Vampires were supernatural beings themselves and knew of ghosts’ existence. But the two sides generally kept to their own, never interfering with each other. Even if they had crossed paths, they’d only encountered ordinary, wandering spirits. When had they ever witnessed such a ferocious evil spirit?!
A dark cloud drifted across the sky, blotting out the moon. The road, devoid of streetlights or any light source, was plunged into utter darkness. Everything seemed to merge with the black mist emanating from the opposing spirit. In that moment, the breeze stilled, as if even the air had frozen. The Seer ghost’s veil floated as if stirred by an unseen wind, while behind her, the young man looked on with a faint smile.
The fear in their hearts transformed into rage in the next instant. Instead of retreating, the vampires were provoked into a frenzy by Su Fan and the Seer ghost. They roared like beasts, dropped to all fours, and lunged from all directions.
One by one, the tarot cards glowed with a red light, their images twisting and breaking free from their flat confines to grapple with the vampires. As physical entities, the vampires couldn’t effectively harm the ghosts. However, the tarot manifestations also couldn’t immediately overcome these strong, beast-like humanoids. The situation reached a stalemate.
Meanwhile, a male vampire in a leather jacket had somehow climbed onto a slanted rooftop out of the others’ sight, fixing his gaze intently on Su Fan’s back below. The evil spirit obeys this human’s commands. If we subdue him, the rest won’t be a problem! As the strongest among the vampires, he was certain he could take this young man’s life!
He dropped from above, almost soundlessly. Yet, in the less-than-a-second he was airborne, the young man seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, sidestepping. Simultaneously, a discarded metal sheet not far away was tugged by a mysterious force. The moment Su Fan and the vampire aligned, it sliced through the air, flying at incredible speed! Its velocity turned the rusted sheet into a sharp guillotine blade, severing the vampire’s head!
The headless body continued its descent for a short distance before landing on the ground with a dull thud. The Seer witch, controlling the tarot manifestations while keeping an eye on Su Fan’s situation, didn’t forget the action here either. Black mist immediately surged forward, devouring the soul that had just left the dead vampire’s body.
Seeing Su Fan dispatch one so cleanly, Dean and Sam, who were behind him, finally let their guard down completely. Their mindset shifted, and their demeanor changed entirely. They immediately began discussing Su Fan’s abilities from a spectator’s viewpoint.
“Is that telekinesis?”
“Doesn’t quite seem like it… I’ve never seen what a telekinetic ability user looks like either…”
“If it is telekinesis, that means he has mid-range attack capabilities.”
“Now he’s just missing area-of-effect attacks and self-healing.”
“Earlier I said he was like a Jedi Master from Star Wars, but I didn’t think he’d actually use the Force.”
Just as the Winchester brothers were chatting, the Seer ghost eliminated two more vampires. The remaining ones finally realized something was wrong. They scattered, putting distance between themselves, exchanging glances. In less than five minutes from the start, they had lost nearly half their companions! Continuing like this, they would all perish here!
The ferocity and bloodlust had completely vanished from the vampires’ eyes. This sight made the Winchester brothers behind them subconsciously shake their heads. It was hard to imagine such a clear, fearful look on a vampire’s face.
“We’re willing to leave. We won’t seek revenge for today,” one vampire spoke up after a silence. As he spoke, his eyes swept over the charred corpses on the ground, deepening the apprehension on his face. “Let’s call a truce. There’s no benefit in continuing this fight.”
Hearing this, Su Fan’s expression turned somewhat odd. The vampires opposite, seeing Su Fan silent, thought he was considering it and felt a sudden sense of relief. Hesitation means there’s room for negotiation. But before they could relax for even a moment, the previously still Seer ghost once again commanded the tarot manifestations to attack!
The vampires scrambled to respond. The one who had spoken earlier shouted anxiously at Su Fan, “Didn’t you hear what I said? Tell her to stop! If we die, our companions will surely come to avenge us. It will be a fight to the death!”
Su Fan still didn’t respond, merely gesturing for the Seer ghost to finish them off quickly. At this point, they still can’t read the situation. They don’t even know how to beg properly. I suggest they learn the art of the dramatic surrender from that old woman of the Mayfair family in their next life.
With their numerical advantage gone and the Seer ghost growing stronger from devouring souls, the situation quickly turned against them. They didn’t even have time to flee before being completely wiped out!
Having devoured over a dozen souls plus one evil spirit in one go, the Seer ghost’s power finally surpassed her previous self, reaching an unprecedented level. The black mist around the ghost before Su Fan churned like boiling magma, occasionally causing her form to swell.
“Return.”
At his command, the Seer ghost immediately returned to the tarot card, entering a sleep-like state. Having consumed so many souls in a short time, she needed a period to digest and control the burgeoning power. With her disappearance, the sky seemed to clear, and moonlight bathed the area once more.
Su Fan roughly assessed the Seer ghost’s current strength in his mind. She was now far, far stronger than Mary Shaw. In a direct confrontation, she could even overpower Freddy. Significant progress had been made.
[You commanded a spirit to slay enemies, greatly increasing its strength. You have gained a slight insight into the path of commanding souls.]
You can gain insights even without acting personally? Su Fan was somewhat surprised but didn’t dwell on it. This little insight was a nice bonus. While unsure what it might lead to in the future, having it was better than not.
Seeing everything settled, Dean and Sam picked up the still-unconscious couple and headed for the nearest police station. After a brief cleanup, the three found a motel to rest for the night. Of course, Su Fan didn’t need sleep. He spent the night idly pondering how to make his paper frog hop, but with no success, he simply switched to meditation.
The next morning, the brothers knocked on his door.
“The vampires we encountered yesterday… their intelligence seemed a bit off,” Dean said, one hand on the steering wheel, taking a bite of his hot dog before continuing. “To talk like that in that situation… I don’t know what gave them the confidence to be so demanding.”
“Don’t try to understand a fool’s thought process, and don’t engage with them. It’s contagious,” Su Fan stated calmly.
“That’s an interesting theory,” Sam couldn’t help but chuckle.
The old house spirit, the asylum spirit, and the vampires—three supernatural incidents resolved in two days. This pace was at least three times faster than before, a veritable sprint forward. While acting as “support,” Dean and Sam continued to educate Su Fan about demons.
In truth, obtaining this information wasn’t difficult for Su Fan. The real challenge was sifting the genuine intelligence from the multitude of false legends. When falsehoods are presented as truth, even the real can seem fake. Many false legends even formed their own coherent systems over long periods, while the genuine information remained fragmented.
For example, what Sam was explaining now: “A demon’s rank is generally hard to discern directly, but yellow-eyed demons are typically considered high-ranking. Legends say that before their fall, these yellow-eyed demons held high positions in Heaven. There’s no strict dividing line between demons and fallen angels; you know, the Bible is also vague on this. The number of demons is vast. A certain famous bishop once said they are more numerous than the sands on the shore.”
So, their father’s quest for revenge was actually extremely daunting. Yet, he charged ahead regardless, driven by the blazing fire of vengeance that had burned for nearly twenty years without extinguishing.
“The troublesome part is, according to doctrine, they are also God’s creations, so they can’t be killed by conventional means, only banished back to Hell,” Dean added with a scoff.
“So, your father has been hunting demons all this time while also searching for something that can kill them,” Su Fan’s “deduction” struck the brothers like a revelation. His sudden, prolonged disappearance must be related to something major. Perhaps he had indeed found a weapon capable of slaying demons and set off alone on the trail of revenge.
At this thought, both brothers grew somewhat anxious.
“Out of gas. I’ll pull into a nearby station,” Dean, who had originally planned a leisurely drive, changed his mind due to their earlier conversation. He soon found an exit, left the highway, and located a gas station.
Just then, Sam’s phone rang. Answering it, he immediately straightened up from his slouched position in the passenger seat. “Dad?”
Sam’s involuntary exclamation made Dean jolt. The latter immediately slowed down and rolled up the windows. After a brief conversation, Sam handed the phone to Dean. Dean was taken aback, then glanced up at a road sign…
“What did he say to you?” Sam asked after the call ended, though his expression wasn’t great.
“He told us to go investigate an incident in another place.”
“But I think we’re already there.”
Dean gestured ahead.
——
“Su, your guess was right,” Dean sighed in the car. “Our father is indeed tracking the thing that killed our mother. But he refused our help, even ordered us to stop looking for him. And he assigned us a new task.”
In short, father and sons were talking past each other. The younger son, Sam, wanted to confirm their father’s situation and offer assistance, but their dad forbade it and ordered the older son, Dean, to take his brother to handle a hunting job. Dean seemed to have some psychological hang-up, being unused to defying their father’s orders, which Sam found incomprehensible. If Su Fan hadn’t been present, the two would probably be arguing by now.
“Fathers and sons disagreeing is common… almost made you witness a family drama,” Dean forced a smile.
“Why do you obey your father so unquestioningly?” Su Fan’s question made Dean instinctively glance at Sam, who had gotten out to stretch his legs nearby.
“When I was a kid, once, because I didn’t follow Dad’s instructions to look after him properly, he almost died at the hands of something supernatural. Maybe out of guilt… since then, I’ve followed his orders meticulously.”
“And if your father’s orders are wrong?” Su Fan looked calmly at Dean. “Nearly twenty years have passed. You should have your own judgment; you can’t follow your father in everything. If he really dies fighting a demon alone, how will you face your brother? Obeying orders and refusing to think for yourself is, in a sense, another form of escapism. Your brother has his own ideas, but in the end, he listens to you. He respects you from the heart. As the older brother, don’t let him down.”
Dean stared at Su Fan, momentarily curious about his background. He seemed more adept at handling family relationships.
“What about you, Su? What’s your relationship with your parents like?”
“I don’t know who my parents are. I was adopted and raised from a young age.”
Su Fan’s offhand remark left Dean speechless.
“But that doesn’t prevent me from pointing out issues. Those involved are often blind; an outsider sees clearly, right?”
“…You’re right.”
Dean let out a long breath.
“Still, we need to deal with the matter here.”
Su Fan touched the tarot card in his pocket. After a night and a morning of digestion, the dormant Seer ghost seemed to be showing signs of stirring again.
Once the car was refueled, Sam returned to the passenger seat. He had gone to ask the gas station attendant about the town and obtained some information.
“The farms around the town are slowly disappearing, but only this town’s orchard remains completely unaffected, still producing steadily, even occasionally hitting record yields. If that were all, it wouldn’t be a problem. The issue is, on the same day every year, a married couple vanishes without a trace on the road passing by that orchard. It’s hard not to suspect something. But it never caused much of a stir. Probably because the police investigated and found nothing, and the townsfolk have gotten used to it.”
After finishing his explanation, Sam looked at Su Fan in the backseat. Dean did the same.
“Let’s go see the place for ourselves. But we need to be cautious of the local residents,” Su Fan said.
His words immediately made the brothers think of an unpleasant possibility. “A cult?”
“Can’t conclude that yet. But people disappear every year, and yet no one in the town moves away. Aren’t they worried they might vanish one year? They’re being overly complacent.” Su Fan paused here. “I once dealt with a town shrouded in a curse. It was practically dead, almost abandoned. Yet this town can still run an orchard… interesting.”
