No one expected it—the tracker signal suddenly came back online today, and its location was none other than the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The moment Blade saw it, he immediately connected the dots. Matt had mentioned Lucas's "wait-and-see" plan a few days ago—the utterly ridiculous stakeout scheme—so Blade instantly called Matt and the others.
"If I'd known, I wouldn't have bothered with all that work… I got beaten up for nothing," Lucas muttered under his breath. Skye shot him a sharp glare in response.
Blade glanced at the palm-sized tracker display. The red dot marking Quinn's location hadn't moved an inch—it was still inside the museum.
"Their target must be those fragments Lucas mentioned," Blade said coldly, strapping his sword onto his back and shrugging into his signature long leather coat. "We can't let them get them."
Frank Castle said nothing as usual. He just kept methodically cleaning his weapons.
"Let's move."
Blade had somehow procured a black van that looked heavily modified. The group piled in and drove from Hell's Kitchen all the way to the museum. Throughout the ride, Blade kept an eye on the tracker's signal—it stayed fixed at the museum the whole time.
When they arrived, the museum looked calm and peaceful from the outside. No alarms, no signs of forced entry. If not for the faint metallic tang of blood in the air—something only Blade and Matt could pick up—they might have thought nothing was wrong.
Carefully, they approached the main doors. Lucas reached out and pushed—the doors swung open easily. Not locked. No alarms. Not even a single security guard in sight.
"Looks like the guards are all dead," Matt said grimly. He tapped his cane against the ground, sending out a pulse of sound. The vibrations mapped the interior of the building in his mind.
"Let's go straight to the exhibition room."
The group rushed toward the gallery where the fragments were kept.
Meanwhile, inside the Book of Truth exhibit, Quinn and a group of vampires were leisurely strolling among the displays—as if they were simply browsing rather than stealing.
Quinn casually smashed a glass case and picked up one of the yellowed fragments.
"What's even written on this junk? Can't believe the boss cares about this crap," he scoffed, utterly unimpressed. Orders were orders, though.
Around him, other vampires crouched over fallen guards, draining their blood. Quinn wasn't interested in such low-quality fare.
Suddenly, a flash of silver light sliced through the air—cleanly severing a vampire's throat. The arc of light curved gracefully across the hall before being caught by a gloved hand.
"Quinn," a cold voice said. "We meet again."
Blade stepped out of the shadows, his boomerang still gleaming, his sword already in hand.
"The Daywalker! Kill him!" Quinn shouted, panic flickering across his face.
Bang! Bang!
Gunfire exploded across the hall. The vampires charging ahead turned to ash mid-step as Frank appeared, shotgun in hand.
"Didn't finish you last time," he growled. "Guess I'll fix that today."
He racked the shotgun and fired again—silver-coated rounds blasting another vampire's head apart.
From above, Matt dropped into the fray. The blades hidden in his batons snapped out with a metallic click, and he moved like an acrobat—swift, fluid, lethal. Wherever he passed, clouds of ash rose in his wake.
On the sidelines, Skye remained hidden. Lucas had told her to use the chaos to photograph the fragments, so while the others drew attention, she quietly snapped picture after picture.
Then—another flash of light. A bullet punched straight through a vampire's skull, then tore through a second one behind him.
The muzzle of Lucas's revolver, The Adjudicator, still smoked faintly. He flicked his wrist, and six more shots thundered out in rapid succession—each one a clean, instant kill.
Frank glanced over at the weapon, eyes burning with admiration. He could tell at a glance—this was no ordinary gun. Lucas hadn't even used silver rounds, and he hadn't reloaded once.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The gunfire intensified. The Adjudicator's power grew with every shot, one round even cutting a vampire clean in half. The sheer firepower broke the vampires' morale. They scattered, terrified, too afraid to even face Lucas head-on.
Aside from Quinn, only about ten vampires remained. Lucas decided to end it all at once.
"Blade! Go get Quinn! The rest are mine!"
He leapt into the air, kicking off a display case to launch himself higher into the open space above the hall. From there, he could see every vampire clearly.
"Sin of Origin!"
He whispered the invocation and pulled the trigger.
The revolver roared—dozens of glowing bullets erupted, forming a burning blue six-pointed star in midair. The magic circle blazed hotter and hotter, until the entire hall shimmered under its heat.
"Amen," Lucas murmured, and fired the final shot.
BOOM!
The explosion of light swallowed the hall, the brilliance as bright as noon. A searing wave of heat tore through everything.
When the light faded, the exhibition room was a wreck. The once-pristine fragments were scorched black, still smoldering faintly. The vampires were gone—nothing left but ashes and a giant, charred six-pointed symbol burned into the marble floor.
"Phew… checkmate."
Lucas blew the smoke from the revolver's barrel. The Adjudicator spun elegantly in his hand before he slid it back into its holster.
Everyone—Quinn, Skye, even Blade—stared at him in stunned silence. None of them had expected that kind of power from a revolver. It was practically a handheld rocket launcher, and against vampires, it was devastating beyond reason.
Quinn's only thought was escape—run, get out, and report everything to Deacon Frost. These people were monsters, especially that young man with the gun.
But before he could move, Blade's sword flashed—slicing both his legs clean off. Quinn collapsed to the floor with a scream.
"Going somewhere, Quinn?" Blade said, crouching beside him and pinning him to the ground with a silver spike. "Where's Deacon Frost?"
"Daywalker, you'll get nothing from me," Quinn spat, eyes blazing with hate. "You filthy, half-blood abomination!"
Even in agony, his loyalty to Frost was unshakable.
Meanwhile, Skye approached Lucas, camera still in hand, though her gaze kept drifting to the gun at his waist.
"What are you looking at?" Lucas asked.
"That gun of yours… how the hell does it have that kind of power?" she said, wide-eyed.
"I'll explain later. Did you get all the pictures of the fragments?"
Skye patted her camera proudly. "Of course I did. But seriously—what do you even want those photos for?"
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