American comics: Praising the sun, starting from Gotham!

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At 3 a.m., the sky over Gotham was still not completely dark, because two bright objects were descending.

Xiu En hovered fifty meters above the ground, his Golden Crow Divine Fire blazing, which distorted the air around him into a glass-like texture.

"Phew! The air here smells better."

Then Xiu En inhaled a breath of industrial exhaust fumes.

"Cough cough, although it's still a bit choking, it feels much more real than the overly clean feeling up there. The beauty up there is unreal."

Before he could finish speaking, a dark figure darted out from behind a shipping container and fled from a dark alley below, seemingly triggered by the sudden burst of light.

It let out an extremely mournful screech.

The sound didn't last long.

Almost the instant the shadowy figure was touched by the golden light emanating from Xiu'en, which contained the concept of the sun god, the skin of the figure rapidly bubbled and carbonized, followed by sparks bursting forth from the inside out.

Before the ashes even hit the ground, they were blown away into invisible dust by the rising hot air currents, leaving only a gothic black cloak still warm to the touch and two long, sharp fangs that hadn't melted even under the intense heat.

"If I hadn't watched the process, I would have almost thought I was playing the role of an exorcist priest."

Xiu En landed next to the pile of clothes and picked up the cloak with his toes.

"Was that thing making a sound just now? And it seemed to be floating?"

Superman's red boots landed silently on top of the nearby street lamp, his eyes already analyzing the composition of the pile of ashes.

"vampire."

Clark's tone carried a hint of sympathy that he himself was unaware of.

"And it should be a low-level vampire that has only recently transformed. I hate to say it, but it's quite rare to see something like this in Gotham."

"Strange?"

Xiu En raised an eyebrow.

"In a place like Gotham, where even swamp monsters are tourist attractions, isn't it normal to have a few more vampires? This place even has demons! I've personally killed a few!"

Superman carefully chose his words.

"No, it's because of food safety issues here. As far as I know, most vampire clans consider Gotham a no-fly zone."

"Because the blood here... to put it another way, if you were to find a single drop of healthy blood amidst a pile of high-purity drug chemical waste and Joker virus antibodies, it would be no less difficult than finding a living person in the current criminal syndicate world."

"Ha! So they starved to death? Or maybe they couldn't resist going out to find takeout and it ended up being delivered right to my doorstep?"

Hugh couldn't help but laugh at this fool who wanted to find food in Gotham.

"Poor guy, Gotham is probably the only city where even vampires die of malnutrition."

But jokes aside, Xiu En didn't really let his guard down.

He still managed to detect an unusual fluctuation.

It wasn't just a vampire who had gone astray, but the lingering aftertaste of some kind of ritual.

"Although he's quite fragile, the fabric of his clothes is rather old-fashioned?"

"It's at least a weaving technique from before the Victorian era. It seems some ancient artifacts we didn't know about have awakened during the spatial tremors."

Superman looked around, his gaze becoming profound.

"It's also possible that too many people have died in Gotham, and the smell of death and blood is like a giant trap."

Xiu En smiled.

"Hehe, or maybe they noticed the sun was shining here and felt it would be a waste not to come out and soak up some sun?"

After thinking for a while, the two decided to fly back and ask Batman what was going on.

Two non-human beings rushed into the hidden tunnel entrance of Wayne Manor.

Inside the bat cave, a huge screen is flashing a dazzling stream of data.

The pale blue light shone on Bruce Fang's serious chin as he put his armor back on.

"You came back faster than I expected."

Bruce tapped his fingers on the plate, seemingly knowing what the two wanted to ask, and directly pulled up a floor plan of Gotham University.

"I thought someone would take advantage of their good mood to use Starlink satellites as trampolines."

"That was originally the plan."

Xiu En plopped down on the control panel.

"But we encountered a very flammable little bat on the way."

Xiu En made an explosion gesture and glanced at the locations marked with red dots on the screen.

"Don't tell me you've also discovered that this thing is currently causing a 'hundred ghosts parade' in Gotham?"

"Gotham University, Particle Physics Laboratory."

Superman filled in the gaps for Batman, who liked to keep things in suspense; he had just scanned the sealed-off area with his super vision.

"An unannounced hadron collision experiment was conducted there yesterday afternoon. It was originally intended to search for some kind of theoretical dimensional particle."

"Did they break down the gates of hell? Or did they break down a mental hospital?"

"Neither, or both."

Bruce finally turned his chair around.

He pulled up a file, which clearly stated: "[Emergency Situation: Leakage of Dimensional Overlapping Entity]".

"That collider tore some kind of damn dimensional membrane apart at the microscopic level. And then, a full twenty-four vampires fell out of that crack."

Bruce held up two fingers, then four.

"The most troublesome thing is not their numbers, but their self-perception. Every single one of them firmly believes that they are Vlad III, the Impaler, the only Vampire King."

"Twenty-four Draculas?"

Xiu En almost blew out the metallic beverage he had just drunk, as if it had turned into a high-pressure water gun.

He stared wide-eyed incredulously at the two pale men in the surveillance footage who were already fighting and biting each other in the street, shouting that he was the real one.

"Wait a minute, if they were all called Dracula, wouldn't it mean that if I just shouted 'Hey, vampire boss!' in the street, twenty-four people would turn around?"

"Theoretically, yes, but right now there are at most twenty-three."

Clark's lips twitched almost imperceptibly.

"Moreover, due to dimensional oscillations, they all seem to possess a certain degree of Embrace ability and ancient immortality. Ordinary physical attacks are unlikely to kill them, but the good news is that their weaknesses seem to be the same old three."

"Sunlight, silverware, and garlic?"

"Looks like I'm a walking disinfectant tonight."

"No, as it stands, it's sunlight, a cross, and a heart."

Batman tapped several red circles on the screen.

"Three of them are currently extremely active. One is trying to withdraw money from the blood bank but got his cloak stuck in a vending machine. Another is standing on the top floor of the city hall, preparing to issue a declaration of darkness."

Bruce paused for a moment, then looked at Xiu En with a strange expression.

"There's another one. It's said that he sensed a divine threat and is now gathering a group of thugs who have turned into henchmen, clamoring to hunt down the sun."

Xiu En was amused, and the golden radiance that had been concealed on his body brightened slightly.

"Hunting the sun? Does he want to bite the sun with his teeth?"

No. He wants to eat you.

Bruce corrected him, pulling up a fuzzy audio clip that came out with a roar: "I will devour that false light and make the night eternal!"

"That's interesting."

Xiu En jumped off the control panel.

"Since there are so many Draculas, if I were to exorcise them all, wouldn't that prove that in this land, only I can shine?"

"We can split up and act separately."

Superman adjusted his red cape.

"I'll handle the one at City Hall who's issuing the declaration; it's too close to the media and could easily cause panic. I think it's more appropriate for Flash to handle the one at the blood bank; I'll go up to the manor and call him later."

"So I'll take charge of the one that wants to eat the sun?"

Shuen turned to look at Bruce, his eyes filled with the anticipation of someone about to participate in an amusement park ride.

"No, that's the most troublesome one too."

Batman stood up, his black cloak instantly blending him into the shadows.

"That guy doesn't seem to be just an ordinary vampire. He absorbed some of the collider's core fragments during his transformation, which means he might have some technological magic. I'll go with you."

"Come on, boss, are you worried that I'll burn him and then set half the city block on fire?"

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