The next night, at the Brooklyn docks.
Do-jun walked with his hands thrust into his pockets, his entire body wrapped in black clothing.
The knife-sharp night wind made him hunch his shoulders.
Amid the salt and oil in the air, a strange, bloody tang brushed his nose.
-An abandoned factory complex on the outskirts of Brooklyn. People have been disappearing there lately. We investigated and confirmed it's a nest of vampires.
-Who's the client?
-Gangsters whose business territory overlaps with theirs, probably. From what I hear, they went at the vampires with silver bullets and stakes and got dozens of their people killed.
-The reward?
-Bring back their heads and it's twenty thousand dollars per vampire. There's a bonus for useful information.
-All right.
‘Vampires, huh?’
A peculiar excitement touched Do-jun's lips.
He had been through plenty as a shaman in Korea, but this was his first encounter with Western vampires.
Korean anomalies usually fell into two broad categories.
First, the ‘Incorporeal Class.’
Ghosts that existed only as resentment and energy, without physical bodies.
Physical blows hardly worked on them. They could only be subdued with talismans or arts imbued with divine power.
And creatures like vampires belonged to….
‘The Corporeal Class.’
Anomalies that acted through physical bodies, like hopping corpses or zombies.
Occasionally, an Incorporeal Class evil spirit possessed a human body and mutated into a Corporeal Class anomaly, but… that was another matter.
‘Vampires will be different from the Corporeal Class anomalies I've fought before.’
They were highly intelligent and organized.
They were a kind of colonial organism, forming a collective with a powerful master at the top.
He had never fought anything like them in Korea. He was already looking forward to the novelty of it, and to the feel of beating them down.
“So where are they?”
Do-jun surveyed the vast abandoned factory complex ahead.
True to the American scale, each factory was enormous, and dozens of them stood in rows.
The night was too short to search them one by one on foot.
“Come out. Time to work.”
He tore a talisman. Pale energy gathered, and a spirit shaped like a small puppy sprang out.
‘White Hound Night Walk.’
The white hound rubbed against Do-jun's leg affectionately. He fed it a morsel of divine power, and it began sniffing around in every direction.
Before long, it wagged its tail vigorously and led him to one of the abandoned factories.
“Hurry it up.”
“Yes, boss!”
Sinister energy with a bloody tang and low voices seeped through the gaps in the rusted iron door.
‘This must be it.’
Do-jun kicked off the ground using the Earth-Shrinking Art.
His body rose lightly, as though defying gravity, and landed on the factory roof.
He looked down through a broken section of the ceiling.
Inside, a dozen or more vampires were moving busily about.
They hung their captives upside down to drain their blood, then mixed it with an unknown blue liquid to make a drug.
Even at a glance, this did not look like a legal business.
‘Let's make an entrance.’
Do-jun formed a hand seal and blew gently.
“Veil.”
In an instant, thick white smoke filled the factory.
It was more than smoke.
The enchanted haze disrupted spiritual power and blocked sight.
“W-what the fuck? Where did this fog come from?”
“Who's there? Who is it?”
“Fuck! Open the door!”
The panicked vampires blundered about, their scarlet eyes glowing.
Do-jun descended soundlessly through the smoke.
He held a peachwood needle he had prepared beforehand.
‘Let's get started. See how good this feels.’
FWIP-FWIP!
Do-jun cut through the smoke and drove the wooden needle into the heart of the nearest vampire.
Before it could scream, its body crumbled into ash.
Three, then four vampires fell in an instant.
Do-jun's hand never hesitated.
“You fucking bastard!”
Then a vampire as big as a mountain stomped the floor hard.
CRASH—!
A powerful shock wave swept the factory, forcibly clearing the thick smoke.
Do-jun stood in the middle of the dispersing haze, dressed in black and expressionless.
The vampires' murderous gazes converged on him at once.
“You bastard… what organization sent you? Are you somebody's hunting dog?”
“You're about to die anyway. Why bother exchanging names?”
Do-jun sprang forward as he answered.
CRACK—!
The wooden needle sliced through the air and pierced the vampires' vital points.
He kept his use of magic to a minimum, ending lives with the least movement needed.
But the longer he fought, the deeper his frown became.
‘…This is boring.’
He had expected something different from Western anomalies.
Instead, they relied on strength and speed as they attacked, and their average ability was far below even that of the evil spirits he had faced in Korea.
Maybe it was because K-culture was so popular.
Perhaps even the average evil spirit was stronger in Korea.
After all… there was KPop Demon Hunters, which had swept the world.
‘Hmm. That joke isn't funny either.’
Grateful he had not said it in front of anyone, Do-jun kept killing vampires.
“Grrrgh!”
One big vampire, having watched nearly half his companions turn to dust, hurriedly injected himself with the drug they had been making.
“You fucking bastard…. I'll tear you to pieces!”
His muscles swelled unnaturally, and his skin burned a dark red.
He doubled in size, his shape twisting into something more savage.
‘So that's what the drug does.’
VRRROOOM!
At the same time, rough engine noise rose outside the factory, and dozens of glowing eyes burst in through the door.
Vampires responding to the call for help, probably.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“You came here alone?”
Ahead stood the monster swollen by the drug.
Around Do-jun, close to a hundred vampires formed a ring.
Even he could not handle this with just one peachwood needle.
‘How should I deal with this?’
Several plans came to mind.
Ways to wipe them out cleanly without leaving a trace.
That was when Do-jun's spirit jar suddenly began to vibrate violently….
《…I smell something very filthy.》
The Divine Spirit's voice came to him, cold and heavy with anger.
***
Korel was the caretaker of this abandoned factory and the field commander of the vampire organization Gentlemen of the Night.
His body now enormous, he stood among his subordinates and glared at the intruder across from him.
‘Fuck. Who the hell is he?’
The unidentified figure was wrapped from head to toe in black.
More than a dozen of Korel's men had already become cold ash at the hands of this stranger who had appeared from nowhere.
Many hitmen and parish exorcists had come through this Brooklyn lair over the past six months.
None of them could even reach the tips of Korel's toes.
Especially since he had become a vampire by taking the V-Rise Serum, which they were producing in strict secrecy at this factory. Ordinary cops, gang members, and even exorcists had been no more than insects to him.
‘How can he fight like that with one little wooden stick?’
But the man in black was different.
He did not use extraordinary equipment, move in impossible ways, or wield holy power.
He simply identified each vampire's vital points with the precision of a ruler and killed with minimal movement.
Even now, with almost a hundred vampires inside the factory….
“…Possession? Why, all of a sudden?”
“I told you, I'll feed you myself.”
The man in black was muttering to himself as though Korel and his men did not exist.
A peculiar chill crept down Korel's back at the stranger's unpredictable behavior.
‘It doesn't matter. I'm Tier 2 now.’
Korel spat blood-scented phlegm onto the floor.
The enhanced V-Rise Serum had made his muscles bulge unnaturally and burned his skin dark red, hardening it like an armored vehicle.
It strained his body, but this was no time to weigh his options.
Besides, nearly a hundred reinforcements had rushed in after receiving the report of an intruder.
He was sure an army that size could kill even a fairly powerful high-grade exorcist.
“I do not know who you are, but stop struggling and surrender. Then at least you will die without pain.”
Do-jun continued to ignore him.
He kept spouting things into empty air, such as, “I told you, handing over my whole body is out of the question. Let's be reasonable.”
Korel ran out of patience.
“Grrr! Kill that bastard!”
“Let's go!”
“Yes, boss!”
About a hundred vampires rushed him from every direction at once.
‘I'll take the initiative!’
Korel used his heavy, muscular body to press Do-jun from the front and restrict his movements. The others raised their sharp claws and darted into his blind spots.
“SKREE!”
“That stick! Watch out for that stick!”
Though the man turned a few of them to ash with a swing of his long needle, sheer numbers seemed to be winning.
The man in black was driven farther into a corner, claws grazing his clothes in several places and exposing his skin.
Victory seemed firmly in the vampires' grasp.
‘I'll finish him.’
Korel spotted his chance.
He drew his own blood, condensed it, and shaped it into a spear.
Blood Thirst.
A finishing technique that used his blood as its catalyst.
It was his pride, the very skill that had won him the position of field commander in this organization.
“Die!”
WHOOOSH!
The blood spear streaked through the air in a red arc and struck Do-jun squarely in the head.
BOOM—!
Thick smoke rose with the impact.
‘I killed him!’
But no corpse emerged from the smoke.
The blow had only knocked off the mask covering his face.
It revealed a sharp-featured Asian man with a keen air about him.
“Ow, that stings…. I'm in the middle of a conversation. Why do you keep interrupting?”
He looked completely at ease, without the slightest sign of fear or tension.
While everyone blinked in confusion,
“You saw my face, didn't you?”
The Asian man was Kang Do-jun, once called the strongest shaman in South Korea. He took a talisman covered in vivid red writing from inside his clothes and flicked it lightly.
As it burned in the air, a wall of blue flame surrounded the entire factory.
It was a barrier that cut the place off completely from the outside.
“W-what?”
“This wall… it's incredibly solid!”
As the vampires panicked, Do-jun smiled and said,
“I thought I might capture a few of you alive, depending on how things went. Now you're all going to have to die.”
He could not leave evidence behind.
Korel gave a hollow laugh.
“You cut off your own escape and expect to face this many of us? Madman…. Such arrogance.”
Then Kang Do-jun's spirit jar in his lower abdomen shook as though an earthquake had struck.
Immense divinity began to resonate within it, like a dormant volcano erupting.
《Child, did I not ask you to lend me your body? If I hunt those things myself… it will be simple!》
The Divine Spirit's voice continued.
For some time now, he had been insisting he was hungry and begging Do-jun to let him possess his body so he could personally hunt and kill the foul-smelling vampires.
Do-jun had no intention of allowing it.
‘No, thank you. Just lend me a little power.’
A shaman and a Divine Spirit might help each other, but Do-jun knew how dangerous it was to hand over his body outright to a being that powerful.
Whatever happened, Do-jun had to keep his hands on the wheel.
That was how it had been when he served the White Tiger Spirit, too.
《You make things complicated. What power do you need, then?》
‘Anything will do. Just give me a reasonable amount. I'll make sure you get plenty to eat.’
Do-jun had once used the White Tiger Spirit's power.
He could simply draw divine power from a spirit, but to use it most effectively, he had found it better to borrow that spirit's original power directly.
《Very well…. I shall lend you energy you can put to good use.》
Inside the spirit jar, the Divine Spirit's form changed. It spread through Do-jun's entire body, sending a thrilling sensation through him.
“Nnnngh!”
Do-jun's body swelled for a moment, thick fur sprouted, and his pupils became those of a savage beast, redder than blood.
The figure before Korel was a far more terrible and overwhelming apex predator than even Korel after drinking the Tier 2 serum.
‘This is….’
Do-jun smiled with excitement.
“Don't be afraid! Just tear him apart!”
Korel shouted, struggling to master his fear.
At that moment,
BOOM—!
Only a blurred afterimage and a tremor remained where Do-jun had stood.
CRUNCH—!
“Huh?”
There was not even time to scream.
Do-jun had leaped into the air in an instant. His jaws bit into the crown of Korel's head and tore it open.
Blood erupted in fountains all around, and shock filled the vampires' faces.
“E-eek! Commander Korel!”
A deep vibration of the earth rumbled from Do-jun's throat as he landed.
《Not enough! Give me more, more prey!》
“Yes, just wait. I'll eat every last one of them now.”
From then on, it was a one-sided slaughter, not a battle.
Transformed into a four-legged white tiger, Do-jun raced back and forth through the abandoned factory at the speed of light.
CRUNCH—! CRUNCH—!
“Aaaagh!”
“S-save me!”
He seized the vampires by their throats and gouged out their hearts with sharp claws.
Their screams were brief. The factory was soon covered with vampire remains and ash.
“The serum! Take the serum!”
“Aaaaaagh!”
Some vampires tried to strengthen their bodies by taking the serum, but it did little to change the outcome.
The nearly one hundred reinforcements were destroyed in less than ten minutes.
The last vampire cowered in a corner, trembling like aspen leaves as he begged for his life.
“D-do you know who we are? The ones we serve possess the Blood of Origin!”
“Shut up.”
Do-jun was about to crush his head when,
CRUNCH—! RIIIP!
The vampire drove a syringe into him.
V-Rise Serum.
It was made with the blood of noble beings who possessed the Blood of Origin.
It could strengthen vampires, but if ordinary people were injected with it… they became vampires.
“Ahahaha! You too! You're a vampire now, too! You'll spend your life under the control of the Blood of Origin….”
CRUNCH—!
At that instant, the vampire's neck burst apart.
The red tint faded from Do-jun's vision, and the storm of divinity subsided.
He spat out a mouthful of black blood and said,
“What are you talking about? You think something like that would work on me?”
It seemed to have been the vampire's last resort, but it could never have worked on him.
Countless vengeful ghosts in Korea had tried to seize his body, and he had never once yielded control of it.
‘Still… this Divine Spirit really is strange.’
When Do-jun placed a hand over his spirit jar and sensed the energy within, he felt the terrifying pulse of the Divine Spirit ravenously consuming the vampires' souls.
He was certain of it.
What had possessed him moments ago was only a tiny fraction of what the spirit possessed.
Even Do-jun had not imagined that such a small portion could run so wild.
More surprising still, the Divine Spirit was obscenely strong and did not know his own name or identity.
Well, a good thing was a good thing. It hardly mattered.
“Hmm. That was quite a bit louder than I expected.”
He steadied his rough breathing and looked around the wrecked factory.
Leaving it as it was could cause problems in several ways. A cleanup was essential.
With the scattered ash and acrid smoke behind him, Do-jun checked the body camera he was wearing.
It had clearly recorded him slaughtering the vampires.
He would have to edit some portions, but the footage would be ample proof of the slaughter.
‘First the cleanup. Then I'll collect my payment and do some shopping.’
I have a whole lot to buy this time.