A Primer

Although it looked like a pile of smashed meat, the mass of flesh was still alive. It kept drawing together, clumping into a human-shaped figure with four limbs and facial features.

With a little more attention to detail and a layer of something like skin over its body, this living mass could pass for a human.

But just then, a dazzling white light flashed, scattering the figure once more. Blood and flesh splattered across the inside of the sealed device.

The scattered flesh might or might not have had a consciousness of its own. After experiencing another failure, it began gathering into a mass again, trying to form a human shape. But just as it was about to succeed, another flash of white light hit. Like Sisyphus in Greek mythology, who had angered the gods and been punished by having to push a boulder up a mountain, only for it to roll back down before reaching the summit, the creature could only repeat a task that was doomed to fail.

By the time Wei Xiuming arrived, the living mass had already repeated this process countless times. Nick Fury watched its failures without mercy, like a god atop Mount Olympus.

Nick Fury pointed at the coffin in front of them. "This device is a failure. The beam it produces is extremely lethal to living things. Even a tiny amount of energy can trigger a beam that instantly tears an adult blue whale to pieces. But its applications are extremely limited. Its effective range is too short for it to be weaponized, and the beam that escapes into the atmosphere would harm the user. For now, we can only conduct experimental tests in a sealed environment. That's made this thing a cage for the creature. It's exposed to the light nearly once a minute, but that can't kill it outright. It can only slightly delay the time it takes to recover its original form."

The folder Nick Fury had given him contained an analysis of the sample of flesh, but many of the results were marked with question marks. Wei Xiuming could still tell what it was. After all, he had made the so-called Amazon Cells himself. He had isolated the part of his own cells that contained Deathbird's X Gene, then induced it to mutate. That was how the Amazon Cells had come to be.

And the flesh in front of him came from a human (vampire) who had been injected with Amazon Cells—not something else. It had been injected with one of the two doses specially prepared for Victor. Combined with the vampires' natural healing ability, it had a power of recovery that could almost turn back time. Even Wei Xiuming, their creator, found it unsettling.

"Where did you capture it?" Wei Xiuming looked at Nick Fury's... as ever, pitch-black face and asked suspiciously, "Don't tell me you found the Fang Vampires' base. With this level of recovery, it should be an officer."

The vampires were really useless. An individual this powerful could come and go freely even in a lower-level military base, yet it had ended up in the hands of ordinary people.

"What?" Nick Fury turned and looked up at Wei Xiuming. "This creature is one of the Fang Vampires you mentioned?"

"It's more than that. It's much more dangerous." Wei Xiuming took a deep breath, pulled a few pages from the folder, and handed them to Nick Fury.

Nick Fury looked over the pages of material, most of which he could barely understand, and felt a headache coming on. The most common result listed was a question mark, because technical limitations had made it impossible to reach a conclusion.

Wei Xiuming said, "You've seen this Fang Vampire's recovery ability. As far as I know, even the aristocratic class among the Fang Vampires isn't this powerful. And there are some very revealing details in this analysis of Fang Vampire cells. You should recognize them."

"This creature's life signs are highly unusual. Half of them match the traits of vampires in our database." Nick Fury pointed to the analysis charts on several pages. "The cell samples also showed that another part of this creature has extensive similarities to your genetic test results. We can't analyze the specific structure any further, but we can make a simple judgment. If you hadn't introduced yourself beforehand, given the level of technology you've demonstrated, I'd be very likely to suspect that you created these so-called Fang Vampires."

"War and reproduction are major drivers of human technological progress. In the course of fighting Shocker and other threats, we've also learned from their strengths. I'm proof of that: I was created as a weapon." Wei Xiuming spoke slowly. "The reason this Fang Vampire has become so powerful is the Amazon Cells, which I thought were almost impossible to encounter. Contact the World Security Council as soon as possible. We're in serious trouble."

Wei Xiuming admitted it, which wasn't unexpected for Nick Fury. After a long period of analysis, he had already built a complete psychological profile of Wei Xiuming. He could predict Wei Xiuming's behavior with eighty percent accuracy.

Wei Xiuming looked at Nick Fury and said, "Can you tell me where this Fang Vampire was found?"

"In the wreckage of the Parker couple's crashed plane. It had been falling from a great height, and the fuel leak had started a fire. Its tissues were continuously destroyed and regenerated, which consumed a great deal of its substance and slowed its recovery. That's how S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were able to capture it," Nick Fury said. "During transport, it killed and ate several agents, and its ability to recover quickly improved."

Wei Xiuming didn't ask how they had captured the Fang Vampire again and locked it inside this coffin-like device. That was Black Eggplant's secret.

What concerned him more was whether his warnings about the threat posed by Amazon Cells had struck a chord with Nick Fury, and whether that might trigger a global vampire purge led by the five major powers.

After putting on a thoughtful expression and clearing his throat, Wei Xiuming began reciting the backstory he had composed in his head along the way. "According to the database, Amazon Cells have two possible origins."

"First, Japan, an Axis power alongside the Third Reich, established a Shocker branch. Its public front was a pharmaceutical company called Nozama. It developed biological weapons, and Amazon Cells were one of its research results. Besides their use in weapons, their greatest benefit was that they could extend human life without causing rejection like an organ transplant. According to intelligence analysis, Nozama Pharmaceutical's chairman originally commissioned the research to extend his own life. Their use in weapons was a byproduct."

Nick Fury silently ruled out this possibility. Japan could only call America "Daddy" these days. America could take what it wanted, and if Japan refused, it would get beaten. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents knew more about what was happening inside Japan than the Japanese themselves did.

After his first meeting with Wei Xiuming, Nick Fury had sent people to investigate Japan. After all, America had granted a large number of Japanese war criminals protection in exchange for technology. For all they knew, some of them might still be up to no good and have joined forces with the remnants of the Third Reich.

As former Axis powers, the relationship between the Third Reich and Japan was anyone's guess. The Third Reich had declared war on America because its little brother, Japan, had stirred up trouble.