldn’t be halted, but strict boundaries had to be enforced.
He could not allow those cold-blooded researchers to slide unchecked down a path toward Lovecraftian horrors.
When he had time, he would use Blue Umbrella’s core technology as a anchor to cast a direct curse:
*All cloned entities shall never birth an independent soul or sapience.*
*All gene-edited entities and bioweapons shall never break free from the Dao Soldier sequence.*
In doing so, he would harvest yet another massive pool of merit—a truly magnificent virtue.
Just as Mark was contemplating how to restrict Blue Umbrella’s moral baseline, the train, after traveling for over four hours, finally slowed down as it approached the capital of Hungary: Budapest.
Budapest—known as the Heart of Europe, the Pearl of the Danube, the Twin Cities of Freedom, and more.
During the Middle Ages, it had once been one of the most prosperous places in Europe.
At the same time, it was also the cradle of the Golden Court Clan.
In the sixth century AD, Alexander Corvinus had been a Hungarian soldier.
After contracting a plague and surviving, he became immortal.
It wasn’t until Duke Viktor joined the vampire ranks that they fraudulently claimed the name of the Golden Court Clan, reaching the peak of their power.
A thousand years had passed since then.
Although humanity now ruled the Earth, the Golden Court Clan still exerted a colossal influence over this region.
Mark and his group had come this time to wipe the Golden Court Clan off the face of the earth.
Yet this sort of supernatural war beneath the veil of the hidden world could not be brought into the open light of day.
Therefore, upon entering Budapest, Mark’s entourage kept a low profile.
They didn’t check into a high-end hotel, nor did they head to any former Nightwalker outposts.
Instead, led by Jason Bourne, they arrived at an utterly ordinary apartment building in the city.
This apartment building had once served as one of Jason Bourne’s safehouses.
In this single building alone, Jason owned a full seven properties—giving him far more options than a cunning hare with three burrows.
With so many safehouses available, accommodating everyone was effortless.
After everyone settled in, as dawn approached, Jason and the members of the Wolf Catchers gathered in Mark’s room.
In the living room, a complete map of Hungary was spread wide across the table.
As Viktor’s former adopted daughter, Selene had long since marked every single asset, base, personnel deployment, and ancestral castle belonging to the Golden Court Clan.
Capturing and exterminating the vampires of the Golden Court Clan was no longer a difficult task for the present Mark.
After taking complete control of Blue Umbrella, he had thoroughly overhauled the entire underground Hive, equipping it with thirty-six separate Dao Soldier refining laboratories.
Particularly after he swept through the corrupt shadow financial syndicates behind Blue Umbrella, Mark had gained a vast fortune.
With those resources, he had refined a full three thousand Foundation Establishment stage Dao Soldiers alone.
If he unleashed mass production without regard for resource consumption, Mark could assemble an entire supernatural army in a short span of time.
If Mark were to cut loose completely, sweeping away the Golden Court vampires would be child’s play; he could even wipe out all of Hungary in a surprise assault without breaking a sweat.
Yet arrogance invites divine retribution.
The Marvel world had never lacked supreme powerhouses.
Setting aside the various cosmic gods dwelling deep in the universe, just Earth’s Kamar-Taj and the Ancient One alone were enough to give Mark a massive headache.
One had to remember that Kamar-Taj was an alliance of sorcerers.
If the Ancient One hadn’t chosen to lie low, that organization would be the sole governing body overseeing all supernatural affairs on Earth.
Furthermore, after fully commandeering Blue Umbrella, Mark had discovered various records in its secret database concerning the hidden foundations of various nations.
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Captain Union Jack in Britain.
The Knights of the Holy Maiden in France.
The Dark Council in Italy.
The Gypsy Witches of Eastern Europe.
The Hashashin Order in the Persian Gulf region, and so forth.
Beyond those were pantheons like the Light Pantheon, the Norse Pantheon, the Greek Pantheon, and the Egyptian Pantheon.
Mark had never entertained the idea of playing the unhinged, lawless tyrant in the Marvel world.
Even when his cultivation reached great heights in the future, he wouldn’t act without restraint.
This was not merely out of awe for the hidden forces of the world, but also out of respect for his own internal conscience.
*Restraint in the heart, boundaries in action.*
Only by maintaining this mindset could Mark ensure that he wouldn’t turn himself into a heartless stone along the path of cultivation.
Setting those distant thoughts aside, Mark returned his attention to the Golden Court vampires at hand.
Mark intended not only to turn these vampires into his first major batch of cultivation nourishment, but also to seize all of their wealth, network connections, and industries for himself.
This was the true reason for his low-key arrival.
If the Golden Court vampires were alerted and fought to the death, who would compensate him for the destroyed assets and lost riches?
Indeed, Mark had already long regarded everything belonging to the Golden Court Clan as his personal property.
“Selene, you handle the arrangements,” Mark said.
“My stance remains the same: those bloodsucking monsters who treat humans like cattle can only be kept as livestock.
The Wolf Catchers can expand, but we don’t take just anyone.
Secure the core industries here in Budapest first; we can’t let our wealth slip away.”
“As for the Golden Court HQ castle beneath the Carpathian Mountains, leave it alone for now.
Let them gather there as much as possible.
When the time comes, I’ll have the Mech Dao Soldiers finish them off…”
Just as Mark was about to assign all the tasks, a sharp sound interrupted him.
*Thwip!
Thwip thwip thwip!*
A rapid burst of silenced gunshots rang out abruptly.
A stray bullet tore straight through the wall, its momentum unflagging as it flew directly toward Mark.