Chapter 523: Chapter 523: Showing Off Gets You Struck by Lightning

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Based on memories of the movie from before transmigration, Green Arrow Duck compared them one by one with the scene unfolding before him.

It gave him a strange sense of immersion—

No, not immersion.

He was literally here in person, witnessing the whole spectacle firsthand.

If there was any difference from the film he remembered, it was that there were far more people inside the underground structure.

Judging from the body heat they emitted, there were vampires, ordinary humans, and even...

Mutants with clearly abnormal traits.

Still, any mutants mixed in with vampires probably weren’t particularly powerful. Most were likely Epsilon-level at best.

Fortunately, he saw no mutant vampires.

And judging by how they were treated, those mutants ranked even below the armed human guards.

So in the underworld hierarchy here, mutants were beneath both vampires and humans?

Green Arrow Duck watched the scene with great interest.

Except...

He had forgotten something.

Something very important.

He only remembered it when a bolt of thunder crashed down from the sky.

The final step of the Blood God ritual required enormous energy to complete the transformation.

That energy came in the form of lightning from above.

Since the ritual could apparently attract thunderbolts, it had already gone beyond anything science alone could explain.

There was something supernatural involved.

In other words—

Magic.

This was the first time since arriving in this world that Green Arrow Duck had a chance to personally witness magic.

But the problem was...

He had chosen to watch the show from the best seat in the house.

Which meant floating in the night sky above Eternal Night Temple using Green Arrow Duck’s levitation ability.

And the pheasant-feather antenna on his Punjabi-style hat was made of metal.

The heavy machine gun mounted behind him on articulated supports was also metal.

So even though the Duck-form Duck-Leopard Armor was wrapped in fluffy camouflage fabric, Green Arrow Duck hovering in the sky looked exactly like the nearest lightning rod to the storm clouds. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

A moment ago this was supposed to be magic.

Now suddenly physics rules apply?!

The lightning that was meant to strike the ground directly above Eternal Night Temple and channel vast energy into the vampire shrine abruptly bent in midair—

And slammed straight into Green Arrow Duck.

The numb, electrifying sensation instantly reminded the person inside what he had forgotten.

Thus unfolded a live-action performance of showing off and getting struck by lightning.

The person inside, of course, wasn’t afraid of being hit by lightning.

But not long ago, he had used a stun baton on someone else while trying to interrogate them, all while mockingly asking what being electrocuted felt like and requesting a review.

Then he got zapped himself.

Honestly, the sensation from the lightning was little more than a tingling reminder that current had passed through his body.

Not enough to leave him unconscious like a corpse.

This was, in fact, the genuine experience of a Kryptonian empowered by yellow sunlight and possessing heightened senses.

No matter what was done to him, he still felt it.

It was simply that his pain threshold was absurdly high, so long as no real damage occurred.

But while he could ignore lightning, his armor could not.

As a vehicle meant for high-altitude flight, lightning protection was naturally essential.

Otherwise every airplane in a thunderstorm would need to be grounded or rerouted.

Important internal components had surge suppression and anti-shock safeguards.

Otherwise a powered suit disabled by a simple stun baton would have an embarrassingly obvious weakness.

But the externally mounted heavy machine gun had no such protection.

Normally, lightning hitting the gun alone wouldn’t matter.

However, before leaving home, Green Arrow Duck had flamboyantly draped two ammunition belts across himself...

Though he had already fired off some rounds earlier, the remaining 12.7mm ammunition detonated spectacularly across the surface of the Duck-form armor.

It felt like having strings of firecrackers exploding all over his body.

The pilot inside was blasted senseless.

Even the outer fuzzy camouflage was shredded apart in several places, exposing the metal armor underneath.

Fortunately, the outer shell was tank-grade composite armor.

The blast itself and the fragments of cartridge casings couldn’t penetrate the protection.

As for the heavy machine gun—

No need to discuss it.

Back home for a major overhaul.

Even ignoring mechanical damage, the ammunition was now gone.

Though from a balance standpoint it could still be swung backward like a decent iron club, Green Arrow Duck wasn’t Clown Superman, that lunatic.

Why choose melee when ranged combat exists?

By the time the person inside regained his senses, retook control of the armor, and ran three diagnostic checks, the Blood God ritual below had already been completed.

Even if he wanted to stop it now, it was too late.

Still, because he had intercepted the lightning energy from the sky, the ritual’s required power could only come from the generators the vampires had hauled into Eternal Night Temple, along with the external power cable connected to the city grid.

The cinematic trope where one location suddenly draws so much electricity that an entire district blacks out was pure exaggeration.

Modern electrical systems had multiple layers of safeguards.

If an appliance in a house malfunctioned and began drawing abnormal power, the breaker would trip to protect the wider grid.

Regional blackouts only occurred when source-side infrastructure—the power company’s equipment—failed.

Utility companies would never allow end users to damage the grid from the consumer side.

So even though the ritual demanded huge amounts of power, the cable linking Eternal Night Temple to the city grid burned through almost immediately.

The breaker tripped as well, severing the connection.

Which meant the ritual had not received sufficient energy.

And Blade—the crucial blood sacrifice—had already been rescued by others long before.

Though the offerings of the Twelve Clans had still delivered their ancient lives on schedule, whether the Blood God that descended still possessed the strength it was supposed to have...

That was highly debatable.

But the greatest immediate consequence was this:

All lighting in the underground Eternal Night Temple went out.

Even emergency power failed.

No lights of any kind remained.

For vampires, who possessed night vision, this wasn’t a major problem.

For the many human servants who had also entered the temple—

It was fatal.

Almost none of the humans underground had brought flashlights.

Adults willing to associate with vampires weren’t the sort to scream hysterically just because of darkness.

But they had forgotten why dark creatures were called dark creatures.

The inner malice and evil in them had only been restrained.

It had never vanished.

Now, in absolute darkness where one could not see a hand before one’s face, human body heat stood out with crystal clarity to the vampires’ night vision.

And a wave of madness began to spread.

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