Old Acquaintance (Part 1)

Behind the ninety-fifth and twenty-seventh section of the southern city wall of the Great Berlin City-State, outside a simple rock fortress, Little Jack tightly gripped the spear in his hand, his eyes, crisscrossed with countless blood vessels, nearly bulging from their sockets.

The crude, pure steel spear was about three meters long, with a handle as thick as a goose egg wrapped in sweat-absorbing linen. It was impossible to tell how many owners it had had; the originally white linen had turned black and yellow, emitting a faint, fishy odor.

Little Jack squatted on the ground, surrounded on all sides by pale-faced, withered, and emaciated dare-to-die soldiers. Like Little Jack, these soldiers wore metal collars around their necks, each as thick as a thumb and containing a powerful crystal bomb. If Little Jack and his comrades fell in battle, these bombs would detonate, turning everything within a three-meter radius into ashes.

If Little Jack and his comrades dared to flee the battlefield, their commander would not hesitate to detonate the collars around their necks, blowing them to smithereens. As dare-to-die soldiers, only by charging forward through blood and fire could they live a little longer.

"Old Jack, you've gotten me killed!" Little Jack stared blankly at the sky, his dry eye sockets devoid of any moisture. For so many days, ever since Old Jack's tavern was sealed by the Public Security Department, Little Jack, having endured countless tortures, had cried and wailed countless times; he had no tears left.

He had watched helplessly as his subordinates, those who had fought and struggled alongside him on the streets to survive, were killed like pigs and dogs by those Hunters. He had watched helplessly as Old Jack, who had implicated him and led to his capture, was ground into a bloody pulp, inch by inch!

He hated Old Jack, but he couldn't bring himself to hate him! If Old Jack hadn't taken him and his group of subordinates in, Little Jack might have starved to death ten years ago! For so many years, Old Jack had supported him, giving him a stable life.

"Damn old man, even if you were a degenerate who admired Blood Demons, you should have told me! At least we could have figured out how to be safer, more discreet!" Little Jack lowered his head and sobbed silently.

"It wouldn't have come to this, being cornered at the tavern door, all evidence found, with no chance to even argue!"

He gripped the spear tightly with his fingers, his fingertips turning a ghastly white from the excessive force. Little Jack's mind replayed the sharp laughter of Fennice and Bright, who had tortured him, and the dying screams of his brothers and Old Jack! Countless bloody scenes flashed before his eyes, and his body trembled violently.

He couldn't forget how Old Jack, with all four limbs broken, was tied to a cross and slowly burned to a bloody mess by the flames spewing from Fennice's hand. He couldn't forget how his subordinates, his brothers, were torn to pieces by the fierce Demonic Beasts released by Bright.

"God's forgiveness? Absolution?" Little Jack gritted his teeth, his teeth nearly piercing his gums, and a large amount of blood gushed from his lips, dripping onto the ground.

"And that damned little fellow, what was his name? That damned Vampire! Why did you come to the Great Berlin City-State? If it weren't for you, how could we have been captured?" Little Jack's fingernail cracked with a 'snap', and blood slowly trickled down his finger. As if he felt no pain at all, he gripped the spear tightly with both hands, the skin of his palms slowly cracking open with countless wounds.

A deafening roar echoed, and the ground nearby trembled violently.

The screams of soldiers from the Great Berlin City-State's Public Security Force could be heard in the distance. A powerful Blood Demon army was outside the city, launching an attack on the Great Berlin City-State! This was unprecedented. Since the establishment of the Great Berlin City-State, although there had been constant infiltrations by Blood Demon spies to carry out various acts of sabotage, there had never been a large-scale frontal assault on the city by Blood Demons!

The Great Berlin City-State had a population of hundreds of millions. The main city alone housed over two hundred million civilians, with tens of millions of regular troops and countless mercenaries, not to mention the elite powerhouses led by the thirteen Grand Arbiters. They could hold their own against even the most powerful Blood Demons!

This city was a forbidden zone for Blood Demons!

But today, tens of thousands of Blood Demons, along with over a million captured civilians and soldiers, had arrived outside the city and brazenly launched an attack!

Giant bombs caused the city walls of the Great Berlin City-State to vibrate violently. If not for the powerful defensive barrier within the city and the vast reserves of crystals the Great Berlin City-State had accumulated to power the barrier, this section of the city wall would have long been breached!

Even so, the shockwaves from the explosions still caused countless nearby buildings to collapse, resulting in the deaths or injuries of at least several thousand soldiers. Everywhere, there were cries of pain and moans, and Public Security Force soldiers were constantly carrying bloody casualties into the rear fortress for treatment!

Wave after wave of bombardment was utterly despairing. Little Jack's ears were almost deafened by the immense explosions. He even felt his body go numb in waves; the tremors from the ground made his internal organs feel as if they were about to turn inside out.

He touched the fatal collar around his neck with effort and let out a bitter laugh.

With the Blood Demons attacking the city, they, the dare-to-die soldiers who had committed serious crimes, would be the first to be sent to the front lines! Those powerful Blood Demons were not something they could resist! He was bound to die, but he truly wasn't resigned to it!

He still wanted to get revenge on Fennice and Bright! He had to kill them with his own hands before he could die in peace!

A sharp whistling sound pierced the air, and a middle-aged man dressed in a golden and red courtly gown, with Blood Flame surging around him, suddenly appeared in the sky above the southern ninety-fifth and twenty-seventh city wall. He looked down condescendingly at the soldiers scurrying like ants on the city wall and slowly raised his right hand.

"Humans, cry out under the power of the great Prince Farnburg!" Farnburg raised his hand and unleashed the Blood Demon secret art, the evil incantation 'Song of Decay', at full power. Countless fissures opened in the ground in all directions, and a large amount of black and red mist surged out from underground. Anything touched by this black and red mist entered a state of rapid decay.

In an instant, whether stone or living being, they aged a hundred years in a mere moment.

Giant rocks weathered, buildings collapsed, and the fully armed soldiers let out piercing screams that quickly turned weak. The soldiers became extremely aged; their youth drained away, and their lives rapidly dissipated.

No, their vitality did not dissipate; their life force transformed into a visible torrent of blood, roaring skyward and continuously pouring into Prince Farnburg's body. With the replenishment of this life force, Farnburg's appearance grew younger and younger, rapidly transforming from a man in his forties or fifties to someone in his early thirties.

"This is revenge! Damn humans!" Farnburg cursed incessantly, "I was sleeping peacefully in my secret lair! But you greedy humans insisted on digging me out of my most beloved coffin and capturing me alive! You've brought this trouble upon yourselves!"

"Farnburg is never a magnanimous person! You will regret this! Ever since you tortured me, this old man, with a branding iron on my symbol as a male creature, I swore that you would regret it!"

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

Little Jack and the other dare-to-die soldiers, who were just outside the black and red mist, watched in horror and despair as everything within the mist unfolded. It was a scene from a nightmare; everything was decaying, rotting. The regular troops of the Great Berlin City-State turned into skeletons one after another, then crumbled into dust. Their weapons and armor rapidly weathered and corroded, disappearing without a trace in the blink of an eye.

The tall buildings collapsed and crumbled even faster, completing their life cycles within a few breaths.

Soon, this section of the city wall became a desolate wasteland. All the regular troops of the Public Security Force, including the dare-to-die commander who controlled Little Jack and his comrades, turned to dust. Little Jack, filled with terror and nervousness, watched Farnburg hovering in the air. Suddenly, he leaped up and screamed at the top of his lungs.

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

Farnburg lowered his head, his cold, emotionless gaze contemptuously sweeping over Little Jack's frail body. What Captain Jack's Tavern? What Old Jack? What did these things have to do with him? Raising his right hand high, Farnburg's fist was encircled by a rapidly compressing mass of black and red mist. As soon as he threw this mass down, the dare-to-die fortress where Little Jack was located would also be reduced to ashes.

Just then, Yin Xuege, flapping his Natal Bat Wings and wielding the Blood Spirit Sword, charged in from outside the city. He had just engaged in a brief but fierce battle with several elite Hunters from the Great Berlin City-State, under the protection of Yin Tianjue.

Several Hunters were slain, and Yin Xuege sustained only minor injuries. However, stimulated by the fierce battle, he absorbed a significant portion of the vital essence of the three Thousand-Year Dukes within him. At this moment, Yin Xuege's blood energy surged, and both his physical strength and blood energy cultivation were rapidly increasing. He had broken through the Count bottleneck and successfully advanced to the Marquis rank.

He arrived beside Farnburg, preparing to observe Farnburg's unique secret technique, when he heard Little Jack's desperate curses.

"Damn you vampires! You stinking bats! You can't just turn on us like this! Old Jack is dead! He died covering for you! He didn't say a word before he died! He said nothing! And my brothers, they're all dead!"

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Click, collect, vote, don't miss any (to be continued)