Marvel's Princess - Chapter 21
The Caucasian vampire James, with his highly developed sense of smell, carefully discerned the scents in the air. “It seems that woman has an accomplice? I can smell something extraordinary in the air. This ability is eerie,” he commented.
He looked around cautiously, searching his extensive memory, but couldn’t recall a similar scent.
“This is very interesting, indeed!” he murmured nervously.
“I’ve memorized these two scents. Let’s go hunt for some blood food, then take the back roads to get ahead of her,” he said before swiftly darting off the highway to hunt for sustenance to replenish his spent energy, continuing his pursuit of Bella.
“My dear, I’ll join you,” the female vampire quickly followed.
The African American vampire felt an inexplicable worry, but it was too late for regrets; he had to follow.
The three vampires took a shortcut, unaware that Bella had also turned onto the back road.
Concerned about the battle affecting ordinary people and the Grim Reaper’s attacks dragging innocent bystanders into it, she intentionally directed the battleground towards a rural path. Flooring the gas pedal, her truck sped wildly down the country lane, but as she drove, she became bewildered.
She stopped the truck, stepped out of the cab, rested her hand on the excellent hood, and looked around.
“Where are the three vampires chasing me? Where am I now? Which way should I go?”
She flipped the map back and forth for a long time but couldn’t understand it. She could only continue driving along the road, hoping to find a town or gas station to ask for directions.
As it turned dark, aside from the engine sound of her truck, the road was eerily quiet. Bella turned on the radio in the car for some distraction.
“Shush—Major League Baseball expresses,” Bella tapped the car radio twice, but the more she tapped, the louder the static became until it finally erupted with a ‘bang bang bang.’ Before she could figure out what was happening, the truck stalled.
She looked outside and saw white smoke billowing from under the hood.
“This truck exaggerates! The sycophant had sworn there were no problems with it!”
Bella stepped out of the truck, mimicking Megan Fox’s manner as she lifted the hood, pretending to examine it, and then picked up a stick from the roadside to tap around. Great! She discovered she couldn’t identify any problem!
She tried to call Jacob to ask, but pulling out her phone, she realized there was no signal around, and the noise from the car radio was overwhelmingly loud.
Although Bella appeared relaxed, she was on high alert, enhancing her vision with psychic energy to look around.
She soon noticed a vague white figure by the roadside to the right of her truck, seemingly aware of her gaze, as the figure gradually became more evident.
It was a woman in a tattered white dress.
Her messy brown hair obscured the woman’s face, and standing in the shadow, her features were indistinguishable. However, bloodstains and scratches could be seen on her neck and hands, as if she had experienced some unspeakable ordeal.
Bella removed her psychic enhancement, and the woman’s figure instantly vanished. Upon reinstating the psychic energy, the figure reappeared.
“What a misfortune. This must be a female ghost, right? This world is terrifying!”
Instinctively feeling frightened, her heart felt no fear; compared to the threat of the Grim Reaper, this was nothing.
If she were to die now, with the enhancement of her psychic energy, her spirit would be ten times stronger than that of the female ghost!
Still adhering to the principle of being cautious, she activated her psychic shield.
“Hey, beautiful, is there something you need?” Bella cautiously inquired.
Standing by the roadside in the middle of the night, the woman in the white dress was a vengeful ghost known for her intense malice.
However, ghosts kill according to specific rules—they don’t just kill anyone; this female ghost had her own rules for killing.
She would lure all male drivers passing by, and then it was just kill, kill, kill.
Once the criteria were met, she was powerful; if not, it was another story.
Through the strands of her hair, the female ghost’s dead eyes glanced at Bella with a slight shake of her chin to the distance, essentially saying, “I only want male drivers. What are you doing stopping by me? What can we do together? Don’t interfere with my business. You better just go!”
Bella, now a researcher of psychic powers among the supernaturally gifted, couldn’t read the minds of ordinary people, nor did she have similar tricks. Still, she could sense the general thoughts of spiritual beings, and at this moment, she understood some of the female ghost’s thoughts.
She was speechless: “Do you think I want to stop by your side?
My truck is broken! Can’t you see that?”
The truck had inexplicably broken down and stopped less than a meter away from the white-dressed female ghost—such a coincidence was too suspect to attribute merely to chance, suggesting the Grim Reaper’s involvement.
However, this incident also revealed some limitations of the Grim Reaper, who probably couldn’t discern gender; he knew the female ghost was formidable and orchestrated the truck to break down right beside her, hoping to use the ghost’s powers to kill Bella. Still, he couldn’t grasp the specific abilities and gender of this ghostly creature, or perhaps even Bella’s gender.
The female ghost showed no interest in Bella. Yet, her truck had broken down right in front of her, initially caused by a coincidence set by the Grim Reaper and now further influenced by some abilities of the female ghost herself, combining to make it impossible for Bella to leave.
Bella’s gender had bugged the female ghost, and the latter’s electromagnetic interference also prevented her truck from starting, leading to a standoff.
Should she just abandon the truck? Bella felt a bit reluctant; it was a gift from Jacob, and it seemed too casual to leave a friend’s gift out in the wilderness like this.
But she really couldn’t drive the truck now.
Push it? Despite her strength being sufficient to push it, pushing the truck was not an option she considered.
A beautiful woman driving a pickup was embarrassing enough, let alone pushing it through the middle of the night—was she out of her mind?
“I think you’re just trying to trouble me! Humph!” Bella angrily pointed at the female ghost, then rummaged under the seat and pulled out a car repair manual compiled explicitly by Jacob.
Despite being confident in her vehicle modification skills, Jacob had prudently compiled this thin manual.
He listed several main reasons the pickup might break down and detailed how to deal with them.
The manual included diagrams and explanations, steps one, two, three, and four, written very clearly, ensuring that a third-grader could follow the manual to resolve the vehicle’s problems.
The night on the forest path was somewhat quiet, with Bella’s truck broken down by the roadside and her frowning as she flipped through the book, while the white-dressed female ghost seemed to have frozen, looking into the distance, creating a rather eerie scene.
Become a Patron to read chapters ahead of public release and support me 😉
Read up to 30 chapters ahead on p atreon.