Chapter 18: A Night of a Hundred Ghosts

In the eastern forest of Berlin, a Gothic cathedral stood.

The defining characteristic of the church was its exterior.

Pointed arches, buttresses, and traceried windows, with 135 spires piercing the sky like a dense forest, and at the tip of each spire, a statue of a saint.

At the very top was a golden statue of the Virgin Mary, gleaming brilliantly in the sunlight—magical and magnificent.

This made the cathedral seem exceptionally splendid and vibrant during the day.

Because there were few clouds in the sky today, the bleak moonlight shone directly onto the spire of the cathedral, giving it an ethereal and eerie feeling, quite the opposite of its daytime appearance.

Tonight’s protagonist was also ready and had ascended the stage.

Dressed in shimmering, silver-plated cleric’s robes, with a sharp cross the size of a dagger pinned to his chest and a bible tucked under his right arm, Father Li Ruoyi pushed open the cathedral doors.

With steady, elegant steps, he walked through the once-hallowed corridors.

Perhaps because the moonlight filtering through the cracks in the door was too piercing, the monsters lurking in the darkness began to stir.

Countless pairs of blood-red eyes appeared in every corner—on the pews, the stands, and the lofts.

And the focus of these eyes was the young cleric standing at the center of the lectern.

The young cleric was being watched by countless demons.

However, the young cleric, with his extraordinary arrogance, suppressed the fear that could make an ordinary magician’s liver and gallbladder shatter.

A faint smile graced the corner of his mouth, as if he were looking at a group of harmless children.

Even such a brief silence felt like an unbearably long eternity.

Instead, it was the vampires who first broke the awkward atmosphere.

They first whispered to their companions and then consulted with the bats flying around them before a phantom figure left its seat, walked up to the young cleric, and gave a slight bow, staring at the youth with cunning, sinister eyes.

This young man was none other than Li Ruoyi in disguise.

“Are you by chance a messenger of the White-Winged Duke?”

“Oh, my God!”

An expression of extreme disgust, characteristic of the French, appeared on Li Ruoyi’s face.

“I am just a cleric, a priest here for my apprenticeship at this church.”

“You are a cleric?”

The vampire before him was momentarily stunned, then an indescribable, strange laugh erupted from his mouth.

“Oh! Look here, a dear and respectable cleric!”

“A dear and respectable cleric,” the vampire repeated.

As if to echo their companion at the lectern, the vampires began to laugh with a sinister, mocking tone, as if playing a symphony of death in the empty cathedral.

“Brother Livre, has the reverend perhaps come to offer a prayer?”

An ethereal voice echoed from above everyone’s heads; a dark figure hung upside down from the stained-glass ceiling of the cathedral.

He seemed to be the leader of this group of vampires; when he spoke, the wailing laughter ceased abruptly.

“Oh, brother, I believe so. It is truly a joyous thing to still find diligent believers in this day and age!”

“But he has come to the wrong place, hasn’t he?”

“He has indeed come to the wrong place.”

The vampire named Livre stared viciously at Li Ruoyi’s neck.

“Then what should you do? Shouldn’t you show this clueless lamb the right path?”

“Oh! My apologies, my dear sir.”

Li Ruoyi took a step forward, gazing at the figure hanging upside down from the ceiling, and retorted, “In this world, there is no precedent for a devil guiding a human.”

The demons were momentarily stunned but quickly calmed down, almost instantly united in recognizing this youth as an enemy.

This was a banquet of demons, a cradle of devils.

More eyes opened in the darkness.

The vampire called Livre’s neck twisted at an impossible angle, his entire body trembling violently with an inexplicable excitement.

“Pray to God—oh, no! Pray to the gods to forgive you,” Livre shrieked.

The slaughter had begun.

Livre’s lower body was already rushing toward Li Ruoyi; his left hand curved into a claw, aiming to plunge it with precision and brutality into Li Ruoyi.

“Now I shall tear off your hand—”

In that instant, the cathedral fell silent.

Without any fluctuation of power, the two exchanged places in a flash, only now Li Ruoyi held an arm that was beginning to wither and rot.

“Aaaaaah, my hand!!!”

Clearly, not only had the claw failed to harm Li Ruoyi in the slightest, but it had also been ripped off by him.

Livre’s face was filled with terror; the corners of his eyes and lips began to twitch uncontrollably, and saliva dripped from the side of his mouth.

Almost simultaneously, Li Ruoyi flashed behind the vampire.

“Amen!”

Uttering a prayer to the Lord, he drove his left hand through the vampire’s heart with unstoppable force.

The vampire’s body was sent flying by this immense power, crashing heavily through the cathedral wall.

A flash of lightning streaked across the sky as the moonlight was obscured by gathering clouds.

A heavy rain began to fall, and the cathedral was once again plunged into darkness.

The vampires near the lectern swarmed forward under the cover of darkness, brandishing their sharp claws and fangs, intending to tear Li Ruoyi to shreds.

The biting wind of his fists raged in the darkness.

The sounds of skulls shattering, screams of agony, and flesh being torn filled the air, but soon, everything fell silent.

When lightning illuminated the scene once more, Li Ruoyi was already standing at the lectern, flipping through the bible he had previously tucked under his arm.

His white robes were splattered with crimson blood.

He simply looked at the demons before him with an incredibly compassionate yet merciless smile.

The corpses of the vampires at his feet had already paved the long steps leading to the lectern.

The demons in the darkness let out growls of fear.

A few younger ones stood up in panic, trying to flee, only to find that no matter how hard they pulled, they could no longer open the cathedral doors.

Their blood-red eyes, previously fierce, now resembled those of frightened rabbits as they huddled in the corners, trembling.

The vampires in the front row, though not as uncomposed as the younger ones, still rubbed their hands uneasily, betraying their inner turmoil.

“Now, please return to your seats! The prayer is about to begin.”

Li Ruoyi maintained his uniquely charming smile and put on the single-lensed, gold-rimmed glasses attached to his robe.

“Who in the world are you?”

The vampire cowering in the corner trembled even more violently.

Through the darkness, Li Ruoyi’s glaze-like pupils saw their appearance clearly.

They hadn’t even fully developed their fangs, looking like hastily made works.

They had classic Western European features, with messy, fluffy curly hair falling behind them, and their eyes still seemed to be mixed with their original beautiful blue.

They still wore crosses around their necks; perhaps they had once been diligent Catholics.

No one knew what kind of ideological turmoil was happening within their hearts, but anyone could see that their spirits were slowly breaking down.

“Everyone must pay a price for their wrongdoings, and today, you shall pay yours,” Li Ruoyi said coldly.

“Reverend Father! Oh! Merciful God!”

A faint gurgle came from the throat of a female vampire who had previously tried to flee.

She seemed to have found great resolve; she propped herself up against the wall and stood, looking toward her final salvation.

Becoming a vampire was not of her own volition; the Nicolae family had unilaterally cut off Berlin from the outside world.

Forced to survive, she had violated the vows she had once made before the Lord.

She had long known her sins were unforgivable.

Still, she stretched out her thin, veiny hand.

Her facial expression had broken down, and it was impossible to tell what emotion she was trying to convey.

Her eyes, filled with a crazed air, seemed on the verge of bulging out of their sockets, and the corners of her mouth were tilted at an extremely strange angle.

Her deathly pale face showed neither sorrow nor joy; the only certainty was that an irrepressible desire burned within her heart—a desire to approach the lectern, a near-instinctive yearning as a Catholic.

“Oh, oh, oh! Merciful God, I am sorry!”

Although her desire had reached its peak, her feet timidly drew back.

“Miss, you are Spanish, I believe, and also a magician?”

Li Ruoyi judged the woman’s nationality from her unique accent.

Hiding in the darkness, the crest on the woman’s cheek—the proof of a magician—began to glow faintly due to her extreme nervousness.

“Yes, I was once… a nun at this church!” the woman in the darkness said, trembling, as tears welled up in her eyes.

A bone-chilling cold slowly crept over her body.

She turned her head in terror to find that the hundreds of pairs of eyes were no longer fixed on the young cleric, but were like daggers aimed at her.

She broke down.

Her last thread of rationality seemed to evaporate like rising steam.

She could not resist the regret and fear that surged into her heart like a flood breaking through a dam.

“Please… please save me! Merciful God!” the female vampire screamed, starting to run frantically toward the lectern.

But the act of running ended before it had even begun.

A red light flashed.

She fell to the ground, her upper and lower body neatly severed.

Dark blood and internal organs spilled everywhere.

But she had not given up; using both hands, she continued to crawl toward the lectern.

The sound of flapping wings came from the darkness.

Just as the female vampire’s fingers touched the edge of the lectern, the demons in the darkness pulled with great force, dragging her back into the shadows.

The sounds of gnawing and her screams reached Li Ruoyi’s ears.

Although Li Ruoyi had already decided to kill them all, seeing what the female vampire had just done and her tragic fate, he felt a sharp pain in his heart.

“Hahaha! To think there are such holy ones among us! This is truly the best joke of the night!”

A man stepped out, fiddling with his short purple hair.

“A pleasure to meet you, Lord Human King. I am the vampire progenitor, Camarilla.”

Seeing Camarilla appear, the vampires in the front row grew bolder and leaped from their seats, pouncing toward the lectin.

Li Ruoyi summoned his giant scythe.

In a single exchange, all the vampires who dared to leave their seats were cut in half at the waist.

Li Ruoyi did not look up, continuing to flip through his bible with the same cold expression.

“Yo, brother. This damned rain is coming down pretty hard!”

The vampire named Camarilla was clearly growing impatient.

Although he hadn’t personally fought Li Ruoyi, he could feel the strength of the human before him.

The monstrous strength equal to or even surpassing that of a fantasy species, and the scythe capable of slaying the undead.

From his opponent’s calm, cold eyes, he instinctively realized that the enemy before him had not yet used his true power.

Mutual destruction was not a wise decision; the plan had to take priority!

“Then why don’t you die here? That way, you’ll never have to worry about rain soaking your clothes again.”

“You’re absolutely right!”

Camarilla smiled cunningly.

“But we are not as foolish as humans; we always weigh the pros and cons of everything.”

Black mist coiled around the vampire’s hands.

All the surrounding vampires, as if hearing a command, rose to their feet.

A deluge of curses and shadows poured onto the small lectern.

“There are as many of these artificial dead apostles as one could wish for. Though they are weak, they are enough to buy me time.”

Camarilla revealed that cunning smile once more.

His cloak transformed into a pair of massive black wings.

Like a bat traversing the night, he escaped through the hole that had been smashed in the cathedral wall earlier.