A bright classroom, with study materials spread out in front. Xia Yan focused intently on the instructor explaining ahead.
"...Vampires, or rather the vampire race, don't only survive on ordinary human blood as everyone imagines. At specific times, they can also consume the blood of their own kind in emergencies.
"...From existing data, starting in the 11th century, groups specializing in hunting their own kind appeared among vampires. They adhered to a belief in so-called bloodline purity. This group was despised by the so-called orthodox vampires, viewed as heretics within the vampire race, and called themselves Dark Vampires.
"However, vampires below Baron rank who hunt their own kind will experience unstable negative effects, especially weakened blood-boiling control abilities. But hunting their own kind will also more rapidly enhance their overall strength and increase the possibility of breakthrough to higher realms—so-called benefits and drawbacks coexisting."
The instructor put down the lesson plan and surveyed the students present: "Dark Vampires have extreme thoughts and behaviors, are irreconcilably opposed to orthodox vampires, and engage in mutual slaughter. In a sense, this also limits the expansion of orthodox vampires."
"Can we consider this a form of cannibalistic behavior among vampires, using survival of the fittest to probabilistically create some more powerful individuals?"
A student quickly raised their hand to ask.
"That's a good question. Dark Vampires are numerous and grow faster than orthodox vampires. Note—just growth speed, not actual strength after realm breakthroughs.
"According to combat comparisons, most Dark Vampires exhibit a state of 'excessive impurities.' At the same realm, their combat power is roughly only about 80% of orthodox vampires."
In the classroom, the interaction between instructor and students gradually became more heated. Xia Yan smiled and closed his notes.
...
...
Under dim streetlights, on a remote suburban country road, with harvested rapeseed fields on both sides.
Jiang Yan walked ahead carrying the travel bag, while Jiang Yao followed dejectedly a few steps behind.
In such a remote place, and after midnight, not even ride-hailing drivers would accept orders. At their current pace, they could reach the main road in about ten minutes and then try to contact a taxi.
"Some lessons can never be remembered unless you suffer them once. You didn't listen to a word Huang Gu said when we parted!"
Jiang Yan looked back and slowed her pace somewhat, walking alongside Jiang Yao again.
"Brother, I'm sorry. I was just curious... But what do you think that old witch's actual strength is? She felt so terrifying—I really thought we were dead!"
Jiang Yao looked around left and right, still somewhat shaken.
"Wait..."
Suddenly, Jiang Yan stopped in her tracks, extending her hand to block Jiang Yao's body.
At the intersection ahead, under the dim streetlight, a disheveled and thin middle-aged man stood quietly in the center of the path, his sickly liver-colored face staring with blood-red eyes.
Wisps of fluctuating aura mixed with confusion, despair, and brutality slowly emanated from the man, spreading into the night.
Gradually, the man's pheromones began showing chaotic signs of blood-boiling loss of control—weak yet excited, the blood color in his pupils growing more vivid, his blood temperature continuously rising.
If there were a Shadow Arrow Force portable thermal night vision device here, the man's body surface temperature would probably have exceeded 40 degrees Celsius!
This was a vampire of considerable power! And moreover, one in the late stages of blood thirst syndrome, making his final desperate madness!
Jiang Yan had already drawn her pistol, a trace of cold sweat appearing on her forehead. Although the pheromones emanating from this vampire fallen into madness weren't as suffocating as Wan Yue's earlier, they far exceeded those of the mid-level attendant Huang Gu they had encountered before.
Jiang Yao jumped to one side, holding her dagger in reverse grip, slightly lowering her body and adjusting her center of gravity, her face terrifyingly serious.
"Hehe, two blood servants, and such tender little girls... truly, heaven doesn't abandon people... After all these years, I sold my house, sold my car, sold my factory... sob sob, but I still don't amount to shit... I never harmed ordinary people before, I just wanted to live! Just wanted to live!"
The man roared in low tones, somewhat delirious, his eye sockets seeming ready to squeeze out bloody tears. A pair of dazed blood-red pupils stared greedily and brutally at the two girls' bodies.
"Brother, he's already insane..." Jiang Yao whispered.
Jiang Yan didn't respond, only slowly put away her pistol and also switched to a dagger. Because less than a hundred meters away was a residential area—if she used the pistol, it would inevitably alert others.
Moreover, facing this vampire who had likely reached Knight level, unless multiple people used semi-automatic shotguns in concentrated fire, it would be difficult to stop his close-range assault.
"Big brother, if you want blood, I'll give you two bags."
Jiang Yan tried speaking softly while signaling Jiang Yao to make a flanking movement, slowly moving toward the farmland and small woods on one side of the path.
"I've joined the Dark Vampires—do I care about your two bags of blood... The bosses are right, everything below Baron is just ants. To survive you must hunt, especially wandering vampires like you rats! Hahahaha!"
The man grinned crookedly, his facial muscles distorting due to gradually losing control of his blood-boiling ability, looking both ridiculous and terrifying.
Under the streetlight, the man's figure disappeared. Jiang Yan had just activated blood-boiling when she felt a lightning-fast black shadow stick to her front.
Her body suffered heavy impact, rolling and flying out in an arc several meters high. Only when she crashed to the ground did Jiang Yan feel sharp pain in her abdomen. A vicious penetrating wound—if it had gone a bit deeper, it might have pierced through her entire body. As for the dagger in her hand, it had long since flown somewhere unknown.
The hunched man, already mutated like a ghoul, licked the fresh blood on his mutated finger bone spikes, revealing a euphoric evil smile: "Haha, rare blood type too! So fragrant... my luck is finally turning!"
Jiang Yan's defeat occurred in less than three seconds. Jiang Yao had only just rushed to the man's side and rear.
A charging knee strike hit the man's elbow. The man blocked Jiang Yao's powerful attack at an angle impossible for normal human arm bone joints.
The man's body only slid half a meter to one side before forcibly steadying himself, then twisted his neck at an exaggerated angle to look at Jiang Yao whose expression had greatly changed.
"Hehe, I misjudged. I thought you were just a mid-level blood servant, but after blood-boiling you're almost approaching upper-level attendant strength. What kind of rare monster are you, haha! But compared to a Knight, you're still lacking!"
Before he finished speaking, a withered right arm with a foul wind swung over, five fingers completely mutated into long brown bone claws.
"Go to hell, you insane Knight!"
The light blonde girl shouted delicately, her bright dagger flashing directly through the opponent's arm joint.
While the bone claws penetrated deep into Jiang Yao's body, the mutated Dark Vampire Knight's withered right arm was also severed, the cut seeping with characteristic black smoke from silver ions burning vampire flesh.
But Jiang Yao's life-or-death exchange didn't gain decisive advantage—she had only severed half of the opponent's arm, and that half-section of forearm bone claws was now embedded in her left ribs.
Before Jiang Yao could fall, another slender black shadow pounced at high speed.
Jiang Yan, with a cold expression and blood-red dazed pupils, mounted herself entirely on the mutated Dark Vampire Knight's shoulders.
Her legs clamped the opponent's shoulders, her left hand desperately hugged the opponent's head, and her right hand gripped what remained of the opponent's right upper arm. In this moment, Jiang Yan seemed to lose all reason, opening her mouth to bite toward that withered neck.
In her hazy vision, the mutated Dark Vampire Knight beneath her didn't seem so terrifyingly disgusting anymore, but rather emanated an enticing sweetness that made Jiang Yan urgently desire to tear and bite.
Jiang Yan, who had also fallen into blood thirst due to intense blood-boiling, burst out with a fierce determination in her confusion, biting and sucking. A stream of an indescribably strange taste instantly went down her throat.
Vampires in blood-boiling state contain a special protein within all muscle tissue and bodily fluids—the so-called blood infection factor. For ordinary people, this meant a complete life change, but for vampires, it no longer had meaning.
The only value was that vampire blood in blood-boiling state had was a somewhat higher intake value and taste for Dark Vampires.
However, this time, the mutated Dark Vampire Knight felt something different—his entire body became rigid as if injected with powerful sedatives, and even a peculiar coolness slowly emerged from deep within his body, like throwing a large ice cube into boiling water.
The mutated Knight vampire, still retaining his last traces of consciousness, used all his strength to claw toward the black-haired girl behind him with his intact left arm, the forearm bone claws once again deeply penetrating Jiang Yan's thigh.
A few seconds later, the mutated Dark Vampire Knight who had been drained of all bodily energy in blood thirst slowly fell to the ground, motionless.
"Brother... can you hear me... hehe, you killed that bastard... hehe, the two of us took down a Knight... in the Shadow Arrow Force, we're probably unique..."
Jiang Yao pulled out the half-section of forearm bone claws embedded in her body, covering her rib wound and crawling to lie down beside Jiang Yan, gasping heavily, her dirty little face still wearing a proud smile.
"Cough cough... don't talk... I'm so tired, want to sleep... I'm a bit hot..."
"Brother... me too... so tired... I want to drink your blood, is that okay..."
"Thigh was pierced... saved cutting... if you can move, drink it yourself..."
The two girls, completely stained red, lay in the weed-grown farmland, chatting back and forth without a care, their voices weak.
The light blonde girl curled her body, lying on the black-haired girl's thigh, tearing open the other’s torn jeans, hugging the elastic thigh, licking and sucking without any courtesy.
The high-intensity blood-boiling state slowly receded, but in her daze Jiang Yan didn't feel the arrival of blood thirst. Instead, her whole body felt warm. The flesh and blood of the mutated Dark Vampire Knight she had just consumed seemed to be triggering some peculiar reaction within her body.
Dozens of minutes later, Jiang Yan and Jiang Yao had lost consciousness in their daze. If you ignored the pool of blood, one might think they were simply sleeping.
At the end of the path, two headlights slowly appeared as an SUV drove up. Wan Yue got out of the car, looked at the chaotic scene, lit a cigarette, and fell into thought.
Sighing softly, she first carried the two girls to the back seat, then took out a body bag, stuffed the mutated vampire Knight's corpse and severed forearm bone claws inside, and cleaned up the traces of blood at the scene.
...
Early summer, dawn, darkness gradually fading.
A certain old residential complex in J District, C City, apartment 303.
Jiang Yao slowly woke up, feeling indescribably uncomfortable all over in her daze. Seeming to remember something, she suddenly sat up, only to discover she was actually sleeping on the sofa.
"How could I be at home? Was last night all a dream?"
Jiang Yao looked around the familiar living room in bewilderment. If not for her bloodstained torn clothes, she might really have thought it was all a dream.
"Brother!"
Jiang Yao remembered something else and rushed into the bedroom, finding Jiang Yan also lying quietly on the bed in long-congealed blood stains, still fast asleep.
Rushing back to the living room, she found the travel bag for blood bags placed on the floor beside the sofa, completely empty inside. Anxiously opening the small medical constant-temperature blood refrigerator, she finally breathed a sigh of relief—the blood bags bought yesterday were all neatly arranged inside, not one missing.
Jiang Yao frowned and looked around, finally discovering a note on the dining table.
"Two little ones, cost me half the night. Fortunately the black-haired girl had your rental agreement in her pants pocket wallet, or I would have dumped you in the wilderness."
Did the old witch bring us back?
That mature, seductive face and curvaceous body appeared again in Jiang Yao's mind—the avant-garde woman who had defeated both her and Jiang Yan with just "a glare."