Evan ran despite the searing pain. He plunged into the darkness and suddenly saw someone standing ahead.
"Run! This place is full of gang members!"
Thinking it was a vagrant, Evan called out instinctively.
But just as he was about to draw near, the Perception granted by the Night Demon Potion made every hair on his body stand on end.
No... Get away!!!
The Magic Potion's heightened Perception was warning him with everything it had.
Evan turned and ran without another word, quickly ducking into the factory building across the way.
Behind him, Zack and another group of thugs heard the commotion. They hurried over from another direction, flashlights raised to cut him off.
Their beams swept across the empty room, revealing only two companions on the floor. One was unconscious; the other was rolling around clutching his knee.
"After him!"
Zack caught up from behind, pistol in hand and muzzle pointed forward.
"Let's see if that sickly bastard can dodge my bullets!"
The group rushed out after Evan. Flashlight beams swung wildly through the factory corridors as their footsteps clattered in a panicked jumble.
Then they saw it.
At the exit on the far side of the factory, a figure stood with its back to them, perfectly still.
Moonlight spilled through a broken skylight onto its shoulders, tracing a blurred outline.
As if it were taunting them.
Blood rushed to Zack's head.
He raised his pistol, aimed at the figure's back, and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The shot exploded through the enclosed factory, setting everyone's ears ringing.
Muzzle flash lit Zack's contorted face.
The bullet hit.
Dark fluid sprayed from the figure's abdomen.
The surrounding thugs erupted in excited shouts.
Every one of them desperately wanted a gun. Seeing what one could do sent their adrenaline surging.
"Get him!"
Zack charged forward, waving his gun.
Then he stopped.
The figure he had shot did not fall.
It slowly turned its head.
A flashlight beam struck its face. Every shout cut off at once, as though an invisible hand had seized their throats.
It was not Evan.
It had a deathly pale, bloodless face.
Its eyes were crimson, with two dark flames burning in its irises.
Its lips parted to reveal two rows of teeth. The two upper canines were far longer than any human's should be—sharp, curved, and glistening wetly.
A stranger.
A monster.
And the bullet wound in its abdomen was healing before their eyes.
Torn skin writhed inward, drawing together and sealing shut as blood flowed back into its body.
Seconds later, the wound was gone. Only a bullet hole remained in its shirt.
"What are you? Who are you?"
Zack's voice pitched upward, shrill as a rat with its tail stepped on.
A gust of wind answered him.
The thing moved.
It was too fast for the flashlights to follow.
In the blink of an eye, it crossed ten meters and appeared before the two thugs in front.
It raised both hands and brought them down.
It carried no weapon. Just ten fingers.
But those fingers were sharper than any blade.
Two heads came off their necks at once.
The cuts were as clean as a surgeon's work. Blood gushed from their necks, drawing two dark-red arcs through the flashlight beams.
The two headless bodies stood for nearly a second before crumpling like puppets with their strings cut.
A scream tore from Zack's throat.
It was too high and broken to sound like a grown man's voice, filled with primal terror.
He raised his gun and pulled the trigger again and again.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
All five bullets hit.
Chest, abdomen, shoulder—each round punched through the thing's body and burst against the wall behind it, spraying brick dust.
The thing did not even break stride.
The bullets left five holes bubbling with blood.
Then the holes began to heal. As with the wound in its abdomen, flesh writhed, drew together, and closed.
Five seconds later, all five bullet holes were gone.
It walked toward the crowd.
It did not run. It walked.
Calmly, unhurriedly, as if out for a stroll.
An iron pipe struck its shoulder. It did not turn around.
A machete split the flesh of its arm, exposing pale bone. Two seconds later, the wound had closed.
It was like an invincible giant advancing on tiny ants.
The ants' screams, struggles, and fear...
None of it could make the giant hesitate or slow down.
The slaughter began.
Evan crouched behind a broken wall some distance away, his pupils dilated to their limits. Sweat had soaked through the back of his shirt.
He had not sensed the monster at all when he entered.
Self-healing, blood-drinking... He must be the Vampire Pulis sent to follow me!
The Night Vision granted by the Night Demon Potion let him see every detail clearly.
The gang thugs who usually bullied everyone around were like chickens herded into a slaughterhouse before that thing.
They screamed and fled. They swung iron pipes and hacked desperately with machetes, but every attack might as well have been a tickle.
The thing moved so fast he could barely make out its afterimages.
Its fingers punched through human skulls as easily as they would wet cardboard.
Its fangs bit through human necks like stalks of sugarcane.
Every fatal wound healed within seconds.
Gunshots, blades, beatings—none of it worked.
Desperate wails echoed through the empty factory, one after another, growing fewer and fainter.
Like candles going out one by one in the wind.
Evan crouched behind the broken wall, his back against the cold bricks and his palms slick with sweat.
The gulf between the two sides was vast enough to crush all hope.
It was not a difference of ten or twenty times. It was a fundamental divide between species.
It was like an ordinary person meeting a fully loaded semitruck coming straight at him at a hundred kilometers an hour and trying to stop it head-on.
You could see it. You could hear it. But you could do nothing.
At that moment, the Threshold between Mortals and Beyonders was brutally clear.
Evan swallowed.
As his Adam's apple bobbed, he noticed his hands were shaking.
But it was not all fear.
Beneath the fear, something more primal and far hotter was burning.
He stared at the figure harvesting lives in the dark, at its fatal wounds healing in seconds, at that absolute power beyond the reach of any physical attack.
I want to become like that too...
After a brief moment of shock, Evan turned and ran.
He sprinted with all his strength, like a rabbit chased by hounds.
It was a Mortal's instinctive response.
He did not know how many pairs of eyes were watching him from the shadows.
But he knew that, under the circumstances, the more he looked like a terrified ordinary person, the safer he would be.
Within a minute, he had left the factory grounds behind and run more than four hundred meters.
The gravel road gave way to a dirt path. Gently sloping Hills thick with trees and wild grass rose on either side, their yellowed tips rustling in the night wind.
In the distance, Bolton City's outline stood clear against the night sky. Its myriad lights looked like crushed gold scattered over black velvet.
The silhouettes of tall concrete buildings and factory chimneys formed a jagged skyline.
A stab of pain forced him to stop.
While ambushing the thugs inside the factory, he had taken two solid blows from clubs across his back.
His adrenaline had been running too high for him to feel much then. Now that he had stopped, the pain surfaced like rocks exposed by a receding tide.
Two swollen ridges had risen across his back. Sweat soaked the bruised skin, which throbbed even when he stood still.
Running was worse. Each swing of his arms tugged at the muscles and skin of his back, multiplying the tearing pain.
He bent over, braced his hands on his knees, and gulped down air.
If Pulis sent him to watch me, he probably isn't here to kill me. I should be safe at this distance.
Once he caught his breath, frustration welled up.
Damn it, how am I supposed to clean this up? More than twenty thugs are dead.
And I had an obvious clash with Zack earlier. There are witnesses and a motive.
The Vampire watching me shouldn't have wanted to make such a mess of things either.
At most, he should've stepped in when I was in danger, scared those men off, and left it at that.
Then I could've used Pulis's name as protection and had an easier time on Gooding Street.
So why did this guy suddenly lose his mind and start slaughtering them?
Evan could not make sense of it.
He had too little information. It was like feeling his way through thick fog: he could see only a small patch of ground beneath his feet, with nothing but unknowns all around.
Thud.
Lost in thought, he caught his right foot on a Stone jutting from the path.
He pitched forward and threw out his hands to catch himself. His palms scraped across rough dirt and gravel, stinging fiercely.
He looked down. Directly beneath his neck lay a length of triangular construction steel, dropped by some passing carriage.
Half was buried in the dirt, while the other half pointed skyward. The edges of its broken end were sharp as a knife.
If his hands had not caught him, his weight and momentum would have driven his neck straight onto it.
Evan's pupils shrank to pinpoints.
He slowly pushed himself up. The bruises on his back protested sharply at the movement.
Tense muscles pulled at the swollen, blood-filled skin. Sweat seeped into every pore, and he grimaced in pain.
"Ow, ow, ow..."
Once he had steadied himself, he looked down at the steel again, shaken.
Then his mind suddenly cleared.
Wait. I've been having bad luck all day.
What if that Vampire isn't one of Pulis's men?
Or what if he was, but he suddenly lost control?
The moment the thought surfaced, Evan's scalp prickled.
The Misfortune Curse was still in effect.
And an out-of-control Vampire was the deadliest coincidence misfortune could arrange.
His heightened Perception made him turn instinctively.
Five meters away.
A dark figure stood there. He had no idea when it had appeared. It made no sound, as though it had grown out of the earth.
Bullet-riddled clothes hung from its body, strips of fabric fluttering gently in the night wind.
In the moonlight, its skin had a sickly pallor that was almost fluorescent.
Its crimson eyes had no pupils. Its entire irises seemed to burn.
Its upper lip curled back, exposing two impossibly long fangs. A drop of dark liquid clung to one tip, slowly drawing out into a thin thread beneath the moonlight.
It's here...