Chapter 89: Blood Feud

“Old Zhu, go and fetch my treasured Immortal Tree Tea. Today, I will personally play host to these three young heroes.”

“Immortal Tree Tea?”

Old Zhu looked at the station chief in confusion, unable to understand what these three students from Zixing Academy had done to deserve such an honor. He himself had followed the chief for so many years and had only tasted that tea a handful of times. Since arriving at the guard station, he hadn’t had it even once.

The chief always said that letting Zhu drink it was a waste, that he swallowed good tea as if it were water, missing all the subtlety of Immortal Tree Tea’s philosophy.

Could these three greenhorns possibly appreciate tea better than he could?

The chief glanced at Old Zhu, signaling with his eyes again and again, finally glaring until Zhu got the message and left to make the tea. Only then did a smile return to the chief’s face.

This time, the welcoming dinner for Ye Bai and his companions wasn’t held in the operations room. With so many people coming and going in there, some things were best left unheard by them—especially since this conversation would inevitably touch upon secrets better kept from wider knowledge.

The operations room was in a nondescript building not far from the city wall, which looked dilapidated and abandoned from the outside, as if it hadn’t been cleaned in years.

Yet, stepping into this “abandoned building,” one found a hidden world within. The first floor was the intelligence analysis room, bustling with men and women darting about—some clutching paper files, others harvesting data from smart terminals, all gathering information. Useful intelligence would be sent up to the second-floor operations room, where it would be refined into detailed battle plans.

This system of intelligence and operational coordination had been in place for over a decade, personally established by the chief after his arrival. Every member was handpicked by him, and it would be no exaggeration to call them his confidants.

The whole “abandoned building” had exterior stairways—there were no internal stairs. First-floor intelligence staff were forbidden from setting foot on the second floor, and second-floor staff could not divulge battle plans to those below.

If there was anywhere in the guard station that could be called the safest, it was this “abandoned building.” The steel used in its construction had been chosen by the chief himself in the main city, a grade higher than the city’s defensive walls. Perhaps the heavy expense at the time had forced them to put the stairways outside.

The chief had given the building a rather unassuming name—“Little Nest.” But those living at the guard station privately called it the Iron Turtle Shell.

At this moment, Ye Bai and his friends sat on the third floor, the chief’s private living quarters, shared only with Old Zhu. No one else was allowed up.

The third floor was divided into three sections: a weapons area, a guest lounge, and a section whose purpose remained a secret.

The chief’s eyes moved from Ye Bai to Cao Xiaoseng and finally rested on Yao Ling, a sly smile on his lips, his thoughts inscrutable.

Ye Bai straightened up, lifting his neck off the self-massaging chair back, and eyed the chief warily. “Chief, there’s no need for such extravagance. We’re but humble guests, hardly worth the expense.”

Creak, creak—the chief shifted, making his chair groan under the strain.

“Heh, it’s nothing, truly. Just a bit of Immortal Tree Tea, and you’re worth it.”

Though he was all smiles, the chief’s heart ached. He hadn’t tasted this tea himself in years.

Still, the finest things are meant for people, after all, and tea is no exception. Yet Immortal Tree Tea held a special meaning for the chief and Old Zhu.

Back in the twentieth year of the Dark Era, the chief was a special operations soldier in the Flame Nation’s Demon Crocodile Unit, at a time when such soldiers were only just being developed.

Selected for his remarkable physique, the chief was subjected to enhancement injections and survived. Only ten enhanced soldiers survived alongside him. At the start, over a hundred had passed the final selection and received the injection, every one of them near the limits of human ability. Yet, due to genetic constraints, none dared—or could—break through those limits.

It was like trying to progress from the Tempering stage to the Initiate level: if you remained too long in Tempering, your genetic load would constantly push your cells to their limits, causing a ten-year cell’s potential to burn out in five, or even three years.

They didn’t die of cellular exhaustion, but from genetic collapse. Back then, no technology could save someone whose genes unraveled. The chief witnessed men die from subcutaneous hemorrhage, their eyeballs bursting from their sockets, or, most gruesomely, some would be walking just fine one moment, then collapse into a pile of shattered bones and flesh the next.

Repairing collapsed gene chains remains unsolved to this day. Some still hope to find a solution, but nobody truly cares anymore.

With the birth of the first new generation in the Dark Era, some children awakened their Attribute Powers. Before that, only the Three Kings possessed such powers. The human path of evolution began with these children. Those who broke through to Initiate level had their bodies repaired by Attribute Power, their genes evolving; those who did not, aged rapidly and soon perished from genetic collapse.

The ten who survived by chance, including the chief, were overjoyed at having broken human limits, but within a month, death began to claim them, one after the other, as their bodies failed under the strain. No one cared about their fates; in fact, they were treated like expendable soldiers with an expiration date, and in the second month, were dispatched to the heart of the Flame Nation to retrieve vital documents.

Everyone died on that mission except the chief. And upon reaching the center, he discovered they were not the only ones after the documents—several other factions had been sent as well.

They fought, clashed, and killed—fellow humans, mutant beasts, plant creatures, other species. Everyone was blood-crazed, wielding power and speed beyond human limits, but in the mutant beasts’ playground, less than a hundred such fighters could make little impact.

In the end, ten survivors from different groups stared one another down. After a moment’s silent understanding, they all lowered their weapons and made a joint decision: to escape.

That was the first meeting of the “Ten Brothers.” On their way out of the Flame Nation’s center, they encountered a mutated tea tree. The seventh among them gathered some leaves, and the chief had kept them ever since.

Old Zhu sat alone by the tea set, staring vacantly at the dwindling stash of Immortal Tree Tea—barely enough for ten more brews. Immortal Tree Tea. No one knew the real name of that tree; the chief had named it himself. Whenever he drank it, he’d say, “Immortal’s tea, shared by mortals. In this moment, my brother and I support one another; may my brothers above the clouds find joy together.”

Old Zhu carefully brought out four cups, placing one before each person and sitting across from the chief.

“Old Zhu, what about yours?”

He shook his head, lowering it, lost in thought.

“Haha, drink up, everyone. This tea is extraordinary—the first taste brings great benefit.” The chief knew what Old Zhu was thinking. He felt it too, but he kept it inside, never showing it on his face, while Zhu’s honest nature was always plain to see.

The scent of green tea leaves lingered in the air, gradually permeating the whole lounge.

Ye Bai took a cup, sipped the tea—slightly bitter, yet with a lingering sweetness—then drained it in one gulp. Just as Old Zhu suspected, the three young ones couldn’t taste its subtlety.

“Good tea,” Ye Bai said, though to him, it tasted little different from water, save for a hint of sweetness and bitterness.

“Don’t rush—the real surprise is yet to come.”

The chief gave a meaningful smile, then turned to Yao Ling. “Miss Yao, might I have a private word?”

No one offers kindness without a motive; at last, the chief was revealing his true purpose. Ye Bai said nothing, simply watching, as did Cao Xiaoseng.

But the chief was focused on Yao Ling, who was still examining her tea—watching, sipping, closing her eyes to savor, then rising to her feet.

“Certainly.”

“Please.” The chief stood, bowed, and gestured for her to precede him, following closely behind. To Ye Bai and Cao Xiaoseng, Yao Ling seemed suddenly transformed—no longer the tearful girl they knew.

On the third floor of the building—the mysterious third section.

Contrary to expectation, the space was not grand or opulent; it was cramped, no larger than an ordinary room. Yet as the chief opened the door, he worked through three separate locks.

“You must have seen much in your time, chief. I suspect your former rank was not low,” Yao Ling said, her voice icy, stripped of the playfulness she showed around Cao Xiaoseng and Ye Bai.

“No need for haste, Miss Yao. Once inside, perhaps you’ll understand.”

He opened the heavy steel door, and together they stepped inside.

Ten scarred daggers, one broken and roughly pieced together, hung on the three walls, joined by a handful of photographs.

In every photo, the people were smiling—handsome Westerners, refined and striking Asians, powerfully built black men. Each gripped a dagger, clad in camouflage.

A table, two chairs. Yao Ling took the main seat; the chief stood silently by, waiting for her to finish studying the photos.

“Which of them are you?” she asked suddenly.

The chief showed no surprise. If the young princess of the Yao family were as naïve as she pretended, he’d have misjudged her. To have survived and thrived as she had, she must be extraordinary. She might not know all their secrets, but she’d certainly heard some, and the chief was sure Ye Bai and the others were still in the dark about her true identity.

“The eldest—Blood Vengeance.”

Yao Ling’s hand paused on the table, startled by his answer.

Blood Vengeance. The Crimson Dagger. Demon Crocodile Unit. From the twentieth to thirtieth years of the Dark Era, when Attribute Powers first emerged in newborns, a time when no one else had awakened them—those ten years belonged to them. Then, mysteriously, they vanished, leaving behind little-known names. From their birth, rise, and peak, to their disappearance, the Demon Crocodile Unit had been a living legend.