Empire Building With Infinite Warehouse-Chapter 120: First Blood

Julien did not even get a full five minutes to appreciate his incredibly high credit points before the universe decided to ruin his good mood completely.

He was frantically swiping through his brand-new premium shop interface, desperately trying to find a sword for Kyle to replace his broken weapon, when the dark shadows on the rooftops above them started shifting in a really unnatural way.

And standing right in the middle of an open cobblestone courtyard under a creepy red sky, you are basically acting like a giant target for anything that has the high ground.

Before Julien could even tap the purchase button and toss the expensive new weapon to his mercenary friend, four distinct shapes dropped straight down from the gothic buildings and landed perfectly on the street without making a single sound.

A glowing red warning screen instantly popped up right in front of Julien’s face, ringing with an alarm sound as the system actively scanned the new arrivals.

The interface did not leave them guessing about the danger because lines of white text started scrolling rapidly to explain exactly what kind of nightmare they were dealing with.

[Hostile Entities Identified: Local Blood Guard Knights.]

[Creature Profile: These entities possess extreme agility and unnatural physical strength far beyond normal human limits. They are highly resistant to standard physical damage and normal ballistics, making traditional combat highly ineffective.]

[Weakness Analysis: Holy attribute items, pure sunlight, and silver-laced weaponry are strongly recommended for survival.]

’Oh great, the system finally decides to be helpful by telling me my regular weapons are completely useless right before we get attacked,’ Julien thought to himself, quickly finalising the purchase on his blue interface and throwing the new sword directly at Kyle so the guy was not fighting empty-handed.

’I guess that perfectly explains why the sky is red, and the system gave us a survival quest the exact second we arrived in this nightmare dimension.’

These guys were definitely not the clumsy human guards they fought back at the military bunker, and they clearly did not care about standard patrol routes or shouting verbal warnings.

They were pale, tall knights wearing dark armour that seemed to absorb the dim light around them, and they moved with a silent grace that honestly made Julien’s stomach drop right into his boots.

Their skin was the colour of spoiled milk, and their eyes glowed with a predatory red light that told the stranded rescue team exactly where they stood on the local food chain.

But there was no time to stand around complaining to the system administrators about their terrible vacation destination because the residents were already making their opening move.

The pale knights did not bother asking for identification, and they certainly did not demand to know how a group of humans managed to bypass their dimensional borders without an invitation.

They simply drew these long, wicked-looking blades from beneath their dark cloaks and rushed forward with a burst of speed that honestly broke every single rule of normal human physics.

Kyle caught the new sword out of the air and immediately stepped right in front of Julien to take the very first hit, swinging the heavy steel blade in a wide, horizontal arc that absolutely should have cut the lead knight completely in half.

But the vampire just casually leaned backwards and blurred out of the way so fast that the large blade only cut through the empty air, leaving Kyle stumbling forward from his own momentum while his attacker just glided smoothly around his flank.

The system interface flashed another bright red notification right in Julien’s peripheral vision.

[Combat Alert: Enemy evasion speed significantly exceeds party attack velocity.]

[Close-quarters combat is not advised without advanced agility enhancement buffs.]

It was honestly scary for Julien to watch a guy as strong and dependable as Kyle get completely outplayed in less than two seconds by a random local patrol.

The vampires realised almost immediately that the mercenary was way too slow to be a real threat to them, so they just completely ignored him and scattered across the open courtyard to hunt down the much softer human targets.

Aiden tried a quick burst at the approaching enemies, hoping the loud noise might at least slow them down or cause a distraction.

But one of the knights simply swatted him away like a child’s toy and kicked incredibly hard right in the centre of his chest.

The guy went flying backwards across the uneven cobblestones, and Julien could actually hear several of Aiden’s ribs cracking loudly upon impact.

But of course, Aiden’s crazy rapid regeneration skill immediately kicked into overdrive, glowing with a faint light as his body started forcing the broken bones back together while he was still rolling across the ground.

It was a great survival trick, but it also meant Aiden was incapacitated with pain for the next few seconds, leaving Julien scrambling frantically backwards while trying to figure out exactly how to search for holy water on a digital shop interface while running for his actual life.

Julien’s fingers were flying across his glowing blue system screens, desperately swiping past endless pages of useless merchant junk because he had no idea how to navigate the premium tabs yet.

The system search bar was incredibly unhelpful because typing the word holy into the general query brought up thousands of expensive religious artefacts from a hundred different dimensions instead of a simple weapon he could throw.

He had all the money in the universe sitting right there in his account, but he was probably going to die before he could figure out how to filter the premium catalogue to find combat-ready items.

He kept expecting a vampire to just appear right behind him and end his entire business career, but the knights seemed way more interested in playing with their food first.

Maya was usually the fastest person in their entire group, constantly relying on her high agility stats to dodge attacks, find blind spots, and escape dangerous traps before the enemy even knew she was there.

She tried to use a broken wooden cart as a springboard to vault completely over the approaching enemies so she could escape into a narrow side alleyway and hide in the dark.

But the vampire knights were just inherently faster and way more coordinated than any mutant monster she had ever fought back in their ruined city.

The system threw up one final, urgent warning that Julien read with pure dread.

[Warning: Party member targeted. Enemy trajectory interception is imminent.]

One of the pale figures intercepted her right in the very middle of her desperate jump, grabbing her fiercely by the dark fabric of her scavenger cloak and throwing her roughly across the open courtyard like she weighed nothing.

Maya hit the stone wall of a gothic building and slid all the way down to the ground, gasping for breath while bravely pulling her dual daggers up to defend herself against the impossible odds.

Two of the heavily armoured vampires slowly boxed her into the dark corner, raising their long blades with cruel smiles on their pale faces, leaving her completely trapped against the unyielding stone wall with absolutely nowhere left to run.