The gigantic tarantula died instantly.
One shot.
Nick Fury's Atomic Pistol erased half its body in a burst of blue-white energy, splattering burning remains across the desert floor.
The colossal spider collapsed like a demolished building, its massive legs twitching violently before going still.
Far away, Drex Valen watched the feed with mild amusent.
"This is starting to feel a lot like n in Black."
For him, this entire operation had served a specific purpose.
A morale boost.
Not every monster was an unstoppable apocalypse.
So could be killed.
So could be hunted.
And after this battle, Fury himself finally understood that.
Monsters weren't invincible.
Humanity didn't always need superheroes swooping in to save them.
Then Drex's voice suddenly ca through Fury's comms.
"Fury, bad news. The radiation output from the Atomic Pistol might permanently kill your hair follicles."
Nick Fury's face sohow beca even darker.
He had no idea whether Drex was joking.
The problem was... with Drex Valen, it was impossible to tell.
And if it was true?
Then the billions S.H.I.E.L.D. had quietly funneled into experintal hair-regrowth research during his tenure had basically gone straight into the trash.
Motherfucker.
Naturally, Fury kept that thought to himself.
He'd worked around enough dangerous people to know one universal truth:
Never insult the smiling ones.
Especially not the smiling geniuses.
While Drex was busy tornting Fury psychologically, one of the S.W.O.R.D. agents on site reported sothing unusual.
The report imdiately caught Drex's attention.
The agent in question carried a two-digit identification number. Elite personnel.
He'd discovered sothing suspicious inside an old warehouse.
Originally, the structure had served as a grain silo.
The United States exported more food than almost any nation on Earth, and facilities like this used to be common near shipping hubs.
Eventually, after the expansion of New York Harbor, most major grain companies relocated their storage operations elsewhere.
This place had been abandoned for years.
There had apparently been resistance when S.W.O.R.D. agents attempted to secure the site.
That resistance hadn't lasted long.
Most S.W.O.R.D. operatives were World Serpent personnel to begin with, and once you equipped people with Atomic Guns and laser weapons, argunts tended to end very quickly.
Drex personally arrived at the warehouse shortly afterward.
Deep inside, they discovered a concealed freight elevator.
The platform descended nearly twenty ters underground before stopping.
Beyond the elevator shaft lay a corridor.
Then the underground chamber opened before them.
Huge.
At least three thousand square ters.
Thirty massive support pillars held up the ceiling while rows of industrial incandescent lights flooded the chamber in sterile white light.
The ceiling alone stood nearly ten ters high.
tal walkways and crude steel staircases divided the underground structure into upper and lower levels.
More than seventy ard guards patrolled the facility.
And then the agents saw the "trees."
Imagine a Christmas tree farm.
Rows upon rows of tightly packed saplings planted so densely together their branches overlapped.
Needles intertwined.
Roots tangled beneath the soil.
Enough to trigger claustrophobic discomfort just by looking at it.
Except these weren't trees.
They were people.
Thousands of them.
Human beings sealed upright inside transparent glass containers.
The containers stood vertically like grotesque artificial trunks anchored to the floor by steel supports.
Every victim stared blankly ahead.
No focus in their eyes.
No emotion.
No resistance.
A tube inserted into the veins of each captive's left arm continuously extracted blood into collection units mounted outside the containers.
Once approximately four hundred cubic centiters had been drained, the extraction system stopped automatically.
Then another feeding tube shoved directly through the mouth into the stomach would activate, pumping in a thick nutritional slurry that looked disturbingly similar to infant vomit.
High-calorie.
Easy digestion.
Efficient blood production.
That seed to be the logic.
Life-monitoring systems tracked each captive's heartbeat constantly.
Whenever one of the "blood trees" died, the extraction system switched to maximum output.
Every remaining drop of blood was drained from the corpse.
The body visibly collapsed inward like a punctured balloon.
Veins flattened.
Skin turned deathly pale within seconds.
When the final drop had been harvested, automated machinery removed the corpse and replaced it with a fresh victim.
The process never stopped.
An assembly line.
Industrialized horror.
And that was only the first level.
The second floor held fewer captives.
Mostly won and children.
Different blood types had different value.
Adult male blood occupied the bottom tier.
Won ranked higher.
Children higher still.
And at the very top:
Virgin blood.
Young blood.
Pregnant blood rich with "vitality."
The entire underground structure functioned like a factory optimized for one purpose:
Blood production.
No one needed to ask who the custors were.
Vampires.
Unlike refrigerated hospital blood bags, this operation offered "fresh delivery."
Warm blood.
Custom orders.
Different "flavors."
A single phone call anywhere in Greater New York apparently brought sa-day service.
Party orders included.
One hundred cubic centiters ranged anywhere from fifty dollars to six hundred depending on "quality."
The facility generated millions every day.
A true blood-and-money factory.
Every dollar soaked in human suffering.
"What the hell is this..."
Even hardened S.W.O.R.D. agents looked shaken.
Then one of the patrol guards spotted them.
"INTRUDERS!"
The response was imdiate.
Atomic Guns and laser weapons opened fire without hesitation.
Blue beams and crimson light tore through the chamber.
Bodies exploded.
Walls lted.
Guards died screaming before they could properly react.
No warnings.
No negotiations.
Anyone running a place like this had already crossed beyond the line of humanity.
Drex Valen stood calmly behind the slaughter with his hands folded behind his back.
"Quite an operation they built."
He wasn't interested in stopping the killings.
Right now, he was more interested in deciding how to punish the vampires behind this.
As for the captives...
Their vacant expressions reminded him of old lobotomy patients.
Emotionally hollowed out.
Reduced to biological equipnt.
Machines made of flesh.
And soone in New York had built an entire industry around it.
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