Human Skin Parchment

Donnie would not easily trust S.H.I.E.L.D., no matter how repeatedly they expressed goodwill toward him. S.H.I.E.L.D. was a global organization. Aside from the five members of The Council, it wielded authority vast enough to make people tremble, even possessing certain powers to act first and report afterward. S.H.I.E.L.D. branches existed across every continent and every nation, and who knew how many agencies and departments lay under those branches? No one could know how many demons and monsters had infiltrated such a global political and military organization.

Its special status meant it had no choice but to accept the constraints of several major powers. Accepting those constraints meant allowing—or tacitly permitting—personnel from those powers to take up residence within it. And within every major power, there were countless massive interest groups scheming against one another and balancing their interests, turning S.H.I.E.L.D. into a chaotic mix that could drive almost anyone to collapse. Only an old agent like Nick Fury, who had worked for decades, could keep it under control and sort out its tangled relationships so neatly.

Donnie did not mind cooperating with S.H.I.E.L.D., but if Fury truly wanted him to join at a time like this and become part of the establishment, that was impossible. Even if he were to join, it would have to be after Hydra had been purged. And if he really did join, he would join the Avengers. At worst, he could join Batman's Justice League.

Even though the Avengers had been formed by S.H.I.E.L.D., S.H.I.E.L.D. would eventually lose all public trust. Even the superhuman team it had created with its own hands would no longer trust it. By the time they fought Ultron, the Avengers had essentially withdrawn from S.H.I.E.L.D. and become a semi-civilian organization, with Tony Stark fully covering their daily expenses and equipment.

Cooperating with an organization like S.H.I.E.L.D. required caution as well. There was no telling when some faction within it might plot against him.

In truth, even without joining either of those major camps, Donnie himself was a formidable Mutant. His innate Level Four strength was enough to let him maintain an observer's stance for quite a long time.

During this period, he needed to gather some people of his own. Fighting alone was starting to put him at a disadvantage.

He would start with that treacherous Old Bartender.

"Hey, old man, are you dead yet?" Donnie dragged Old Bartender into the room, casually tossed him into a corner, pulled out a brick, and waited quietly.

Old Bartender clearly sensed a piercing killing intent and jolted awake.

"Ow, why does my head hurt so much..." The moment he woke up, Old Bartender clutched his head in pain, only to discover in shock that it had swollen a full size larger. Panic rose within him.

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

Old Bartender was furious and aggrieved. Never in his life had anyone treated him this way. What had happened? Some unreasonable bastard had stormed into the bar, kidnapped him, then casually beaten him into a pig-headed mess?

Donnie sneered. If not for what had happened in the bar, he might truly have been fooled by this old man's acting. A bartender in a Vampire bar who was neither a Vampire nor a member of the Ha-Ghost Clan—if there was nothing suspicious about him, then hell had frozen over.

"Cut the act." Donnie gestured with the Vibranium in his hand and pretended he was about to bring it down. "Tell me who you really are. At the very least, I dragged you out of that wolf den. You should learn to be grateful."

Old Bartender immediately replied, "I'm just an ordinary person. They captured me because they wanted to turn me into a Vampire, nothing more."

Old Bartender's tone was firm and direct, as though he had rehearsed those words countless times until they had become instinct. He sincerely expressed his gratitude to Donnie, claiming that Donnie had saved his life and that he would definitely repay him someday. Then he tried to leave.

Donnie grew impatient and smashed him to the ground with the brick, striking with brutal force. Donnie said, "If you were trying to stir up my curiosity and competitive spirit, then let me tell you: you succeeded. But my patience is limited. Tell me directly—who are you, and why did the Vampires kidnap you?"

Donnie was genuinely running out of patience. This old slickster had been hanging around Vampire territory, and he was a slippery fellow himself. If Old Bartender truly had no intention of cooperating, Donnie really would choose to kill him.

He had clashed violently with the Vampire race, and a full-scale war could break out at any moment. Even out of caution, he could not possibly let Old Bartender walk away so easily and simply watch as the Vampires captured him and extracted Donnie's information from him.

"You should understand that after I dragged you to the parking lot, then dragged you back here, I won't allow you to leave me so casually. You saw too many things you shouldn't have." Donnie issued his final ultimatum.

Old Bartender held his head and fell silent for a moment. In the end, he spoke, saying he was willing to cooperate with Donnie and tell him everything he knew.

"Do you have any beer? I'm thirsty," Old Bartender said.

Smack!

Old Bartender rubbed the newly swollen lump on his head and finally behaved himself.

"My family has belonged to the Ha-Ghost Clan for generations. For generations, we followed the Thompson Family. We used to be utterly loyal."

Old Bartender slowly recounted his family's past to Donnie. His very first sentence made Donnie frown deeply. Every Vampire family had huge numbers of Ha-Ghost Clan members. Some Ha-Ghost Clan members even existed as entire families, devoting themselves to serving Vampires in pursuit of immortality and handling matters that could not be exposed to sunlight.

Old Bartender told Donnie that his family had served Vampires for generations, but things changed during his father's generation. His father found an ancient relic in some ruins, left behind by Vampire ancestors. Rumor had it that it contained an enormous secret. Once such relics were discovered, the Vampire race would immediately seal them away and forbid them from appearing in the world. The Vampires wanted to study the secrets within those relics themselves.

"It was a piece of Human Skin Parchment, covered in ancient writing," Old Bartender said.

The Vampires had spent centuries trying to decipher that writing, yet achieved nothing. Even after acquiring more and more Human Skin Parchment, it was useless. They simply could not decipher it, and many Vampires had even given up.

"Your father succeeded?" Donnie frowned deeply.

"Yes." Old Bartender stood up, found the refrigerator, and took out the beer inside. "At least partially. My father deciphered some of the secrets of the Human Skin Parchment. With the most advanced computers of that era, along with his exceptional intelligence and mastery of languages, he managed to decipher part of it through educated guesses."

Old Bartender told Donnie that the Human Skin Parchment recorded a method for creating gods. As long as a Vampire mastered that method, he could create a god for the Vampire race.

It was truly horrifying. It was a method of creating gods!

"A Vampire god would stand supreme. Even one created afterward would possess unimaginable power. My father became deeply intoxicated by it." Old Bartender drained an entire bottle of beer in one gulp, then took out another. His behavior was becoming somewhat unhinged.

"He went mad. His mind was filled with becoming a god. Although he was a member of the Ha-Ghost Clan, he longed to become the Unique God of the Vampires and rule over their lives and deaths. The possibility of changing from a servant into a master drove him insane. He could think of nothing else."