The new stronghold of the Presbyterian Church of the Americas, which had been battered by last night's war, is not far from the barbershop run by Oni Powder that Blade found.

This new stronghold... Well, how to say it?

Continuing the tradition of vampires looking for a place to stay, it is cold and damp all day long, and although it has been cleaned and transformed, it still has a disgusting smell.

That's right, the remnants of the defeated army are hiding in the sewers northeast of Staten Island.

"What a place for rats."

Blade walked silently through the ancient sewers, and it was clear that this place was a secret location that had been transformed by the Council of Elders, and that it must have lasted for a long time.

Perhaps before Gataro became Speaker, it was already one of the Presbyterian refuges on the entire East Coast.

Although there is no disgusting sewage and garbage at your feet, walking in the sewers is not a pleasant thing to do, this underground passage is like a labyrinth of a city, and those vampires are very chicken thieves to install magic-driven secret doors on the walls of the sewers, so that no one but their own people can find them even if they enter the sewers.

But this effective defense is of little use to vampire hunters.

Even vampires leave traces when they move, and those traces that are invisible to ordinary people are as obvious to vampire hunters as stars in the darkness in the eyes of vampire hunters, to be precise, in the eyes of witchers.

Miss Bloodstone once said that every official witcher has been enhanced by mutant potions, and they are all true masters of tracking and hunting.

In Blade's eyes, in the dim pathway, those light footprints glowed reddish in the darkness, like signposts, showing him the way forward.

After walking through the labyrinthine sewers for more than ten minutes, Blade finally arrived at his destination.

It was a closed cul-de-sac that looked indistinguishable from the rest of the sewers. But Blade tapped his finger on the wall, and the echo of the overly empty sound meant that there was a huge space behind the wall.

"This is it."

Blade flicked his shoulders as he pulled out a bundle of plastic bombs from the pocket of his trench coat, military explosives from S.H.I.E.L.D., which were incredibly powerful and easy to use.

He expertly pasted the bundle of bombs to the wall, then returned to the corner, and after a few silent counts, a terrifying explosion, accompanied by the sound of the wall shaking, rang out in the quiet sewer.

The scorching flames tumbled like a storm against the edge of the sewer, and before the scorching smoke could clear, the blades of swords and rapid-fire pistols rushed into the scorching smoke behind the bombed secret door.

"Sapres, Mazefak!"

In the deep greetings of the blades, in the sound of bomb explosions, in the noise and chaotic screams, bullets flew out of the chambers, the wails of the dying moments, the cries for help and the panicked flights.

In this elder's lair of vampires, another massacre began.

———————————————————

"Bang"

A few minutes later, with a bloody blade, in the ashes flying behind him, he kicked open the door to the deepest part of the empty underground hall.

What appeared before his eyes was a secret room beautifully decorated and luxurious, almost full of bookshelves, and a small burning fireplace.

In front of Blade's eyes, Speaker Gaitaro, who had "come back from the dead", was sitting in front of the burning fireplace, throwing some of the letters in his hand into the burning flames.

The meticulously dressed fellow, who seemed to anticipate Blade's arrival, did not panic, and as Blade walked towards it with the silver sword in hand, it coughed a few times and said to Blade:

"I thought it was Mr. Merlin himself. But I didn't expect that it was you..."

"Tell me, Blade, when did you become the dogleg of those humans?"

The sarcasm was answered by a whizzing silver sword, and the blade had no intention of saying anything more to the vampire leader. But in the face of the falling sword, Gaitaro, sitting in a chair with his back to the blade, barely dodged, allowing the sword to cut off his arm.

With a cry of pain, Gaitaro gritted his teeth and threw all the letters in his hand into the flames/ Only then did Blade notice that Gaitaro was in a strange situation.

It's not that it doesn't want to dodge the attack, it's that it can't.

The vampire speaker's face was pale, even for a vampire, it was too pale. His face was covered with burns, his legs were already deformed, and he looked as if he had been tortured.

It did escape death from the madman Deacon, but for a pure-blooded vampire like it who had not advanced to the high ranks, there was a price to pay for escaping death by using the blood secret technique of a stand-in.

In Blade's eyes, he could sense that the pure-blood vampire was already weak, and even if Merlin didn't issue a mission to assassinate it, it would die of natural prowess after a few days.

But the more this happens, the heavier the uneasiness in Blade's heart becomes.

If this guy is dying, why did he have to hold on to his weak body in last night's war to save the Presbyterian Church?

Is it really selfless to this extent?

"Hehe, from your expression, I see doubt and ignorance."

Hardened in pain, Gataro stared at the blade, and said with a smile in a strange voice:

"You think you've won? Wrong... Miss by a mile! ”

"The existence of the Getaro family has never been for any power and status, what we adhere to is a more sacred mission. It's a shame you're one step late. ”

"Seize the opportunity to enjoy life, there is not much time left for you..."

With a shrill and eerie laugh, the frail vampire tugged on a mechanism on the arm of his chair, and at the moment of the strange sound, Blade reached out and grabbed something from Gaitaro's side, and then the whole person rushed out towards the exit of the underground hall like a gusting wind.

"Boom, boom, boom"

Successive horrific explosions followed the blade, and the fire of destruction provoked by the deeply buried and detonated bombs was like a fire dragon raging in the depths of the sewers, and between its roars, the last stronghold of the Presbyterian Church of America in New York, along with its secrets, was completely buried in the dust.

A few minutes after the explosion subsided, the dusty blade stepped out of another exit nearly a kilometer away from the exploding sewer.

His trench coat had been completely destroyed, and his face and body were covered in scars from the explosion, but the Daywalker's powerful self-healing powers were quickly repairing those burns.

Blade glanced back at the completely collapsed sewer behind him, shook his head, and raised his left hand, in the palm of his hand, a ring with some kind of mark, glistening in the sunlight.

But even with the warm sunlight, the ring still exudes a hint of coolness when it touches the blade's skin.

It's undoubtedly a magic item, and most importantly, the mark on the ring is recognized by the blade.

"Now..."

The vampire hunter looked at the ring, and he said in a low tone:

"It's really troublesome."

A few hours later, in Merlin's mansion, after a few hours of sleep and refreshment, Merlin had just finished a simple meal when he heard a knock on the door.

Dressed in his pajamas, he opened the door and saw a grim-faced blade standing in front of him.

"Mission accomplished?"

Merlin asked:

"Are you so efficient?"

"It's just a group of down-and-out vampires, how hard can it be?"

Blade walked into the room, and he said to Merlin:

"But I'm having some troublesome problems."

"Let's talk about it."

Merlin said as he made tea:

"What's the problem? Is it related to Gataro? And, can you be sure it's dead? ”

"It's dead."

Blade affirmed:

"No vampire can survive that explosion, not even high-level vampires. But, how much do you know about the Gaitaro family? ”

"Huh?"

Merlin looked back at Blade, and said with a puzzled look on his face:

"You are a vampire hunter who has lived for more than 30 years, hunting those dark rats all over the American continent, and you have been dealing with the Blood Elders for far more time than I do, you should know this question better than me."

"I know some, but what I know is not enough to answer my current doubts."

Blade sat on the couch, and he calmly said to Merlin:

"Maybe there is the answer I need in the information you found, in short, tell me, what do you all know about that family?"

"The Gataro family."

Merlin walked over to the couch with his tea, where he sat and recalled the information on the alien watch list he had seen, and said:

"This family, like the High Family, migrated to North America from other places, but they were a little earlier than the High Family, which is said to date back to the immediate end of the Civil War. At that time, the internal contradictions of the Blood Elders were quite acute, and they were fighting against the Magic Congress. ”

"The 12 pure-blood families in the Americas need strength, and the Getaro family has power, so after more than ten years of cooperation, they finally became members of the Bloodline Elders. But I've heard that because the Gataro and 12 families don't originate from the same ancestor, their position within the Presbyterian Church is also a bit awkward, and many of the 12 family's secrets won't be told to them. ”

"Just like this Blood God Inheritance."

Merlin Says:

"If it weren't for the migration of the vampires from South America, I'm afraid this secret would have been kept under wraps."

"Looks like you don't know much."

Blade shook his head in disappointment, and as Merlin watched, he threw a delicate one on the table, and said:

"The origin of the Gataro family, I have found it."

Blade's expression became serious, and he said to Merlin, who had picked up the ring:

"Do you recognize the logo on the ring?"

Merlin didn't answer, he looked at the strange cuneiform sign on the ring, and after a few seconds he whispered:

"The famous Dracula... How could I not recognize? You mean, the Getaro family, are Dracula's followers? ”

"Yes!"

Blade affirmed:

"Before he committed suicide, Gataro spoke to me a few words, which were very much like demonstrations, and like curses before he died. He told me that we had missed the last chance, and I didn't know what it was planning, but judging by the ring I had snatched back, it had something to do with its ancestors. Perhaps, they have found Dracula's grave. ”

"The timing is not right."

Merlin stroked the ring, and he said:

"Dracula woke up in 1992, eight years ago. When it woke up, it was prepared in advance by the vampire hunter Ulysses. Bloodstone Master sniped head-on, and that was also Elsa's father. ”

"Although we don't know where Master Ulysses is right now, I know for sure that Dracula will definitely not be in the Americas right now, and there is a high probability that he has been injured and may have been sealed again."

"In 1992?"

Blade's brow furrowed even tighter.

"I know that Gaitaro has a sister who is a well-known 'madman' in the East Coast vampire society, who fell out with Gaitaro in '92 and was kicked out of New York, and is now said to be living alone in Chicago. There shouldn't be a coincidence between these two things, right? ”

"It's hard to say."

Merlin shook his head, he looked at the ring in his hand, and he said:

"Looks like we're going to have to send someone to Chicago."

"I'll go."

Blade withdrew the ring, and he said to Merlin:

"I'm going to accompany Whistler to the West Coast to find his daughter, and if I have time, I'll go to Chicago. If this matter really has something to do with Dracula, then you can only send someone to die... It's not like Vlad III, who is weakened after the resurrection, the vampire progenitor is immortal, it's too dangerous. ”

"You?"

Merlin looked at the blade, and after a moment, he said:

"Why are you so enthusiastic? Do you have any grudges with Dracula? ”

"Nope."

Blade replied decisively:

"But I know that once Dracula does show up in North America, it's going to be a disaster. I am a vampire hunter, and it is my mission to stop this catastrophe, and I will fulfill this duty even without you. ”

"So be it."

Merlin rubbed his chin and after a few seconds of thought, he said to Blade:

"I'll give you an official identity so that you won't be disturbed during the search, and then you and I keep information sharing, and once you find anything valuable, you have to tell me as soon as possible, okay?"

"Identity?"

Blade raised his left hand and waved the black bracelet on his wrist:

"Isn't that identity? I am now your watched. ”

"No, it's not this."

Merlin shook his head:

"It's going to take a few days to get going, and I'll get back to you when it's done. If someone like you can't use it well, it will really be a dereliction of our job. I mean..."

"Erik, are you interested in working for me?"