Prisoner of the Blood Prison

Dozens of Hunters swarmed around Yin Xuege, dragging and hauling him to the tavern entrance.

High above, sunlight reflected by the giant airship poured straight down. Beyond the tavern threshold lay a blinding expanse of white light, while within it the lamps burned dimly. Yin Xuege looked at the piercing sunlight outside, and his body began to tremble involuntarily.

Solar Essence Light—this was the nemesis of every Blood Demon. Only beings with the strength of the Yin Family's ancestor could walk beneath the sun without fear. Any other Blood Demon, even experts like Yin Jihuang and Yin Jiwu, would still be reduced to flying ash once exposed to sunlight.

As for a young Juvenile like Yin Xuege, let alone this concentrated brilliance reflected and gathered by the airship, even an ordinary ray of dawn would inflict enormous harm on him! During the Children's Hall's teachings, countless stewards had emphasized it time and again—Juveniles must never touch sunlight!

Yin Xuege wanted to struggle, but several Hunters far stronger than him held his body in an iron grip.

He wanted to roar and curse, but that spellcaster had sealed his body with some unknown curse talisman. Other than breathing, he could not utter even a single word. He could only stare wide-eyed in utter terror as these Hunters dragged him step by step toward that patch of sunlight.

Strength! Strength! Yin Xuege screamed wildly in his heart once again! Every time he had been badly injured in the Children's Hall and lay in his little building licking his wounds, he had desperately yearned for great power!

And now, faced with a dead end, he craved overwhelming strength more than ever! If he possessed enough power, he would slaughter every Hunter present and drain every last drop of their blood!

Outside the tavern doors, Little Jack lay on the ground, scorched black and barely alive, his clouded eyes staring blankly at the sky. Fennice sneered disdainfully, one small foot planted on Little Jack's face as she ground his head down hard.

"You fool who willingly sank into depravity, keep resisting! Keep struggling! You actually dared to attack me?"

She stomped viciously on Little Jack's head again and again, shouting in wild excitement, "Beg me! Beg me! Beg me to spare you, beg me to take you in as a servant, beg me to grant you power and a glorious future! Kneel and beg me! Beg me! Merciful Miss Fennice is generous, magnanimous, and always willing to help others!"

Little Jack slowly turned his head and spat heavily onto Fennice's gleaming boot.

"You slut! I'll give you half a loaf of bread—let me sleep with you for one night!"

Fennice's lovely face flushed scarlet. Her eyes widened with rage as she hysterically kicked and stomped at Little Jack. Yet while she controlled formidable fire, her physical strength was not much greater than an ordinary person's. Amid her frenzied kicking, she carelessly used the wrong amount of force. Everyone nearby heard a crisp crack from her ankle—she had sprained it!

She collapsed onto the ground in utter embarrassment and shrieked hysterically, "Tie him up and throw him into the Blood Prison! Throw this self-degrading bastard into the Blood Prison! Punish him properly! Do not let him off easily!"

Several Hunters pounced forward, swiftly binding Little Jack tightly with specially made metal ropes. They dragged him away brutally and threw him into a Flying Car. Little Jack glared fiercely at Fennice, cursing nonstop, filthy abuse pouring from his mouth without end.

From inside the tavern, Yin Xuege saw Old Jack lying on the ground, bound up like a rice dumpling, and saw Little Jack being brutally thrown into the Flying Car. Yin Xuege panted heavily, turning his gaze about in confusion as he tried to find the two Yin Clan Warriors who had infiltrated the Great Berlin City-State with him. Yet there was no trace of them. Like ghosts of the night, they had vanished without a shadow or trace.

With a thud, agony erupted through him as Yin Xuege was savagely thrown to the ground. He landed just inside the tavern threshold, less than half a foot from the concentrated brilliance gathered by the giant airship's mirror-like surface.

The white-robed youth crouched beside Yin Xuege and yanked hard at his long hair. He held a silver cross before Yin Xuege's face and said coldly, word by word, "Repent for your sins, filthy, foul vampire! Even if you are merely a Juvenile, you belong to that race that should be destroyed. Therefore, you are a sinner!"

After chuckling a few times, the white-robed youth's face twisted. He leaned close to Yin Xuege's ear and muttered a venomous curse.

"My father, my mother, my elder sister, my younger sister—they are all dead. They were drained of every last drop of blood. It was the fine work of your clansmen! So I swear to the god I believe in, I swear to the supreme being that bestowed upon me this noble bloodline, that I will destroy your damned race!"

Yin Xuege's scalp throbbed with pain. The white-robed youth tugged savagely at his hair, and Yin Xuege felt as though his scalp were being stretched.

The next instant, Yin Xuege saw the ground rushing toward him. Then a sharp, sour agony burst through the bridge of his nose as the white-robed youth seized his hair and slammed his head into the floor. Again and again, amid dull impacts, Yin Xuege's nose broke, his forehead was smashed into a bloody mess, and drop after drop of blood ran down his face.

But when all that blood gathered near Yin Xuege's chin and was about to drip down, it flowed back into his wounds along his skin like living creatures. His broken nasal bones rapidly healed, and the gaping wounds on his forehead returned to normal within a few breaths.

"A damned vampire!" The white-robed youth trembled with excitement. "That's right, you're a damned vampire! Tell me, what are you doing in the Great Berlin City-State? At your age, you are only a Juvenile. You should be under your Lineage's protection. Why did you leave your Lineage's territory? Tell me, why?"

Yin Xuege glared furiously at the white-robed youth. He desperately wanted to tell him that he had only come to carry out a scouting mission forcibly assigned to him by the External Affairs Hall! He had merely come to collect intelligence gathered by the Yin Clan's spies within the Great Berlin City-State. He had not been assigned any mission of sabotage!

But the curse talisman on his chest continuously emitted a faint black glow, sealing all of Yin Xuege's bodily functions. He could not even open his mouth to speak. Even if he wanted to tell the white-robed youth something, even if he wanted to confess everything, he could not say a word!

The white-robed youth noticed the flickering in Yin Xuege's eyes and sensed his predicament. At once, he burst into a smug, delighted laugh. Amid his loud laughter, he gripped Yin Xuege's head and viciously smashed his face against the tavern threshold.

"What a tight-lipped brat! Who would have thought that among vampires, there would be a tough man like you? Ah, treacherous, sinister vampires have never had backbone like yours! So I should give you a proper welcome, shouldn't I?"

"Remember my name. I am Bright—Bright, who has sworn to wipe out all vampires!"

After laughing a few times, Bright smashed Yin Xuege's bloody head against the threshold once more. Then he seized Yin Xuege's right hand and forcibly thrust his palm into that patch of blinding sunlight.

Yin Xuege's body trembled violently, and Bright, Sander, and Fennice all laughed in delight.

But in the next instant, Yin Xuege stared blankly at his palm, which showed no change whatsoever beneath the sunlight. The smiles on Bright and the other two froze. They looked at one another helplessly, their eyes equally filled with bewilderment and shock.

The Hunters and Security Guards all cried out in alarm, and quite a few people took an uncertain step back.

Yin Xuege's fair, tender palm remained exposed beneath the sunlight without changing in the slightest. He stared blankly at his hand. He could feel the sun's warmth, that warm and soothing aura flowing from his palm throughout his entire body and making him feel incomparably comfortable.

A sensation unlike anything before! Yin Xuege, who had never seen sunlight, had never known that sunlight could be so warm!

Unlike the moon, which brought him incomparably chilling energy, the coldness within moonlight would freeze his five viscera and six bowels into a lump, forcing him to drink the blood of those pitiful Blood Slaves to drive off that lethal chill. But the energy within sunlight was so warm that Yin Xuege even felt his blood flowing faster!

His five viscera and six bowels, steeped in frigid Yin energy for eleven years, were like seeds buried deep beneath frozen earth. Nourished by the warmth of sunlight, his organs slowly began to stir, and a miraculous vitality surged into being within him.

A hint of color gradually returned to his pale, nearly translucent face, while the faint blue of blood vessels slowly emerged beneath his deathly white skin. Yin Xuege felt comfortable, utterly at ease, as though a ray of sunlight had shone into an ancient tomb ruled by darkness for ten thousand years. Even his soul felt the bliss of near-immortality beneath the sun's cleansing!

Even the curse talisman's suppression of Yin Xuege weakened considerably. Energy flowed nimbly around his throat. He drew a deep breath and murmured in intoxication, "This feels so good! So this is sunlight? It's so warm!"

The word "warm" felt utterly unfamiliar to Yin Xuege! His body had never known such a feeling before!

The Yin Clan's city-states were gloomy and cold. City-states that never saw sunlight, little buildings where fires were never lit for warmth, Yin Clan settlements soaked through by the chilling aura emitted by countless Yin Clan members—everyone was as cold as ice! The word "warm" was equally foreign to every Yin Clan member.

Billowing warmth flowed from his palm throughout his body. The Jade Cicada hanging on his chest absorbed that trace of heat, then immediately returned a continuous, gentle stream of warmth. Though not particularly powerful, it was immensely tenacious and rich, rushing into Yin Xuege's body. From his heart, it traveled downward, penetrating many energy gates and acupoints within him before surging straight into the dantian in his lower abdomen.

Within the dantian ruled by frigid blood energy for eleven years, a spark of Innate Spiritual Impetus burst forth. A stream of gentle, pure Innate Pure Yang Qi shot upward, instantly crossing the Twelve Heavenly Towers, circulating through the eight extraordinary meridians, clearing his limbs and skeleton, then winding around and nourishing the three hundred and sixty-five vital energy apertures across his body. Warmth immediately filled Yin Xuege from head to toe, and a layer of tiny beads of sweat even seeped from his forehead.

For Blood Demons born from Innate Yin Baleful Intent, sweating was as inconceivable as stone blooming or iron stakes sprouting. Yet such an inconceivable thing was happening to Yin Xuege.

"Impossible!" Bright suddenly let out a hysterical shriek. How had Yin Xuege not had one hand burned away by sunlight? By all reason, once Yin Xuege's palm touched sunlight, it should have rapidly withered and blackened, emitted vast amounts of black smoke and stench, then burned to ash within a few short breaths while inflicting boundless agony upon him!

Why had his palm not changed at all? Why did he instead look as if he were enjoying it?

"You are only a filthy, lowly Juvenile!" Bright grabbed Yin Xuege by the hair, dragged his entire body out of the tavern, and hurled him heavily into the blinding, scorching sunlight.

Yin Xuege lay sprawled on the ground, eyes closed, quietly feeling the warmth of the sunlight and the abundant life force within it. His body trembled faintly. Every cell in him was cheering and leaping with joy as new life grew within him. He could feel his lower dantian absorbing some immensely miraculous power from the sun!

From skin to muscle, from blood to organs, from bones to marrow, all the frigid Yin energy Yin Xuege had accumulated over eleven years was silently fused away by the sun's heat. The Blood Demon Essence Blood within his heart did not increase in the slightest, but his physical strength rose continuously. In only a dozen breaths, his physical strength had increased by around ten percent.

Greater strength, faster speed, sharper reactions, greater flexibility! Moreover, Yin Xuege could feel that his body's healing ability had also been enhanced by roughly ten percent compared to before.

"Damn it, it can't be like this!" Bright roared in fury. He snatched a long blade from a Hunter and brought it down heavily on Yin Xuege's thigh.

Yin Xuege cried out in pain. Bright's strike was incomparably vicious, cleaving the bone in his thigh into two. Bright even drove the blade's tip into Yin Xuege's leg bone and viciously stirred his marrow and nerves.

Wave after wave of agony flooded his mind, and Yin Xuege screamed himself hoarse. This was no longer the sort of injury suffered during practical combat lessons in the Children's Hall. This was torture—deliberate torment, intentional cruelty meant to make Yin Xuege suffer even greater pain!

Fennice, equally incredulous, widened her eyes. With a flick of her finger, a thumb-thick jet of flame shot forth and attached itself to the wound on Yin Xuege's cleaved thigh, blazing fiercely. The fire made his flesh sizzle, while dozens of thin tongues of flame burrowed into his marrow and frantically scorched the tissues where his senses were sharpest.

Pain made Yin Xuege's vision repeatedly go black. His body convulsed violently, even springing more than a foot off the ground.

The nearby Hunters and Security Guards were unmoved by Yin Xuege's agonized screams. They merely clicked their tongues in amazement as they watched him, whispering among themselves and betting on how long he could endure.

The flames burned Yin Xuege's wound for a full quarter of an hour before finally going out. Once they vanished, his charred-black wound rapidly began to wriggle. Bone, muscle, nerves, and blood vessels slowly knitted themselves back together.

"Where is the potion we found?" Bright bellowed.

A black-robed spellcaster hurriedly pulled a bottle of Essence Blood Potion that Yin Xuege had brought from his sleeve. Bright snatched it away and poured the bottle of viscous blood into Yin Xuege's mouth. Yin Xuege's wounds healed at a visible rate. Within only a few minutes, the carbonized wound had completely recovered, leaving no scar whatsoever on his fair, smooth skin.

"He is a damned little vampire!" Bright clutched the cross in his hand, hopping and cursing about like a madman.

"But who can tell me why he isn't afraid of sunlight? Who can tell me! Why does he not fear sunlight?"

No one could answer Bright's question. Even Yin Xuege himself did not know what was going on, much less anyone else. Standing to one side, Sander spread his hands helplessly, making it clear that he truly could not help Bright with this question.

Yin Xuege slowly opened his eyes. The torture he had just endured had etched Bright, Fennice, and the others firmly into his memory. He glanced at Bright, who looked crazed, then at the giant airship reflecting blinding brilliance overhead, and gave a dry laugh.

The sunlight's warmth had broken through much of the curse talisman's power, and Yin Xuege could barely speak now. "The sun didn't burn me to death. I'm not a vampire, am I? You... caught the wrong person!"

"Caught the wrong person?" Bright tilted his head at Yin Xuege, let out a strange, manic laugh, then kicked Yin Xuege heavily in the temple. Yin Xuege felt his head jolt, his vision go dark, and immediately lost consciousness.

"How could I possibly have caught the wrong person? You are a damned, lowly vampire!" Bright lifted his head to look at the sky and said thoughtfully, word by word, "A vampire who isn't afraid of sunlight? I seem to remember seeing something about that in some ancient text?"

After a moment of silence, Bright swung the silver cross in his hand sharply.

"Lock this damned, strange Juvenile in the lowest level of the Blood Prison and guard him strictly. Do not let your guard down. If he escapes, all of you will be buried with him!" Stamping his foot in irritation, Bright called to Sander. "Sander, come with me to request an audience with the Grand Arbiter. Perhaps he knows something."

Sander made a very unwilling face, then sighed heavily. "I'm afraid of seeing that old fellow, to be honest!"

Captain Jack's Tavern was sealed off, while countless overt and covert sentries were deployed nearby to watch it.

The unconscious Yin Xuege was thrown into a Flying Car. Dozens of Flying Cars rose one after another like fish swimming in formation and sped toward the core district of the Great Berlin City-State.