The following night.
An undisguised, white-haired figure wandered brazenly through the streets of Magic City.
He moved very quickly, sometimes turning into shadow, sometimes revealing his original form.
He had visited every location near Pearl Academy, and he also had Ling Ling providing remote intelligence support. Now, at the slightest rustle of wind through grass, he could set off immediately.
"Lu Ling, there are several beef warehouses along the Huangpu River. People from the Black Vatican might be lying in wait there, if that Mo Fan fellow learns about the shadow beast."
"I know... Tch."
"Fuck."
"Lu Ling?"
"Nothing. There's something filthy here!"
Meanwhile, in the basement of an unnamed factory.
Rows of wine racks stood here, filled with all kinds of expensive red wine. They were carefully tended here, wiped down diligently, and free of even a speck of dust.
The basement was very clean, but more than that, it was eerily quiet.
Listening carefully, one could hear an extremely faint dripping in the darkness, maintaining a very steady rhythm.
At the very center of the basement stood a round table. Two slender, delicately built girls were bound together on its partially openwork surface. Like twins, they occupied the black and white positions of a yin-yang diagram within the eight trigrams, lying on their sides facing one another.
They could see each other's upside-down faces, but their consciousness was already hazy and their bodies limp and powerless. They wanted to speak, yet lacked even the strength to make a sound.
Both their wrists bore cuts. That mysterious dripping was actually the blood falling from their wrists!
The blood dripped onto the floor, but not directly. An ancient circular formation had been drawn there, its pattern strange and mysterious, forming a unique circuit along grooves chiseled into the floor.
After the blood that dripped into it traveled once around the circular formation, it turned into an utterly eerie, sinister energy and burrowed madly into the bodies of the two girls, whose faces were almost identical.
It frantically corroded and transformed their fragile human bodies. This transformation was painful for them, but they could not escape it. Their upper canine teeth could be seen slowly lengthening.
Liu Ru was still conscious. She could feel her blood draining away, and no longer even knew how long it had been flowing.
The only reason she had not died after losing blood for so long was that eerie pattern beneath her body. Her blood had already changed... She did not know what it had become.
She could see her older sister before her. Liu Xian had already closed her eyes, and she did not know whether she was asleep or unconscious.
She was in such pain, such torment. Was she now going to walk the road to the Yellow Springs together with her sister?
A faint smile appeared on her pained face as she looked at Liu Xian with regret and helplessness.
Forget it. This is fine too. At least my sister won't have to work so hard anymore. At least I'll be with her in this dark, lonely world. At least I haven't been separated from her...
"Tap, tap, tap..."
In this underground world cut off from everything outside, the sound of high heels striking the floor was so clear, incomparably distinct in the spacious wine cellar.
A seductive woman in a black dress came up beside the sisters. Her voice was full of allure, with a trace of excitement.
"Thank me. I have bestowed eternal life and a nobler bloodline upon you! And I can even grant you the privilege of eternal youth! And both of you will become the most beautiful pieces in my collection!"
The vampire woman was extremely excited. She laughed beguilingly, eventually even becoming frenzied.
Even Liu Xian, whose eyes had already closed, was startled awake by that piercing laughter. Neither sister spoke, as though they had resigned themselves to their fate.
"Space Rhythm, Stasis."
"Who's there!?"
The vampire woman turned around in alarm and saw a white-haired youth with an icy expression, his body suffused with an incomparably eerie, scarlet blood aura.
When did he get here!? He actually evaded my senses!
The vampire woman was just about to move when she discovered that her body seemed completely restrained. It was as though an immense weight of ten thousand catties pressed down hard upon her, crushing every corner of her body. Even her blood had congealed as a result.
Eighth Realm mental strength rivaled a Lesser Heavenly Seed. With such an unreasonable amplification, even a casual restraint was enough to render this Warrior Level vampire immobile.
"Giant Shadow Nail, Dark Decree." Lu Ling waved a hand casually, completing an eerie, dark Star Map with a single thought. Five Giant Shadow Nails flew out together and pierced the vampire woman's shadow.
The Giant Shadow Nail restrained the soul. Even Dark Creatures like vampires could not possibly be immune to its control.
Under these two layers of restraint, the vampire woman could no longer resist. Her eyes widened as she stared at the person before her in utter shock.
She did not understand why this remote place had been discovered.
"It seems I didn't finish killing all of you two years ago."
Lu Ling walked over slowly, an icy aura spreading from his entire body. The air seemed to drop to freezing, and merely being near him sent a shiver through one's body.
"I've never understood. You clearly depend on human society to survive, yet you dare act so brazenly."
It was him!? He was the one who killed them!
Fear welled up within her, and the vampire woman's body trembled uncontrollably.
Two years ago, she had inexplicably lost contact with her vampire elder, becoming a free vampire without any restrictions.
For these past two years, she had savored the pleasures of freedom, indulging without restraint in the nourishment of fresh blood.
Then she had encountered two twin sisters with lovely faces but different temperaments, and had wanted to turn them into her thralls.
"Besides you, who else is there?" Lu Ling released part of the restraint, granting this ignorant vampire the right to speak.
"I don't know!"
The vampire woman cried out in terror, begging for mercy. Naturally, what answered her was the dazzling radiance of magic.
"Chaos Magic Blade."
The white-haired youth formed his right hand into a blade and swung it instantly. A blade of absolute darkness and chaos severed the vampire woman at the waist. Empowered by Eighth Realm mental strength, the chaos blade cut through the Warrior Level vampire's flesh as though it were made of paper.
"Aah!!!"
The vampire woman's heart-rending screams immediately echoed throughout the basement.
Lu Ling could not be bothered with all that. With a casual Mind Control, he moved her fallen lower half away, then tossed out a Fire Burst for good measure, burning part of her body right before the vampire woman's eyes.
"Do you have any associates? Elders, peers, anyone like that?"
"No..."
"Holy Radiance, Holy Light, Purification."
Endless Light Element gathered once more, burrowing madly into the vampire woman's body. Under the burning divine light, white steam had even begun rising from her body.
Finding her screams too noisy, Lu Ling raised a chaos barrier to block the sound.
This vampire was far too uninteresting. She had no information whatsoever.
Paying her no further attention, Lu Ling turned his focus to the two sisters, who were still undergoing transformation on the blood diagram formation. Silver light flickered in his eyes, and invisible spatial power untied the ropes binding Liu Ru and Liu Xian.
Both their bodies were very weak now. Even with the ropes untied, they could not get up immediately.
"Thank you for saving us." Liu Xian barely propped herself up and thanked him in an extremely weak voice.
"What are your names...?"
"My name is Liu Xian..." Beside her, Liu Ru barely propped herself up and revealed a meaningful smile. Despite her weakness, she continued speaking.
"I'm sorry," Lu Ling said with a complicated expression.
The two looked so alike that he had already guessed.
He had clearly made a deliberate effort to prevent this before, even killing Nie Dong ahead of time, yet he had never imagined that the sisters would still struggle to escape their ill fate. Fortunately, this time, Liu Xian had survived.