"How dare they!"
After watching the publicly broadcasted video, the agents of the Divine Sword Bureau were left in bewilderment.
"Alright. Vampires can't be wiped out, and defining them as monsters is impossible too. After all, monsters are pure pests. Vampires are pests as well, but to those capitalists and politicians, they aren't pests at all."
Zod put away his phone. The fact that the United States had sent this video was clearly meant to tell him not to blow things out of proportion.
The Grand Elder of the Vampire Council of the Americas, an ancient pureblood vampire who had lived for over a thousand years, was willing to compensate the victims. He would also offer compensation to both the U.S. government and Zod's Divine Sword Bureau.
A vampire that old had accumulated wealth that would make even the financial cliques and mega-corporations of America look quaint.
The Grand Elder would have the owner of that underground blood factory and his underlings captured and delivered for the Divine Sword Bureau to judge.
"They play this game very skillfully."
Zod watched the vampires being brought over inside shipping containers. Aside from a large number of half-bloods, the remaining ten purebloods could all be considered nobility among vampires.
"Don't do anything reckless, Director."
Nick Fury was worried that Zod's youthful temper would make him stubbornly pursue the matter. After all, vampires were tied to many of America's more obscure expenditures. They couldn't be touched.
"I understand, Fury. But it should be fine if I sweep through some half-blood vampires to vent a little, right?"
Zod shook his head and continued.
Nick Fury fell silent. Of course that was fine. It was even completely within reason.
Zod tapped the table meaningfully. He had to make some kind of gesture. Otherwise, wouldn't his persona fall apart? As a genius who acted without restraint, sweeping through a few vampire strongholds was perfectly normal, wasn't it?
Of course, after this, Zod would arrange for a monster to attack the vampires instead.
Under Zod's orders, Divine Sword Bureau agents ruthlessly swept through over a dozen vampire gathering places. Thousands of half-blood vampires were exterminated.
The vampires naturally understood the undisguised actions of the Divine Sword Bureau. In response, they tacitly approved and told other vampires to get out of New York immediately, or even out of America entirely.
Because they didn't know how great the temper of this immensely powerful Divine Sword Bureau director was, or how far he needed to vent.
And the half-blood vampires could also see that the purebloods didn't care about their lives at all. The purebloods only cared about their wealth and status, even as humans pressed in ever closer.
This caused many half-blood vampires to decide to rise up and resist humanity.
"These vampires are massing in New York? Interesting."
Seeing this, Zod instantly knew that there was likely a rift between the upper and lower ranks of vampire society. For a ruling body, this was practically no different from a schism.
"They're preparing to make a big scene. A lot of newly turned vampires have been moved to New York. Their funds, including the upper-level human forces they control, are all putting pressure on the U.S. Those old geezers believe that after the Monster Association incident, humanity's pressure on them has grown greater and greater. The vampires' living space is being squeezed."
The intelligence capabilities of the Divine Sword Bureau had already reached an exaggerated level. The vampires' unusual movements were discovered in no time.
"Law enforcement agencies, meaning us and America's vampire management departments, are becoming less and less hesitant about hunting down the unruly lower ranks. They hope to demonstrate their strength and reestablish a balance. In short, they want to intimidate the human upper class and secure enough living space for themselves."
"Including activities like blood farms and human trafficking, right?"
Zod said with amusement.
"They call it feeding."
Black Widow said calmly.
She had dealt with vampires back when she was still with S.H.I.E.L.D. She understood vampire behavior patterns very well.
"On top of that, because of us, that enormous blood factory was shut down. A huge amount of cheap, affordable blood plasma that those bottom-rung vampires relied on is gone. They can only buy plasma sold officially by the U.S. government now. As far as I know, the U.S. has raised the plasma price from five hundred dollars per hundred-milliliter pack to five hundred fifty dollars per pack. Most bottom-rung vampires don't have that kind of spending power. They have to consume one hundred milliliters of blood every day just to stay active. Otherwise, they fall into extreme exhaustion and slumber."
Black Widow continued.
"So?"
Zod was, of course, well aware of this. Why else would he send his subordinates to sweep through those low-level half-blood vampires? Besides letting them blow off steam, he also wanted to control the number of bottom-rung vampires who would easily go hungry now that the massive plasma supply was lost.
"They're very likely to attack civilians. They've been starving for a long time already."
Black Widow said, worried.
"Didn't we already eliminate thousands of low-level half-bloods?"
Zod asked. With numbers reduced by that much, even if the remaining vampires attacked civilians, it shouldn't be impossible to control.
"The number of low-level half-blood vampires is actually very high. Just New York City alone has over a hundred thousand, not to mention that they're still gathering here."
Black Widow shook her head. Back when S.H.I.E.L.D. funded vampire hunters and took action itself, they had kept the vampire population within a stable, controllable range. But during the gap period when S.H.I.E.L.D. was forcibly disbanded and lost power, before the Divine Sword Bureau was born, the vampires had multiplied back again, even more than before.
"Those purebloods don't control the increase of half-bloods. They actually wish the number of half-bloods was as high as possible. After all, that makes it easier for them to reap more benefits, wealth, and power."
Zod nodded. For a special situation like that of vampires, there were no precedents to draw on.
Just as Jews band together in economic activities, vampires band together as well. And their advantages far surpass those of the Jews. The mere Jews, before World War II, were constantly fleeced by various governments and capitalists. Meanwhile, vampires had already infiltrated the upper echelons of human society five thousand years ago. At that time, the various noble families of Europe were so deeply penetrated by vampires that humans had to rely on the church's religious activities to maintain the purity of their class.
As everyone knows, vampires cannot participate in Catholic religious activities.
After the fall of Rome, the Western world became a Catholic Christian civilization. That might not be unrelated to the vampire threat. During the Roman Republic era, how many princeps civitatis were connected to vampires? During the Imperial era, how many Roman emperors chose the Embrace in pursuit of immortality? At the very least, Nero had extremely close ties with vampires.
Although Nero himself was a demon contractor… among his Roman officials and nobles, the number of vampires was so great they could stage a full Bloodkin assembly right in the imperial court!
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