Blood and Qi: A Vampire Xianxia LitRPG

John had seen some dragons flying in the far-off distance. They looked whitish and massive, but they were too far away to make out details, especially through the Nether.

John could clearly see all the details of the one that had just risen in the Boneyard. It was huge. It looked as if something like the dragons of Earth’s myths was dipped in liquid bone and set to dry, and had dried in the middle of all the liquid bone dripping off it. A deep and glowing blue emanated from its eyes and mouth and through some seams on its bone covered body.

The dragon opened its maw wide and breathed out a long stream of blue fire. Then it looked directly at the two companions and took a deep breath.

Preparing for battle and glory, John pointed Gird at the dragon. Talker nervously pushed John’s arms downward and said, “Are you insane? Great Akua, we need to run! Pick me up and run as fast as you can. That’s on the third Tree! A Celestial. Go!”

Talker was no coward and had been willing to fight everything they shouldn’t have up to this point. John figured Talker was probably correct about fleeing.

John scooped up his large friend in a bridal carry and started running in the direction he considered southwest. And he ran. And ran. The blue fire never touched them. It did get far too close on a few occasions as the thing gave chase. It only stopped to breathe its strange flame at them before rushing forward once again.

All the other giant Boneyard monsters had stopped giving chase after a few minutes of running away from them. Far longer than a couple minutes later, the dragon still gave chase.

John hoped the dragon was similar to the others and would give up at some point. He ran as fast as he could through many groupings of monsters. He’d deal with them once he had lost the Celestial.

Talker just mumbled and prayed for Akua to protect them during the sprint, struggling to breathe at the speed John was running, trying to dig his face deeper into John’s shoulder.

John ran for a long time, even for a while after the dragon gave up the chase as there was now a large force of Nethercreatures chasing them. He was forced to stop when the pain in his chest flared up mightily.

When the pain finally subsided John noticed the creatures of the Nether had moved in close. A giant army of gorilla-lizards and a massive herd of something very similar to the mighty bull-lions of Esau blocked the way forward. There was a massive horde approaching their rear.

John asked Talker, “How’s your EB?”

Talker had already summed up their situation and was in the middle of preparing. He said, “Haven’t touched it yet. My core’s over a quarter. Drop my other EB on the ground. Great Akua, I wish my Alii was here to witness this battle. I don’t feel any Transcendents in front of us. We only ran past a couple that were close by. This will be just like the dark times. We’re facing way too many enemies here.”

“Good,” said John.

Talker laughed and asked, “How’re you feeling? Your chest okay? You ready for this?”

“I was born for this,” replied John.

Talker laughed again. “And I was bred for it, Kahaka. Let’s get some. When I’m down to only half an EB left, I’ll switch from rifle to axe. If we die, just know I love you, man. Thanks for letting me talk so much.”

John ignored the pain in his chest to smile. He got Defiance out of his bracer. He sent vital essence to increase his speed, got in his battle-mind, and cast [Multi-Enhancement] and [Multi-Shield]. The creatures of the Nether had crept forward and surrounded them, as if they were coordinating.

Just before the frontlines rushed in for an attack, John said, “You too, brother. It’s been an honor,” and sent darkflame at his enemies, his spirits lifting as his foes burned.

The bolter darted through the chests of many creatures of the Nether. John felt into his enemies, pulling forth the blood from their brains, and hardening it as it exited their eyes like blood icicles. He raised four minions from the dead and sicced them at their former kindred.

After battling for some minutes, a low Transcendent was getting closer. Once it was in reach, John slipped through shadows twice to get behind it. He infused his sword with an enhancement he thought of as [Vampiric Blade]. The thing spun around as Gird descended and lost most of an arm blocking the massive blade.

As John tried to free Gird, he was bathed in acid and could only block some of it with Defiance. The rest of it destroyed his essence-shield and the essence-shield of his ill-fitting biosuit and burned him terribly wherever it landed. It felt almost pleasurable compared to the pain in his chest. Gird was slashed at the monster again, and caught in an arm again.

As John tried to rip it free, essence shots from Talker’s rifle destroyed the thing’s head. John slipped back towards his friend, both Gird and Defiance in hand.

Talker had to twice battle alone as the pain in John’s chest flared up too painfully for him to fight. He tried to ignore the pain, but it filled him with blind agony, and he had no choice but to stand and do nothing but hold his chest as the pain overwhelmed him.

Vampire and Peerless battled the strange beasts of the NetherRealm for hours before the second Transcendent made itself known, also on the first tier of the second Tree. Talker had already switched to his axe, and John had already drained a foe to refill his vital essence and drained other enemies to refill his dantian.

Thankfully, the second Transcendent beast used mind-related concepts that John was able to shrug off. The best way he could describe the monster was that it looked like a flower made of nightmares.

John believed the dust sprinkling the air was a mind-controlling pollen the monster released to coordinate the attacks of the other beasts.

John slipped to the flower and lashed out with Gird enhanced with [Vampiric Blade]. He reclassified the monster from flower to flower-tree as it had thick and tough branches Gird couldn’t cut through or damage much, and the flower-tree was able to both attack and defend deftly with those branches.

After battling for too long and doing little damage to the thing, the air became much thicker with pollen, and John struggled to breathe. He needed to quickly end the fight and get back to Talker, so he cast [Glyph of Plasma Barrage] at the monster. The first cast did a lot of damage. The second cast killed the thing.

John sheathed Gird on his back, grabbed a Platinum-tier beast, quickly drained its head of blood to make it unconscious, and drained it of essence as he battled his way back to Talker using Defiance as a Weapon. [Plasma Barrage] cost a lot of essence.

Hours later, Talker was too spent to continue. John battled with Gird in hand while infusing essence into an EB. Once the EB was about 20% full, Talker climbed a tree and used the stealth function of his biosuit.

Half a day later, long into the strange night of the Nether, John let himself be surrounded by the dozen or so beasts left, including a low Transcendent. His biosuit was in tatters, his breathing was rough and ragged, and his dantian had less than a quarter of essence left within it. He avoided attacks as best he could as he finished the long cast time of his [Ultimate].

A cage of essence spread out to envelop all the beasts. As the essence in his dantian was all spent at once, John’s knees began to buckle until the [Ultimate] placed some new essence it had taken from his enemies back into it.

The monsters shrieked and howled as all was taken from them and given to John, and John struggled to maintain his feet and not scream in pain too. He didn’t recast the spell. Once it was finished, he drained the few surviving beasts and finished them off.

John was battered and bruised and bleeding all over, but he had only four major injuries. He was breathing heavily, and happy to see there was a limit to his stamina. He had almost forgotten what being out of breath felt like. His chest felt much better and hadn’t flared up since well before Talker had to quit fighting.

“Holy Akua! What a battle! What kind of crazy spell was that? The last one,” called down Talker as he unstealthed and shimmied down the tree.

“Something I came up with,” replied John as he gulped in air.

Talker laughed. “Oh, yeah? Just came up with it, huh? Know what? I was going to apologize for leaving so many enemies for you to battle alone, but I’m starting to think you should thank me for it.”

John, between heavy breaths, forced out a laugh and said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Kahaka. What are friends for? Why don’t you cultivate while I start collecting crystals and mats. I think some of this stuff is worth good points. Hey, and thank you. That’s about the millionth time I’m only alive because of you.”

“Don’t mention it,” replied John. “What are friends for? And you saved me when my chest pain wouldn’t allow me to fight. It hardly hurts at all now. I hope it stays this way.”

After sitting down to meditate, John decided to check his foundation. When he was Bronze tier, without constant battle, it took about seven months to settle, and not all that much less even with constant battle. He was expecting his foundation to be a long way from settling and was very surprised to find it was decently solid. He just ascended right before entering the Nether. There should be many, many months left before it was this solid.

All the combat couldn’t answer for how fast John’s foundation was settling. It was too fast. It should take longer than it had during Bronze tier. Having it settle so quickly was a puzzle.

As both companions snuck forward, John could feel where Talker was without looking for his soul. They had been farming the same area for about a month. It was a good area. Most of the creatures were Diamond and Salt tier when they spawned, and John had four mighty minions.

By John’s reckoning, they had at least two months left before the portal opened, and that was at a minimum. It could be four months before it opened. They had about three real weeks, four universal weeks, to make it to the portal once the alarm pinged or it would close, and they’d be trapped in the Nether.

Keeping right in front of Talker, John hoped this slime-monster wouldn’t be able to spot them before they attacked. It looked like it was sleeping. He hoped it was. He reached it and let out a mental sigh as he moved to the right. He would attack right after Talker got the first hit in since the brute couldn’t spot where John was.

An axe thumped into the strangely sturdy body of the slime monster. After sending in his bolter, John swung both Gird and Defiance at the beast. He infused essence into the shield and enhanced both weapons with [Vampiric Blade]. Each hit of sword and shield dragged along blade energy.

John and Talker tore into the beast in rapid succession, getting in as many powerful hits as possible, as fast as possible. His bolter ripped in and out of the slime along with his weapons.

If the slime-monster wasn’t killed fast enough, it let out a very damaging area blast and turned into two slime monsters. Then did so again and became three, and so on. Fighting it would become much more of a hassle. And only its original body would drop crystals or be of use to them.

John wasn’t too worried. They had fought an absolute ton of these things and were very good at it now.

The monster safely died before it could do the blast attack and split, before even John’s minions had time to run forward from where they were commanded to halt and join in the combat.

Talker was again not wearing his biosuit so he could save up on essence. The Peerless man was getting better at meditating correctly too.

Neither companion knew if the slime-monster’s corpse was worth good points or not, but it could be manhandled and rolled into something like a durable rope they could add to the length of the rope they were making.

They would soon have to get over the chasm separating continents, and neither man wanted to risk being stuck down in the chasm with all the massively giant monsters in it. If they fell down the chasm, they’d probably die, but they wouldn’t die wishing they had a very long rope.

Talker’s biosuit had a hover jet, but it took a lot of essence to power, and would need a lot more if the brute carried John. The chasm was wide, but they’d soon look for where it was at its slimmest.

John would attempt to slip across, but he was worried the pure darkness of the chasm wouldn’t count as shadow. He had the hardest time slipping through the shadows at high noon and in extreme darkness. The Nether was always full of shadow, but those deep chasms were filled with an unnatural darkness unlike the rest of the Nether.

Before making the attempt, John wanted to go up the coast and see if he could spot the area they were flown over. That would help him navigate on the other side. And he wanted to see if there were signs of the other Peerless so he could avoid them.

Talker was a lot more optimistic than John. He thought Akeoli Hyavod might not want to kill them anymore.

John hadn’t broached the subject of saving the Kahaki girl with Talker. If his friend said no to the attempt, it would bother John. Especially if Talker believed the girl wasn’t worth saving because she was subhuman or defective or anything of the like.

And John knew attempting to save the girl was a stupid idea. It was a very stupid idea. Any of the Peerless Transcendents could rip him apart. He wouldn’t bet on himself surviving combat with either of the Salts either.

Spatial storage devices couldn’t be held inside other spatial storage devices. Hyavod had to be wearing the one that could hold living beings within it.

The only chance John figured he had was to sneak into camp while the Akeoli was sleeping or meditating and pickpocket the item. He’d still then have to get the girl into the device and sneak away without raising alarms. Then he’d continue sneaking far, far away to an already cleared area and lay low until the portal opened.

The last part would be sneaking to and through the portal back to Gani, hoping Hyavod wasn’t waiting in ambush for them.

But what if the camp moved? Will we even be able to find it? And in time, wondered John.

No matter what, John had to make an honest attempt at saving the girl. He believed he was able to father children again. He had been putting a lot of thought into how to be a good father, and what values to instill in his children. He wondered how he’d feel if it was his daughter in that tent, or if one of his sons callously ignored the Kahaki girl’s plight.

John knew things had changed and that in most cultures women were as much fighters as men, but he had spent nearly six thousand years alive on a planet where honorable men were expected to spend their own lives to protect women, and it wasn’t something easily let go of.

And the thought of that young girl fighting and escaping on her own was laughable. John knew she wouldn’t have a thought of escape. She truly believed she was prostituting herself out for a short time to drastically improve the rest of her long life. She had no idea her only reward would be a knife in the back.

John was certain a good man would attempt to save the girl, and the best of men would figure out a way to succeed in the attempt. He had sworn to be the best of men. To never make a mistake again. He had little chance of ever toppling the Peerless Empire in the future if he couldn’t save one girl from a handful of Peerless now.

After checking his foundation, John found it was overly settled. That worried him. It had settled far, far too quickly.

Maybe it has something to do with my [Synergy]? Or the souls? I hope it’s not a trick or some issue.