Blood and Qi: A Vampire Xianxia LitRPG

The next nightcrawler-thing to emerge from the ground was a Diamond. John ordered his minions to run ahead and keep running. He grabbed the thing’s pincer with his left hand as it tried to bite him while also unbinding whatever manifestation it tried to get off. He punched it with his right hand, trying to get it to settle down, cracking its extremely tough hide, something he wouldn’t have been able to do so easily before his strange [Synergy].

That certainly didn’t settle it down, so John just grabbed onto it, unbound the next manifestation it tried to cast, and began his own. His new ability required physical contact. He instinctively knew how to cast it, and did so. He expected to see some sort of damage happen. It seemed like a channeled manifestation. He couldn’t really tell what it was doing.

Then John felt a strange pull within his chest. He fought against it and pulled back on what pulled on him. A struggle of wills began. Since he had the will born of far too many lifetimes worth of struggle, he quickly overwhelmed what he considered the nightcrawler’s poor excuse for willpower.

Suddenly, the creature went from frantically attacking and trying to kill John, straight to limp and dead.

John felt better. Whatever it did gave him a little energy. But not the type of energy that filled dantians. And it didn’t give him vital essence as he could see all of it decaying in the corpse.

What is it doing, wondered John. He dropped the corpse and ran to his minions that were fighting a Platinum. He commanded them to stand still as he grabbed the monster with ease and a deftness he also didn’t have before the [Synergy] and activated his new ability again.

This time, instead of just looking where his hand channeling the ability touched, John looked at as much of the nightcrawler as he could. After he overcame the contest of wills, he saw what the ability did.

The thing's soul was sucked into John’s hand, then disappeared from his sight. He wondered if taking in the souls was healing his own, so he unveiled. He couldn’t feel anything different. But that didn’t mean something wasn’t different. He did feel a little refreshed, the same as last time.

Then John remembered tampering with the souls of others was considered blasphemy. There were a couple ways to kill without netting negative karma - killing those that destroyed worlds or made worlds once hospitable to life inhospitable to life, and killing those that purposefully targeted souls, even if just to injure or corrupt the soul and not destroy or take it.

There were some other reasons, but those were the major ones. And there were some loopholes, such as making a planet hospitable to a different kind of life through a process John forgot the name of. Or damaging a soul on purpose for a good reason, such as to make it stronger in the long term.

No one below Eternal could see souls, but certain high-tier Ritualists had ways of checking them. When it could be afforded, Platinum-tier cultivators would see one of these Ritualist to judge the state of their soul and receive advice on what could be done to improve upon it before ascending to Diamond tier, as the soul was refined during ascension to that tier.

Terraforming, that's what it’s called, remembered John. Since no one could see souls besides Eternals, he didn’t think he was at much risk of being found out. Then he remembered some of the core watched him. He doubted any were Eternals, but he had no idea what strange powers those of the core had. He had already taken two souls, so if he was in trouble, the damage was already done and there was no fixing it.

John decided to drain a soul around Talker and see if the brute noticed anything odd. If Talker didn’t notice anything, he had only the core and Eternals to worry about. He had a very powerful ability, and he sure wasn’t going to let it go to waste. This current area was not good for training. The area he left Talker in was a little better, but not nearly as good as some of the areas they had traveled through.

With his soul unveiled, many more nightcrawlers found John, and he drained the essence from all of them until his dantian was full. [Drain Essence] went a little faster and smoother than usual, and it was already much improved since creating his peak-concept. He filled his dantian in this way because he was attacked too often while meditating in the open. It took too long to fill up that way.

The essence John received from draining this tier of beast through [Drain Essence] rather than meditating was weaker, but it would never be weaker than his [Min. Power] [Stat], and that was plenty powerful enough.

John veiled and quickly collected the crystals but didn’t harvest any mats. If his new plan worked out, he’d fill the ring with much better mats.

Since John started including his peak-concept of ‘vampirism’ along with ‘shadow’ and ‘protection’ into his [Hide] manifestation, he could go undetected extremely well. But he wanted to get going, not take his time sneaking around. He commanded his minions to follow and ran back towards Talker. He knew his minions would probably attack anything they saw. He didn’t care if they made it back to him. He would have better minions soon anyways.

Closer to the area John left Talker at, large herds of the weird semi-scorpions roamed. He zipped by the Diamonds and Salts, stopping a little way from the rocky outcrop with a cave Talker was hidden within.

John had learned the general rule of thumb with creatures and ascension was if they got much bigger, they didn’t become sapient until much later Trees. If they maintained roughly the same size or only grew a little while advancing in tiers, they’d become sapient much sooner.

Sadly, all the beasts on the Netherworld Kiamoni so far were the type to get bigger, not smarter. And they were extremely weak for their tiers, a natural side effect of the world being without demon inhabitants – the same reason time flowed differently on Kiamoni than it did on the Netherworld Circle Xakariz was located on, Esau.

John couldn’t compare his ability to fight the Diamonds and Salts of Kiamoni with other beasts at the same tiers, and they definitely weren’t a good measuring stick for his ability to stand against cultivators at those tiers.

John turned and waited for all his enemies to catch up. Seeing so many grouped together made him happy. As soon as they were close enough, he sprayed them with [Least Glyph of Darkflame Jet], cackling in a way not all that different from how the creatures he called cacklers did. His spirits lifted as his enemies lit aflame. He wished the weird scorpions could scream. He took heart in knowing they were in agony. He burnt his hands taking the souls of the flaming Salts that reached him, though the Salts put up much more of a fight in the contest of wills for possession of their souls.

Talker called down, “Hey, you’re back, Kahaka! Need help?”

“No. Save your essence.”

After a few minutes, Talker called down again. “What are you doing to those eights? They just seem to die for no reason. I can’t feel how.”

Talker had an essence-sight [Perk]. John couldn't get away with saying he drained their essence or used a normal manifestation. Any manifestation would be felt.

Since [External Energy Manipulation] could only safely be trained once a cultivator achieved the late Mortal Tree, even most Salts only had the [Skill] at Neophyte or Novice Mastery and knew little about it.

John called out, “I got [External Energy Manipulation] up to Journeyman Mastery. If I hold an enemy, I can twist the energy in their brain and kill them.”

Talker yelled down, “Huh. Figured I’d be able to feel that. I’ll tell my Alii. Maybe we’ll incorporate practice with that [Skill] into our training regimen. We only train it…”

John tuned Talker out. He almost yelled at the brute to stop being such a fool.

Talker was considered a legacy. He knew for certain who his father was, and his father was famous. Great things were expected of Talker, but those great things never manifested.

Legacies cost a lot of points, and Talker thought his Alii wanted him dead so his points would be refunded. His Alii had become cold and distant to him. Getting a spot on the Purge wasn’t easy. Even though there were many that were more deserving in his kauwa, he was the one selected to go.

What cinched it for John was Talker saying Akeoli Hyavod spent credits on his Alii at least twice a year.

There was a reason Talker didn’t enter the tent and enjoy the Kahaki girl. He was already worried that he was going to get killed in an ‘accident.’ He wasn’t going to give anyone additional ammo to use against him.

Why Talker remained loyal to his Alii if he thought she was trying to kill him was something John couldn’t understand.

A few nightcrawler-things, late arrivals to the battle, were intermixed along with the scorpion-things. Animosity between different Netherbeasts was put aside when there was a lifeform alien to the Nether to attack.

Half an hour later, all the enemies were dead. Though Talker continued to yell down and talk to John throughout the battle, he never mentioned John’s ability again, and John had stolen many more souls, giving the brute plenty of opportunity to investigate.

Looks like my lie worked, thought John. He felt invigorated but a strong pain had begun to grow in his chest. It felt dulled somewhat, but it was sharp and hurt in a way that was hard for him to ignore, and he could easily ignore most types of pain.

After feeling for his minions and not feeling anything, John wondered if his control broke at a certain range. Maybe they were killed?

To have an easier time talking without needing to yell down, Talker descended the rocks to the battlefield.

“Just collecting crystals, Kahaka? The bracer can’t be full of mats already.”

“It’s not even close to full,” replied John. As he went to explain why he wasn’t collecting mats from these corpses, Talker cut him off and started talking about an old battle.

The Peerless Empire had great storage devices able to hold a lot more than John’s old ring.

Since John often went out on his own, Talker unattuned his storage device and loaned it to him. The device was a bracer, and he didn’t know if the bracer being so much larger than a ring was the reason it was able to hold more, or if it was due to having better runes. Only Adept Mastery runecrafters could work the runes needed for spatial devices, so such knowledge was beyond him.

Just one corpse of a scorpion-thing was small enough and in good enough shape to be made a minion. The others of the right size were far too damaged.

Talker, seeing John bind the minion, stopped his current story to say, “There’s some corpses near the cave entrance. I think one would work for you. No, I didn’t use essence to kill them. I’m saving it, just as we decided.”

John didn't think that was completely true. Peerless biosuits worked as force amplifiers, enhancing the user’s [Strength] and [Swiftness], but the suit drained some of its wearer’s essence when it did so.

“That was some nice slaughtering, Kahaka. Did I ever tell you about the time…” John tuned Talker out as he headed up to the cave entrance. He could repeat most of the Oli’s stories verbatim.

There were four scorpion-thing corpses outside the cave, including a child John could use. He didn’t know how his minions knew not to attack Talker considering how attack-happy they were, but he appreciated it. After raising the minion, he said, “Sorry to interrupt, but the plan’s changed. I need to fill my dantian and then we’re headed southeast.”

“Hold on,” replied Talker. “You said we were heading northwest towards the continental divide. Southeast would be back the way we came, right?”

John had tried teaching Talker how to navigate the Nether. Kauwas had different positions Oli could fill or get promoted into. Talker was a scout in a long-range surveillance squad, and a spotter for a sniper. He should have good observational and navigational [Skills].

After searching the sky for the fixed point for a couple of minutes, Talker would feel too nauseated to continue looking. John was almost certain Talker couldn’t see far enough into the Nether to reach the fixed point anyway. The brute had a lot of trouble navigating short distances, even with his drone peripheral scouting ahead.

“Northwest’s no good,” said John. “We’ll have to loop around and down and head to the divide we were flown over.”

“But all those areas are black,” said Talker, dispiritedly. “We’ll just be running and running again. Did you get a new buff? Your movements have changed. Smoother, more efficient. You moved like the wind in that battle.”

John grunted. [Body Control], [Combat Offense], and [Combat Defense] being synergized probably had something to do with it. His breathing and cycling techniques were far easier to perform. It didn’t even feel like he was wearing the band of suffering necklace.

“No,” John replied. “Let me fill my dantian and we’ll depart. You should meditate too. Need another crystal?”

“I still have half the green you gave me earlier. If we’re going to the black areas, you know my essence won’t last. If I have to run or make sudden movements, my suit sucks up my essence. Are you on animal control or want me to handle it?”

“I’ll handle it. You just focus on meditating. And don’t worry, if all goes as planned, there won’t be much running.”

John wanted Talker to fill up on essence as much as possible. Talker could talk, but he was a beast in a fight if he had the essence for his biosuit and rifle. He was decent with his axe too. And with unbinds.

That gave John an idea. “Mind if I test something on you? I don’t believe it will hurt. Just tell me what you feel.”

“I hope you don’t plan on twisting the energy in my brain.”

Laughing, John said. “No. Do you feel anything when I do this?”

After placing his hand on Talker’s large arm, John cast his soul taking ability. Talker said, “It feels like…like I can take something. Kind of. Like a challenge. Want me to accept it?”

“No. Can you unbind it?

“Uh…no. It isn’t like a manifestation. I can’t find anything to attempt an unbind on. There’s just that feeling of being offered a challenge.”

John removed his hand. “Thank you.” He thought over what Talker told him as he prepared to meditate.

Of course, Talker started talking again. “Speaking of challenges. One time my kauwa faced a mighty challenge. The squad leader of second…”

John tuned Talker out. He switched out his active [Title] since he had just made a little shen before the strange [Synergy] and had most of that left. Meditation felt smoother and easier. As his middle dantian spun around doing whatever it did when some shen was in it, the pain in his chest began to throb.

Every couple of weeks, John was supposed to switch [Titles] and make a little shen. Avatar would tell him if it was helping or hurting when he returned to real space. This was the first time shen ever caused him any pain. Once his dantian was full, he turned half his essence to shen and all the shen to emptiness, filled his dantian again, then switched [Titles] back and listened in to see what Talker was blabbing about.

“...and that’s why we started calling EMFs railguns. But that doesn’t include…”

John interrupted. “Seven-four, were you talking the whole time I was meditating? Why wouldn’t you just meditate?”

“Yes, and I was. Our way. The Oli way. I killed two more beasts. Your minions helped too. I figured I’d handle it since you looked so peaceful.”

John sighed. While Oli did their half-meditation and looked like they were lazing about, they were often practicing some [Skill], and would be constantly casting low-essence, hard to detect manifestations on one another to increase proficiency with [Unbind Manifestation], [Unbind Defense], and the like. But that only worked when two Oli were doing it.

Talker was just wasting an opportunity to fill his dantian.

“You know I can’t hear what you’re saying when I meditate. And crystals and the right type of meditating is the fastest way to gather energy and refine essence.”

“I know. But you were right there so I figured why not?”

John sighed again. “Every single other Oli I’ve met has hardly talked at all. Is it possible your Alii wants you dead because of all the talking? Maybe you've been labeled defective?”

Talker laughed. “No. I’d just get sterilized and sent to Palm if they thought I was defective. I usually don’t talk this much. I have to hold it all in around other Peerless, but since it’s just us out here, I finally get to let it all out. It feels so good. Thank you, Kahaka.”

John couldn’t help himself from sighing one more time. “You’re a strange man, Seven-four.”

Talker laughed heartily and said, “Me? Didn’t you just kill a bunch of eights as a four by twisting some sort of brain energy? Look how fast you just filled your core. I saw it go from full to half full too, so I’m guessing you made spirit or emptiness.

“You're the strangest thing on this world and we’ve seen a ton of gruesome giant monsters, so that’s saying something, Kahaka. I’m just glad you’re on our side.”