Chapter 15 The Battlefield

At the same moment, in another corner of this shadow city ablaze with fire, on a small hill near the Lucas family's residence, three figures stood on a prominent rock, watching the city below filled with smoke. Two of them were tall, imposing men, and the other was a petite, slightly frail woman. All three wore identical black trench coats and carried enormous, intricately designed combat crossbows on their backs. The man standing at the front had graying short hair, several shocking scars on his face, and an eye patch over one eye. His expression was grim as he watched the raging fire below the hill without a hint of pity.

The other tall man beside him had dark skin and a shaved head, looking somewhat like a South American of African descent. He closed his eyes slightly, as if listening to news from afar, then opened them and looked at his leader. "Elder Hassu, the attack on the west side has been contained."

"The west side... is that the vampire group called the Hespera family?" The one-eyed man, called Elder Hassu, nodded. "Those vampires seem to be a bit different from the usual kind. They seem rather troublesome?"

"They have set up machine-gun bunkers, tank cannons, landmines, grenade launchers, and chemical weapons and poison gas traps, and all these weapons have magical effects," the dark-skinned man said with a strange expression. "It's like we're attacking a human fortress, not fighting vampires. Those light and heavy weapons are very troublesome to deal with; there are too many. And the messages from the front mention that those vampires can even resist holy power. Holy water and exorcism spells from the demon hunters have almost no effect on them."

Hassu looked slightly surprised. "Resist holy power? That reminds me of a very old elder... I hope she isn't involved in this..."

"Who are you referring to?"

"Never mind, don't worry about it," Hassu shook his head. "It shouldn't be her. She's not a true vampire; she can't pass on her bloodline power to so many people. In any case, increase the intensity of the attack on the west side. Those vampires may have researched something while hiding in the sanctuary for thousands of years. We can't let them pass on these results to other heretics."

"Is it necessary to destroy the entire city?" The female demon hunter who had been silent all along suddenly spoke. She looked like a girl of only eighteen or nineteen years old, and the most striking thing about her was her snow-white long hair; even her eyebrows were the same white color. She looked at the burning city below with a strange expression on her face, even mixed with a hint of imperceptible regret. "They haven't hurt anyone for thousands of years."

"Bai Huo, put away your useless pity," Hassu glanced at the white-haired girl with a detached but authoritative gaze. "The people they killed thousands of years ago are more than all the people you will ever know in your life. They have been quiet for these thousands of years only because they couldn't find an opportunity to cause trouble."

"I just think it's a pity to destroy this city like this..." The young demon hunter named Bai Huo quickly defended herself. "And there are at least a few civilians in the city, right?"

"When Mohenjo-daro was destroyed, no one pleaded for the civilians in the city. Neither did Knossos—they were destroyed simply because the sacrificial offerings were not fresh enough, or because someone in the city did not go to the temple to worship on the day of the festival," Hassu crossed his arms and looked indifferently at the fire in the city. "The creatures in this city and their entire race are not worthy of pity. The only regrettable thing that happened here is that they died two or three thousand years too late."

Hassu's reprimand made Bai Huo lower her head and dare not speak. The dark-skinned giant beside her glanced silently at this young disciple. "Bai Huo, you are the most talented demon hunter in history, but your only flaw is this inexplicable sympathy. Perhaps nature has a law of balancing everything in the dark, and it uses this useless sympathy as the price for your talent—you must be vigilant at all times and not let this strange mentality affect your future."

Bai Huo bowed deeply. "Yes, I will remember your teachings, Master Tutankhein."

Hassu frowned slightly as he listened to his long-time assistant educating the gifted but problematic "prodigy." He knew that there were not a few "new generation" demon hunters like Bai Huo who had curiosity about heretics and even doubts about the mission of demon hunters, but this girl was too outstanding to not stand out. The saints had already noticed this a hundred years ago and conducted a secret statistic, and found that almost 40 to 50 percent of the demon hunters inherited to a certain generation had this phenomenon of wavering beliefs. From the initial demon hunter to the new demon hunter with problems, it was about seven to eight generations. This phenomenon appeared so densely in a specific generation or two, and it occurred all over the world, so it could not be explained by improper education or environmental factors. The reason was not external, but internal.

Perhaps there was something wrong with the bloodline.

Or perhaps, as that heretical scholar who was executed last month said—a certain deviation in the bloodline was about to be corrected.

Hassu shook his head and stopped thinking about these things that made him feel vaguely frightened. He had lived for too long, and certain things were as deeply rooted in his heart as the truth. He was unwilling to believe, or even hypothesize, the possibility that these truths would collapse one day. But he also wanted to verify some guesses, so he took a great risk, using his authority as an "elder" as a guarantee, to make a deal with the evil heretics in this city, wanting to see if similar situations had occurred in the new generation of heretics, but he was very sorry, and of course, perhaps very relieved, to find that at least the Shadow Demons had not changed: the latest generation of Shadow Demons were still as greedy and cunning as their ancestors, and they were unusually cruel and indifferent to any creatures other than their own race.

The bloodline of the demon hunter was indeed fundamentally different from that of the heretics. Even if the new generation of demon hunters began to have some strange problems, this at least proved the purity of the demon hunters in terms of bloodline.

As one of the oldest demon hunters, Hassu preferred to interpret the whole thing in this way, and when the sinful city in front of him was burned down and the sacred object was retrieved, this absurd farce and this ridiculous "verification" should come to an end.

"Elder," the man called Master Tutankhein suddenly spoke, interrupting Hassu's thoughts. "Do you think that Shadow Demon has any sincerity?"

"No," Hassu shook his head indifferently. "They have no sincerity, but they at least have value. Things that have value should be used as much as possible. This is the experience we brought from the most difficult years, sometimes..."

A hoarse female voice suddenly came from the side, interrupting Hassu's words: "Value... ha, anyway, you will soon be worthless..."

Before the voice fell, a burst of scorching light suddenly appeared out of thin air, followed by a huge mace that rushed out of the light curtain with the force of destroying mountains, smashing straight at Hassu's head!

"Boom—"

A burst of impact that almost collapsed the entire hill broke out, and the entire hilltop was shrouded in scorching light and billowing smoke. Under the illumination of the sunset-like light curtain, the rocks began to melt, the plants instantly evaporated, and even the sand turned into a thick liquid and slowly flowed down. The three demon hunters instantly appeared in the high sky, and a layer of white light shield shone on them, finally offsetting the power of the scorching sunlight. Bai Huo's face was still filled with shock, and Hassu frowned as he looked at the female figure that gradually appeared in the billowing smoke: "... Hespera... I suspected that you were still alive long ago."

"But you will only live until today!"

The earth-shattering battle broke out. Bai Huo and Tutankhein tried to help their superior deal with this suddenly appearing mad woman, but they were quickly entangled by the ancient ones who rushed out to attack from other directions.

After the end of the mythical era, the renewed battle between the ancient "gods" and the demon hunters was restarted under such circumstances.

At the same time, Hao Ren and Hespera's group came to a strange place.

This place should theoretically still be the ruins located in the alien space, but the energy storm in the space has subsided, and the structure and scenery of the entire space have also undergone earth-shattering changes.

It seemed that Bessemos had activated something in the ruins after escaping into this place, or perhaps the entrance under the Shadow Demon castle led to a deeper, unknown level of the ruins. In any case, what appeared in front of everyone was not an endless sea of clouds and temples floating in the clouds, but...

A desert.

Lily squatted on a sand dune and howled at the sky: "Awoo—which way do we go now!"