The man's shotgun boomed with tremendous force.
The blast shattered the wall behind Cohen, leaving a gaping hole in the plaster.
Though he dodged just in time, he was now face-to-face with the woman's razor-sharp claws.
In that split second, Cohen's focus sharpened to the extreme. He swayed aside by a hair's breadth, narrowly avoiding the reeking talons.
At the same moment—he fired.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A volley of bullets tore through the air, all slamming into the woman's body. One of them pierced her heart dead center.
The woman let out a despairing wail as her body suddenly erupted into flames—spontaneously combusting without a spark. In seconds, she was reduced to a pile of drifting ash.
The man roared with rage, firing his shotgun again and again.
But he lacked battle experience. Even though he possessed the enhanced strength and endurance of a vampire, his combat instincts were sorely lacking.
Cohen sidestepped with ease. A silver-plated dagger spun from his hand and struck the man's wrist—the one holding the gun.
The shotgun clattered to the floor. In the next instant, two bullets blasted into the man's ankles, sending him crashing face-first to the ground.
"Fuck! Who the hell are you? I've never done anything to you!"
"I'm a human being," Cohen replied coldly. "Are you sure you haven't done anything to us?"
The man struggled to sit up, blood pooling beneath him. "We're purebloods," he said through clenched teeth. "From birth, we've been provided blood by the Council—we've never hunted, never killed anyone!"
Cohen chuckled. "Not my problem. Killing you has nothing to do with justice."
The man's gaze turned icy. "If you kill me, the vampire clans will never stop hunting you."
"Is that so? Maybe in my eyes, they're nothing more than prey begging to be hunted."
"You're a vampire hunter?" The man frowned deeply. "I've never heard of you."
Cohen didn't answer. He stared at the man in silence for a long moment. "You're not afraid?"
The man was briefly stunned, then suddenly burst out laughing. "So all that nonsense you just spouted—was it just to scare me?"
His expression turned cold. "I've lived for over a hundred years. I stopped fearing death long ago. Don't think you can toy with me before killing me."
Bang!
A silver-plated bullet tore through his skull.
In an instant, his body crumbled into black ash.
"Tsk. What a waste," Cohen muttered.
Three confirmed kills—he could now claim the Five-Star Triple Kill Reward Pack.
But a Five-Star Pentakill? That might be out of reach this time.
As his prey grew stronger, more and more vampires—like this man or Bullseye—would show no fear of death.
To achieve the highest emotional trigger rating, a simple kill wouldn't be enough anymore.
And with the more straightforward execution methods already used up, he'd likely need to get creative in the future to unlock those five-star loot boxes.
In the distance, police sirens wailed—unsurprising, given the chaos he'd just caused.
He picked up the shotgun, ready to leave, when something on the bedside table caught his eye—a beautifully bound notebook.
He flipped it open. A diary.
Cohen narrowed his eyes. From the contents, he could now confirm: vampires started at Bronze-tier.
Which meant they were, by nature, perfect prey.
Perhaps this diary held clues about other vampires.
He slipped it into his coat. Taking it.
On the way back, he casually opened the Five-Star Reward Pack.
[Congratulations, you've received a new reward: Infrared Vision.]
Another eye-related ability?
A strange sensation surged behind his eyes. In the next moment, the world around Cohen changed—everything now carried temperature.
Heat appeared as red, cold as blue.
More importantly, even through solid walls, he could still see glowing red outlines.
It wasn't just infrared vision. There was a partial x-ray effect as well.
Anyone who plays shooting games knows—vision is everything in a gunfight.
Just like in modern warfare: see it, strike it.
The only downside was the infrared vision had a limited range—only a few dozen meters—but that was conveniently the exact range of his handgun.
The old pickup truck rattled and groaned all the way, but stubbornly brought Cohen back to the church.
There was good news waiting for him. David had managed to stabilize the girl—she had regained consciousness and, for now, her sanity.
But Cohen knew the truth: if they didn't develop a serum soon, she would eventually turn into a vampire.
That responsibility, of course, fell to someone special—Kara, the female lead from the original Blade movie.
In the film, after being bitten, she quickly developed a working serum and even discovered an anticoagulant that caused catastrophic effects in vampires.
In the end, Blade used that very compound to destroy Frost, the villain who had become the Blood God.
Upon learning about her condition, the girl didn't hesitate. She immediately set out to find Kara at the address David provided.
Meanwhile, Cohen had found something important in the diary he brought back.
The vampire boy had once attended a "Blood Rave."
So-called Blood Raves were events organized by the leader of the mixed-blood vampires—Deacon Frost. Underground nightclubs, blaring chaotic music, sacrificial victims, and... a torrential downpour of blood.
With this gruesome spectacle, and thanks to his natural charisma and cunning, Frost had drawn many vampires to his side. His influence was growing by the day.
To the point that even the pure-blood Elders were beginning to feel threatened.
But no matter how much power or wealth Frost amassed, the divide between mixed-bloods and pure-bloods couldn't be bridged so easily.
So, Frost had become obsessed with the vampire archives. Hidden among the fragmented pages of the vampire bible, The Book of Erebus, he discovered a ritual: sacrificing purebloods to gain the power of the Blood God.
This was the plotline of the Blade movie's first installment.
According to the vampire boy's diary, a massive Blood Rave was scheduled for tonight—held in a secret base beneath a slaughterhouse.
Over a hundred vampires were expected to attend.
A glint flashed in Cohen's eyes. How could he possibly miss such a party?
But first, he needed to make a few preparations.
——
Queens, on the outskirts of a slum stood a large, industrial slaughterhouse.
Under the pitch-black veil of night, luxury cars and tinted sedans silently rolled through the main gate—some of them worth well over a million.
Beyond the automated killing floor, behind a heavy, walk-in-freezer-style metal door, a burly guard stood watch.
Anyone who passed his inspection would be allowed into the inner sanctum—a vampire's raving paradise.
The Blood Rave.
But tonight, an uninvited guest arrived.
The bouncer had just escorted in tonight's human sacrifices when his brow furrowed—he thought he heard something.
Gunfire.
It was faint, muffled by a suppressor, but unmistakable. The heavy bass and distorted beats from the rave's dance floor made it hard to pinpoint.
He hesitated, then drew his pistol, cautiously creeping forward.
The sound grew clearer. Not just gunfire—there were footsteps.
He pressed his back against a solid concrete pillar, took a deep breath, and slowly leaned out to take a look.
Bang!
Before the burly guard could even see what was going on, a bullet tore through the air—hitting him squarely between the eyes.
Fk, the guy's definitely hacking...
That was his final thought before his world went dark.
Cohen calmly swapped out his magazine. On the way here, he had already taken down several vampires and more than a dozen humans.
The difference between the two was easy to tell—vampires ran hotter. Their body temperature could exceed fifty degrees Celsius.
With the outside cleared, only the inside remained.
Cohen tapped his earpiece. "David, you ready? Things are about to get loud."
"Fk, I'm supposed to be logistics! Why the hell am I out here hunting vampires with you?
If I die, who's gonna manage your money, huh?!"
Cohen chuckled. "Don't worry, David. Where you are will be the safest place in the city... in about a minute."
"You sure this thing's gonna work?"
Out behind the slaughterhouse, David sat nervously in a beat-up old pickup truck parked in a shadowed corner.
That afternoon, Cohen had scoured Hell's Kitchen and bought the used truck from a local thug. Then, he outfitted it with the strongest UV lamps money could buy.
After some rough DIY modifications, the truck bed was filled with batteries, and the front grill bristled with dozens of UV floodlights.
Once activated, it would shine brighter than the sun.
The back door of the slaughterhouse was the Blood Rave's emergency exit. Cohen was at the main entrance.
A two-pronged attack—front and rear.
He planned to wipe every last one of these vampires off the face of the earth.
The rewards would no doubt be massive.
Gripping a pistol in each hand, he took a deep breath, lifted his foot—
—and kicked the door open.
Boom!
The gates flew wide.
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