While Lynn was dealing with the vampires on the surface of the building, Deacon Frost had already led his subordinates down to the underground.
The entire basement had been transformed beyond recognition, with numerous construction traces still not removed—Blade had come too suddenly.
Deacon needed to perform the ritual immediately.
He could already hear the screams of his subordinates. Blade was on his way.
Arriving at the meticulously constructed third level, beneath the center of the dome lay a pitch-black book page with no visible text. Yet powerful dark magic was continuously emanating from it. Any mage with even a slight understanding of magical energy would recognize that the page before them contained some kind of unparalleled magical power.
Deacon quickly walked to the center of the page, gathering the magical energy while the vampire guards watched him display his extraordinary power. His bat wings opened as the magical energy gradually grew more violent. Those guards felt an indescribable fear and hurriedly ran out of the stone chamber without any hesitation, leaving those half-dead pure bloods behind.
"You... where did you find the Crimson Codex?"
"Crimson Codex? Your ignorance truly amuses me. That's just a term invented by the elders of other clans. This is not some Crimson Codex. This is a gift left by the great Creator, a glimpse of magnificent power. You dull-witted fools cannot possibly comprehend what I've found." His tone grew increasingly frenzied while the dark magic seemed to complete its initial release under Deacon's manipulation.
A crimson beam shot out, hitting one of the elders. His body rapidly shriveled as large amounts of dark magic were extracted and gathered toward Deacon's body. And this was just the beginning.
Soon, numerous crimson light beams connected Deacon and those elders. Using the magic from the dark divine book, he was purifying his bloodline. The dark magic continuously entered his body using life as a medium, and Deacon's entire body was undergoing imperceptible changes.
Meanwhile, Blade sliced a vampire guard into ashes. Even though Lynn had attracted most of the firepower, Deacon had still left considerable forces by his side.
These guys' heavy armor seemed specifically designed to counter Blade, rendering his firearms completely ineffective. Only by using the blade left to him by Whistler could he effectively kill these heavily armored vampire soldiers.
With a quick step forward, his blade swiftly pierced the weak point in a vampire guard's armor. Soon the guard was howling as he lost his left arm. Blade quickly withdrew his blade, using the guard as cover while counterattacking with another strike, the blade heading straight for the heart through the exposed wound on the arm.
In less than ten seconds, he had killed a heavily armored veteran vampire. If combat had a talent, then Blade's talent was clearly stronger than most vampires present. But he still needed time to break through these guards' blockade.
At the same time, Lynn's psychic tentacles turned several severely wounded vampires into ashes, while injecting the dark magical energy and life force from their bodies into other vampires. These vampires visibly became healthier and soon stood up supporting themselves.
While these vampire guards were still dazed, a unified voice appeared in their minds: "Attention."
Kara's flesh buds had already rooted into their brains and spinal cords, forming a complex network in their nervous systems. Just like a crab parasite controlling a crab, Kara had completely controlled their thoughts. If she wanted, she could even fully control these vampires' breathing and heartbeats.
The voice in their minds brought an irresistible command. They quickly stood at attention, ignoring their still-aching bodies, and lined up on this floor. It was as if they had once been in the military or somewhere similar. Or in words more familiar to Lynn, Kara was connecting them.
"Your ability is perfect. The test is very successful, Kara."
"It's as expected, Doctor, thanks to your efforts."
"Have them cooperate with Jekyll and move out. We'll continue upward. The vampires must have a leader stopping them. We've only encountered sporadic resistance on our way up, which doesn't match their previous strong offensive."
Lynn looked at the decoration of this floor. Clearly the lower floors of this building should be office areas. Considering these vampires' business, Lynn was certain that employees would come to work in this building during the day.
He didn't see any problem with working for vampires and would be happy to take over a building with a mature management system. He just wondered whether these floors were rented out or used by themselves.
"Doctor, these vampires have assembled. Shall we continue the attack?"
"Have them attack upward. These combat employees are not our targets. This building should have other more important figures. Let's move out. We want to take over this building, and these security forces aren't of much use. We need to find someone at the administrative level to find a breakthrough."
"Understood, Doctor."
Kara quickly ordered these vampires under her control to organize their weapons and set out. After seeing that light weapons had no effect on Jekyll and Tom, these vampires would certainly bring out larger caliber weapons. These vampires could serve as good distractions.
Afterward, Lynn encountered no further obstacles. They went all the way up, arriving near the stairs. The area above was Deacon's private space. That hall divided the entire administrative area of the building, and Lynn indeed felt the unique dark life energy from above.
He slightly raised his arm, signaling Kara and the others to stop temporarily.
"Let Jekyll and Tom go first."
The two beast soldiers didn't hesitate at all, directly walking up the stairs. The moment Jekyll's figure appeared in the dark hall, the entire hall erupted with gunfire. Large amounts of ammunition rained down on Jekyll's chitin armor. At the same time, following the trajectory guidance of tracer bullets, two rockets whistled toward Jekyll and Tom.
The violent explosion kicked up a cloud of dust. Tom couldn't withstand this kind of attack capable of destroying heavy armor and was severely injured after being directly hit by the rocket.
But Jekyll remained unscathed. Apart from some scorch marks on his black chitin shell, he had barely suffered any damage.
Of course, Jekyll wouldn't continue to just take hits. Using the dust cloud as cover, he leaped up, jumping directly to the second floor of the hall. His spinning heavy fist tore through the air, directly sending a circle of vampires flying like bowling pins.
"Heavy firepower! Continue attacking!"
While these vampires were hurriedly preparing heavy firepower to continue attacking Jekyll, large numbers of vampires controlled by Kara filed in. When they were in chaos because of Jekyll, these vampire guards under Kara's control decisively attacked. Bullets from both sides hit each other's bodies.
Although they couldn't kill each other, these vampires couldn't ignore the impact force of the bullets. Even as superhumans, they would become exhausted under such continuous heavy blows.
Lynn and Kara didn't join the battle above. Kara connected with each vampire individual under her control. If she wanted, she could share the vision of any one of them at any time.
"Doctor, no high-level vampire individuals have appeared."
"Be patient, Kara. Big fish won't take the bait so easily. Give them some time."
"But Ramochis has been damaged. As expected, balanced-type individuals don't have enough defense when facing anti-heavy firepower."
"It's only lost its combat capability, Doctor. As long as we can successfully recover it, given its current condition, it can still self-recover."
"Have two vampires bring him down."
While Lynn was waiting for Maria to take the bait, Maria was angrily rushing toward the hall where the battle was taking place. The power of the pure blood was fully displayed at this moment.
Each of her movements involved a mist-form teleportation, and her speed was also beyond normal, reaching a level almost imperceptible to the naked eye.
Maria had gathered all remaining troops. She couldn't understand why her subordinate vampires had lost control. These mixed-blood vampires should be unable to disobey pure bloods because of the dark magic energy.
But that didn't matter. Although the black beetle monster might be strong, it wasn't beyond handling. Maria was confident she could defeat that guy.
This was the confidence that being a pure blood gave her.
Charging into the battlefield with the last batch of building security forces, Maria immediately saw Jekyll tossing vampire guards like balls in the darkness with her superhuman vision.
Just then, another rocket hit him. But it only left some marks on his shell. The "smoke without injury" rule still applied.
Lynn now also felt that corrupted dark power.
"High-level vampire... Kara, you stay below and order those soldiers to stay away from Jekyll. They can't interfere in the upcoming battle."
As if to confirm what Lynn said, Maria revealed the true form of a pure blood vampire the moment she entered the battle, transforming into a massive gargoyle-like beast.
Perhaps because her original form was female, this gargoyle's body was somewhat slender, while still retaining some female-specific characteristics.
To make an improper comparison, it was like Lilith and Diablo, but the slender body didn't change her pure blood essence.
Her massive claws, wrapped in dark magic, mercilessly struck Jekyll's chitin shell. The evil flesh empowered by dark magic was incomparably stronger than those mixed bloods. For the first time, Jekyll's shell was pierced.
Fortunately, he reacted quickly, his giant fist swiftly counterattacking, his momentum not at all inferior to Maria's vampire form.
But Jekyll didn't land his hit. A shield composed of black magic blocked his attack, and Maria kicked Jekyll, sending him flying.
"Weakling! How dare you invade this place!"
Apparently, there was no fear in their minds.
Lynn was watching all this from below the stairs, but he didn't engage in the battle. Instead, he calmly assessed Maria before him.
"She should be the managerial-level character here. Blade must have the ability to kill pure bloods, otherwise he wouldn't be so confident when facing Deacon. So her combat power in this world shouldn't be too high.
Jekyll hasn't received a fatal wound. The Ramochis type is sufficient to maintain security in this world, but considering HYDRA's and AIM's technological prowess...
Perhaps Jekyll's current condition could be considered somewhat combat-capable. After all, Blade seems not at all afraid of this vampire, and if they fought, he should have several methods to defeat Jekyll.
Her dark magic energy is troublesome. Jekyll's defense can withstand direct attacks from small-caliber tank cannons, yet it couldn't block her attack. It seems that's not something physical armor can protect against.
Perhaps energy defense needs to be considered...
Well, let me continue to see how powerful a vampire pure blood is."
Lynn made an initial assessment of Jekyll. He wanted to see how far Jekyll could go in battle against this pure blood.
The fighting among other vampires also continued, but their battle was not that important. Still, it had to be maintained, because even a small tilt of the balance could affect the final outcome of the battle.
Maria's claws swung frantically. Perhaps her power was sufficient, but she wasn't an outstanding warrior.
But the same was true for Jekyll.
Neither had undergone systematic combat training, but precisely because of this, Lynn could witness a battle that relied almost entirely on brute force. This would better allow him to assess how strong his creation's combat power really was.
"Kara."
"I'm here, Doctor."
"Help me record some thoughts."
While observing the battle between Jekyll and Kara, Lynn was collecting data through his superpower.
But as he was using his ability, Maria finally noticed Lynn.
After all, that purple light was too conspicuous, with almost no possibility of concealment. For some reason, a vague fear welled up in Maria's heart.
As if she had seen something terrifying, this made her movements slow down.
Jekyll seized the opportunity of her distraction, grabbing her lower limbs. Before Maria could react, an enormous force slammed her to the ground.
Fortunately, the black magic shield blocked the impact, preventing her from suffering too much damage.
When Jekyll was about to continue his pursuit, Maria's body suddenly blurred, instantly exploding into a cloud of smoke that dispersed, then quickly condensing back into physical form behind him.
"Mist ability, interesting, more like a supernatural ability close to magic. Their physical strength isn't particularly extraordinary, not exceeding the level of beast soldiers. But she should be a relatively weak vampire."
While Lynn was still evaluating Maria, Jekyll had gradually fallen into a disadvantage. In terms of strength, he wasn't inferior, but in terms of ability to cause damage, he seemed to be countered by that strange black magic. His single attack method couldn't break through that black magic shield.
After all, he wasn't the Hulk and didn't have that kind of force-breaking-all-laws power.
At the same time, his chitin shell had only undergone preliminary conditioning and wasn't yet capable of defending against too bizarre energy attacks. The damage caused by those black magic claws was real.
Although the wounds were all rather shallow, these small injuries were enough to continually drain Jekyll's stamina.
"At the current stage, Jekyll is not a match..."
Lynn quickly made his assessment after evaluating their battle.
"Then now it's time for me to put in some effort. I really hope this kind of situation doesn't occur too often in the future."
Lynn took a step forward. In that instant, Maria directly mist-formed her body, transforming into black smoke that flashed rapidly, appearing in front of Lynn within a few breaths.
Those huge bat wings even blocked the firelight generated by the surrounding crossfire.
Maria didn't even dare to talk tough in front of Lynn. That purple psychic energy made her very uncomfortable. She wanted to end this quickly.
But her claws just stopped there, stuck in front of a wall of purple psychic energy, unable to penetrate.
That dark magic and Lynn's purple psychic energy continuously burned each other.
Just as Maria was about to retreat, Lynn's entire body overflowed with purple psychic energy. Numerous psychic tentacles emerged from the void, wrapping around her body.
At the same time, Lynn lightly stroked from between his temples, and that psychic energy, almost solidified into substance, wrapped around his hand, almost emitting electric arcs.
Maria was still entangled in place by Lynn's psychic tentacles, unable to move. She tried to mist-form, but the dark magic in her body was interfered with by Lynn's purple psychic energy, completely disobeying her commands.
Before she could utter a plea for mercy, the psychic attack in Lynn's hand, which had almost illuminated the entire battlefield, had already been triggered.
With a terrifying buzz, all vampires on site simultaneously clutched their heads, including Jekyll.
It was as if their brains were about to explode.
Only Kara operated her stolen tablet computer impassively, recording the notes Lynn had told her earlier.
This attack, entwined with electric arcs and psychic flames, effortlessly penetrated Maria's body, continuing forward until it pierced through the entire building's outer wall, drawing a barely discernible purple arc in the New York night sky before stopping.
Along the way, several unfortunate vampires hit by Lynn were directly ignited by the purple electric arcs and flames, their bodies burning fiercely with purple fire. They fell to the ground, screaming in agony.
Lynn placed one foot on the now-human-formed Maria's pretty face, his body still rippling with residual purple psychic waves.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm giving you one chance to surrender." His voice reached directly into the minds of everyone present, as if whispering right beside them.
A few seconds later, all the vampire guards dropped their weapons, raised their hands, and gave up resistance.
"A wise choice. Kara, take over these smart friends."
After this, Lynn looked at Maria under his foot. This pure blood hadn't actually died, but she was looking at Lynn with a fawning gaze.
Lynn removed his foot, then crouched down to whisper in her ear:
"As for you, my dear friend, I'll save you for last."
After this, Lynn patted her cheek. It was plump and felt nice.
"Do you need me to control her, Doctor?"
"Do what you need to do, Kara. Now I have one more thing to ask you—where is the elevator that goes directly underground?"
Maria didn't conceal anything at all. Lynn quickly pressed the button, then quietly waited for the elevator to descend. When he approached the third basement level, enormous explosion sounds and numerous roars reached his ears.
It seemed Blade and the Blood God had been fighting for quite some time.
"Let me see how powerful this version of the Blood God is."