Jessica refused to believe it.
She flexed her arms, hoisted a scrapped sedan from the roadside, and hurled it forcefully into the sky.
The result was the same.
The massive steel structure froze midair, as if every last ounce of its weight had been drained away.
This time she was thoroughly convinced.
Her shoulders slumped as she muttered under her breath, “So what do we do now?”
“Retreat!”
Zhuge Qing’s tone was decisive.
“After Bai Yifei absorbs the Blood Demon’s power, his combat strength will skyrocket several times over. We should avoid a direct confrontation for now and work out a plan later.”
“But…”
Matt hesitated.
“If we leave, will Bai Yifei run amok draining human blood across New York like the Blood Demon?”
“No,” Zhuge Qing shook his head.
“As recorded in the *Chronicles of the Mountain and Sea Realm*: when a cultivator refines the core essence of a demon, they must immediately enter secluded meditation to regulate their breathing and tame the violent power raging within them. In the short term, New York is safe.”
“Does this kind of thing happen often in your Mountain and Sea Realm?”
“It’s a long story. Let’s fall back first—the sirens are getting closer.”
He picked up the unconscious Lu Xiaofeng and motioned to the others.
The group swiftly withdrew from the battleground of crumbling ruins.
“Jiuli? The Fiend-Sealing Blade?!”
Shortly after they left, a stooped old woman stepped slowly out from the shadows.
Squinting, she stared at the white-haired figure in blood-red robes floating in the sky, his aura soaring higher by the second.
Deep within her eyes burned an intense heat mixed with bone-deep hatred.
“Bai Yifei, just you wait.”
This was none other than Madame Gao, returned from the dead.
She stood quietly in place for a few seconds.
Hearing the sirens drawing near, she turned and slipped back into the dark.
…
A few minutes later.
Over a dozen police cars pulled up together along the edge of the small woods outside the abandoned church.
Fully armed NYPD officers stepped out behind tactical shields, led by NYPD Chief George Stacy.
“Move fast! Team One, push forward! Team Two, provide cover!”
His face was thunderous.
A catastrophic explosion in Queens meant the NYPD was directly on the hook.
The blame would fall square on their shoulders first.
At the thought of his annual bonus going up in smoke—and having to weather aggressive questions at press conferences—George Stacy boiled with rage.
Cops were human too!
It was one in the morning.
He was supposed to be at home in bed with his wife.
Who could have guessed a nightmare like this would blow up in the middle of the night?
“Damn it! If I find out which gang did this, I’ll skin them alive!!”
The more he thought about it, the angrier he got.
Cursing under his breath, he pushed open his car door and got out.
“What are you standing around for? Why aren’t you moving forward?”
Seeing his officers frozen at the woodline and hesitating to advance, George grew even more infuriated.
Pushing past several men, he raised his riot shield and charged straight to the front.
“Shit!!”
The next second, a curse burst from his mouth.
Beneath the dark night, a white-haired man in blood-red robes floated quietly midair, enveloped in thick, swirling red mist.
Beneath his feet lay a shocking vista of ruins—smoldering scorch marks, shattered stone everywhere, snapped beams strewn across the ground, and icicles frozen like jagged spikes…
In all his decades as a police officer, George had never seen a scene so bizarre.
“Chief, I suspect… it’s another supernatural incident. Should we report it?” His assistant spoke up cautiously.
“Of course I know that,” George replied testily, glancing at the bullets and the scrapped sedan suspended in midair around the blood-robed man.
After a moment of silence, he waved a hand, his tone exhausted.
“Report it. The boys have it hard enough—no need to lose lives in a cursed place like this.”
“Thank you, Chief!”
His assistant and the surrounding officers all breathed a collective sigh of relief.
After the report went up, a team of black-suited agents arrived swiftly, led by the model agent Phil Coulson.
SHIELD’s medical technology was top-tier.
In under two days, his knocked-out front tooth had been restored. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
Aside from his hair thinning just a bit more on top, he bore almost no trace of his previous injuries.
“Agent Coulson.”
Having dealt with each other many times before, George offered a brief nod of greeting before pulling his men back.
Soon, only Coulson and his SHIELD agents remained in the woods.
They were well-trained: one group produced precision instruments to collect atmospheric composition, energy residue, and thermal gradients, while another held weapons ready in tactical formation, advancing slowly toward the church ruins.
“Finally here!”
Bai Yifei slowly opened his eyes.
He had struck a pose midair for so long just to harvest another wave of shock points from SHIELD.
As for the Fiend-Sealing Blade or the sealing ritual, they were all smoke and mirrors.
In reality, Luke Lane was remotely orchestrating things, forcibly injecting the En Oyashiro card into the Marquis of the Blood Wardrobe avatar.
The true goal was to force Jiuli, the mastermind behind the scenes, completely into the open.
After all, conflict created dramatic tension.
Having only Mount Shu representing the righteous path without a rival organization to oppose them would easily expose holes in the narrative and make it hard to stir up major waves later on.
“Sir, should we launch an assault immediately?”
At this moment, the SHIELD squad quietly approaching the church noticed that the Marquis of the Blood Wardrobe had awakened and instantly raised their guard.
Twelve agents leveled their weapons together, locking their barrels onto the target, waiting only for the command to open fire.
“Easy.”
Coulson raised a hand to signal a pause, his face putting on his signature warm smile.
“Mr. Bai Yifei, we at SHIELD deal specifically with global extraordinary incidents. May I have a word with you face-to-face?”
“Managing global anomalies?
You are nothing more than a troupe of dancing jokers!” “Bai Yifei” sneered.
“Open fire!”
Sensing killing intent in his tone, Coulson didn’t hesitate for a fraction of a second and issued a decisive command.
*Bang!
Bang!
Bang!*
Gunfire erupted suddenly, but every shot missed.
The twelve agents on the church perimeter turned blood-red in the eyes.
Swiveling around, they opened fire frantically on their companions, and within moments, every single one of them collapsed dead.
[Shock Points from Phil Coulson +86] [Shock Points from SHIELD Agent +8.4] [Shock Points from Hydra Agent +8.6] …
Coulson’s pupils shrank to pinpricks.
Without a moment’s pause, he grabbed his radio and roared, “Director! Target is extremely powerful, suspected of mental manipulation abilities! Requesting aerial fire support!”
“Understood. Hold out for ten minutes!”
On the other end of the communicator, Nick Fury narrowed his single eye as he watched the monitor feed, turning to the red-haired female agent beside him.
“Natasha, you pilot a Quinjet over there yourself.”
“Copy that!”
Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, answered briskly, turned, and strode off.
…
Scene cut back to the abandoned church grounds.
Having sent the distress signal, Coulson directed the surviving agents to fall back rapidly using leapfrog tactical cover.
Fortunately, they had originally set up an ambush along the edge of the tree line outside the church, keeping some distance from the main building.
He was confident they could hold out for ten minutes.
“Heh.”
Midair, “Bai Yifei” watched the fleeing SHIELD personnel.
His lips curled upward as he slowly raised a hand.
*Hum—*
The twelve corpses on the ground rapidly withered as dark red blood soared into the air, instantly coalescing into dozens of tiny blood bats that flapped their wings and gave chase.
Meanwhile, blood mist billowed out around him.
The vapor churned for a moment before shaping itself into a massive winged serpent.
Bai Yifei stood atop the serpent’s head, soaring skyward with it and disappearing into the thick cloud cover in the blink of an eye.
“Sir, that guy flew off!” a sharp-eyed agent yelled out in warning.
Coulson halted in his tracks, turning back with furrowed brows to lock his eyes on the swarm of blood bats swooping through the trees.
He might not be a match for the Marquis of the Blood Wardrobe, but couldn’t he handle a few bats?
He waved his arm and barked, “Fire at will! Bring them all down!”
“Yes, sir!”
The agents responded in unison, drawing their weapons and unleashing a barrage.
*Bang!
Bang!*
Gunfire rang out again, dense as torrential rain.
Swaths of blood bats were blasted out of the sky, their numbers dropping sharply, yet a few managed to break through the hail of bullets and dive into the crowd.
An agent who was tagged didn’t take it seriously at first, swinging his rifle butt to smash the bat to pieces.
Yet only a few seconds later, his entire face turned a deep purplish-red.
Veins bulged across his forehead, throbbing wildly like earthworms.
“What’s wrong with you?” The people beside him noticed something was off, their voices tense.
“I… I’m burning up!”
His features twisted painfully.
Stumbling forward a few paces, he collapsed hard onto his knees, his head hanging low.
“Are the bats poisonous?” A comrade reached out to help him up.
The moment his fingertips touched the man’s shoulder—
*Boom!*
A muffled detonation rang out.
The man’s body abruptly exploded, spraying scalding blood in every direction.
“Ah!”
Before those splashed by the blood could finish screaming, their bodies detonated a few seconds later as well.
*Boom!
Boom!
Boom!*
Explosion after explosion rocked the woods.
Flesh and blood flew across the air, severed limbs scattered, and the scorched earth was quickly painted a shocking crimson.
“What’s going on here?”
Arriving just in time, Natasha took down the last few blood bats with one shot each, surveying the bloody slaughterhouse with a frown.
“There’s something strange about those blood bats. Getting bitten causes an explosion, and the resulting blood mist carries a secondary infection.” Coulson pressed a hand to his forehead, his voice raspy.
Natasha sighed softly and didn’t press further.
Sweeping her eyes over the surroundings, she asked gravely, “Where is the Marquis of the Blood Wardrobe? When I flew in, I couldn’t spot him anywhere in the air or on the ground.”
“He did leave.” Coulson quickly regained his composure and answered briskly, “I saw it with my own eyes. He rode a giant winged serpent skyward and vanished into the clouds.”
“Alright, flying snakes… this world really can’t be judged by common sense anymore.” Natasha shook her head gently, turning back to retrieve a silver briefcase from the Quinjet.
“Let’s go. The Director wants us to gather all scene data so we can analyze the battle and break down his capabilities.”
“Right.”
Coulson took a deep breath and gestured to his remaining handful of subordinates, and the group headed back toward the church ruins.
The prior battle had been so violent that the entire church had long collapsed into rubble, leaving only crumbling walls and seventy-two icicles once used to imprison vampires.
Leaving a few agents to gather outer perimeter data, Coulson and Natasha walked side-by-side into the devastated interior of the church.
“Finally someone’s here! Save me! Help!!”
Bound tightly to an icicle, the unfortunate Chevalier was still stuck fast.
Earlier, while the Marquis of the Blood Wardrobe was present or the Blood Demon still lived, he hadn’t dared to breathe heavily, closing his eyes to play dead the entire time.
Seeing Coulson and Natasha now, he instantly felt hope for survival.
“Are you a vampire?” A quick glance was all Natasha needed to confirm his identity.
“Uh…” Chevalier’s smile froze.
Testing the waters, he asked, “Do you guys… have something against vampires?”
“Not particularly.” Natasha narrowed her eyes slightly, a corner of her mouth curving up.
“Do you know what happened here earlier?”
Chevalier’s spirits soared.
Realizing this was his chance to prove his worth, he nodded vigorously and babbled, “I do! I saw everything!”
“Good.” Natasha’s red lips curled into a smile.
She turned to exchange a knowing glance with Coulson.
…
Two hours later.
Inside a SHIELD interrogation room, Chevalier spilled everything he knew like beans from a tipped bucket.
He didn’t have a choice.
He had tried to bargain, but after just a few rounds of interrogation methods, his resolve collapsed, and he sang like a bird before he could hold out.
“Blood Demon, Mount Shu, Jiuli, Fiend-Sealing Blade…”
Sitting across from him, Nick Fury tapped his fingers unhurriedly on the tabletop.
After listening in silence for a moment, he raised his single eye and locked his gaze firmly onto the cowardly vampire.
“You mentioned earlier—who did the Mount Shu group leave with?”
Chevalier answered dutifully, “A blind man, a short-tempered strongwoman, a Black man who was invulnerable to blades and bullets, and an emotionless man with a skull branded on his chest.”
“Frank?”
Fury’s tapping fingers stopped dead in their tracks.
His eyelid lowered, his gaze turning sharp as a razor.