Chapter 79: The Violent Breakthrough

Flesh struck flesh with occasional curses and excited shouts. A group of Nightblades surrounded the traitorous old man and relentlessly beat him. These seasoned soldiers knew exactly how to inflict pain without causing serious injury.

The "old man," bound at his joints, turned pale and rolled on the ground as they kicked him. However, he gritted his teeth and refused to utter a word, letting out only muffled grunts of pain when struck.

"Stop." Charles gestured for the soldiers to halt their beating and stepped forward. He reached out and touched the immobile man's face, feeling around before gripping a small seam and giving it a tug. The man's skin peeled off—it was a translucent mask-like material that wriggled slightly like a living creature before shriveling into a lifeless, blackened lump.

Beneath the mask was a youthful face. The man looked roughly the same age as Charles and Edward. His sharp gaze was fixed on Charles's intrigued expression.

"Well, well, Selwyn's craftsmanship isn't half bad. I've not seen a human-skin mask like this before. It's quite impressive for a kingdom known for its military prowess. Who knew it'd dabble in espionage, too? Great tools, but poor execution."

"How did you know?" The young man glowered upon hearing Charles's taunt.

"What sort of sewer watchman has your kind of physique? Don't you think it's obvious? Not only that, they wouldn't be carrying around so many precious antidotes and healing powders. Just look at how many you have." Charles tapped the bottles hanging on the man's body.

These observations had actually come from Wang Yu, who used his ripples to highlight even the tiniest details. The result was glaringly obvious. He had shared his findings with Charles, and the two quickly agreed to seize and interrogate the man, whether or not their suspicions proved true.

What solidified Charles' decision was this man's peculiar behavior—after the city guards entered the sewers, instead of escaping immediately, he chose to linger in a small thicket nearby.

Every local in Aleisterre knew what the city guards were like—if you crossed them, you'd be lucky if they didn't extort you.

And dragging them to a wretched place like this? It was all but guaranteed that they'd come after you for revenge.

Their gamble had paid off and exposed the spy. His acting and disguise weren't bad, but blending into a new environment often meant navigating unspoken rules that were the hardest to grasp and most likely to give one away.

"Now, anything you'd like to confess?" Charles clapped his hands and looked at the man with a smirk. "Oh, and what's your name?"

𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"Lubi. And I'm not saying anything else," Lubi replied with a defiant glare. Suddenly, however, a powerful punch smashed into his jaw.

Wang Yu, who seemed to just be walking by, suddenly whirled around. With a sharp turn and a burst of speed, he drove a punch directly into Lubi's jaw.

Blood splattered as teeth flew into the air. One tooth glinted with a metallic sheen before Wang Yu flicked it away with a casual motion.

Before Lubi could recover, Wang Yu's other hand darted out, shoving a small pouch of powder into Lubi's throat.

Charles, who had been distracting Lubi with conversation, delivered the final touch. He lightly tapped Lubi's throat, forcing him to swallow the pouch with a gulp.

"What the hell did you feed me?!" Lubi tried to pry open his mouth with bound hands as he attempted to vomit the substance out. However, his restraints rendered him powerless, and his dry heaves weren't effective, either.

"He's done for. This guy had two poisons on him—one slow-acting, probably to gather intel before death, and one fast-acting, hidden in that tooth I just knocked out." Wang Yu looked at Lubi, who was writhing and dry-heaving on the ground. He shook his head.

"You sure know a lot about this stuff..." Charles scratched his head, feeling a bit unnerved by Wang Yu's calm demeanor. His knowledge, though niche, always seemed unsettling when stated so matter-of-factly.

"There's little we can do. His lower body muscles are practically useless now, and his nerves are dying off from the bottom up. He likely swallowed the slow-acting poison as soon as we began talking."

Wang Yu's ripples exposed Lubi's deteriorating condition—initially, he could still move his lower body, but now even his full-body struggles were futile.

Lubi had clearly consumed an unfamiliar neurotoxin. As an amateur alchemist, Wang Yu's current skills were hardly sufficient to counteract it, especially without a lab or suitable tools.

There was one potential lifeline—Avia's latent ability. So long as someone yet breathed, she could restore that person to perfect health. But this ability, like Avia herself, wasn't something they wanted to expose.

"Concentrated Harkus truth serum, triple the standard dose. It'll make him a vegetable for life, but since he's dying anyway, we'll go full strength. In about ten seconds, Charles, ask away. You'll have about a minute total to get answers. Keep it simple—yes/no or straightforward questions only."

"Got it." Charles nodded seriously, counting the seconds. As Lubi stopped struggling and his gaze grew vacant, Charles began his interrogation.

"What are those things on the corpses?"

"Bloodborne... related to vampires."

Charles' eyebrows twitched, suppressing his disbelief. He continued, "Are there more of your people in the sewers?"

"Yes."

"How many?"

"Maybe a dozen or so."

"What's your goal?"

"To disrupt Aleisterre's order... To create opportunities."

As the questioning continued, Lubi visibly began to die. His speech slowed, and his facial muscles stiffened. Time was running out.

"Did you set an ambush for us investigators?"

"...Yes."

"How?"

"Blessings... Low-level vampires, mimics..."

"How strong is the strongest fighter in your group?"

"An advanced knight."

"What's your ultimate objective?"

"I... don't know."

With a retching sound, Lubi expelled a foul liquid from his mouth. The interrogation ended, leaving Charles with valuable information but also many unanswered questions.

He pressed his fingers against his temple, feeling a headache coming on. "Vampires?" He struggled to connect these ancient beings with the decayed, twisted corpses they'd seen. True vampires, the so-called nobles of the night, were rumored to rival lesser dragons in power.

"If only the Professor were here..."Edward, standing nearby, murmured with a hint of helplessness. Sieg had left shortly after Wang Yu was attacked to handle some issues. A few days later, Sieg informed Wang Yu that he had warned some restless factions and then departed with Fang on a mission. There had been a severe disaster related to void gods at the border, and they had gone to provide support.

"Yeah, if the Professor were here, his knowledge would definitely give us a lot more insight," Wang Yu agreed. Nevertheless, Wang Yu was still determined to investigate and figure out what exactly these so-called vampire bloodbornes were. Were they the faint gray residue he had noticed before?

"Avia, keep that thing restrained for me. I want to see what it really is." Wang Yu approached the creature carefully.

The creature was still alive, its exposed head twisting and struggling. As it noticed Wang Yu approaching, it began thrashing and howling violently.

Without hesitation, Wang Yu cast a wizardry barrier around himself. He borrowed a dagger from a soldier and began cutting into the creature's flesh.

The blade cut through flesh as if he were slicing through tofu—it was unbelievably soft, with the consistency of an undercooked poached egg.

Wang Yu ignored the viscous, foul-smelling liquid oozing from the creature's body and focused entirely on cutting into it. His goal was to locate the grayish material he had seen on the creature's bones earlier. Although he couldn't use his ripples to probe the insides of a living creature, he remained vigilant for any changes he might observe.

Soon, Wang Yu struck bone. He had chosen to make his cut near its neck. As he worked deeper, white bone emerged beneath the flesh.

Although most of the muscle around the neck had been damaged and stripped away, the creature still managed to twist its neck forcefully. The source of its strength could only be... its bones.

Wang Yu, wearing a gauntlet, reached out and grabbed the creature's neck. With all the surrounding muscle stripped away, the bone was fully exposed, revealing faint grayish material coiled around it.

He quickly pinched the grayish, snake-like substance between two fingers. It was elastic and somewhat slippery. Tightening his grip, Wang Yu used all his strength to pull it free.

Surprisingly, the gray material clung tightly to the bone and refused to budge. Wang Yu's strength surged as he activated Bloodburn Drive. Then, with a sudden, forceful yank, he finally succeeded in ripping the gray substance away.

As the substance was torn away, the creature—already heavily damaged—collapsed entirely. Its movements ceased, and its body crumpled into a lifeless heap. Avia released her bindings, and the creature slumped to the ground like a mass of barely humanoid mush.

Wang Yu carefully examined the long, grayish, and translucent snake-like substance tightly in his hand. From its main body extended numerous branching appendages of varying lengths, resembling bifurcated roots.

This was the material that had wrapped around the corpse's bones and forcibly granted it mobility. However, Wang Yu struggled to see how this substance was related to vampires.

"What does this thing have to do with vampires?" Charles asked, puzzled. Edward was equally baffled.

"More accurately, it's a vampire bloodborne. Whereas vampires are an independent species, bloodbornes are creations controlled by vampires," Avia corrected.

"Could this be a method for controlling bloodbornes? But vampires are supposed to control them through blood, not something like this," Edward speculated.

Avia frowned. She too was perplexed about the supposed connection between this entity and a vampire.

"It's not impossible. Remember those strange lifeforms that the Font of Life, Erphine, spawned?" Charles interjected. "Our captain killed him quickly, but his lifeforms could animate even inanimate objects. It's not far-fetched to think that he could modify the method by which vampires control bloodbornes..."

"True," Wang Yu agreed. He frowned at the writhing entity in his hand before stuffing it into a reinforced glass vial. It was clear that it had research value.

"You're not grossed out by it?" Charles asked, his expression skeptical.

"It's unique. Have you ever seen anything like it? Even if it's just some byproduct that Erphine gave off, it's moving on its own. It must have some sort of biological structure," Wang Yu replied seriously.

"It might be a valuable ingredient in semi-living potions, like the Acid-Infusion Regenerative Potion," Wang Yu added. His keen sense as an alchemist had identified the material's potential.

"Are all you alchemists and potion-makers like this?" Charles muttered in disbelief.

Wang Yu remained silent while Avia chuckled.

"Is this the best they've got? They don't seem to pose much of a threat compared to you guys," Edward remarked after assessing the combat ability of these manipulated bloodbornes. Other than their fearlessness and vitality, they didn't seem particularly dangerous.

"I wouldn't be so sure. The city guards may be useless, but they wouldn't enter the sewers without reason. Bloodbornes likely come in different tiers. If these deformed monstrosities are lower-tier bloodbornes, what about higher-tier ones? Might they perfectly mimic or even control a person?" Charles speculated gravely.

"That's a real possibility," Avia confirmed, her own thoughts aligning with Charles's hypothesis. The Nightblades grimaced at each other.

These simple bloodbornes wouldn't have a significant impact on the well-defended capital, but if there really were advanced bloodbornes capable of mimicking or even replacing humans, it would spell serious trouble.

"We have to go in and investigate, but they've clearly laid a trap for us. What's the plan?" Charles asked.

Wang Yu lowered his head in thought, his mind wandering to concepts from works of fiction in his previous life. After a moment, he snapped his fingers and shouted, "We'll rely on science!"

"Get a large supply of salt, seal off the nearby sewer exits, and bring in magicians skilled in lightning spells. We'll flood the place with chlorine gas!"