Blood Queen

Still on that small hill several hundred meters away, under the cover of sparse bushes, nearly twenty black figures crouched in ambush, the scene utterly silent.

All the Hyacinth members wore special black tight-fitting combat suits and tactical outer garments. They were all colleagues from the Golden River Club that Jiang Yan recognized, mostly women with fewer men.

Wan Yue's appearance was no exception. Her already outstanding figure was outlined even more sensually and alluringly by the tight combat suit.

Her long hair cascaded over her shoulders, with several auxiliary equipment pieces mounted on her chest and waist. She wore a portable communicator on her head, held a VSS silenced rifle at her side, and with a cloak draped over her, she looked like a war queen of the night.

A few minutes ago, a certain message from Zhao Peng, accompanied by the complete power outage of both medical buildings, proved that Old Man Jiang Chunhua's blood infection was fake, and there was no imagined emergency blood infection surgery.

At this moment, everyone around Wan Yue knew that Jiang Yan had lost her bet. Wan Yue had seen through Shadow Arrow's arrangement from the very beginning. This was just an open conspiracy playing with people's obsessions.

Zhou Ping, holding a sniper rifle, carefully lay prone on the ground, aiming at a searchlight several hundred meters away. With the Blood Clan's amazing night vision, shooting at this distance was child's play for her, and also her only notable specialty.

"Perhaps Xiao Yan had already accepted Sister Wan's judgment, but still harbored hope in her heart, making her persist until the very end... Sigh, to help Xiao Yan let go of her obsession, Sister Wan and Brother Zhao Peng didn't hesitate to take such great risks."

Quietly observing the Hyacinth leader not far away, Zhou Ping muttered to herself.

"Although the terrain is favorable, it's still somewhat beyond Zhao Peng and Jiang Yan's capabilities... Let's activate the cover plan. Pay attention to maintaining the engagement contact line."

Staring at the medical building surrounded by searchlight beams in the distance, seeing that Zhao Peng and his companion's final evacuation signal hadn't been sent out, Wan Yue could only announce the start of the cover plan.

Smoke grenades suddenly launched from several hundred meters away, trailing long smoke trails in parabolic arcs, fell into the military hospital one after another, immediately causing tension among the outer Shadow Arrow forces. As spotlights were shattered one by one by sniper fire from hundreds of meters away, the entire encirclement line began to loosen.

Watching their somewhat chaotic action squad comrades around them, the Xuan Jia Squad members serving as the mobile reserve remained calm, each maintaining their combat readiness posture, awaiting Meng Huai's orders.

"Han Xiao guessed that other Blood Clan forces would come to join the excitement, and she bet correctly again... Tao Qiao'er, take the Support Company to reinforce the outer blockade line. Don't deliberately pursue, just disperse them. Prioritize recording video evidence."

With a gesture, under Tao Qiao'er's leadership, over a hundred Xuan Jia Squad Support Company members quickly deployed in tactical formation according to pre-planned tactical arrangements, surrounding the direction from which the smoke grenades were launched.

Meanwhile, Meng Huai took over field command from Han Xiao, leading the Xuan Jia Squad Assault Company soldiers to stand in front of the medical building's main entrance, staring intently at a certain floor above, his brow furrowed.

Tonight, following Staff Officer Zhen's strict orders, Meng Huai hadn't injected himself with anti-blood infection immune medication, and it was also the first time he wasn't personally leading frontline combat. Because his physical condition wasn't ideal, he now had to treasure every injection opportunity, delaying the time when he'd be forced to retire from frontline duty.

Two faint blade glints flashed as a man and woman in black clothing crouched down, pressing their cut wrists against the thin layer of blood-mixed water on the ground, slowly sending their own blood into it.

Simultaneously, two unfamiliar violent blood-boiling auras expanded within the sealed medical building, like demons descending.

The automatic fire suppression nozzles on the ceiling had stopped working after a bout of hysterical venting.

On the smooth floor of the waiting hall, thin pools of water spread across a vast area, almost covering the entire waiting hall. If there had been lights at this moment, one could see that these pools were actually an unsettling blood-red color.

Chaotic footsteps, accompanied by dozens of thin beams from tactical flashlights, began appearing at the upward stairwell entrance. A few seconds later, the first wave of over forty Shadow Arrow force members gathering from upstairs rushed into the hall waiting area.

The pervasive bloody smell and the strange pools on the ground made everyone slow their pace.

The leading young lieutenant lightly waved his hand, and dozens of Shadow Arrow soldiers, stepping through the pools, quickly deployed in tactical formation in the empty waiting hall.

Moving slowly but feeling something wrong with the shoe-sole sensation from the thin pools underfoot, there was an unusual stickiness. The small beams of tactical flashlights occasionally swept across the ground, abnormal colors flashing by.

The lieutenant raised his night vision goggles, while vigilantly watching the surroundings and slowly crouching down, his fingers touching the pooled water.

Under direct illumination from the tactical flashlight, a faint red color appeared on his gloved fingertips. Sweeping the tactical flashlight beam toward more distant areas, he discovered that the thin blood-water on the ground extended all the way to the dark depths, as if everyone had now stepped into a blood-soaked land.

"Retreat! Get out!"

But it was too late. After just one second of stunned silence, a terrifying thought exploded in the lieutenant's mind, followed by a heart-rending shout.

From the blood-red pools on the ground, countless thin blood-red spikes suddenly shot out, like red thorns growing from the blood-water, instantly piercing through the lieutenant's body and the bodies of nearly a dozen Shadow Arrow members around him.

Back of the head, face, chest, thighs, torso – blood-colored thorn spikes rising diagonally from the ground at various angles, like enormous, crisscrossing blood-colored toothpicks, pinned Shadow Arrow members to the ground one by one.

A Shadow Arrow member whose eye socket had been pierced covered his face and let out a miserable scream, but soon more spikes rose from the ground, piercing his entire body and fixing him into a broken and grotesque bloody statue.

All of this happened within just a few seconds. Only then did the remaining Shadow Arrow soldiers come to their senses and begin frantically retreating toward the stairwell, even throwing grenades in an attempt to destroy the blood-soaked ground.

Unfortunately, according to pre-battle arrangements, incendiary bombs were prohibited from being carried and used, since this was indoors and thermite-charged incendiary bombs were extremely dangerous. Moreover, the entire medical building's facilities were worth a fortune and weren't listed as expendable items in this operation.

Their proper combat training still existed. While retreating, they alternately turned to fire toward the depths of the hall, but the silver bullet traces and flashing muzzle flames couldn't stop the continuous slaughter around them. People kept being turned into sieves by blood spikes from the blood-colored pools, then collapsing in the bloody ground.

More blood began flowing from dead or severely wounded Shadow Arrow members, continuing to mix into the blood-colored pools on the ground. The blood-soaked ground gained new nourishment, becoming thicker and more viscous, then more blood spikes rose from the ground to pierce more bodies.

Several more team members were pierced through their bodies or skulls by blood spikes suddenly emerging horizontally from the side. On the nearby walls, thick blood stains were also flowing, and these blood spikes had grown from these blood stains.

Even more terrifying, several Shadow Arrow members who had nearly rushed out of the blood-stained pool area seemed to collide with an invisible net of blade barriers, instantly staging an unbearable, extremely bloody cutting scene.

Heads in tactical helmets flew off from necks, or chests began being cut into several sections, or running bodies instantly lost everything below the waist or both legs.

Broken limbs and torsos scattered in all directions amid chaotic gunfire and swaying tactical flashlight beams, fragmented and dismembered, falling to the ground one after another, finally returning to silence.

Under the tactical flashlights' illumination, over a dozen bloody, eerie threads, horizontal and diagonal, spanned the entire hall like barrier cables, blocking several directions.

Blood was no longer limited to the ground–walls and ceiling everywhere were streaming with foul-smelling dark red liquid.

At the stairwell, rising beams of light and dense footsteps were heard again as the assault team from the lower floor was getting closer and closer.

The lieutenant, pierced by over a dozen blood-colored spikes and hanging diagonally in the pool of blood, struggled to turn his head toward the stairwell, slowly raising his arm as if trying to prevent something. Unfortunately, his communicator only produced chaotic electronic noise with no feedback.

"Squad Leader Han... don't... don't come..."

Blood still gushing from his mouth, the dying young lieutenant mustered his last bit of strength to issue a final weak warning to the lower assault team led by Han Xiao, but his voice could only echo in his blood-filled mouth, unable to be transmitted.

In the lieutenant's final desperate gaze, more Embroidered Uniform Squad Assault Company soldiers rushed into the blood-soaked waiting hall, then continued the bloody massacre that had occurred dozens of seconds earlier.

Han Xiao's chest and thigh were pierced, but fortunately two quick-reacting team members behind her immediately grabbed her body, breaking the blood spikes and dragging her back.

Han Xiao's tactical helmet had long since fallen somewhere. Now covered in blood and lying at the stairwell entrance, she watched in despair as her close comrades one by one were pierced on the bloody charge route or cut to pieces by suddenly appearing dense blood threads.

"No... no... no..."

Han Xiao lay numbly in her comrade's arms, not daring to look at the final few comrades who had mistakenly entered the blood-soaked ground, now pinned to death in the blood pool and struggling in their death throes. Tears flowed torrentially during these dozen seconds, the scalding tears blurring her vision.

Chaotic gunfire still rose and fell in the spacious hall, flashing muzzle flames continuously illuminating the surrounding blood-red scene.

A few seconds later, as the last defiant figure fell, the gunfire ceased and the massacre finally ended.

In the heavy bloody atmosphere, only Han Xiao's sobbing and wailing echoed.

The three assault teams under the Embroidered Uniform Squad Assault Company, plus a special team supported by the Central Surveillance District, totaling over 120 Shadow Arrow assault members, had thus suffered eighty to ninety percent casualties in less than two minutes, and most of them probably had very slim hopes of being saved.

Yet no one had seen a shadow of the perpetrators.

In the distant dark corners, Zhao Peng and Jiang Yan had also witnessed this entire brutal, one-sided massacre.

"Blood transformation... you can't do this... let them go..."

Under the continuous assault of unfamiliar violent auras, Jiang Yan's face was pale and her lips trembling slightly. While wiping away tears that had somehow covered her face, she murmured pleas that only she could hear.

Jiang Yan had only known this term from Shadow Arrow's tactical manuals, but this was the first time in her life seeing such a bloody, cruel scene–a feeling of insurmountable crushing defeat.

Especially since she still couldn't understand what exactly that pair of black-clothed man and woman had done in this waiting hall, apart from the overwhelming auras far exceeding Knight level rampaging in the darkness.

"Sigh, two Rhine Blood Clan Barons... Rhine Blood Clan's signature move, blood transformation."

Zhao Peng also sighed softly, slowly sitting up and shaking his head bitterly with a wry smile: "Two Barons... I'm certain this absolutely wasn't Sister Wan's orders."

At this time, outside the military hospital, most of the searchlights had been shot out by Hyacinth snipers. Combined with various fire harassment, the risk for Zhao Peng and Jiang Yan to cross the final corridor section was finally greatly reduced, providing a time window for successful escape.

A few minutes later, Wan Yue's order rang out in the portable communicator earpieces, and all Hyacinth members began withdrawing from the battle line.

Behind Hyacinth, the Xuan Jia Squad Support Company led by Tao Qiao'er also stopped pursuing, and both sides disengaged from combat. Because Tao Qiao'er had received news more shocking than the current enemy situation, she now had no heart for battle.

The hysterical war clamor finally ended, only to be replaced by another kind of panicked, helpless madness. The military hospital was once again brightly lit with surging crowds.

Countless stretchers poured in, and black combat-suited bodies were carried out one by one, some intact, some incomplete, blood everywhere, a complete mess.

Another hour later, Jiang Yan and Zhao Peng appeared supporting each other at the edge of bushes several thousand meters from the military hospital, their clothes torn and damaged, especially Zhao Peng, who was obviously seriously injured.

"How was it? Fun?"

In the darkness came Wan Yue's familiar harsh sarcasm as a sensual figure slowly emerged.

Glancing briefly at Zhao Peng's body and facial expression, Wan Yue lightly nodded, and Xiao Ai behind her hurriedly ran over.

Jiang Yan didn't speak, only wiped the blood and tears from her face, gently set down the weakened Zhao Peng, then stood up straight.

"Silly girl, this old lady told you from the beginning–I could tell you had problems from day one. As the first on-scene evidence gatherers, wouldn't Shadow Arrow know about your future threat? You're probably already a B-level mission target now, equivalent to a troublemaking Blood Clan Viscount.

"Had enough excitement today? Being hunted by three full squads, two of which were heritage squads. Consider it a lesson in what lengths Shadow Arrow will go to when hunting a Blood Clan Viscount...

"It's not just Shadow Arrow–others are waiting for you to show yourself too... Hehe, two Rhine Blood Clan Barons setting traps to humiliate children. The Engel Family really does have moles in Shadow Arrow!"

Wan Yue lit a cigarette, watching the chaos in the distance, her cold smile growing more pronounced.

"They're from the Engel Family?"

Jiang Yan's heart jumped as she quickly turned around, her mind conjuring images of those two mysterious black-clothed figures and another blonde youth who had brought her even more terrifying pressure.

Is this the realm of high-level Blood Clan? Before the massacre began, she hadn't sensed any definite information from those two people. Everything seemed chaotic, impossible to fathom.

This feeling was the same with Wan Yue, even at close range.

Seeing Jiang Yan still in a daze, Wan Yue turned away with a bored expression: "A traditional European Orthodox Blood Clan major family, also attracted by certain matters. But this time they helped you by not letting you fall into Shadow Arrow's hands, though their motives aren't pure.

"Listen, from now on, your blood, any living tissue from your body, except for providing to Jiang Yao for consumption, absolutely cannot be allowed to leak out. Even used sanitary pads must be completely destroyed for me!"

Taking one last look toward the military hospital, where the final searchlight in the darkness still wandered helplessly, listening to helicopters buzzing around aimlessly in the sky like headless flies, Jiang Yan silently lowered her head.