Blue Sword

The bishop who came to preach today is Metropolitan Pacidos Cadric of the St. Sophia neighborhood. He is a lanky old man in his fifties, with a full forehead and a lush white beard. He wears exquisite and elegant Orthodox robes and holds a silver cross in his hand. Hearing the word "report", his sharp eyes immediately looked over.

"My child, who do you want to accuse?" Pacidos said majestically.

"I want to report my cohabitant, who is also the mistress of my house, as well as my housekeeper, my valet, my head maid, and other servants in my house, a total of 24 people. They are all evil vampires." Sk said righteously, "They murdered my parents and kept me in the dark. Now that I have discovered their identity, I will come and report to you immediately."

"Vampire?" Metropolitan Pacidos frowned. In the Eastern Solomon Empire, vampire extraordinary beings are not the targets of hunting according to the law. The premise is that they must be officially registered by the church and live in a designated place. If what Asker said is true, there is no doubt that they are foreign filthy vampires that need to be cleaned up and purified.

Asik stood there and suddenly felt a glimmer of light. The dim light surrounded him, as if passing through every inch of his hair and skin, with a sense of meticulous inspection. There is no doubt that this metropolitan is not an ordinary person, but a strong person with at least level 7 and above who has mastered the power of the law. He can use his spirituality to activate the identification aura so secretly.

Considering that the demon tide in the Sixth Age has just begun to rise, it means that this metropolitan is at least an ancient person born in the Fifth Age, and is at least 200 years old.

"In that case." Pacidos confirmed that the man in front of him was a pure human, and nodded cautiously and said, "I will send a team of armored holy cavalry directly under the church, and you will lead them to your mansion to complete the purification task. May I. God bless you, child."

"God bless you." Asik said solemnly immediately.

Quickly walking out of the church door, Asik saw a group of knights coming from the left. They all wore holy white power armor, with various sacred runes printed on the armor. They also carried high-frequency concussion swords or engine-boosted war hammers in their hands.

"My dear, Alvin Gullins." The leader of the Iron Paladin captain held up his war hammer with both hands and his tone was condescending and arrogant. "Are you the citizen who reported that there is a vampire in your house?"

"It's me," Ask said.

"Very good." The paladin captain said, "We are not as easy to talk to as the metropolitans in the church. If you are just playing mercenary games and deliberately lying about the case... the cost of one attendance of our armored paladin is enough for you to even do this. I will lose all the money I spent on the coffin in my life.”

"No problem." Ask said, "In fact, as soon as you get to my house, you will know whether what I say is true or false."

"I hope so." The Paladin Captain said, "I'm not sure if the people near the church are spies arranged by your vampires. Let's head to our destination quickly."

As soon as the knight soldiers walked out of the church, they immediately attracted the attention of the surrounding people. There is no way, these full-coverage power armors are so eye-catching, and you can feel unparalleled deterrence just by looking at them. Asker naturally understood the meaning of what the other party said. He trotted all the way to the knights' ancestral home, pointed inside and said:

"right here."

In the hotel room, Paige was standing in the bathroom, staring at her pale self in the mirror on the wall.

The face in the mirror is still youthful and beautiful, but it is less red and more pale than usual. Her lips, which were originally plump and tender red, now turned dull, as if she was seriously ill.

She knew it was caused by not drinking blood. The knowledge gained from extraordinary traits told her that the owner of Flesh I must consume at least 2 ml of blood every day in order to maintain a youthful appearance, otherwise the appearance will quickly age and eventually turn into a living corpse.

Of course, not drinking blood is only a deterioration in appearance and has no impact on the vampire's own strength.

She took out a razor blade from the mirror cabinet, was silent for a moment, and cut her wrist hard.

Blood suddenly flowed out, making her face, which was already anemic, even paler. After a while, the skin and flesh at the wound rolled over and bonded together, and soon it was intact as before.

I'm...not human anymore.

She came to the window in despair, hugged her slender legs, and stared out the window. The house in the distance that had been her home was now burned to rubble. My parents are no longer here either.

If they were still alive and saw their cherished daughter turned into a monster, how would they react?

Suddenly she saw a group of church armored knights running straight from the opposite street and stopped in front of the ruins of her house.

Is it Ask? He reported the vampire to the church? Paige suddenly understood. It turned out to be that simple. Because I became a vampire and was afraid of the church, I didn't think about it subconsciously. In fact, even if you can't come forward, you can use your anonymous identity to induce others to report on your behalf, and use the power of the church to kill those vampires.

She couldn't help but hold her breath and looked at the street below in the distance. The surrounding onlookers were squatting down with their heads in their hands. After all, they are citizens of the Imperial City and have become accustomed to all kinds of extraordinary events, so they are very cooperative under the official command.

The church knights had torn open the scroll, and a large number of identification lights lit up, covering the entire area around the house.

Among the people squatting with their heads in their hands, someone's body suddenly lit up with an unusual red light. Peggy took a closer look and saw that the man was the housekeeper of the Asker family!

Before the butler had time to distinguish, the armored knight who was closest was slashed on the head with a sword, and the high-frequency concussive sword tore open his upper body, as smoothly as a hot knife cutting through butter. The butler's chopped-in-two body was still squirming, trying desperately to stick it together, and finally stopped struggling helplessly.

Ask stared at the butler's corpse. Bloody brilliance gradually gushes out from the corpse, condensing into a drop of sticky red dew on the body surface. It was the partially incomplete flesh and blood that condensed into essence after the housekeeper died. I only needed to pick it up and squeeze it gently to successfully absorb these ownerless extraordinary powers. If you add the main ingredients and auxiliary ingredients to make a Flesh I potion and drink it, you can become a level 1 vampire.

Of course, I wouldn't do that.

The church knight who took action took out a box made of magic copper from his luggage. Inside was a pair of shiny yellow tweezers. He carefully picked up the dewdrop with tweezers and put it solemnly into the box. After closing the lid, the surface of the magic copper box immediately lit up, as if some sealing circle had been activated.

The knight raised his head, nodded at Ask, who had been watching here, and said: "The energy that escapes after the death of a vampire is a very dangerous substance. If not properly handled, it can kill the residents of this entire neighborhood."

"I understand, Your Excellency." Asik nodded in agreement.

Two church knights rushed to the door, raised their engine warhammers and began to smash the door. The end of the engine warhammer is equipped with a jet device, which instantly sprays out tail flames when it is swung. The accelerated warhammer directly smashes the door into pieces. Then the church knights swarm in, and the whole house is instantly filled with chaos and screams. , roar and the sound of steel colliding with flesh.

Less than five minutes later, the paladin captain appeared at the door of the house again. The power armor printed with sacred runes was still bright, but it was covered with red flesh, white bone marrow, and what looked like intestines. He tapped a certain rune on his body and let the magical brilliance cleanse the armor. Then he walked down the steps and said to Asker:

"They have all been purified. Including the body outside the door, there are 23 vampires in total. In addition, your cohabitation partner is not in the house and has become a fish that slipped through the net. I suggest you stay in the church tonight to avoid being reactive. Revengeful harm... Women are very vindictive. I went out yesterday morning because I forgot to take out the trash, and my wife didn't even prepare dinner for me."

"Thank you for your suggestion, Your Excellency." Ask bowed and said, "But I believe that my roommate is not a fool. Unless I hide in the church for many years until she loses her patience, she can wait for me in a few days Come out and take revenge. Accepting the asylum of the church is not free, right?"

"As a reward for effective reporting." The knight captain was silent for a while, "The first week of asylum in the church is free for you, and you will only be charged one pound per day after that."

"Forget it then." Asik said easily, "I believe that even if I didn't hide in the church, you would have set up surveillance nearby. Maybe this vampire will expose itself faster in order to take revenge on me. .”

"Of course." The knight captain nodded and said, "In that case, Mr. Asker, you are not allowed to leave this neighborhood within this month unless the target vampire exposes himself in advance."

"No problem." Ask said.

Peggy stood by the window sill, watching all this from a distance. Half an hour later, Aske returned to the hotel room.

"The vampires are all dead, except the culprit," Ask said.

"This does not complete revenge." Peggy reminded him of the soul contract in a subtle way.

"I know where she is," Ask said. "Let's go."

"The Church Knights are currently monitoring this neighborhood, right?" Peggy asked warily, "If I act with you, won't they discover me?"

"Authentication scrolls are very expensive. It is impossible for a church knight to just throw them at someone he sees." Asker said, "As long as you don't wear a mask to avoid unnecessary suspicion. In five days, wait for your chain mail to arrive. Once the goods are available, we’ll go hunting.”

"Okay." Peggy said coldly.

"Now, let's go practice first." Ask said.

On the second underground floor of the hotel, there is a training ground open to the public, including steel dummies for melee warriors, a mobile shooting range for gunners, and a meditation practice room for spellcasters. Why is there a training ground under the hotel? This has to mention the history of the Eastern Solomon Empire.

Starting from the early Sixth Age, with the rapid development of commerce and industry in the Eastern Solomon Empire, the quality of soldiers within the empire also declined rapidly. On the one hand, it is human nature to forget about danger in peace, on the other hand, there are fewer and fewer extraordinary creatures in the empire.

On the Bithynia Plateau of the Anatolian Peninsula, the empire designated a large area of ​​jungle as a "Primitive Reserve for Extraordinary Creatures" in an attempt to raise extraordinary creatures in captivity and harvest extraordinary power on a regular basis. However, the effect was not very satisfactory. After all, extraordinary creatures still need a large amount of territory to thrive. A low-level goblin may only need a small hill to feed his family, while a high-level cyclops needs a vast wilderness and a huge biological system to survive.

This is contrary to the civilization development needs of the empire itself. Agriculture requires a large amount of land, industry requires a large amount of minerals, and transportation requires a developed road system. As long as human society continues to develop, it will inevitably encroach on the territory of extraordinary creatures. Since only extraordinary creatures can draw extraordinary power from the demonic tide, the reduction of extraordinary creatures will inevitably lead to a decline in the quality of the empire's manpower.

Now the whole world has fallen into such a strange circle: the more powerful a civilized country is, the fewer extraordinary creatures are in its territory, so the amount of extraordinary power that people can obtain is also decreasing. Then the civilized country was defeated by the barbarian country. The barbarian country harvested a lot of wealth and began to develop. The barbarian country became a civilized country and embarked on the path of decline again. From the ancient Cyrus city-state alliance to the ancient Solomon Republic, from the Solomon Empire to the Frankish Kingdom, to the current division of the countries, it is all the same.

In order to solve this problem, the Western Solomon Empire once chose to hire foreign mercenaries. As a result, the foreign mercenaries turned against the foreign mercenaries, causing the emperor to be killed and the country to be destroyed. The Eastern Solomon Empire learned this lesson. The late Emperor Basil II of this dynasty once proposed that "the state-owned army should serve as the main force, and foreign mercenaries should be responsible for attacking difficulties." This national defense policy of focusing on both hands and being tough on both hands affected the entire Macedonian dynasty. In recent years, a large number of Western mercenaries have come to Constantinople to seek a living. For example, the empire's first-class Royal Shield Guards are the "Varangian Guards" composed of northern Norman mercenaries.

In Constantinople, if you see someone walking around wearing armor and weapons, don't think about it, it must be an armed mercenary. Because of this, taverns and training grounds are also particularly dense in Constantinople. Low-level mercenaries can usually find an open space to vent their excess energy, and the training ground on the ground floor of this hotel is already considered a relatively mid-range one. It is open to mercenaries who need specific training equipment for a fee.