"Don't go!" Van Helsing quickly grabbed her as she wanted to leave. "In addition to Dracula, there's a demon hiding in the dark. You'll definitely suffer disaster if you go!"
"But what can I do?" Anna shouted at him. "My brother is the only relative I have left. How can I watch him turn into an insane beast?!"
Overcome by grief, Anna knelt on the ground and held her face while crying. "God! What have I done wrong to suffer such torment?"
Van Helsing was lost for words. Although the church wanted to amend the situation now, they had left the Villelis family on their own for the past hundreds of years. Had the church intervened earlier, the Villelis family would not have been nearly wiped out. He now had no reason at all to stop Anna from saving her only relative.
After venting for a while, Anna stood up, wiped her tears, grabbed her weapon, and went ahead without looking back. She did not even leave any words for Van Helsing and Carl.
Van Helsing was lying on the ground while Carl was anxiously trying to stop the bleeding. Suddenly, Carl saw that the gunshot wound on Van Helsing's chest was slowly squeezing the bullet out of the flesh on its own!
He was so surprised that he almost cried out, but Van Helsing covered his mouth and whispered, "Shh! Pretend I'm going to die!"
Carl was not stupid. He immediately held back and tried his best to act. "God, I-I can't stop your bleeding! Damn, that bastard damaged your arteries…"
As he cried, Carl acted flustered while his hands were moving busily around Van Helsing's body.
"No… no need to waste the effort, Carl…" Van Helsing murmured weakly. "After dawn… you return to the church and… report what happened. I… I am so cold. I need… rest…"
Van Helsing lowered his head, shut his eyes, and stopped moving.
But in the dark night, it could be noticed that Van Helsing's hand was tightly holding a bottle of holy water…
Roy had not recalled wrongly. Van Helsing was indeed the incarnation of an angel. The only thing that Roy missed was that Van Helsing was not only the incarnation of an angel but also one of the incarnations of the famous Archangel Gabriel! The angel that was always known as the left hand of God! Legend had it that he refused to punish Rome and argued with God, so he was banished to Earth by God to temper his will.
Four hundred-odd years ago, before Dracula had sold his soul to the demon, the incarnated human Van Helsing was a good friend of Dracula. At that time, Dracula was a believer of God. However, once, when Dracula was out fighting against heresy for the church, the enemy spread rumors that he had died in battle, causing his wife to commit suicide.
Upon Dracula's triumphant return, he saw the remains of his wife. And while he was overcome with grief, a person of the church told him that his wife's soul could not ascend to Heaven because she had taken her own life.
How could he tolerate this? In a fit of anger, Dracula killed the people of the church on the spot. He felt betrayed. He had worked for God, but God had not protected his wife and even turned her away from Heaven after her death. Why should he continue to believe in a God like that?
From that day on, Dracula became an enemy of the church, and he took his army and fought to resist the church.
However, Van Helsing, who sided the church, became his enemy as well. After a bitter battle, Van Helsing had killed Dracula with his own hands and took Dracula's knight insignia from his finger. Just as Dracula was about to die, he used his own blood to summon a demon and sold his soul to it in exchange for revival. That demon used its own blood to turn Dracula into a vampire.
As for Van Helsing, he did not win God's heart despite winning the battle, so he still had to continue tempering himself. Because he had sustained serious injuries in his battle with Dracula, he lost his memory upon waking and did not know who had left him at the gates of the church. The church took him in, and he became a member of Knights of the Holy Order, the specialists dedicated to eradicating monsters all over the world for the church.
Although he had incarnated into a human, he still had his angel power. Apart from his exceptional skills, strength, and agility, he had a very long lifespan and a body that could recover very quickly. Otherwise, he would have long been dead from his battles with so many monsters.
Under Roy's command, Lucius had ambushed here. The two shots he fired had hit Van Helsing but could not kill him. While he was lying on the ground, Van Helsing's gunshot wounds were already starting to heal.
However, Van Helsing had smelled in the air the aroma that belonged to a demon, and it was much richer than the one when only Lucius appeared. So even though he could not see clearly in the dark, Van Helsing still suspected that the demon hiding behind Lucius was nearby! He suspected that the demon's real goal was him, so he got Carl to act along with him to lure the demon out. Then he would use that bottle of holy water in his hand to teach that demon a lesson…
However, as every minute passed, and as Carl's cries and performance toned down, the demon did not appear!
The atmosphere became awkward, and Van Helsing started wondering. Did I guess wrong?
What he did not know was that Roy was indeed present, but the problem was that Roy was not fooled at all!
Of course, it had nothing to do with Carl's acting, but just that Roy did not believe that Van Helsing would have died so easily with two bullets. Thus, he hid on a large tree nearby and watched. With darkvision, he could see at night, and regardless of how Van Helsing acted, he had to breathe and could not fake the movements of his chest!
Well, you can carry on acting if you want. I'll just watch without saying anything. Roy even wanted to get some popcorn to munch on…
As long as he stayed here, the demonic aura would persist, and Van Helsing would not dare to leave. As time passed, the farther Anna would be from Van Helsing, and he would not be able to catch up to her then.
As to whether Roy should just swoop down and try to kill Van Helsing, it was something that had not crossed his mind. Having stayed in Lucius's manor for the past two days, he had experimented with some things such as garlic, silver stakes, and crosses. Roy did not know if these things had any effect on vampires, but they had no impact on him, a demon. But holy water was like sulfuric acid to demons!
Take note, this was real holy water, and not the kind of 'holy water' that was only salt with water that the church used to fool their believers. Real holy water was water with blessings and purification properties, containing the power of holy light!
Roy had asked Lucius to get some holy water from the town's church. Probably because this town frequently suffered the invasions and harassment of vampires, the people here were pious believers of God, so the holy water produced in the church here was quite effective. Roy had only touched a tiny bit before being painfully scorched.
There was no way Roy could avoid it because it was a weakness shared by all demons.
As such, Roy did not worry about the other weapons on Van Helsing, but he was very worried about the holy water he might be carrying. And without being certain, Roy would not rashly make a move.
So he just quietly spent two hours here with Van Helsing before quietly taking Lucius and heading to Dracula's castle.
It was not until the demonic aura in the air slowly faded away did Van Helsing suddenly stand up, scaring Carl.
"What the hell is going on? Why did you pretend to be dead for so long? I cried till I was almost hoarse…" Carl asked incredulously.
"There's a demon, and he was nearby…" Van Helsing answered with a puzzled expression.
"What?!" Carl was shocked and quickly took out a cross to hold in his hand.
"Don't worry. He's already left!" Van Helsing waved his hands. "I thought I was his target, so I faked my death to lure him out. I didn't expect him to be so cautious and not make a move. He just left without even revealing himself…"
"Really?" Carl breathed out a sigh of relief. "That's right. What's going on with your body? I see that you've recovered."
"A normal monster can't kill me!" Van Helsing explained. "Let's go. That demon couldn't have hung out with us for two hours for no reason. Anna is in trouble, and we must hurry to help her!