What was even more terrifying was that wherever the blood mist reached, the blood within their bodies began to surge uncontrollably, as if it might burst through their skin at any second!
How could this be?!!
[Shock points from Vampire Baron Chevalier +875]
[Shock points from Vampire Marquis Bohlain +1125]
[Shock points from Vampire Earl Anhalt +735]
…
The more terrified they were, the more satisfied Luke Lane became.
Because every skipped heartbeat and every surge of cold sweat was farming shock points for him at a mad pace.
In just a short moment, he had collected four waves in a row, with the total approaching two hundred thirty thousand.
However, it seemed their fear had reached its limit, or perhaps their nerves had gone completely numb.
No matter how much pressure Luke Lane exerted afterward, the remaining vampires contributed not a single trace more.
Hmm… though it wasn’t entirely without exception.
[Shock points from Vampire Baron Chevalier +800]
[Shock points from Vampire Baron Chevalier +800]
[Shock points from Vampire Baron Chevalier +800]
…
“This kid really has potential!”
In his Upper East Side villa, Luke Lane looked at the surveillance screen at the face pale as paper, legs shaking like chaff, and his smile deepened.
Secretly issuing a command to his avatar, the Marquis of the Blood Wardrobe, to make sure to leave this high-quality “chives” a way to live, Luke Lane withdrew his divine sense and turned his attention toward Zhuge Qing’s location.
…
“Is this the place?”
The night was deep.
Outside the abandoned church, it was so quiet only the wind could be heard.
Lu Xiaofeng leaped onto an old oak tree, hiding among the dense leaves.
Using the cold moonlight, he silently surveyed the activity inside the courtyard.
By normal logic, a church shouldn’t have perimeter walls.
However, after Madame Gao bought this ruin, she had quietly renovated and reinforced it, embedding explosives underground, building high walls, setting up traps… all sorts of measures were already quietly in place.
“That’s right!”
Matt held his breath and concentrated for a moment, replying in a deep voice, “I hear it. Over a dozen heartbeats, all hiding in the shadows of the courtyard.”
“I hear them too!”
Zhuge Qing nodded with a smile, his tone light yet firm.
“Most likely ninjas from The Hand, along with Madame Gao’s crew.”
Frank took off his night-vision goggles and looked down, inspecting the gear hanging all over his body one by one:
A 5.56mm M16 rifle (selective fire for full-auto/burst), a 9mm Browning pistol, a Gerber tactical combat knife, shoulder pads, elbow pads, knee pads, a bulletproof vest…
From top to bottom, every inch of him oozed killing intent.
He was a thorough, practical warrior.
Even without a trace of superpowers, relying solely on these hard pieces of hardware and his master-level combat experience was enough to make enemies bleed rivers.
“Then what are we waiting for? Charge straight in?”
Jessica hovered in midair, clenching her fists, her voice filled with eagerness.
The creed she believed in had always been a single word: smash!
Now that the team had Zhuge Qing and the Hero Sword, she had even more confidence and an overwhelming advantage.
Going brute force was all that was needed.
“No!”
Zhuge Qing paused with his eyes closed for a moment.
When he opened them again, his expression had turned grim.
“I just performed a divination. This place is extremely ominous, hiding a deadly killing intent.”
“Then what should we…”
Before Jessica could finish her sentence, out of the corner of her eye she suddenly saw a dark figure dash past like an arrow leaving the string, skimming along the top of the wall and silently flipping into the courtyard.
“Someone went in!” she blurted out, her face full of astonishment.
Before her voice had even faded, fierce fighting broke out in the courtyard.
Matt had incredible hearing; he even clearly heard Madame Gao sneer and bark out two words: “Iron Fist!”
Immediately after, the clashing of weapons, howling fist winds, and muffled groans and shrieks exploded one after another, the rhythm growing faster and more brutal.
Listening for a moment, Matt’s brows knit tighter and tighter.
That man called Iron Fist had actually come to intercept the Marquis of the Blood Wardrobe as well.
He tightened his grip on his blind cane, his voice low and steady: “The person inside won’t hold out much longer. I’m going to support him.”
“Count me in! I’m going too!”
Jessica immediately raised her hand, unable to hold back any longer.
“Minority obeys the majority. I have no objections.”
Zhuge Qing spread his hands, the corners of his mouth curving slightly.
“As for the danger inside… I know what to expect and can handle it.”
“Then let’s do it!”
Lu Xiaofeng pulled the Hero Sword backhanded.
The moment the blade left its sheath, a cold light burst forth, and sword qi surged like a tide.
His figure unfolded like a wild goose gliding through the sky, flipping over the high wall in an instant.
Before his body even arrived, his sword arrived first, slashing straight toward Madame Gao and her group.
Clang!
A snow-white sword light tore through the night, colder than moonlight, more piercing than frost.
The sharp sword intent condensed into a silver-white arc of a blade.
Before it even reached them, Madame Gao and the others felt as if struck by lightning, their entire bodies freezing, unable to even blink.
Gulp!
The Defenders following right behind all swallowed hard together.
Earlier, someone had murmured: Can a single sword really turn the tables?
Isn’t that too miraculous?
At this moment, no one dared to doubt it anymore.
How was this just boosting combat power?
This clearly pulled the entire team’s fighting capabilities from deep underground straight up to the roof of a skyscraper.
Boom!
The silver arc struck the ground.
On the surface, it looked ordinary, only plowing a thin, long sword mark into the earth.
Only upon closer inspection did one realize its horror.
The sword mark extended straight for a hundred meters.
Wherever it passed, bricks, broken pillars, and iron frames were all sliced in two, the cross-sections smooth as a mirror, the edges faintly glowing with a metallic cold light.
[Shock points from Daredevil Matt Murdock +1321]
[Shock points from Luke Cage +1132]
[Shock points from Jessica Jones +1225]
[Shock points from The Punisher Frank Castle +1024]
[Shock points from Madame Gao +1128]
…
The Defenders stood frozen in place, speechless for a moment.
Madame Gao froze as well.
Her gaze swept over her companion beside her whose neck had been cleaved diagonally, his eyes wide open with no breath remaining.
Her mouth twitched violently, and raising her hand, she pressed the detonator in her coat.
…
Pressing the detonator was not Madame Gao seeking her own death or wanting to drag others down with her.
In reality, this was a retreat path she had prepared long ago.
The Hand possessed Dragon Bone that could bring the dead back to life.
Although the stock was small, it was more than enough to save her a few times.
To her, death was nothing more than a halftime break.
Her only regret was that her original plan was completely ruined: she had intended to wait until Iron Fist and the Marquis of the Blood Wardrobe fought to mutual destruction before detonating the explosives and taking them both out together.
Now she had been forced to act early by Lu Xiaofeng’s astounding sword qi.
“Ah well, might as well send this group off as well.”
This was the final thought that flashed through her mind before she pressed down.
The next second,
All the underground explosives embedded beneath the abandoned church detonated simultaneously.
BOOM!!!
It was as if heaven and earth suddenly collapsed.
The ground for miles around shuddered violently.
Fierce flames soared into the sky, and shattered stones wrapped in scorching heat waves charged wildly.
The shockwave swept away everything in all directions along with tongues of fire and debris.
It was late at night, and most residents in Queens were already fast asleep.
The moment the giant explosion blasted out, countless people sat up startled.
A few young people who were leaning on their balconies enjoying the breeze were terrified into a jolt.
Turning around angrily toward the epicenter of the explosion,
“What the fuck!!”
Their cursing came to a sudden halt.
The anger on their faces froze instantly, then was swallowed up by horror.
They saw a thick blood pillar surge from the original site of the church, piercing straight into the clouds.
It was thick and crimson, staining even the churning clouds and the cold moonlight a weird, eerie red.
The blood pillar seemed like a living thing, silently roaring, ready at any moment to pounce down and devour them whole.
[Shock from an ordinary New York citizen +0.03]
[Shock from an ordinary New York citizen +0.04]
[Shock from an ordinary New York citizen +0.02]
…
Without needing to think, that red beam of light piercing into the sky was precisely triggered by Luke Lane.
He had previously drawn a character card for “En Oyashiro.”
This card’s rating wasn’t top-tier, only C-rank 6-star, and his strength was not yet equal to Zhuge Qing’s, but it won out in practical moves and flexible coordination.
Luke Lane was able to pull off so many avatars in one go entirely thanks to En Oyashiro’s shadow duplication technique.
More importantly,
En Oyashiro also inherited the bloodline technique known as the Blood Dragon Eye.
Similar to the Sharingan of the Uchiha Clan, the Blood Dragon Eye was not only adept at weaving illusions, but could also manipulate blood with willpower, performing all kinds of varied secret techniques.
The combination of both abilities made him an ultimate troublemaker tool.
Therefore, in Luke Lane’s design, En Oyashiro would play the role of the first big villain boss—the Blood Demon.
And that crimson beam of light shooting into the sky was the Blood Demon’s exclusive light-and-sound intimidation for his grand entrance.
The effect was instantaneous.
In just a few short minutes, it brought Luke Lane nearly one hundred thousand shock points.
“As expected, the grander the scene, the bigger the reaction.”
Inside his Upper East Side villa, Luke Lane glanced at the shock points on the screen approaching five hundred thousand, then turned his focus back to his avatar “Blood Demon,” secretly urging him to add a bit more pressure and a few more layers of intimidation.
…
“Hahaha!!”
“I, the Blood Demon, have finally returned to the mortal realm!”
At this moment, in the center of the church ruins turned into scorched earth, a rolling cloud of blood mist slowly dispersed, revealing a monstrous figure with crimson flame wings on his back, a face like green iron, and exposed fangs.
He tilted his head back and inhaled, sucking all the scattered blood mist into his stomach.
Thud!
×71
The seventy-one vampire bodies nailed to ice spikes fell to the ground simultaneously, leaving behind only eerie white bones.
[Shock from Vampire Baron Chevalier +600]
The only survivor, Chevalier, trembled in the legs.
His face turned pale and green in turn, filled with terror and delight.
He hurriedly bowed and shouted, “Ancestor above, thank you for showing mercy!”
“Heh!”
The Blood Demon didn’t bother to pay attention to this coward.
Instead, his gaze rested with great interest on the cold and stern Marquis of the Blood Wardrobe.
“Bai Yifei, Lu Xiaofeng is here again, and this time he’s carrying Wuming’s Hero Sword. You’re soft-hearted, giving him quite a lot of face.”
“Are you afraid?”
The Marquis of the Blood Wardrobe had eyes like knives, piercing straight at the other.
“Back then, wasn’t it Wuming who sealed you in the Demon Locking Tower?”
“Hahaha!!”
The Blood Demon threw his head back and let out several strange laughs.
“In Wuming’s hands, the Hero Sword was indeed impossibly sharp. But Lu Xiaofeng is just a wet-behind-the-ears greenhorn. Even if he holds the sword, what can he do to me?”
Before his voice even died away, his entire body turned into a thread of thick blood mist, sweeping up a stench of wind as he charged out from the church ruins.
…
“The Blood Demon has been resurrected!”
At the same time, outside the church perimeter, a thick sphere formed from mud and stone shattered open.
Zhuge Qing abruptly opened his eyes, waving his hand to shatter the earthen shell blocking his vision.
“Madame Gao really had a ruthless hand!”
As the earthen shell melted away, Jessica looked around, her eyelids twitching.
How was this just bombs?
This was clearly a scene from purgatory!
She could almost be certain that buried underground were not just explosives, but also a large number of incendiary bombs.
Even now, the ground was still burning fiercely, heat waves rolling, even singeing the tips of her hair until they curled slightly.
“No wonder Zhuge Qing said there was deadly killing intent hidden here.”
The rest of The Defenders also gasped, offering their thanks to Zhuge Qing one after another.
If he hadn’t reacted quickly and formed a barrier in advance to protect everyone, they probably wouldn’t even have had time to see how the enemy attacked before dying.
“You’re welcome.”
Zhuge Qing squinted and smiled, but his gaze remained locked on the dark street corner in the distance.
“Everyone, prepare for battle. The Blood Demon is here!”
Hearing the warning, the Defenders all raised their heads together.