[Item: Red Queen Main Control Chip]
[Effect: Advanced AI core with built-in complete technical archives of the Umbrella Corporation.]
[Description: The super-hub of the Umbrella Corporation in Resident Evil. Tremendous processing power, exceptional logic deduction, and real-time analysis capabilities.]
[Note: Her appearance is that of a blonde young girl in twin pigtails wearing a red dress.]
…
[Rank B Card Fragment × 1]
[Effect: Used for fusion.]
[Description: A fragment of an unknown Rank B Card. Collecting five allows fusion into a complete new card.]
…
[Rank C Eight-Star Card – Zhuge Qing]
[Skill: Wuhou Qi Men]
[Description: Character from Under One Person. Direct descendant of Prime Minister Zhuge Liang of the Han Dynasty. The only person in the extraordinary world who has mastered all the techniques of Wuhou Qi Men, a once-in-a-decades genius of the Zhuge family.]
[Note: “Listen to the wind’s whisper—your gossip blew into my ears long ago.”]
“The next character to take the stage is sorted out.”
Luke Lane’s lips curved slightly as he fused the two cards into his main body and an avatar, respectively.
Closing his eyes to sense the changes briefly, he opened them again, already channeling Wuhou Qi Men.
“Xun Style: Whispering Wind.”
The subtle vibrations of the surrounding air currents flooded into his ears.
“Baby, you’re amazing!”
“Mmm…”
“What the hell?!”
A vein throbbed on his temple, and he hurriedly deactivated this technique that had taken an unexpected detour.
“Shadow Clone Technique!”
Forming hand seals, a clone leaped out.
He channeled the Zhuge Qing card into it.
The clone’s form wavered, instantly transforming into a handsome young man with blue hair and blue eyes.
Wearing suspenders paired with a tailored suit, his hair tied neatly into a short ponytail at the back of his neck, his smiling expression exuded three parts laziness and seven parts nonchalance.
“Everyone’s here. Time to kick off the grand show of the Blood Demon’s resurrection.”
“The Hand’s search for pureblood vampires is getting more intense by the day.”
Three days later, in a temporary hideout within an abandoned warehouse, Matt pulled off his mask with a grim expression.
“We can’t wait any longer. We must strike before the Marquis of the Blood Wardrobe gathers all the sacrifices.”
“Matt, do you actually have a plan?”
Jessica sat on an old wooden chair with her legs crossed, letting out a long yawn.
“It’s 1:30 in the morning. I was fast asleep when you dragged me awake. If you just dragged me out on a whim, believe me, I’ll shove a ‘Jessica Iron Fist’ straight into your stomach next.”
Before her words even finished, she tightened her fist and feinted twice in the air.
Women woken from sleep were truly terrifying!
Matt’s eyelid twitched, and he blurted out his full plan at breakneck speed.
“Hmm… locate the Hand’s holding facility for purebloods and wipe out those vampires before the Blood Demon’s resurrection ritual begins… Sounds clean enough.”
Jessica uncurled her fist and nodded, her eyes glittering.
She loved this style: clear objective, straightforward steps, no beat-around-the-bush nonsense.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
He had run this plan through his head countlessly.
Seeing her nod warmed his heart slightly, but he merely lowered his eyes to hide his pride before turning to his third companion.
“Lu Xiaofeng, what do you think?”
“The plan is feasible, but if you want it foolproof, we need to spice it up a bit.”
Lu Xiaofeng flipped down lightly from a ceiling beam, his fingers leisurely twirling his neatly trimmed mustache.
“The place where The Hand hides their captives must be extremely secure and secret. Even if we search blindly, it’ll take considerable time and effort.”
“Why not turn their own game against them and force them to reveal the location themselves?”
“You mean…” Matt’s eyes lit up.
“Mean what?”
Jessica asked, completely lost, scratching her hair in annoyance.
“It’s simple.”
Lu Xiaofeng smiled with full confidence.
“They lack purebloods? Then we’ll deliver a few to them. The only difference is that these ‘gifts’ will come equipped with hidden tracking devices.”
“Brilliant!”
“Leave the purebloods to me! A couple of days ago while scouting, I stumbled upon an underground bar in Harlem packed entirely with vampires.”
“To be safe, all three of us should go.”
Matt pulled his mask back down, his voice steady once more.
…
Half an hour later, the three arrived in Harlem.
As New York’s notorious impoverished neighborhood and the largest Black community in the United States, Harlem was perpetually shrouded in violence and chaos.
Once night fell, idle street thugs loitered around alleyways and street corners, clutching liquor bottles while yelling and shouting.
If they spotted a lone passerby, they would swarm in, stripping the victim down to his underwear in mere seconds.
Lu Xiaofeng happened to witness this exact scene.
Standing on a rooftop, he looked down at several thugs stripping a middle-aged white man stark naked before grinning and closing in on him.
Lu Xiaofeng’s expression turned quite odd as he couldn’t help sighing, “This place called New York is truly… surprisingly innocent!”
Hearing this made Matt’s ears burn, his face flushing crimson with embarrassment.
Without a word, he leaped down and gave those thugs with wildly bizarre tastes a brutal beatdown, breaking arms and legs, twisting their necks out of joint.
“Serves them right! Trash like that deserves retribution.”
Jessica, who feared nothing under the sun, gave Matt a thumb’s up after seeing his decisive moves.
“I don’t believe violence solves problems.”
Matt shook his head with a frown, his tone heavy.
“Hell’s Kitchen won’t change just because of a few beatings. New thugs pop up here every single day. Clear out one batch, and another immediately surges in.”
“To stop killing with killing, to curb crime with punishment.”
Lu Xiaofeng crossed his arms over his chest and said leisurely, “A friend of mine encountered a similar dilemma, and that was how he handled it.”
“You sure have a lot of friends.”
Jessica couldn’t help rolling her eyes.
Over the past few days, she had heard “A friend of mine…” so many times her ears were practically callous.
“Of course—that’s Lu Xiaofeng’s whole persona!”
Controlling the clone from afar, Luke Lane smiled with self-satisfaction upon hearing this.
In his setup, every avatar had a signature trait:
John Constantine was a professional teammate-screwer who wouldn’t move without profit; while Lu Xiaofeng’s defining trait was having friends all over the world.
For instance, Marquis of the Blood Wardrobe Bai Yifei was an old acquaintance he had shared drinks with, and Zhuge Qing, who was about to make his entrance, was a helper he personally invited.
“Wait, there are sounds of fighting coming from the vampire bar—and it’s pretty loud.”
Matt suddenly turned his head, interrupting their conversation.
“What’s going on?”
Lu Xiaofeng raised an eyebrow in slight surprise, sweeping his gaze toward the nearby underground bar.
Matt focused quietly for a moment before whispering, “Chaotic heartbeats, dense sounds of hand-to-hand combat. Preliminary assessment: a pack of vampires is swarming a single man.”
“That man is a super-powered individual with skin as hard as forged steel. Bullets ricochet off him with loud clangs.”
“Ah, it’s him.”
Lu Xiaofeng realized, instantly guessing the man’s identity:
Another powerhouse of The Defenders—Luke Cage.
Having undergone a secret human experiment, he possessed a body impervious to blades and bullets alongside brute strength far exceeding ordinary humans, making him arguably the toughest street-level hero around.
“Another prime piece of ‘fertile soil,'” he sighed inwardly, winking at Matt and Jessica.
“Time for our grand entrance. If we delay any longer, these vampires will all be wiped out, and our scheme will fall apart.”
Before his words even faded, his toes tapped the ground, his body gliding through the night sky like a feather.
A palm wind abruptly blasted toward the tightly closed wooden door of the bar—
With a deafening crash, the heavy wooden door exploded into a shower of splinters!
Inside the bar, ordinary patrons had long fled, leaving Luke Cage fighting alone against a circle of vampires armed with submachine guns.
Seeing Lu Xiaofeng burst through the door amidst a snowy flurry of wood chips, both sides froze simultaneously.
[Shock Points from Luke Cage +200]
[Shock Points from Ordinary Vampire +1]
[Shock Points from Ordinary Vampire +1]
[Shock Points from Vampire Baron Chevalier +100]
…
“Tsk, quite lively in here.”
Lu Xiaofeng casually withdrew his hand.
That blow consumed a fair amount of internal energy, but the Shock Points gained made it well worth the cost.
“Damn it, another one!”
He couldn’t even handle one, and now another had shown up—how could he possibly survive?
He made up his mind instantly: retreat first!
As a noble vampire baron and a direct descendant of the Grand Elder, his status was far too exalted to perish in a dump like this.
“Trying to slip away?”
Lu Xiaofeng saw through his sneaky movements at a glance.
Twirling his mustache with a smile, he tapped his toes once more, his figure darting left and right as he lunged straight for Chevalier.
“Block him!!”
Chevalier’s face darkened, and he shouted an order, forcing the lowest-ranked blood slaves to hold the line while he retreated rapidly toward the back door, flanked by his personal guards.
Vampire hierarchy was strict and unforgiving.
To these blood slaves, who weren’t even considered formal vampire kin, the baron’s command was absolute law.
Even with their legs trembling, dozens of blood slaves gritted their teeth and stayed behind, raising their submachine guns and pulling the triggers expressionlessly.
These guns were lightweight, precise, and possessed high-capacity magazines.
Dozens firing together instantly wove an airtight net of firepower.
“Watch out!!”
Though Luke Cage looked burly, fierce, and intimidating, he was actually a warm-hearted, straightforward man.
Seeing Lu Xiaofeng exposed empty-handed under the barrage of bullets, his heart tightened, and he sprinted forward, wanting nothing more than to shield him from the gunfire.
But halfway there, he skidded to a dead halt, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks—
Golden light flared in midair.
Bullets collided with a shimmering curtain of light, crackling and ricocheting off, halting merely an inch away.
He gaped, muttering under his breath, “Shit… what on earth is that?”
[Shock Points from Luke Cage +400]
[Shock Points from Ordinary Vampire +1.5]
[Shock Points from Ordinary Vampire +1.5]
[Shock Points from Vampire Baron Chevalier +200]
…
“Shit! What the hell is that? Block him, quickly!”
Chevalier was equally dumbfounded, his face turning pale green.
Seeing Lu Xiaofeng strolling through the hail of bullets wrapped in golden light as if walking through an open field, he nearly jumped out of his skin and frantically urged his guards forward.
The guards were filled with reluctance, but remembering that he was a direct lineage of the vampire Grand Elder, they gritted their teeth and charged forward anyway.
“Heh… looks like we’ve got a big customer here.”
Lu Xiaofeng raised an eyebrow.
The speed and strength of these guards far surpassed those of the blood slaves; clearly, they were all pureblood vampires.
For this cowardly baron to command so many pureblood guards, his status was obviously anything but ordinary.
Clang!
Lu Xiaofeng moved as he thought, unaffected in the slightest by his inner reflections.
The silver sword in his hand was a specially crafted weapon, while his form drifted like willow catkins in the wind, gliding effortlessly among the guards as if taking a casual stroll.
Before those vampire guards could even turn around, their heads were severed by a single swift strike, disintegrating into ash amid panic and terror.
“This is horrifying!”
Chevalier’s face turned deathly pale.
He bolted like mad, his shoes practically kicking up sparks.
Almost there!
Just one more step and I’ll burst through the door!
Staring at the back exit right in front of him, he squeezed out every last drop of his strength.
Lu Xiaofeng stood with his arms crossed, a slight smile on his lips, quietly watching without making a move to block or pursue.
Click!
Just as Chevalier’s toes were about to cross the threshold, the back door slid open automatically.
Jessica cracked her knuckles, a spine-chilling smile plastered across her face.
“Ha! Surprised?”
“You push us vampires too far!”
Chevalier’s pupils contracted sharply.
Accelerating abruptly, his ten fingers elongated into wicked claws that lunged straight for Jessica’s throat with icy deadly intent.
He refused to believe it—how could a noble vampire baron lose to an ordinary human woman?
Bam!
Jessica shattered his delusion completely with a crisp, heavy punch.
“Vampires really can’t take a hit. He can’t even handle a casual punch from me!”
She glanced down at Chevalier, who was now embedded in the brick wall, let out a soft snort from her nose, and landed another vicious kick for good measure.