Human Skin Parchment

Donnie wouldn't easily trust S.H.I.E.L.D., even if they repeatedly expressed goodwill towards him. S.H.I.E.L.D. was a global organization that, besides the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, wielded immense, chilling authority, even possessing the power to act before seeking approval. With branches on every continent and in every country, and countless sub-departments within those branches, who knew how many unsavory characters had infiltrated this global political and military entity.

Its special status meant it had to accept the constraints of several major powers. Accepting constraints meant allowing or tacitly approving personnel from those powers to be stationed within it. Within each major power, there were countless vast interest groups, each calculating and balancing interests, making S.H.I.E.L.D. a melting pot of individuals, enough to drive anyone to despair. Only an old agent like Nick Fury, who had been with them for decades, could manage it, even organizing many of its complex and convoluted relationships into a coherent structure.

Donnie didn't mind cooperating with S.H.I.E.L.D., but if Fury truly wanted him to join them and become a member at this critical juncture, it was impossible. Even if he were to join, it would have to be after Hydra was cleared out. If he were to join anything, it would be the Avengers. At worst, he'd join Batman's Justice League.

Even though the Avengers were formed by S.H.I.E.L.D., in the end, S.H.I.E.L.D. lost all credibility. Even the extraordinary team it had assembled no longer trusted them. By the time of Ultron's attack, the Avengers had basically withdrawn from S.H.I.E.L.D., becoming a semi-civilian organization, with Tony Stark shouldering all the expenses and equipment.

To cooperate with an organization like S.H.I.E.L.D., one had to be cautious, lest they be manipulated by some faction within it.

In fact, even without joining either of these two major factions, Donnie was himself a powerful Mutant. His innate Level Four strength was enough for him to maintain a wait-and-see attitude for a considerable period.

During this time, he needed to gather his own people; fighting alone was proving to be a disadvantage.

He'd start with this "treacherous" old bartender.

"Hey, old man, you dead yet?" Donnie dragged the old bartender into the house, tossed him into a corner, and took out a brick, waiting quietly.

The old bartender clearly felt a sharp killing intent and his eyes snapped open.

"Ouch, my head hurts so much..." As soon as he woke up, the old bartender clutched his head in pain, stunned to find his head was swollen. He felt a sense of panic.

"What did you do to me?! You bastard!"

The old bartender was filled with grief and indignation. No one had ever treated him like this before. What had happened? Some unreasonable bastard had stormed into the bar, kidnapped him, and then beat him into a pulp?

Donnie let out a cold laugh. If it weren't for what he saw in the bar, he would have been fooled by the old man's acting. A bartender in a vampire bar, who was neither a vampire nor a Ha-Ghost Clan member, would be a ghost if he wasn't involved.

"Cut the act." Donnie gestured with the Vibranium in his hand, as if about to strike, and threatened, "Tell me who you are. At the very least, you should be grateful that I pulled you out of that wolf's den."

The old bartender immediately responded, "I'm just an ordinary person. They captured me because they wanted to turn me into a vampire, that's all."

The old bartender's tone was decisive and direct, as if he had rehearsed it a thousand times until it became instinct. He sincerely expressed his gratitude to Donnie, claiming Donnie had saved his life and that he would repay him in the future. With that, he tried to leave.

Donnie, impatient, knocked him down with the brick, hitting him hard. Donnie said, "If you want to pique my curiosity and competitive spirit, then I'll tell you, you've succeeded. But my patience is limited. Tell me directly, who are you, and why did the vampires kidnap you?"

Donnie was truly losing his patience. This old fox was mingling in vampire territory and was a slippery character. If the old bartender truly refused to cooperate, he would not hesitate to kill him.

He was in a violent conflict with the vampire race, with the possibility of all-out war at any moment. Even out of caution, he couldn't just let the old bartender leave casually, allowing him to be captured by vampires and leak his information.

"You should understand that after I dragged you to the parking lot and then back here, I won't allow you to leave me so easily. You saw too much," Donnie issued an ultimatum.

The old bartender, holding his head, was silent for a moment before finally speaking, agreeing to cooperate with Donnie and tell him everything he knew.

"Do you have any beer? I'm thirsty," the old bartender said.

Smack!

The old bartender, rubbing the newly formed lump on his head, finally became compliant.

"My family has been Ha-Ghost Clan for generations, loyal followers of the Thompson Family. We were once devoted."

The old bartender slowly recounted his family's history to Donnie, the first sentence causing Donnie to frown deeply. Every vampire family had a large number of Ha-Ghost Clan members, some of whom even served as entire families, dedicating themselves to vampires in pursuit of immortality and handling matters in the open.

The old bartender told Donnie that his family had followed vampires for generations, but things changed during his father's generation. His father found an ancient artifact in ruins, left behind by a vampire ancestor, rumored to contain a great secret. Such artifacts were immediately sealed by the vampire race upon discovery and were not allowed to see the light of day, as the vampires wished to research the secrets within them themselves.

"It was a piece of Human Skin Parchment with ancient writing on it," the old bartender said.

The vampires had spent hundreds of years trying to decipher the script but had achieved nothing. Even with more and more Human Skin Parchment, it was useless; they couldn't decipher it, and many vampires had already given up.

"Your father succeeded?" Donnie's brow furrowed.

"Yes." The old bartender stood up, went to the refrigerator, and took out a beer. "At least he succeeded partially. My father deciphered some of the secrets of the Human Skin Parchment. Using the most advanced computers of that era, combined with his exceptionally high intelligence and mastery of languages, he deciphered a portion through educated guesses."

The old bartender told Donnie that these Human Skin Parchments recorded methods for creating gods. As long as a vampire mastered this method, they could create a god for the vampire race.

This was truly shocking – the creation of gods!

"The gods of the vampires, supreme beings, even those created artificially, possessed unimaginable power. My father was deeply captivated by it," the old bartender said, finishing a bottle of beer in one gulp and reaching for a second, his demeanor becoming somewhat erratic.

"He went mad, his mind consumed with becoming a god. Although he was a Ha-Ghost Clan member, he yearned to become the sole god of the vampires, ruling over their life and death. The possibility of transforming from a servant to a master drove him insane; he disregarded everything else."