Dark Earl Appears (Please Read On)

Weekend, East Sea City Soul Train Station.

Spirit Pagoda had already found a place for Tang Wulin's family to live, so today was the day Tang Ziran and Lang Yue arrived in East Sea City by soul train.

Xie Xie sat on a bench on the platform, watching Tang Wulin pace back and forth in front of him until his eyes were nearly dizzy. Unable to hold back, he said,

"Wulin, why don't you sit down for a while? Uncle and Auntie's soul train won't arrive until nine. It's only eight-thirty now, so there's still half an hour."

"Alright, I'll sit for a bit." Tang Wulin suppressed the excitement in his heart and walked over to sit beside Xie Xie.

Just then, a young man sat down beside Tang Wulin with one leg crossed over the other. Tang Wulin and Xie Xie were immediately drawn to him.

He was tall and slender, dressed in a perfectly tailored rose-colored tailcoat suit, with a thorny red rose pinned to his chest. His face was deathly pale, his lips nearly translucent, and his slightly curled wine-red hair draped over his shoulders. A smile hung on his incomparably handsome face, revealing four sharp canine teeth.

"Are you kids waiting for your parents?"

"Yes," Tang Wulin replied politely. "Big brother, what about you?"

"I'm waiting for someone too." The suited man grinned, and his four sharp canine teeth gleamed white.

Such sharp canine teeth. Was he a soul master with a bat martial soul?

Ever since the television series Vampire Earl became a massive hit, whenever people thought of bats, the first thing that came to mind was vampires. Soul masters whose martial souls were bats often cosplayed as the handsome Vampire Earl from the show.

Tang Wulin had watched the series too. This big brother's costume was incredibly faithful, and he was even more handsome than the lead actor from the show. His bearing was also nobler. Every gesture carried the poise of an ancient aristocrat, making it feel as though a real Vampire Earl had appeared before them.

At nine o'clock, the soul train arrived at East Sea Station on schedule.

Tang Ziran and Lang Yue stepped out of the deep-blue first-class carriage empty-handed. Their luggage was stored in spatial soul devices, which their son had bought with the money he earned.

"Dad! Mom!"

Tang Wulin sprang from his seat in excitement and rushed forward to embrace his parents.

Seeing the happy scene of the family of three, Xie Xie's nose stung. He turned his head away, but tears still fell despite himself.

If my mother were still alive... how wonderful would that be!

Lang Yue noticed the boy around her son's age and asked,

"Son, this is...?"

"Oh." Tang Wulin pulled away from his parents' embrace and walked over to Xie Xie to introduce him. "His name is Xie Xie—the Xie from thank you, and the Xie from encounter. He's my best friend."

Xie Xie hurriedly wiped away his tears, turned back, and politely greeted them. "Hello, Uncle and Auntie."

After the four exchanged pleasantries, they began leaving the station. Tang Wulin looked toward the big brother cosplaying the Vampire Earl. "Big brother, hasn't the person you're waiting for arrived yet?"

The suited man smiled with aristocratic elegance. His blood-red eyes settled on Tang Wulin's family. "They have. The people I'm waiting for are you."

"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Dark Earl, one of the Holy Spirit Cult's Four Heavenly Kings. My only flaw is that I am too perfect."

(Some readers felt that Wild Holy Spirit Cult sounded rather awkward, so it has been changed to Evil Spirit Cult in later parts of the book. Members of the Wild Holy Spirit Cult still call themselves the Holy Spirit Cult, while everyone else refers to the organization as the Evil Spirit Cult.)

Dark Earl, one of the Evil Spirit Cult's Dark Four Heavenly Kings. His martial soul was the Dark Gold Nine-Headed Bat, and he was a rank ninety-eight Titled Douluo.

Recently, the Evil Spirit Cult had obtained clues regarding Tang Ziran and Lang Yue.

Ordinarily, a capture mission of this level only required a few underlings. But this was the Douluo Federation, where evil soul masters had almost no room to survive and had all been forced overseas to make a living. Carrying out missions within the Federation was extremely dangerous.

After all, the Holy Spirit Cult's Inquisition was no pushover, and the War God Hall and Federal Investigation Bureau were equally troublesome.

Therefore, this capture mission required an expert. However, that was only one of the reasons Dark Earl had accepted it.

The Evil Spirit Cult had accidentally obtained intelligence that Tang Ziran shared an extraordinary relationship with the Star Luo Empire's strongest expert, Qilin Douluo. Controlling Tang Ziran was equivalent to controlling Qilin Douluo, a peak quasi-god-level powerhouse.

Of the Evil Spirit Cult's one emperor, two emperors, and Four Heavenly Kings, the Demon Empress among the one emperor had been suppressed and sealed in the depths of the sea by some mysterious great figure, and the location of the seal had yet to be found. Of the two emperors, Ghost Emperor had no time recently, while Plague Emperor had been slain not long ago by the chairman of the Holy Spirit Cult's Cardinal Council and was still in the process of reviving. Thus, this important mission fell to the Dark Four Heavenly Kings.

Among the Dark Four Heavenly Kings, Dark Angel had an exclusive mission of his own. Dark Phoenix—the Evil Fire Phoenix, a descendant of Ma Hongjun as well as Ma Xiaotao, not Leng Yulai—and Dark Calamity Star did not have the temperament for a capture mission that required keeping the targets alive. That left only the noble and elegant Dark Earl, so perfect that even perfection itself was a flaw.

"Come with this Earl obediently. If you refuse to behave, I would not mind tasting your son's delicious, alluring blood."

After speaking, Dark Earl licked his four sharp canine teeth with his tongue. Like a vampire craving blood, his eyes stared straight at Tang Wulin's neck, as though he would pounce and bite him the next second.

With his strength, he could have forcibly taken the mission targets away. But that would be far too inelegant, utterly incompatible with the refined and noble style of the blood clan.

Unless absolutely necessary, he would not use force to make the mission targets submit.

"Evil Spirit Cult!"

Tang Ziran and Lang Yue's faces instantly turned pale. Almost instinctively, they shielded their son behind them, pulling Xie Xie over as well.

The Holy Spirit Cult's soul masters all possessed light or holy attributes, and it had no such thing as Four Heavenly Kings. Therefore, Dark Earl, who claimed to be one of the Holy Spirit Cult's Four Heavenly Kings, could only be a member of the Evil Spirit Cult.

Were the medicines they had researched really that important? The Evil Spirit Cult had actually sent one of its Four Heavenly Kings—an evil soul master who was clearly a high-ranking figure—to personally carry out the capture mission.

At this moment, Tang Ziran could never have imagined that the reason Dark Earl had personally come was connected to Tong Yu, the man who had left a childhood shadow on him.

The station was crowded and bustling, yet no one noticed the disturbance here. It was as if this place had been isolated from the outside world by an invisible barrier.

Seeing that escape was hopeless, Tang Ziran shielded his son behind him with one hand and held his wife with the other. Gritting his teeth, he said,

"We can go with you, but you must let our son and his friend go."

"No, no, no. That won't do." Dark Earl raised one finger and waved it three times, shaking his head elegantly. "If I let them go, the mission won't be perfect. All imperfect things should be eliminated. And besides, I refrain from using force because of my manners and upbringing, not because you are qualified to bargain with me."