134. Blood and Soul

Imprisoned in a cave and forced to feed on rats for half a year, Ruben suffered from malnutrition and parasitic infection, requiring a prolonged stay in the hospital for recovery.

After he had fallen asleep, Marco alone drove Dean back through the night to a warehouse near his home.

The dim, yellowish light illuminated a space roughly the size of a first-floor living room, but it was crowded with all sorts of discarded furniture, electrical appliances, and miscellaneous items. Some of the larger pieces were draped in dark canvas. Having gone uncleaned for too long, their surfaces were covered in a thick layer of dust.

"Dean, forgive me, but those collection pieces are practically useless in daily life, so Ruben kept them in the old warehouse," Marco offered an embarrassed smile. "Rest assured, if you are unsatisfied after seeing them, you can still choose the ten thousand dollars instead."

"Let me see, where are the items?" The old man looked around, his eyes soon brightening. Stepping over a fallen, overturned chair, he walked straight to a large canvas-covered object on his left and pulled back the fabric, instantly revealing a glass display cabinet.

Crafted from pine wood, the cabinet featured glass doors enclosing three tiers of display shelves. Its design was both elegant and exquisite, though its surface looked somewhat dull and lusterless from long disuse.

Dean approached to inspect it.

All three tiers held artifacts. On the top tier rested an old-fashioned handgun with a metal-shelished slide gleaming and a pitch-black grip.

The middle tier held an old book.

On the bottom tier lay a black fountain pen.

Dean was instantly drawn to the gun.

Judging purely by its design, it exuded the aura of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its angles were less sharply defined, and because the recoil spring sat above the barrel while the barrel itself was below, lacking a traditional hammer structure, it looked somewhat strange compared to modern automatic pistols.

"There used to be over a dozen collection items in the family, but most were gradually disposed of by my mother, leaving only these final three. Please allow me to introduce them. The gun on the top shelf is a Browning M1900 7.65mm pistol," a glint of memory flashed across Marco's face, "a weapon my father used for self-defense in his youth."

A thought stirred in Dean's mind. This pistol was precisely the first of the legendary triad of classic firearms—the one, the two, and the flower-mouth—and it shared a deep lineage with his usual Colt M1911A1, practically serving as the latter's ancestor.

"It is the world's first automatic pistol featuring a slide, highly concealable, with a low failure rate and capable of continuous fire. Over the past few decades, this gun has cast its shadow over multiple world-shaking assassinations..." Marco introduced, "It is also known as the Assassin's Envoy."

In fact, the M1900's successor, the M1910, was used to perpetrate the world-famous Sarajevo incident.

"Since it was your father's cherished firearm, just how many years old is it?" Dean asked.

"My father bought it roughly 60 years ago," Marco pondered. "Every few years, I apply a bit of oil and replace the desiccant, so it has been fairly well preserved."

"This kind of preservation method isn't exactly professional, yet this Browning M1900 looks remarkably mint," Dean stared at the pistol and asked expectantly, "Does it possess anything unusual?"

Marco chuckled and shook his head, "I even practiced shooting with it myself. To be honest, its power and range are no different from other firearms of the same model; it's simply very smooth to handle, and I've never experienced jams or similar malfunctions."

"However, I clearly remember my father joking with me back when he was still around, telling me that ordinary people could never unleash its true power." Marco unlocked the showcase, took out the handgun, and handed it over. "Why don't you give it a try, honored detective? You might just discover its secrets."

"I'm just an ordinary person," Dean gripped the handle and stroked it. It felt slightly cool to the touch, and he could feel un-dried gun oil. The size fit his palm perfectly, yet it was remarkably lightweight—almost half the weight of the M1911A1.

"An ordinary person could not defeat that monster, let alone fish Ruben out from beneath the bridge," Marco's eyes gleamed with curiosity as he suddenly interjected.

Dean's expression tightened.

Throughout this investigation, his shapeshifting, traces of the past, and other unique abilities had all been exposed before the father and son.

Once the two of them leaked this information—

The next second, Dean's right hand jerked upward, pressing the muzzle of the M1900 directly against the center of the old man's forehead, his index finger resting on the trigger.

The old man's eyelids twitched, but he forced a composed smile.

"There's no bullet in the gun. Besides, you saved my son Ruben's life; I would never bite the hand that feeds me or reveal your secret to anyone. Ruben is the same!"

The old man gesticulated wildly as he swore oaths.

"I swear on the honor of the Van Helsing family, I swear to God, if I violate this, may our family line be cut short."

Dean stared at him for a full ten seconds, his expression shifting.

A moment later, he shook his head with a chuckle, lowered the gun, and patted the collar of the old man's coat.

"My friend, I was merely joking. I generally don't harm the innocent."

Dean said with profound meaning,

"Besides, I have nothing to worry about. My little parlor tricks are nothing more than child's play compared to your son Ruben's superpowers."

"Think about it: Ruben's written words become reality. Can this ability be used to cure illnesses, or to duplicate priceless treasures?"

"Once Ruben's secret is leaked, care to guess what fate awaits him?"

"Imprisoned by the United States government, dissected and studied?"

"Or seized by a billionaire's tech corporation to toil away as a laborer for life?"

Dean was merely fearmongering. The power to convert imagination into reality was immensely formidable; if it could be used at will, the Van Helsing family would have ruled the world long ago.

Yet they hadn't. This ability was bound by extremely harsh limitations.

Unaware of the specific details, Marco turned increasingly pale as he listened, clenching his fists while anxiety was written all over his face.

"My friend, you must keep secrets not just for me, but even more so for Ruben."

Dean patted his shoulder, suddenly feeling a sharp, brief sting in the palm of his right hand where he held the gun.

"Hiss—"

He winced, abruptly discovering that his palm had been grazed by something sharp on the gun's casing, unknowingly drawing a trickle of blood that smeared across the metallic body of the firearm.

An intuition welled up inside Dean's heart: this gun was devouring his blood...

At the same time, a massive amount of information was bizarrely poured into his mind:

Weapon Name: Browning M1900 / Blood and Soul

Overall Length: 162.5 mm

Total Weight: 615 g

Phantasm Modification Traits:
1. Durability: Waterproof, fire-resistant, corrosion and wear-resistant... It functions normally under most extreme conditions and can draw upon its master's energy to spontaneously repair damage.
2. Versatility: Do not be deceived by its old, outdated appearance; aside from the regular .32 ACP rounds accommodated by the standard M1900, this gun can chamber all types of pistol ammunition from both the past and the future, though it cannot be modified in any way.
3. Assassin's Envoy: Magazine capacity expanded to 20 rounds, with the vast majority of recoil and firing noise muffled during shooting.
4. Additional Firing Modes:
Spirit Bullet: Infuses spiritual energy into the ammunition when firing, inflicting extra damage against spiritual entities upon impact, particularly effective at subverting energy and telekinetic barriers.
Tracking Bullet: Consumes extra blood when firing, leaving a mark upon wounding the target. The user can sense the target's direction for a limited time to track them, though this mode grants no power bonus.
5. Blood Intent: It records the aura of slaughter. The more creatures of the same type it hunts down, the easier it is to strike their weak points.

Note 1:
Blood and Soul is one of Johnny Van Helsing's beloved crafted firearms. Carried and polished day after day, through years of his extraordinary imaginative modifications, some of his fantastical designs became reality.
Thus, Blood and Soul gained various miraculous powers.

Note 2:
Only members of the Van Helsing family, or those recognized by the family whose spirit and physique are both no less than 15, can unleash the true power of this gun.
The gun cannot harm members of the Van Helsing family.
Current Holder: Dean Luo.

Inscription—
The blood of monsters and the soul of evil spirits, blended into a glass of gin, a toast to this damned convergence law.
My dear descendants, when you truly pick up this gun, it means danger will continuously close in, granting you no peace.
It is time to depart, stepping alone onto this path of no return.
......

"Why is your hand bleeding?" Marco cried out in alarm, "Find something to bandage it."

"A minor issue, it's nothing," Dean refused with a shake of his head, staring fixedly at "Blood and Soul" in his hand, excitement and solemnity intertwining in his eyes.

A supernatural weapon had just casually manifested before him.

It was a trinity.
It could deal with spiritual entities, chamber all types of pistol ammunition to increase lethality, and possessed tracking special effects.

Acquiring this, Dean had made a massive profit!

Dean raised the gun with both hands, aiming tentatively at the dim electric light in the distance through the iron sights, lightly pulling the trigger in the standard posture of aiming and shooting. However, now was clearly not the place, so he could only temporarily put the gun aside.

"You like this M1900?"

"I find it very comfortable to handle."

Dean was already eager to test what firing .44 Magnum rounds from this unassuming pistol would look like.

Marco nodded, stroked his mustache, and shifted the topic. "But my friend, I simply cannot fathom it. Ruben was clearly just an ordinary person for over thirty years, never showing any unusual talent. Why did he suddenly awaken superpowers?"

"Perhaps it is related to his years of devotion to writing; prolonged, intense focus stimulated the special potential within his bloodline."

Dean offered a hypothesis, turning his gaze to the old book on the second shelf of the pine cabinet and taking it out.

The moment he touched it, Dean distinctly felt that it differed from ordinary paper—it was smoother, tougher, and possessed a leather-like texture.

Moreover, it was very thin, totaling only a few dozen pages. It was slightly yellowed, carrying a sense of the passage of time.

"This is an album made of vellum, at least two to three hundred years old. It counts as an antique," Marco introduced from the side, "Its collection value is quite high."

Dean opened the first page, and a yellowed illustration caught his eye.

A humanoid figure with slender limbs, gender indeterminate, wearing a cotton-like tight-fitting garment reaching the knees with a piece of cloth draped over the shoulder, sat cross-legged on the ground with eyes closed, tilting its head upward toward a sun in the sky.

Oh, it probably wasn't a sun, but a red elliptical sphere.

"Isn't this Red Dragon Meditation? Yet it lacks more than half of the movement and breathing details of my skill; it's considered an incomplete version of the meditation method."

"Did you notice something?" Marco noticed his expression.

"This is a set of special training methods." Dean put down the book and looked at the old man, "Have you or Ruben ever tried following the movements in the book before?"

"Even if I were to snap my spine, I couldn't make such outrageous movements," Marco shook his head, looking at one of the difficult postures where both hands supported the ground while the body stood horizontally sideways. "Besides, long ago while my mother was still alive, she repeatedly warned me never to train following this out of curiosity."

Dean raised an eyebrow and temporarily set the book aside.

He then retrieved the third artifact, that unremarkable fountain pen.

"This is a pen my grandfather used to sign documents, over eighty years old and still well-preserved," Marco said with deep emotion as he unscrewed the pen barrel, revealing a piston. "For a few years, I used this fountain pen constantly in the clinic, and I'm certain it lacks the ability to make writing come true."

"Is that so?" Dean asked him for a bit of ink, drew it into the pen, randomly found a sheet of white paper, and wrote a few evocative descriptions:
For instance, a rat suddenly crawling out in the attic where they stood, stirring a breeze.
For instance, the attic's electric light flickering and breaking down completely.

Yet after waiting ten minutes, there was no reaction.

Refusing to give up, Dean pressed his previously injured hand against the nib, stained it with a trace of blood, and rewrote the descriptions.

Still no effect. This time, it didn't generate the magical mental description that the Browning M1900 had.

Dean hesitated and put down the fountain pen. Perhaps he lacked the Van Helsing bloodline, and this gadget didn't resonate with him.

"Marco, I've made my choice. I've decided to take this M1900."

"You can take it at any time, but may I ask you a question? Are there supernatural factors present in these collection pieces?" Seeing Dean's hesitant expression, Marco immediately assured him, "Regardless, they belong to you now. I would never go back on my word and ask for them back."

Hearing this, Dean readily pointed out some of the abnormalities of the M1900.

Marco's face turned astonished as he listened.

"This gun was my father Johnny's service weapon. So you mean he was a superhuman? But how is that possible? He was clearly just an ordinary lawyer who traveled frequently."

"Johnny was merely putting on an act; he didn't want to drag you into danger." Dean reached out and slipped the gun into his jacket pocket. With a thought a couple of seconds later, the supernatural weapon silently stored itself into the Phantasm Space, entirely belonging to Dean!

Awesome!

"What danger are you referring to?" Marco asked again.

"Johnny's power should be similar to Ruben's, able to turn illusions into reality. First of all, this power might accidentally harm oneself just like Ruben; furthermore, once leaked, it will inevitably arouse the covetous desires of the entire world."

"That's why Johnny chose to pose as an ordinary person." Dean pondered for a moment and asked, "When and how did he pass away?"

"He didn't exactly pass away. It was over forty years ago, during Christmas of my junior year in high school. He went on a business trip and never returned, missing ever since," Marco said with a gloomy expression, a hint of sorrow surfacing in his eyes.

"Missing, that settles it," Dean nodded with an "as expected" expression, "Among supernatural beings, almost none pass away peacefully of old age in their beds."

"Then what about the other members of your Van Helsing family? Are they all dead?"

"My mother passed away from illness over twenty years ago."

"My father Johnny did have an older brother, Brown." Marco walked past Dean to the eastern corner of the attic, pulled back a canvas, and revealed a row of framed black-and-white photographs stacked on chairs—all portrait photos of men and women with uniform flaxen hair. Judging by their appearance, they were all youths and middle-aged adults, yet not a single white-haired old person was among them.

Marco pointed to a young man on the far right, "But Brown died at the age of thirty in an accidental assassination."

Then Marco pointed from right to left along the row of photo frames, introducing them one by one:
"Steckai, Worm, Boschke... my grandfather and his siblings, also in their thirties or forties, died of illness, disappearance, or accidents."
"Vanderfaart, Schneider, Deurzeu, Lucila, the four great-grandfather siblings... the first generation of our family to move from the Netherlands to the United States."

Dean interrupted him, asking nervously, "Are their descendants not in Reno?"

Marco closed his eyes with a grief-stricken expression, "The Van Helsing bloodline has withered. Now only Ruben and I remain; all the other members failed to survive past their forties, dying young from various accidents or illnesses, or simply going missing."

"So you are the only member of your family who can be considered long-lived, surviving past forty?" Dean connected this to the earlier inscription on the gun, turning pale as a shiver ran down his spine.

Before his eyes, it was as though he saw an entire family struggling against destiny, ultimately ending up dead or missing, nearly driven to extinction.

"Only completely ignorant ordinary people can live in peace and safety, which is why your parents concealed the family history from you, letting you continue the family line as an ordinary person," Dean said in a deep voice.

"What do you mean?" The old man vaguely grasped his implication, his expression altering drastically.

"You've guessed it. Aside from you, the rest of the Van Helsing family possessed incredible superpowers, and superpowers are a double-edged sword."

"Not only can they elevate them above ordinary people, but they also severely wound themselves, inviting unpredictable risks that cause them to die prematurely in their youth."

Dean crossed his arms and paced around the attic, the warning from Tamer flashing through his mind—supernatural phenomena would spontaneously gather, with a maximum interval of years before inevitably encountering others of their kind or being dragged into supernatural events, the longest period of peace being merely a few years.

If one wasn't strong enough, or simply ran out of luck, these superhumans would meet an untimely end in some atrocious event.

Much like the ancestors of the Van Helsing family.

Viewed in this light, to a certain extent, being a wealthy ordinary person was safer than being a superhuman.

"So all my relatives experienced terrible events similar to Ruben's?" Marco's expression turned grim. "Did they all meet with accidents because of it?"

"High probability... Based on my personal experience, once someone awakens superpowers, it is virtually impossible to shake off a perilous destiny." Dean stared at the old man's serious face, thinking of his own generous harvest today.

The Phantasm Space, the supernatural weapon Blood and Soul.

His gains had far exceeded the effort he put into the incident, prompting him to earnestly offer advice out of a newly awakened sense of conscience:

"And your son Ruben was originally an ordinary person, capable of living a normal life to sixty or seventy just like you. But now that he has stepped onto this path of destiny, fast within a few months, slow within a few years, he will inevitably encounter other supernatural events."

Marco stood dumbfounded with his mouth agape.

"How does the saying go? When destiny forces you, if you cannot resist, enjoy it and blend into it."

"Therefore, Ruben cannot abandon writing or his talent; instead, he must further temper and master the methods of using his own abilities." Dean handed the black fountain pen to Marco, "This pen is a relic left by your ancestors, likely connected to your family's superpowers. From now on, let Ruben use it for his writing."

"Additionally, Ruben must study marksmanship and combat, training according to the methods recorded in this vellum manual to enhance his self-preservation ability."

"Of course, the most important point is to quickly find a wife and marry, continuing descendants for your family."

Dean's leak of secrets stopped here.

He had done all he could, living up to the heavy gift from the Van Helsing family.

As for Marco, all color drained from his face as he listened. He had thought his son had completely escaped doom, only to realize it had just begun!

"Dean, could you stay in Reno for a while longer?" The old man pleaded, "Ruben is a complete 'novice' and still needs your guidance. I can pay."

Dean thought seriously for a few seconds.

"In a couple of days. Let Ruben rest for a few days to recover his vitality first, and then I'll come visit."