Chapter 48: Torture

Hisaki took the first step toward Qiansui.

With just that one step, the air in the room changed.

A primal fear etched deep into human genes, the terror of being prey.

The Demon Hunter’s perception system blared the highest-level alarm in Qiansui’s brain, and the body honed through countless trials under Black Iron Rank holy water enhancement, every cell in it was screaming.

Run.

Run now.

This is not something you can fight.

The blood clan aura radiating from Hisaki was completely different from the “Viscount” in the intelligence files.

Not a Viscount, not even an ordinary Count.

That aura carried something ancient and pure… a direct line to the True Progenitor.

Qiansui’s pupils were shaking.

A pure-blood Count inheriting True Progenitor blood, those half-breed small fry and low-rank nobles she had dealt with before were in a completely different dimension.

A Vampire of this level, let alone Black Iron Rank, even three Silver Ranks joining forces might not hold their ground.

What about Nana?

With all this commotion, where did she go?

She said she would be on standby in the next room, said she would rush over immediately if anything happened, the entire window had been kicked out, the noise was enough to scare off stray cats across the street, how could Nana not have heard?

Unless… she wasn’t in the next room at all.

Qiansui had no time to keep thinking about that.

Her body reacted before her brain, centuries of Demon Hunter combat experience against Vampires etched into muscle memory, better to strike first than wait to die.

She pushed off the ground with everything she had, cracks spiderwebbing across the floor beneath her feet, her entire body becoming a blur charging at Hisaki.

A straight punch.

The full force of a Black Iron Rank Demon Hunter infused with holy water enhancement, her fist splitting the air with a sharp crack.

This punch could penetrate ten centimeters of steel plate, could blast a low-rank Vampire’s head into fragments.

The fist passed through Hisaki’s face.

No blood, no sensation of bone shattering, nothing.

Hisaki’s entire face phased into a semi-transparent dark silhouette the moment the fist made contact, Qiansui’s punch felt like it had plunged into a bottomless swamp of shadow, all the force swallowed completely.

Shadow, just as suspected.

The bloodline talent inherited from the True Progenitor’s direct line, phasing the body partially at the moment of physical attack contact, immune to all pure physical damage.

Qiansui had seen records about “shadow assimilation” at the intelligence bureau, but this was the first time she had witnessed it with her own eyes, and the first time she had stuck her fist into that ability.

She immediately retracted her punch and pulled back, skidding to a stop on the floor, lowering her center of gravity, arms crossed in front of her chest, a standard defensive stance.

This was the correct response for a Black Iron Rank Demon Hunter facing an unknown ability, don’t be greedy for offense, secure defense first.

Hisaki didn’t give her a chance to stabilize.

A blurred shadow flashed in from the blind spot beneath Qiansui’s defensive stance, the speed of a Vampire Count far exceeding what Qiansui’s dynamic vision could track.

Hisaki’s right leg disappeared from her field of view for an instant, then appeared directly in front of her abdomen, a standard front kick, the motion small, the range minimal, like crushing a bug on the ground with the tip of a toe.

The moment the sole of the foot made contact with Qiansui’s abdomen, the force exploded.

Qiansui felt her liver being squeezed against her spine under that kick, every organ in her abdominal cavity letting out a strangled cry of being crushed.

The body enhanced by Black Iron Rank holy water produced no effective defense against a pure-blood Count-level Vampire, when the liver takes a heavy hit the human body automatically triggers protective spasms, the diaphragm contracts violently, breathing is cut off instantly.

“Gah!”

Qiansui’s body flew backward from the force of that blow, slamming heavily into the wall.

The plasterboard wall of the minshuku room dented into a human-shaped impression, debris and dust trickling down from the cracks.

She slid down the wall, knees hitting the floor first, then her whole body pitched forward, hands bracing against the ground, gasping for breath.

Every inhale was accompanied by a tearing pain from her liver area, the kind of pain that was crushed and reassembled, then crushed and reassembled again.

Almost got her liver destroyed.

The Demon Hunter’s holy water enhancement saved her life, but only just barely.

Her body was trembling violently, she wanted to stand, but her legs were pinned in place by the neural paralysis from that kick’s shockwave.

Hisaki stood in the center of the room, looking down at Qiansui gasping on her knees.

There was no anger in her dark red pupils, no excitement, only a cold light, looking at something that needed to be dealt with.

This level of torment was far from enough for the crime of “stealing Little White and bullying her to tears.”

Hisaki’s body began to sink, like ink dropping into water, silently merging into the shadow at her feet.

Qiansui lifted her sweat-soaked face, her vision blurring and swaying from the agonizing pain in her liver.

She was frantically turning her head to search, the target had vanished from her field of view, completely dissolved into the darkness, even the Demon Hunter’s perception couldn’t catch any trace of aura.

The next second, a shadow rose from the floor directly in front of Qiansui.

Hisaki stepped out of the shadow, closing the distance in one stride, her long right leg raised again.

This time it was a side kick, the toe precisely aimed at Qiansui’s flank, the kidney area.

The moment the toe sank into her flank, Qiansui’s body launched like a billiard ball struck by a cue, bouncing off the floor, arcing through the air, and crashing into the opposite wall.

A dull thud echoed through the room.

Qiansui rebounded off the wall and landed face-down on the floor, covered in broken plaster and dust.

Her flank was radiating a pain deeper and more twisted than the liver, after the kidney took that hit, her entire abdominal cavity was spasming.

Hisaki watched the girl curled into a ball on the floor, gasping violently, almost unable to make a sound.

Then she raised her head and looked at the other side of the room.

Qi was standing in the corner, holding the silver-white creature wrapped in a blanket.

Hisaki’s expression automatically switched the moment she looked at Little White, the lingering coldness on her face hadn’t fully faded, but the corners of her mouth were already starting to curve upward.

Rina was nestled in Qi’s arms, her face buried deeply into Qi’s shoulder.

Every muffled thud of Qiansui hitting the wall, every scream torn from her throat, each sound made Rina’s small body flinch violently.

She was trembling. Terrified. Absolutely terrified.

Qiansui’s screams overlapped with her own shrieks from the day her fingernails were ripped off, both the sounds of being tormented by the kidnapper.

She was afraid the kidnapper would come check her “crime scene” after finishing with Qiansui, afraid the kidnapper would discover the kidnapping scene was faked by her, afraid the kidnapper would show that expressionless face, and then she would become the next Qiansui, kicked into the wall over and over, beaten to the brink of death by a figure emerging from the shadows.

No.

No no no.

She didn’t want to be tormented, she wasn’t a bad kid.

Rina kept her eyes squeezed shut, her eyelashes trembling violently, both hands gripping the edge of the blanket so hard her knuckles turned white, her body curling up in Qi’s arms, shrinking into the smallest possible size.

Kurose Qi looked down at this little thing trembling like a sieve in her arms, no pity, no sympathy.

Her sister was personally executing a Demon Hunter, and this human child was the reason for the execution.

Qi had no interest in human fear, she was only objectively observing the white fur ball in her arms, noting how it flinched every time it heard a crash, how it buried its face deeper into her shoulder every time it heard a scream.

Scared?

Not surprising, an ordinary human girl, seeing her sister’s overwhelming violence, would of course be scared.

Qi said nothing, just tightened her arms slightly, keeping this little thing that was shaking too hard from slipping out of her hold.