Venom didn't respond, but Peter didn't mind. He had grown accustomed to Venom disappearing from time to time. He looked down at his hands, and he couldn't help but admire his black battle attire. Far from the flashy colours he previously wore, this one had an understated yet serious elegance to it.
Most importantly, the color allowed him to blend into the shadows and made him less conspicuous, at least visually.
If those vampires were really chasing him because of his appearance, they should be deterred now, Peter thought.
However, his situation—being pursued relentlessly by a horde of mad vampires—didn't change. He had almost raced out of the Brooklyn Area, but many advanced teleporting vampires were still on his tail.
Peter wasn't just running away, he was strategizing. He swung across a high-rise building, resting on its shadowy side. To get to him, the vampires would have to gather in the shadow of this building since it did not overlap with the shadows of the surrounding ones, confining them to a small space.
Led by instinct, most vampires teleported directly into the shadow beneath the wall. As Spider Man hung overhead, he saw that most of his pursuers had gathered in that tiny patch of shadow. He hurled down a snowstorm device, freezing them all into blocks of ice.
He then slid down a line of spider silk into the crowd of frozen vampires, looking around, but didn't find anything particularly unusual.
He found a crowbar next to him, using it to shatter the ice on the head of what seemed to be a rational, advanced vampire.
"Why exactly are you chasing me?" Peter asked.
The vampire glared viciously at Peter, saying, "You're the designated sacrifice for Lord Bat God! You despicable human! I will catch you, drain you of your blood, and deliver it to the great Lord Bat God!! He will lead us to rule this world!!!"
Peter was taken aback, and he said, "Designated sacrifice for the Bat God? I don't even know your God, so why are you after me?"
Except the vampire kept repeating something about the great Bat God. Apart from a wasted time, Peter didn't extract any useful information from him.
Peter thought the incident could be a clue, so he called Shiller and related the whole situation to him.
In the lab of the Stark Building, Shiller, on the line with Nick, said, "I've got some conjectures about it. The spokesperson of the so-called Bat God might indeed be real."
Nick was confused: "Does this mean there's an actual Bat God? We've been monitoring vampires for many years and have never witnessed any Bat God's appearance, so why now of all times?"
"And as far as I know, during the initial battle in the East, the vampires took a pretty hard hit with almost half of them completely killed. Where was the so-called Bat God protecting them when that happened?"
"As we both know, it's unlikely that any real god would descend upon this world."
Nick understood what Shiller implied: "But you just said the Bat God spokesperson is genuine."
"Yes, but he might not really be the spokesperson for the Bat God, to put it simply, a bunch of bats has been duped."
Shiller said: "You should be familiar with such schemes. Some superordinary creatures with mighty powers take advantage of God's name to gather followers or achieve their goals."
"Indeed, we've dealt with plenty of incidents proclaiming the arrival of the evil God, most of which involve monsters pretending to be divine. So, this isn't an exception? What's the identity of the adversary?"
"I have some assumptions about this, but I'm still not sure. Regardless of who comes, there's only one solution...."
"What's that?"
"Have you traced where that internet cable leads yet?"
Nick paused before saying, "Are you sure that will work? I've done some investigation. There is indeed a person stationed there, but they seem to be just ordinary members...."
"That's enough. As far as I know, their boss cannot tolerate even slightest inconveniences."
Outside Manhattan Area 177, a man in a hoodie cautioned: "Mrs. Edith, why did my internet signal get cut off?"
A head popped out from a window above. A thin woman with curly hair retorted: "How should I know! Didn't you pay your internet bill?"
"Impossible, I just paid it a week ago!"
Then another man sticking his head out of 177's door called out, "Why is the electricity out too? What's going on?"
The young man had no choice but to knock on each house door, but all the neighbors reported that they did not encounter any issues with their electricity or internet. It seemed that only the 177 building had a problem.
This place was an old post office on a street in Manhattan. With the evolution of time, the post office was practically obsolete, and now served as a parcel storage place for residents on the whole street.
Their huge commotion caught the attention of a bearded man peeping out of a window from the adjacent building. He called out: "Hey, quit the noise! You should go across the street and ask the city office. My guess is the old lines might be aging.
"That scrapped post office's history is too long. Who knows if its pipelines have ever been updated or not, so it's only natural it broke. You better go ask so maybe it can be fixed before dark."
The young man was about to thank him when a shout came from inside the house: "Oh! Damn it!! The water pipe...why did it burst?!"
The young man walked back into the room helplessly. Inside the somewhat dim post office, he said to the chubby man, "What's going on? I heard there's a battle happening at the Brooklyn Bridge. Do you think this is a targeted attack?"
The fat man glanced at him and said in a low voice, "It's hard to tell. Those damned vampire monsters never stop making trouble in HONGKONG. Our temple here gets harassed by them every now and then. We thought it would be better after being transferred to New York, but it turned out to be the same..."
"Forget it, let's fix the water and electricity first. Without them, how can we cook tonight?"
The two stared at each other, and the fat man said first, "Don't look at me, magic is not for this type of task. Even if I have a restoration spell, how would I know which pipeline is broken?"
"Well, it seems we still have to find a professional. I will go across the street to the city hall, you deal with the water first. Make sure not to flood the packages."
The young man came back after a while and said with some disappointment, "Their office is closed. Their work efficiency is always so poor; don't depend on them. We will have to repair it ourselves."
Then he saw the fat man come out with a toilet plunger in his hand, and said, sounding a little frustrated, "Bad news, our toilet exploded..."
"Toilet? How did it explode?"
"Those bats must have tampered with our drains! But fortunately, nothing dirty came up, it was just a water pipe explosion..."
As he finished this sentence, a violent explosion sound came from inside the post office, followed by an overpowering foul smell.
"Shit!!! What happened?!! Oh my God!!"
A furious scream of outrage echoed over the Manhattan area, "You damned vampires!!! Even resorting to exploding faeces?!!!"
From his helicopter hovering over the scene, Coulson looked down at the disaster below, watching as most of the residents from that area were driven from their homes by the terrible smell. He said into the phone to Nick, "Director, are we going a bit too far with this? Regardless, we can't be exploding faeces…"
"What are you talking about? The ones lacking decency are the vampires. They're the ones playing with faeces. How dare this bloodkin still have the audacity to call themselves the 'noble blood clan'."
"They attacked these poor people's toilets for revenge, it's simply inhumane. We strongly protest this type of behaviour!"
After a while, Coulson heard Hill's voice over the phone; she said: "…the other party has taken the initiative to contact our agent in the Manhattan area. They claim to be the mages from Karmatiji stationed at the New York Temple and presently require S.H.I.E.L.D. for support…"
Nick flipped through the files in front of him, and said, "S.H.I.E.L.D. has no diplomatic relations with them. To avoid unnecessary misunderstandings, we must send a communication request to their headquarters, to show that our support is within reasonable limits and approved by them."
Hill asked a few questions to the other party and said, "The other party said that the management rights of the New York Temple are independent of the Kamar-Taj headquarters, but they will report this matter to the headquarters, including all progress in the war against the vampires…"
"They seem to be very urgent. If we don't deal with it now, the excrement will flow out of their house..."
"Remember, Hill, give your responsible colleagues a few days off. Let them vacation in Hawaii. Though they didn't sign any confidentiality agreement, it's best not to mention any words related to excrement. S.H.I.E.L.D. cannot afford to lose its reputation for bombing toilets."
Then, Nick hung up the phone and called Shiller. He said, "Next time you have such a disgusting tactic, don't get us involved."
"But it worked impressively well, didn't it? In a few days, all the factions in the dark side will know that vampires retaliated against Karmatiji by bombing the toilet of their New York Temple. They would be a bunch of vampires that like to play with excrement…"
"Are you sure this will draw the attention of their boss?"
"Even without the exploding toilet, it would. I don't believe that the mages stationed there didn't report the vampires' movements to the master of Kamar-Taj."
"So why did you have us bomb the toilet?"
"Stop talking nonsense, it wasn't you guys who did it. It was those self-proclaimed noble creatures of the night."
"Enough." Shiller switched the phone to his other ear and continued, "Let's talk about the main point."
"S.H.I.E.L.D. must know something about Kamar-Taj, but you have yet to find the exact location of the New York Temple. Now that you two have contacted each other, at least on the issue of vampires, you definitely have a common goal."
"Kamar-Taj must have participated in that war that took place in the Eastern Continent, along with Kunlun."
"I'm a bit confused. From what I understand, that mysterious organization in the Himalayas should only deal with crises outside Earth…"
"Looking at the fossil sample of an Earth creature and then looking at the teleportation and talon magic of those crazy bats, can you honestly say that they are beings naturally born on Earth?"
"Alright, are you sure that the Bat God Guardian is also a superordinary creature from outside the world?"
"Of course, I should be pretty close with my guess about their background."
"Is that so? Who do you think they are?"
"They are also bats, or you could say, vampires. You can also call them the Morlun clan."