Chapter 24 : First Mission (1)

The early morning in Honghu City, was like a dying firefly, beautiful, yet desolate.

One AM.

The wind howled, like a crying infant.

An Xiaoyi clutched her trench coat collar, and looked down.

Under the streetlamp a hundred meters away, there was a swaying figure, and a girl.

She leaned against the bus stop sign to shelter from the wind.

No buses would come this late, so she could only hope for a taxi.

In the distance, the man clutched the streetlamp pole for support.

Residual viscous fluid flowed down the pole.

His body was grotesque and swollen, his face already disfigured, eyeballs almost popping out of their sockets.

A victim transformed into a ghoul.

Recently, vampire terror incidents had frequently occurred in the old city district of Honghu City.

Many people had gone missing or were murdered.

The victims had no bodies; all were transformed into ghouls.

This heinous incident quickly drew the attention of the Enforcement Bureau.

Investigations revealed that the perpetrator’s modus operandi was around 1 AM, attacking late-returning pedestrians.

The girl stood in front of the bus stop, like a female student who had just come out of a bar.

She reeked of cocktails.

She was very nervous, daring not to look at the slowly approaching monster.

“Ping Yanyan, don’t be nervous.”

A middle-aged woman’s voice came through the earpiece.

“Understood…”

At the intersection not far away, a black van was parked.

Several enforcers stared intently at the ghoul.

The professor group responsible for commanding was on the rooftop, observing its every move.

These professors, who also served as officers in the Enforcement Bureau, were called Executive Professors, far incomparable to those undergraduate professors.

Professor Eve was the leader of this operation, a very serious woman.

Ping Yanyan was in her second year.

According to regulations, starting from the second year, students must complete at least three internship missions annually.

This would affect their credits and future assessment criteria.

Only absolute elites were qualified to enter the Enforcement Bureau.

Tonight was her second internship mission, and she was nervous and uneasy.

At another intersection, many senior students were also deployed.

They held assault rifles.

Nearly fifty people were mobilized for this operation, determined to capture the target in one fell swoop tonight.

This was also An Xiaoyi’s first mission,and he was just an untrained professor.

“Professor An, I’ll have to trouble you.”

Eve, with a look of complete trust, handed him a very large sniper rifle.

An Xiaoyi received it steadily.

The gun was excessively heavy; it was an anti-materiel sniper rifle.

He was somewhat puzzled,

“Is my mission to shoot tanks?”

“No, you are responsible for the final sniper shot. Many times, the abilities of vampires are inconceivable. Every execution of a pureblood vampire comes at a heavy cost, even for ordinary vampires.”

Professor Eve looked at him, still with an affirmative tone,

“As a professor of vampire history, you shouldn’t have to come on this mission, but you are trusted by the Principal, so I trust you too.”

As she spoke, she smiled.

“Besides, you really came, didn’t you?”

Trust?

An Xiaoyi felt that this woman didn’t need to trust him so much.

His participation in the mission was just a matter of helplessness and repayment, absolutely not some kind of belief.

It was only at the banquet that day that he suddenly realized why Principal Farrow had been so good to him.

It was nothing more than wanting to use him as a tool.

So he decided to repay the Principal’s favor.

Tonight was very strange.

The Enforcement Bureau was using a student as bait to lure out that unknown pureblood vampire.

This operation involved a large contingent of elite personnel.

Besides the temporary command post composed of five Executive Professors, there were twenty A-grade enforcers, and numerous senior students.

These students, having undergone professional training, wielded their weapons and powers with skill, matching anyone in combat.

Professor Eve took a bullet from a case.

Its entire casing was translucent, with a turbulent, dark-red liquid, like highly concentrated sulfuric acid, visibly flowing inside, appearing incredibly fierce.

“It’s a highly pure mercury bullet, containing the blood of a Duke,” Professor Eve stated.

“In the past, humans were quite imaginative in creating weapons against vampires, finding every way to extract weapon materials from them. This bullet can kill the target if it hits the heart.”

An Xiaoyi took the bullet, examined it for a long while, then expertly loaded it.

“You must have used a gun before, and very skillfully,” Eve observed.

“I’m a quick learner,” An Xiaoyi replied nonchalantly. “Otherwise, the Principal wouldn’t have sent me directly.”

Eve gave him a deep look.

An Xiaoyi felt the gun, then glanced at the student named Ping Yanyan, who was trembling with fear.

“Is it really okay to use a student with low psychological fortitude as bait?” he asked.

Professor Eve looked over and sighed.

This was a student she had always been worried about.

“This was her own choice.”

“Choice?”

“She’s already in her fourth year. Her previous mission was completed quite poorly. Generally, by the fourth year, one needs to complete at least five internship missions. If this continues, she won’t be able to graduate smoothly.”

“What happens if she can’t graduate smoothly?” An Xiaoyi asked curiously.

“She loses the qualification to become an enforcer, and then she’ll have one chance to repeat a year. If she graduates successfully during that period, there’s still a possibility. If she doesn’t graduate, she won’t even have the opportunity to be assigned to a clerical position.”

“Is it bad for students if they go home?”

“I imagine being under lifelong surveillance and constantly guarded by the humans around you wouldn’t feel good,” Eve said flatly.

“In the eyes of humans, ability users are quite terrifying too.”

An Xiaoyi recalled that the situation for ability users wasn’t as good as one might imagine.

He said nothing more.

“They’re here, prepare!” Professor Eve shouted into the microphone.

An Xiaoyi looked over.

In his sight, perhaps finally catching the scent of a human, the ghoul visibly grew excited.

It crawled on the ground, pouncing towards the girl under the bus stop advertisement board.

Its speed was incredible, completely surpassing human limits.

Its sharp claws were capable of tearing an adult apart, creating a pressure that left everyone breathless.

The female student took a deep breath, bent down, and picked up the silver longsword she had placed on the ground earlier, gripping it tightly.

This weapon, forged by the Equipment Department with some kind of power, contained a potent venom specifically targeting vampires.

If it pierced a vital spot like the head or heart, it could even kill a Viscount-level pureblood vampire.

Inside the vehicle, Professor Eve chose not to intervene.

She needed this student to kill the ghoul with her own hands and draw out the instigator.

The enforcers’ task tonight was to encircle and eliminate that vampire.

They couldn’t fire their weapons; doing so would alert the hidden vampire to their ambush.

Under the strict gun control laws of the Flower Nation, St. Antiona students couldn’t carry firearms, but they could carry cold weapons like knives, swords, or daggers.

Even cold weapons had to be reported monthly.

The female student, wearing the St. Antiona , clearly indicated her identity as an ability user.

In previous cases, this vampire had repeatedly attacked female ability users, suggesting its hunting targets included ability users and it had a preference for females; some vampires are particularly fond of female blood.

Therefore, the female student had to pretend to have merely encountered the ghoul and been forced to retaliate with her silver sword.

Firing a gun would alert the hidden vampire to an anomaly.

In its understanding, a prey it had targeted shouldn’t be armed, unless it was a premeditated ambush.

Five meters.

Three meters.

Closer and closer.

The female student, relying on combat techniques from memory, swung her sword and, mustering all her courage, plunged the sword into the monster’s heart with all her might.

The unprepared ghoul let out a dying roar, and the hand that was about to smash the girl’s head fell weakly.

“Success!”

The female student was overjoyed internally, but on her face, she maintained an expression of confusion and alert wariness towards her strange surroundings.