Old Acquaintance (Part 1)

Behind Section 9527 of the southern walls of Great Berlin City-State, outside a crude stone fortress, Little Jack gripped his spear tightly. His eyes, webbed with countless blood vessels, nearly bulged from their sockets.

The crude pure-steel spear was about three meters long, its egg-thick shaft wrapped in sweat-absorbing linen. After passing through who knew how many owners, the originally white linen had turned blackish yellow and gave off a faint, fishy stench.

Little Jack crouched on the ground, surrounded on all sides by death squad members whose faces were bloodless and bodies withered and emaciated. Like Little Jack, each of them wore a metal collar as thick as a thumb around his neck, packed with a crystal bomb of tremendous power. If they died in battle, the bombs would detonate, reducing everything within three meters of their bodies to ashes.

If they dared flee the battlefield, their commander would detonate the collars around their necks without hesitation, blasting them to smithereens. As death squad members, they could only charge forward through bloodshed if they wanted to live a little longer.

"Old Jack, you've gotten me killed!" Little Jack stared blankly at the sky, his dried-out eye sockets utterly devoid of moisture. Over the past several days, ever since Old Jack's tavern had been sealed by the Public Security Department, Little Jack had screamed and wailed countless times beneath their tortures. He had no tears left.

He had watched his subordinates—the brothers who had fought and clawed their way to survival alongside him in the streets—get slaughtered by those hunters as if they were pigs and dogs. He had watched Old Jack, arrested because of him, get churned inch by inch into a blurred mass of flesh and blood!

He hated Old Jack, yet he could not truly hate him. If Old Jack had not adopted Little Jack and his group of subordinates, Little Jack might have starved to death ten years ago! All these years, Old Jack had kept Little Jack alive and given him a peaceful life.

"Damn old fool, even if you were a degenerate who admired Blood Demons, you should've told me! At the very least, we could have discussed how to be safer and more discreet!" Little Jack lowered his head and began to sob soundlessly.

"It shouldn't have ended with people blocking the tavern entrance, finding all the evidence, and leaving us without even a chance to argue!"

His fingers clenched hard around the spear, his fingertips already drained to a ghastly white from the force. In Little Jack's mind, the sharp laughter of Fennice and Bright as they tortured him echoed again and again, along with the dying screams of his brothers and Old Jack! Countless bloody scenes flashed before his eyes, and his body began to tremble violently.

He could not forget the sight of Old Jack, all four limbs broken, bound to a cross and burned inch by inch into a mangled mass of flesh by the flames spewing from Fennice's hands. He could not forget the scene of Bright's savage Demonic Beasts tearing his subordinates, his brothers, apart piece by piece.

"God's forgiveness? Absolution?" Little Jack gritted his teeth so hard they nearly pierced his gums. A great deal of blood welled from his lips and dripped onto the ground.

"And that damn little brat—what was his name? That damn vampire! Why did you come to Great Berlin City-State? If not for you, how could we have been arrested?" Little Jack's fingernail split with a sharp crack, and blood slowly slid down his finger. He seemed unable to feel the pain at all. Both hands clutched the spear desperately, while countless cracks slowly spread across the skin of his palms.

A thunderous boom rang out, and the ground nearby trembled violently.

The shrieks of soldiers from Great Berlin City-State's Public Security forces came from the distance. A powerful Blood Demon army stood outside the city and had launched an assault on Great Berlin City-State! This had never happened before. Ever since Great Berlin City-State was founded, Blood Demon spies had continually infiltrated the city to carry out all kinds of sabotage, but never had a large-scale Blood Demon force launched a frontal attack on the city!

Great Berlin City-State had a population of hundreds of millions. More than two hundred million civilians were gathered in this main city alone, along with over ten million regular soldiers and countless mercenaries. Not to mention the elite experts led by the thirteen Grand Arbiters—they would not be at a disadvantage even against the strongest Blood Demons!

This city was the forbidden ground of the Blood Demons!

Yet today, tens of thousands of Blood Demons had brought more than a million civilians and soldiers they had captured to the outskirts of the city and brazenly launched an attack!

The enormous bombs shook Great Berlin City-State's walls violently. If not for the city's sufficiently powerful defensive barrier, and the countless crystals stockpiled by Great Berlin City-State to serve as its energy source, this section of the wall would have been breached long ago!

Even so, the shockwaves from the bombs still brought down countless nearby buildings. At least several thousand soldiers were dead or wounded. Groans and cries of agony filled the area, while soldiers from the Public Security forces continuously carried bloody casualties into the rear fortress for treatment!

Wave after wave of bombardment was enough to drive anyone to despair. Little Jack's ears had been shaken nearly deaf by the explosions, leaving him unable to hear almost anything. His body even began to go numb in spasms. The tremors rising from underground made his organs feel as though they were about to turn inside out.

Little Jack rubbed the deadly collar around his neck and gave a bitter laugh.

With the Blood Demons attacking the city, criminals like them from the death squads would certainly be sent to the front lines first! Those powerful Blood Demons were far beyond anything they could withstand! He would definitely be killed, but he was truly unwilling to accept it!

He still had to take revenge on Fennice, Bright, and the others! He had to kill them with his own hands before he could die in peace!

A sharp whistle tore through the air. A middle-aged man dressed in red-and-gold court robes, Blood Flame surging around him, appeared abruptly above Southern Wall Section 9527. Looking down from on high at the soldiers scurrying across the wall like ants, he slowly raised his right hand.

"Humans, under the power of the great Prince Farnburg, cry out!" Farnburg raised his hand and unleashed the Blood Demon secret art Song of Decay at full force. The ground cracked open in countless places in every direction, and great masses of black-red mist rolled out from underground. Everything touched by the mist plunged into rapid decay.

A century in an instant. Whether stone or living human, everything passed through a hundred years in the blink of an eye.

Boulders weathered away, buildings collapsed, and the fully armed soldiers let out shrill cries. In the space of a moment, their screams weakened to feeble moans. The soldiers aged drastically, their youth draining away as their lives rapidly faded.

No—their life force had not vanished. Their vitality transformed into visible scarlet torrents, howling into the sky and continuously pouring into Prince Farnburg's body. As this life force replenished him, Farnburg's appearance grew younger and younger. Gradually, he rapidly changed from a middle-aged man in his forties or fifties into someone who looked barely past thirty.

"This is retribution! Damn humans!" Farnburg cursed under his breath. "I was sleeping peacefully in my secret lair! But you greedy fools insisted on digging me out of my most beloved coffin and capturing me alive to bring me here. You brought this trouble upon yourselves!"

"Farnburg has never been a broad-minded man! You will regret this! Ever since you used a branding iron to torture the symbol of my masculinity as a male creature, you old fools, I swore that you would regret it!"

The black-red mist roiled and spread, enveloping everything within a thousand-meter radius.

Little Jack and the other death squad members happened to be outside the black-red mist. They watched everything happening within it in terror and despair. It was a sight that could only appear in a nightmare—everything was decaying, everything was rotting. The regular troops of Great Berlin City-State turned into skeletons one after another, then crumbled into dust. Their weapons and armor rapidly weathered and corroded, vanishing without a trace in the blink of an eye.

The towering buildings collapsed and crumbled even more slowly, completing their entire lifespans within just a few breaths.

Very soon, this section of the wall became a land of ghosts. Every regular soldier from the Public Security forces, including the death squad commander controlling Little Jack and the others, turned to dust. Little Jack stared at Farnburg hovering in the air in terror and panic. Suddenly, he leaped up and screamed until his voice turned hoarse.

"Hey! You old bastard, I'm Little Jack from Captain Jack's Tavern! Do you know Old Jack? Have you heard of him? He was one of yours! Damn it, he was one of yours! I'm one of yours too! Get me out of this godforsaken place!"

Farnburg lowered his head, his cold and emotionless gaze sweeping contemptuously over Little Jack's frail body. What Captain Jack's Tavern? What Old Jack? What did any of that have to do with him? He raised his right hand high. A mass of black-red mist rapidly compressed and revolved around his fist. The moment he threw it down, the death squad fortress where Little Jack stood would likewise be reduced to ashes.

At that moment, Yin Xuege beat his Natal Bat Wings and rushed in from outside the city, Blood Spirit Sword in hand. Just now, under Yin Tianjue's protection, he had engaged in a brief but fierce battle with several of the more powerful hunters from Great Berlin City-State.

Several hunters had been slain, while Yin Xuege had suffered only a negligible injury. Yet stimulated by the bitter battle, the blood essence of the three Thousand-Year Dukes within Yin Xuege absorbed a great deal more. At that moment, his blood energy surged within him. Both his physical strength and his demonic blood energy were rising rapidly, and he had already broken through the Earl bottleneck and successfully entered the ranks of the Marquis.

He came to Farnburg's side and was just about to observe Farnburg's unique secret art when he heard Little Jack's hoarse, furious curses.

"Damn you, you vampires! You filthy bats! You can't turn your backs on us and pretend you don't know us! Old Jack is dead! He died protecting you! He didn't say a word before he died! He said nothing at all! And my brothers—they're all dead!"

Weekend, everyone—don't forget to vote!

Click, bookmark, vote—don't miss a single one. (To be continued)