History of the Vampires

Early morning, New York, Kennedy Airport.

A passenger jet from Ohio made an emergency landing there. As the cabin door slowly opened, a pale, cold-skinned man in sunglasses followed the crowd down.

Amid the surging stream of disembarking passengers, the man in sunglasses drew in a deep, intoxicated breath, feeling as if he were seated at a Manchu Han Imperial Feast, surrounded by distinctive delicacies.

Yet the passengers around him only felt a chill run over their bodies, as though they had been targeted by a predator, without knowing where the danger came from.

The man in sunglasses surveyed the food around him, then suddenly sighed helplessly. Ever since he had been forced to sign a treaty with the human government, those good old days of taking one sip and spitting out another were gone forever.

I hope that mixed-blood junior can bring me good news this time, the man in sunglasses thought.

Though daylight was already bright and sunlight shone directly onto his face, it was blocked from his skin by a thin layer of sunscreen.

Pulling his black coat tighter around himself, the man quietly followed the crowd toward the city center.

On the way, the man suddenly sensed something and looked to his right.

From another passenger jet arriving from Bangkok, a man with equally pale skin stepped out of the cabin. Their gazes met, and after giving each other a slight nod, they turned away and went their separate ways.

Vampires like the man in sunglasses kept arriving from all over the world throughout the day, invited to witness the descent of the Blood God.

Within New York City, Matt had just left the hospital and was undergoing rehabilitation training. Beside him, Punisher recounted the intelligence he had gathered over the past few days.

"I've found where the vampires are gathering. I don't know what's going on, but their demand for blood has risen drastically these past few days. They're definitely preparing something."

"And what are you planning to do?" Matt asked while doing push-ups. "Don't tell me you want the two of us to charge into a vampire nest and fight them alone?"

"Do you take me for an idiot?" Punisher could naturally hear the sarcasm in Matt's voice.

With the strength they had as street-level heroes, even taking on a single vampire barehanded was difficult. Charging into a vampire nest would be nothing but suicide.

"This has already gone beyond what we can handle. I only want to eliminate evil; I don't care about the means used to eliminate it," Punisher said calmly.

"What do you mean?" Matt could not help freezing slightly.

"Call the police directly. Let the authorities deal with this," Punisher said.

"You don't mean those New York cops, do you?" Matt asked, the corner of his mouth twitching.

"Of course not. How could you think that? Counting on the New York cops would be worse than handling this ourselves."

"I mean the military and certain secret organizations within the government. As long as we reveal the location of the vampire gathering place to them, I'm sure they won't stand by and do nothing," Punisher said.

After hearing Punisher out, Matt thought it over and nodded in agreement. He saw no problem with Punisher's proposal.

They actually had some understanding of vampire history after previously speaking with the professionally qualified Blade.

Several decades ago, these vampires had been unbearably arrogant because of their superior physical abilities. They looked down equally on every race other than themselves, and even within their own ranks, they maintained strict class divisions, creating distinctions such as pure-bloods and mixed-bloods.

But it was also an era of rapidly advancing technology. Because of their arrogance, the vampires provoked Germany, which was then oppressing the Jews, and unsurprisingly ended up on the slaughter list alongside them.

Faced with ultraviolet lamps and silver bullets invented by Germany, the German army easily reduced the vampire population of a million to less than a tenth through sheer numbers, while driving large numbers of vampires into concentration camps for research.

They killed so many that even the ancient writing passed down among vampires was lost because its lineage had been severed.

In German prisoner-of-war camps at the time, distinguishing Jews from vampires was simple: those with heartbeats were Jews, while those without were vampires.

In the end, unable to endure the slaughter any longer, the vampires had no choice but to admit defeat. After signing the Human-Vampire Non-Aggression Treaty with the Allied Forces, they joined hands to fight fascism.

After the war ended, the vampires, reduced to less than one percent of their former numbers, naturally no longer had the courage to contend with humanity. They had remained relatively well-behaved, barely surviving in the shadows where they could not be seen, truly terrified by Germany's slaughter.

In Matt's view, since these creatures had been crushed by the military decades ago, there was even less reason for failure now that technology had advanced so rapidly. As long as the authorities stepped in, things would definitely get better!

Very soon, with the two Super Heroes working together, they easily infiltrated the city government offices.

After shoving a handgun into the mouth of the New York mayor, who had recently been troubled by the election, the mayor, who placed great importance on New York City's public safety, immediately submitted the vampire investigation report up the chain. It was soon noticed by a department under the United Nations.

Above a stretch of sea in the United States, a massive invisible steel construct hovered in the sky.

"What are these vampires trying to do? Vampires scattered across the globe are gathering in New York on such a massive scale. Are they trying to start a war?"

Inside the steel construct, a black man with one eye covered by an eyepatch frowned as he looked over the files handed to him by intelligence personnel. The contents were far too alarming.

When S.H.I.E.L.D. had first noticed the investigation report, they had assumed it was a minor matter and had not paid much attention, merely assigning a small amount of manpower to investigate further.

The result was even more serious than Punisher had said. At least ten thousand vampires had gathered in New York by now.

This group of violent inhumans fed on human blood, and a riot could break out at any moment. The situation had already severely crossed the original bottom line.

"Sir, should we send someone to investigate their movements?" Coulson asked from the side, only for Nick Fury to shake his head slightly.

"No need to investigate. These vampires have crossed the line with their recent actions. If we hadn't feared a desperate counterattack from them back then, we would have wiped them out long ago. Let General Ross give them a warning."

"Hasn't Ross's biological research project recently hit a bottleneck because the test subject escaped? This is a perfect chance to give them something to do."

Nick Fury spoke lightly, but every agent present understood what it meant to send Ross to their door.

Before a fully prepared and heavily armed human military force arriving to pick a fight, those vampires whose physical abilities seemed to surpass humanity were nothing more than rabble.