Quick wit, experience, intuition, and luck—these allowed him to barely kill an inhuman monster.

Most importantly, it was the volcano-like eruption of fear in his heart, followed by utter madness.

Relying on that madness and luck, he survived.

“Heh, so this is the scoring prompt?” he muttered to himself, shakily straightening up, moving slowly toward the sound of crying, and finally bending down to pick up the sobbing girl.

“It’s okay now. I told you, I’ll protect you.” He gently soothed Grace Brooks, patting her back. “Let’s keep moving, or there will be more zombies.”

Grace Brooks clutched his hand. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry... I—I missed my shot...”

“Just don’t miss next time.” Henry Clark pulled her up and said, “Even if you do, I’m still here. Let’s keep going, I’ve lost my sense of direction.”

The running resumed, but as they ran, Henry Clark opened his earpiece: “Uncle Clark, why are there zombies on our route?”

“Sorry, the zombies slipped through from William Carter’s area.” Uncle Clark’s apologetic and urgent voice came through the earpiece. “William Carter lost contact two minutes ago.”

In the monitoring room, a middle-aged man with a face full of anxiety kept switching the screens, his voice tense: “William Carter, where on earth are you?”

Chapter 9: Trapped in a Siege

In the blood-soaked corridor, shredded and crushed corpses were everywhere. Thick blood splattered across the walls, staining the faces of the figures in the oil paintings, making the entire hallway look eerily bizarre.

Bulletproof shields battered as if by sledgehammers, and shattered bodies littered the corridor. Foul-smelling fluids and decaying blood slowly slid down the walls, dripping onto the floor.

The whole corridor was deathly silent, except for William Carter’s ragged breathing. His labored breaths sounded like a bellows, and a mix of blood and sweat dripped from his forehead. William Carter didn’t dare wipe it away, his eyes wide as he stared at the enemies before him.

One black, one white—a grinning black man and a white man stood atop severed limbs. The white vampire with golden hair in white clothes held a short blade, the very weapon that, in a flash, had torn through the muscles of William Carter’s neck at a speed he couldn’t even perceive, slicing his communication earpiece to pieces as well.

Surrounded by zombies, William Carter had been caught off guard and suffered a massive wound on his neck. The injury should have been fatal, but his muscles squirmed and forcibly closed the wound. Even so, his neck was still badly damaged.

The two vampires stood by, watching indifferently as he smashed his own zombies to pieces one by one, even giving him a rare moment to catch his breath.

The more this happened, the stronger his sense of foreboding grew. Dealing with one enemy of this level was already tough enough—now there were two at once?

The bulging muscles on his neck trembled, as if about to dissipate.

His pupils suddenly dilated, the ominous feeling intensifying: Damn... the price...

This body of inhumanly strong muscles wasn’t the result of his own training. No matter how much he trained, he could never casually smash deep dents into the wall. This was an ability he had exchanged from the Lord God.

William Carter’s first mission was a team battle. If he hadn’t been lucky enough to earn enough reward points to save his life, he would have been erased by the Lord God long ago.

After surviving the team battle, he had almost no reward points left. If not for the help of the middle-aged man Uncle Clark and the D-rank card on him, which he used to exchange for an ability from “Darker than Black,” his combat power would still be that of an ordinary person.

Unfortunately, the biggest flaw of the abilities from “Darker than Black” was that after using them, you had to pay a specific price—some particular behavior, like chewing tobacco, drinking beer, smoking, drinking milk (to this day, he still thinks that one guy’s ability is picking up girls, and the price is discharging electricity)...

Slowly stepping backward, William Carter brought his wrist to his mouth, then opened wide and bit down. A gulping sound came from his throat—he was drinking his own blood...

“Eh? Bro, is he a vampire too?” The hippie-styled black man turned to look at the blond white man.

William Carter spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, the muscles on his arm seeming to knit the wound back together. He looked at them with disdain and said, “Tch, dumbass, come on...”

The white man, called “brother” by the hippie black man, frowned. To be looked down on by this half-breed who might be a vampire or a human—was this Hellsing’s new combat weapon? Ridiculous...

“Such an interesting thing...” The pale vampire took a deep drag on the cigar in his mouth, stepped forward into the pool of blood, and said, “Half-breed, let me show you who the strongest vampire really is!”

“Then I’ll leave this to you, bro.” The black man, holding a gun and wearing a repulsive grin, circled around William Carter. His bloodshot eyes reflected the blood on the corridor floor. He casually dipped a finger in it, put it in his mouth, and sighed, “This taste... it’s really exhilarating...”