Xu Xialing arrived in London as a damp, evening chill settled over the city. She led her Golden Daggers crew to the rendezvous point, an empty industrial park near the water. She'd spent the afternoon scouting the transaction location, positioning her people in the deep shadows of warehouses and on overlooking rooftops. They were concealed in ambush points around the perimeter.
Xu was here as the buyer, with no intention of robbing anyone, but that didn't mean her counterpart shared the same philosophy. She'd used her local channels to arm the team. They carried assault rifles and pistols, the metal cold to the touch. Everything except body armor, which the tight time constraints had made impossible to acquire.
The sun had set completely. Darkness, thick and heavy, blanketed the city, broken only by sparse, flickering security lights.
Back in the cavernous stone hall of the vampire castle, Victor watched Selene depart with her transaction team. The heavy doors closed with a dull thud. He turned, his gaze falling on the remaining Death Dealers standing silhouetted against the torchlight. He raised his hand, a simple, sharp gesture.
"The rest of you, with me. Tonight, we exterminate the werewolf clan completely." His voice was flat, an order without room for failure.
A set of headlights cut through the gloom of the industrial park. Selene arrived at the meeting point, her squad's cars pulling up in a smooth, practiced formation. Xu Xialing and her visible people were already waiting, standing by their own vehicles, their breath misting in the cold air.
Selene stepped from her car, the door closing with a solid thunk. Her black leather jacket gleamed wetly under the weak overhead streetlights. She activated her scouter, the small lens clicking over her eye. A soft beep as it locked onto Xu Xialing. The reading that flashed in her vision surprised her. This woman's combat power matched her own.
Across the tarmac, Xu Xialing was doing the same assessment, her own scouter analyzing Selene. After confirming the other party wasn't ordinary, Xu felt a small wave of relief that she'd brought backup. Otherwise, this could have gone very badly.
"Did you bring it?" Xu Xialing asked. Her voice was clear, cutting straight to business and echoing slightly off the damp brick walls.
Selene didn't answer immediately. She reached into her jacket and produced the Dragon Ball. It seemed to pulse with a faint, internal light, starkly visible in the night. "Do you really think you can buy this for five million?"
Xu Xialing's eyes locked onto the sphere. Her shoulders tensed slightly. So she did have it.
"Sister," Xu replied, her tone cool, "raising the price at the last second isn't good business practice."
Selene smiled, a flash of white teeth, pure contempt. "I don't know if you're playing dumb or if you genuinely don't understand what Dragon Balls do. If it's just five million, I'll pay you ten right now for yours."
Xu Xialing's expression shifted. The confidence in her stance faltered for just a second.
"You don't have a Dragon Ball, do you?" Selene's own confidence wavered. Her smile faded. Was this woman just some opportunist who'd heard rumors and was trying to capitalize? This was a waste.
Selene pulled out the heavy coin Mr. X had given her. The battle ticket. "Do you know what this is?"
Xu Xialing stepped closer, studying it in the harsh glare of the car headlights. The visibility was good, despite the surrounding darkness. "A Fraternity gold coin?"
The pattern was different from the standard coins, but she clearly recognized the engraved Dragon Ball on one side and the Fraternity emblem on the other.
Selene snapped her hand shut, pocketing both items immediately. This was a complete waste of time. The woman before her had no Dragon Ball. She certainly had no battle ticket.
"Seems you have no intention of dealing honestly," Xu Xialing said, her voice dropping. She waved her hand, a sharp, sudden signal. "Since we've come all this way, I'll take everything you have."
From the rooftops and dark alleyways, Golden Daggers operatives burst from concealment. The night exploded with the sharp crack-crack-crack of assault rifles opening fire. Muzzle flashes lit up the industrial park.
But the Death Dealers reacted faster. They'd been tensed and ready, and the moment Xu Xialing gave her order, they were already moving, diving behind their cars and returning fire. The air filled with the shriek of ricochets. Most bullets hammered into engine blocks and door panels, sending up showers of sparks and glass. Very few found targets.
And the few that did hit the vampires had minimal effect, staggering them for a moment before they recovered. It wasn't specialized ammunition. In the first seconds of the counterattack, several Golden Daggers fell from their positions.
Without time to properly prepare and with no real intel on their opponents, Xu Xialing's team lacked heavy weapons. No grenade launchers. No rockets. Just rifles and pistols against... this.
Selene cursed, hunkered behind her car. "Bitch." She had planned to rob these would-be robbers. Apparently, they'd had the exact same idea. "Get out there," she snarled to her team. "Take them down."
Seeing the bullets weren't specialized rounds, that they just stung, the Death Dealers abandoned caution. They vaulted over their cover and rushed forward, moving with a fluid, inhuman speed. They blurred through the open ground, dodging the worst of the gunfire and returning precise, single shots.
Xu Xialing's eyes widened in disbelief. "What the hell are they?"
The enemies weren't bulletproof, not exactly. She watched a bullet punch clean through one's shoulder. The vampire didn't even slow down. The wounds healed almost instantly, the flesh closing up. Small, dark pellets, the bullets themselves, were visibly expelled from the flesh and clattered to the ground within seconds.
Xu Xialing joined the fight, her dart rope uncoiling with a metallic whir. The steel point lashed out, cutting deep wounds, but the effect was minimal against these creatures. They healed as fast as she could strike.
A Death Dealer, his magazine empty, clicked uselessly. He tossed the pistol aside and closed the distance rapidly. Xu Xialing's dart was still extended from a previous strike, not yet retracted. The vampire stepped inside her guard and threw a powerful kick.
Xu shifted, absorbing the blow and striking back with her own. The impact was solid. Xu Xialing's considerable strength sent the Death Dealer flying backward, crashing into the side of a car with a sound of buckling metal.
One of her lieutenants reached her side, firing his pistol to cover her. "Boss, we need to retreat," he yelled over the gunfire. "We can't win this."
Xu Xialing surveyed the battlefield. The Death Dealer she had kicked was already getting to his feet. Every time an enemy went down, they stood back up moments later. Her people stayed down.
She gritted her teeth, the taste of failure bitter in her mouth. "On me. Full retreat."
The Golden Daggers didn't break formation. They consolidated around Xu Xialing, laying down covering fire as they pulled back, protecting her as they withdrew in good order toward their remaining vehicles.
Selene watched them go, her expression flat. She gestured for her Death Dealers to halt pursuit. "Don't waste time on them. We have more important work."
Since they had no Dragon Ball, pursuing them was pointless. The enemy leader had decent skills, she'd give her that, but the priority was exterminating the werewolves.
"Let's go," she ordered, brushing a speck of dirt from her jacket. "Join the main force. We have werewolves to kill."
Selene's team loaded efficiently into their vehicles. Engines roared to life, and they drove off, tires squealing on the damp pavement as they sped toward the werewolf stronghold.
As the sounds of both groups faded, a new sound filled the air. The heavy whump-whump-whump of rotor blades. A dark, unmarked helicopter descended from above, its spotlight cutting through the darkness. Fully equipped special forces fast-roped down onto the tarmac. They moved with silent, practiced efficiency, collecting bodies, grabbing shell casings, and cleaning all evidence of the fight. Within minutes, they were gone, and the industrial park was silent once more.
In Xu Xialing's speeding retreat vehicle, one of her men looked back through the rear window. "Boss, they're not pursuing."
The air in the car, thick with tension and the smell of gunpowder, seemed to lighten. Everyone exhaled in a collective sigh of relief.
Xu Xialing stared blankly at the passing city lights, then punched the back of the passenger seat in front of her. The thud of the impact was sharp. "Damn it. We took serious losses tonight."
She understood now. The supposed seller had been bait, a trap to lure her out. If the other party hadn't realized she lacked a Dragon Ball, she might not have survived.
The enemies were strange. Except for their female leader, the others' power was higher than her team's, but not impossibly so. They weren't as skilled as she was in direct combat. But their recovery ability was abnormal. Bullets were basically useless against them.
Her hands clenched in her lap. "I won't let this go," she growled, her voice low and dangerous.