Nisha led the grim procession—two reluctant hunters and five scowling, disciplined pureblood vampires—down a steep, crumbling ramp into a forgotten part of Brooklyn's underbelly. The final barrier was a massive, rusted steel plate.
"Every ingress point has been concreted shut," Nisha explained, her voice echoing in the close, damp space. "This is the only way in or out of the primary distribution hub. It's a single point of failure and a secure choke point."
Blade, his eyes scanning the pipe-like tunnel for tripwires and booby traps, spoke with his usual dry sarcasm. "A fortified sewer junction. Very clever. I'll make a note of this tactical vulnerability for my next consultation session with the Grand Duke."
"And entirely moot," added a disembodied voice from the shadows to their left. It was Zhou Yi, his Optical Camouflage System working perfectly, rendering the massive Dawn Knight armor completely invisible.
"For someone with sufficient air superiority and penetration capabilities, this structure would be little more than a hardened target for a dive-bombing run. A simple application of force, and this 'choke point' becomes a crushing trap."
The two men, despite their temporary alliance, continued to offer wildly divergent assessments of the terrain, reflecting their opposing methodologies. Blade favored the pragmatic, subterranean crawl—scout, infiltrate, eliminate.
Zhou Yi preferred the surgical strike from above—unleash overwhelming power, then vanish. The Vampire Guard bristled at the casual, open conversation about demolishing their chief blood den, a tangible display of their diminished status.
Nisha, however, ignored the banter, focusing on logistics. "We are splitting up the moment we enter. We will maintain communication via these earpieces. They utilize a highly secure, proprietary frequency." She passed small, flesh-colored comms to Blade and her Guard.
She paused, looking at the empty air where the Dawn Knight should have been. "And for the Knight who refuses to use human technology…"
"Don't worry, Princess," Zhou Yi's voice pulsed directly into the secure line in her ear, causing her to jump slightly. "Consider your proprietary signal decoded and integrated. You won't have to fret about me missing a distress signal—or a key piece of intelligence."
"Fine," Nisha bit out, suppressing her annoyance. "One final rule: you are entering our world. The House of Pain is a den of vice and ritualistic feeding. You will see things that might provoke your human sensibilities. Do not forget the R-variant is the target. Our customs are secondary."
Blade cinched his gloves tighter. "Relax, Day Walker won't forget," he promised, the title a subtle jab at her own choice of epithet for him.
Zhou Yi's unseen voice was more diplomatic. "The guest will follow the host's lead. Your rules are understood."
Nisha gave a curt nod. She gestured, and the two purebloods assigned to the entrance levers disengaged the heavy locking mechanism. The last concrete barrier lifted slowly, groaning under its own weight, revealing the subterranean world of the vampire.
The moment the seal broke, a wall of sensory assault hit them.
The air was thick and heavy—a complex, nauseating miasma of hot human sweat, expensive, aggressive cologne, stale smoke, raw alcohol, and the pungent, unmistakable metallic tang of fresh, spilled blood. The music was not merely loud; it was a physical force, a deep, resonant bass rhythm that vibrated in the chest cavity and made the eye sockets rattle.
Strobe lights, blindingly bright and strobing at seizure-inducing speeds, cut through the cavernous space. This was not a club; it was an underground stadium transformed into a Temple of Excess.
Everywhere, bodies—vampires and bewildered, terrified, or heavily drugged humans—writhed in a chaotic, perpetual display of provocative and dangerous ritual.
This was New York's central blood den, a place where the rules of human morality and constraint were violently discarded.
"Split up," Reihart barked, eager to escape Blade's immediate scrutiny and the humiliation of his recent defeat. He shoved Chubba into the crush of bodies and disappeared into the throbbing crowd, the silver explosive device still throbbing faintly on the back of his head—a constant, infuriating reminder of who was in charge.
Blade, his attention already elsewhere, simply turned and smiled—a cold, flash of white teeth in the darkness. "No argument here. I see an acquaintance I need to catch up with." He slipped away, his black leather trench coat instantly swallowed by the chaos, heading for an unlucky target he likely needed to interrogate—or kill.
Nisha felt a flicker of intense rage. Ostensibly, she was the sole heir of the Grand Duke, the future Grand Duchess. Yet, here, she was treated as little more than a diplomat for her father's panic.
To the old, entrenched purebloods, she was merely the future—a status that meant nothing when their patriarch had ruled for centuries and could continue to do so indefinitely. Her authority was merely political window dressing for a tactical retreat.
"Dawn Knight, are you still…" she began, turning to the spot where her armored ally had stood.
She was alone. The invisible sentinel had vanished without a sound or a warning.
Nisha sighed, a soft, defeated sound that no one heard. Abandoned by the two most powerful beings present, she chose a less frantic side passage, determined to begin her search alone, her political pride battling her strategic necessity.
Zhou Yi had indeed disappeared, but not in flight. He had activated the Optical Camouflage and then quickly discarded the entire suit, allowing the high-tech fabric to condense into a compact, inert sphere—its thermal signature completely dampened—which he concealed in a ventilation shaft.
He was now simply Zhou Yi, the human, navigating the chaos in simple dark clothing. This was his true advantage: blending in, being underestimated, and observing the environment without the psychic barrier of the armor.
From this new perspective—that of an affluent, curious tourist—he had to admit the vampire culture was deeply, bizarrely fascinating.
He saw a pair of dancers engage in an intimate, slow exchange: a male and female vampire, their faces inches apart, tenderly exchanging tiny, decorative razor blades between their tongues.
They kissed, the razors flashing, and drew tiny rivulets of blood from each other's mouths, the prize being the co-mingling of their plasma. It was a bizarre, sensual competition of dexterity and pain tolerance.
Nearby, a middle-aged pureblood, clearly attempting to impress two younger companions, struck a pose of defiant, muscled strength—a theatrical, Terminator-esque figure of self-proclaimed coolness. He pulled out a small, ornate scalpel and began to systematically shave off the skin and muscle from his forearm, exposing the pale tendons beneath.
Zhou Yi watched the onlookers' lack of reaction and chuckled inwardly. It's gruesome, yes, he mused, but the raw desire for approval is oddly universal, even when you're literally flaying yourself.
The true spectacle, however, was in a dim corner near a bar. A bald female vampire was splayed face-down on a bar top, her back entirely exposed. Using precision tools, a pair of other vampires were carefully cutting and peeling the skin and separating the muscle on either side of her spinal column, working toward the lumbar region.
Zhou Yi's enhanced vision clearly discerned the pale, exposed vertebrae, the dense network of nerves, and the pulsing vessels. The girl was still, moaning softly, clearly experiencing a form of ecstatic, ritualistic pleasure.
This, Zhou Yi thought, sipping a glass of absinthe he'd procured from a terrified human waiter, this is genuinely next-level decadence. If Tony could see this, he'd either instantly freak out and call in the Air Force, or he'd try to invest. I should regret not bringing a camera, but I can't risk exposing the extent of my surveillance capabilities.
His internal analysis was one of detached, scientific amusement. It confirmed that the purebloods were utterly consumed by their own rituals and self-importance, making them blind to the external threat—the perfect, self-made targets for the R-variants.
As he observed, a ripple of movement brought him closer to the main dance floor. Several wildly gyrating vampires, their movements predatory and uncontrolled, noticed the well-dressed, confident human standing alone. They began to close in, their intentions clearly hostile or, at best, territorial.
But before they could reach him, a blur of motion dragged him onto the dance floor.
She was startlingly beautiful—a young vampire, perhaps only a decade or two into her immortal life. Her long, shiny golden hair was braided into dozens of tiny, unruly punk braids.
Despite her heavy black makeup and chaotic style, her face retained a delicate, almost boyish sweetness. She was small but perfectly formed, with the powerful, slim waist of a trained athlete and the seductive curves of a mature woman.
She didn't ask; she simply grabbed his waist and launched into a frenetic, serpentine dance, pressing against him and writhing with aggressive energy.
Zhou Yi, ever the pragmatist, would never refuse such an attractive, unexpected approach, even if the creature in his arms was a vampire. He felt a brief flicker of professional regret that such beauty was wasted on the undead, but quickly dismissed it. This was an unexpected privilege—a non-human girl who was now his for the game.
The girl, sensing his powerful, unyielding grip, responded with increased, wild laughter. She was utterly shameless, pulling him deeper into the swirling vortex of the dance floor.
However, her possessiveness was immediately noticed. They were quickly blocked by a cluster of male vampires who clearly interpreted her bold, public appropriation of the human as a direct challenge—an act of stealing food in this territorial environment.
The vampire girl, her face twitching with primal fury, snarled—a guttural sound that barely reached Zhou Yi's ears. She turned and delivered a vicious, bone-jarring kick that shattered the shin of one male vampire and sent another sprawling.
Zhou Yi, however, handled the remaining threats with his own refined brutality. As a third vampire lunged, his fangs bared, Zhou Yi didn't use a flashy move. He simply threw a short, explosive, enhanced hook that connected with the vampire's cheekbone, delivering enough force to instantly shatter the orbital bone and the nose into fragments.
The resulting blow sent the creature crumpling to the floor, coughing out pieces of splintered fangs and bone. A second attacker met a similarly concise fate, his ribs collapsing under a single, hammer-like forearm strike.
The brief, savage action stunned the surrounding vampires. This was not the struggle of an ordinary human; this was the effortless, overwhelming strength of an elite apex predator moving through a herd of cattle.
"Looks like someone's making friends."
The deep, gravelly voice of Blade cut through the loud music. He emerged from the crowd, having finished his "acquaintance" meeting (the vampire in question was likely now a smear on a wall), and paused to survey the two crumpled figures and the young vampire girl clinging to Zhou Yi.
Blade ignored the whimpering cowards fleeing and looked at the fallen hybrids, his surprise evident. "Not bad, my friend. You handle yourself well for an outsider. I expected you to be nothing more than a cocktail."
The man on the ground was a hybrid—stronger than any ordinary human soldier. To dispatch him with such casual, non-supernatural brutality required immense, specialized strength. It was the perfect cover story: a hyper-elite human mercenary, a friend of the Daywalker.
Zhou Yi, his expression unreadable as he held the golden-haired girl tighter, returned the compliment with effortless composure. "Your coat is also very nice, my friend. Where did you get the leather?"
The exchange was flawless—a conversation designed for the ears of the remaining purebloods, establishing Zhou Yi as a mysterious, highly capable human operative: a potential resource, but clearly Blade's problem.
Life was indeed a play, and Zhou Yi was a master actor. Blade, the most suspicious and cautious hunter in the world, remained entirely convinced that the man he was currently chatting with was not the same entity he had watched vanish in a column of light an hour earlier—the same man who had just hacked his temporary allies' secure communications and destroyed a railway car with a vampire inside it.
The music continued to thunder, the chaos only slightly subdued by the glimpse of raw power. With the immediate threat neutralized and the cover story firmly established, Zhou Yi and Blade were now perfectly positioned—two lone wolves working in concert, deep within the heart of the enemy's territory, waiting for the true predators to appear. The hunt had begun.