Blood and Qi: A Vampire Xianxia LitRPG

As John jumped at the hovering-placenta, new sand grabbed him and pulled him downwards. Thankfully, he was able to maintain his feet and snatch the tube that shot at him from the creature, carefully ripping it off. He couldn’t reach his enemy with his hands since the sand held him in place, so he started whacking the monster with the tube.

The tube lasted three hits before it fell apart. Three of the million eyes of the hovering-placenta burst into pus and goo. The creature mooed in pain as it flung itself at John.

John thought the creature’s hit would hurt, but he hardly noticed it and raked his claws across as much of the hovering-placenta he could, destroying many more eyes. As the monster tried to move away, John tried to sink his claws in and hold the front of it. A piece of the creature ripped off in John’s hands, and he fell backwards once again.

John, surprising even himself, while falling backwards was able to plant a hand on the ground and flip his body over, landing back on his feet outside the sand. He felt as if the creature wasn’t too durable and if he could just have some time to work on the weird monster, he could do enough damage to end one of his two opponents.

The word spam entered John’s head. Amber told him that word and meaning during the Tribulation. Spam meant meat, but it also meant to cast something over and over quickly.

John jumped high as he repeatedly cast [Flashburst Pulse]. As soon as the spell was unbound, he’d cast it again, and again. The creature unbound every single one of John’s attempts to cast the spell. John had no chance of getting the spell off. He didn’t care. It stopped the creature from grabbing him with the sand.

The creature unbound his final cast attempt as John landed right on top of the giant placenta and sunk his fangs into it. He yelled in triumph in his head, then cursed as fear gripped his heart, and he fell under the fear-trance of Ridge-head. As the hovering-placenta bucked and mooed and sent its sand to grab John, the fear became too great for him to continue draining and do anything else but freeze up in fear.

Sand pulled John from the hovering-placenta’s back and onto the ground and started to wash over him. A tube entered his thigh and began to feed on him. The fear-trance ended and John burst from the sand with all his might casting [Flashburst Pulse]. The creature unbound the first two attempts before ignoring the cast and making a grab at John with its sand.

Three sparking balls tore through the hovering-placenta and it let out a very high pitched and long moo that cut off as three more sparking balls sent meat and blood splattering all over John. The placenta stopped hovering and fell on top of its sand, mooing still.

As John went to drain the creature, fear seized him up. By the time he was free, the grounded-placenta was dead, three greenish crystals with dark-yellow speckles lodged into a mess of bloody meat that didn’t dissipate, and a half-formed spirit hovered above the ground.

The crystals weren’t the light-green crystals of a Gold, nor were they the green crystal of a Platinum. They were something in-between but more green than light green with the dark yellow of a Silver dusted in.

John dropped his vital essence enhancements and sent vital essence to heal before enhancing his speed with it again. He cast [BB Buff] and the world cleared and slowed a little. He checked his dantian and was between half and three-quarters full. He wanted to cast [Flashburst Pulse] at ridge-head but the wooden-man was wrapped around the creature, all its limbs tied around the monster like rope, and he didn’t feel safe doing so.

John jumped towards Ridge-head and as soon as he touched the creature he cast [Drain Essence]. A split second later his manifestation was smashed violently and John’s dantian and meridians flared with pain. As John went to sink his fangs into the creature, a new thing appeared in his senses. Something wrong and foul was heading his way.

The wrong and foul thing moved slowly and didn’t seem strong at all. It just felt wrong. John thought he had time to drain Ridge-head before it arrived, so he sunk his fangs into its arm and began to suckle as one of the wooden-man’s hands beat on Ridge-head’s face like a drum. The arm would shrink and extend straight into the face of Ridge-head so fast and so often it could hardly be seen.

John only managed to strengthen himself twice before the wrong and foul thing arrived. He stood and went to help the wooden-man pound on Ridge-head’s head while watching the foul thing with his orb-eye, as he got the sense the foul thing meant him no harm.

John reprimanded himself for forgetting to use the info function of the NCS, but he was either frozen in fright or too busy to use it before. He flashed it on and looked at the new monster. It said the foul thing was ‘a minion, untiered.’ He used the function on the still living Ridge-head and it said it was a ‘Dimensional Horror, full-Greater, Gold equivalent.’

The wooden-man stopped speed-punching Ridge-head’s face, quickly unwrapped itself, moved away many paces, avoiding the new minion-monster.

The new foul arrival looked like a man was turned inside out. It was disgusting to see, and it felt all wrong. John watched as the foul thing, with arms extended, ran at Ridge-head. Once it arrived at its target, the foul thing turned into mush that flowed and slurped into Ridge-head’s mouth. Soon after, the creature began to seizure and shake. A few moments later it died, a decently solid spirit forming.

Three normal seeming light-green crystals fell on a bed of boney ash and the wooden-man’s arm shot forward to grab one. John grabbed the other two and put them in his sash. As the wooden-man’s arm was retracted, John could see the crystal getting drained. A few seconds after the arm fully retracted even the crystal itself disappeared too.

John could swear the wooden-man felt more powerful after draining the crystal, as if it ranked up. To John’s senses the wooden-man felt as if it was a Wood, and a lower Wood at that, something John thought should be impossible judging by how it fought.

The wooden-man ran forward and its arm stretched out to grab one of the crystals the hovering-placenta dropped, draining the crystal as its arm retracted. John ran forward to grab the other three, but only managed to grab two – the wooden-man’s second arm stretched out and beat him to the third. Before the crystal in the wooden-man’s hand even disappeared, John felt what seemed like the wooden-man ranking up again, and then again when the second crystal disappeared.

The wooden-man had what looked like armor made from dark-brown wood on its upper chest, shoulders, and pelvis. Also counting as wooden armor would be the gauntlets, helm, and sabatons. Except the sabatons and gauntlets were too big and bulky to ever be feasible as armor, and the helm was somewhat in the popular sugarloaf style, but wrong.

The wooden-man was all wrong. No wood John knew of would ever be able to withstand the blows Ridge-head delivered to the wooden-man or survive being smashed as it was into the ground by the creature. John assumed it just looked like wood but must’ve been some sort of highly durable metal like his bracer and shield.

The wooden chest had nipples carved into it. The head had eyes, nose, and ears carved out, and a hinged jaw carved out too, but instead of looking like a human face, it looked like someone lazily described a human to an alien that had never seen one, and the alien carved out something humanish from only the description.

The gauntlets, the jaw, and one joint in the boots were the only articulation of the armor. The head, chest, and shoulders were all carved out of the same unmoving block of wood. The neck was unable to turn, and the eyes stayed staring straight ahead and unmoving. At least the eyes are painted green, thought John, the only purposeful color he could find on the wooden-man, other than its lightly shining belly, as if the wooden-man ate a lantern.

Some sort of gummy substance like dough connected and held all the pieces of the armor together in a human shape, running from gauntlet to shoulder, chest to pelvis, and pelvis to boot. The dough-like substance had a greenish-mud color.

Strangest of all was the life essence infusing the wooden-man, as well as his soul. The thing had the darkest-green essence within itself John had ever seen, and way, way too much of it. And the man’s soul was somewhat like the tiny and dim souls of Wood tiered demons but also somehow far too large and dappled with odd brighter spots he had never seen on a soul, and other than those bright spots it was completely blank like the soul of a newborn babe.

Still, John felt he owed a great debt to the wooden-man and went to thank him and offer him more of the crystals that dropped. As he approached, the wooden-man saddled up to John and rubbed its body on him, then gave him a strange, one-armed hug for a moment. The wooden-man had at least two full heads of height over John, if not more.

After the strange hug, John bowed and said, “Thank you, friend. I was in a bad spot there. That fear-trance kept locking me up. That battle would’ve gone far worse if you hadn’t shown up.

The wooden-man’s unmoving eyes looked at some point in the distance not close to John’s face, and when John finished speaking its jaw moved like a puppet and it said, “Ba da ma da. Ma ba da ba. Ba ba ba ba. Ya da ma ba da. Ga ba da ma ba.”

John thought the wooden-man was mocking him the same way a child would. It copied a similar tone and cadence as what John just said but with gibberish noises. He asked, “Are you mocking me?”

The wooden-man mocked him again with, “Ba da ma da ma?”

John flashed on his NCS info function and the line going above the wooden man was red, as was the box that usually contained information. The information given was red too, but only contained three question marks.

A notification tried to force its way into John’s vision, and he accepted it.

Translation underway. Continue communicating with unknown entity.

User has found an unknown entity impenetrable to nanites. Continue engaging said entity. If user can solve how said entity is impenetrable to nanites, the user will be awarded the following-

1 Nano Control Unit expansion slot

1 Nano Control Unit upgrade up to Tech 1 grade C

John had no idea if those were good rewards. He did know he had little chance of solving whatever issue the NCS wanted him to solve. He didn’t know what a nanite was. He still believed the wooden-man was mocking him, and that was a mystery he was going to solve, and he was going to continue communicating regardless of what his NCS wanted.

John knew what the NCS said, but the form of mockery employed by the wooden-man had been around since he was a boy. He had heard it a million times in his life. Children of all regions naturally mocked other children that way. He knew what it sounded like, and what the wooden-man was doing sounded exactly like it.

“Look, friend, you did me a favor. You helped me when I sorely needed help. We’ll count the crystals you took as payment. Know that my tolerance for being treated so low has a limit, and you are getting close to it.”

The wooden-man mocked him again, and for much longer than the prior times.

“I don’t understand why you’d help me and…you even hugged me. Why mock me so? We’ve fought in battle as allies, side by side. I’d rather you stop mocking me, but if you do so again, I will smash you to pieces and use you as firewood.”

As the wooden-man’s jaw dropped as it went to speak, John prepared for battle and to rip the thing’s jaw off as an opening move. Instead of the usual gibberish, the wooden-man said, “I am saying words. Communicating. Words. More words. Talking. Words. More words. More talking. Communicating. Words. End talking.”

John stood confused for a moment. “You weren’t mocking me before, right?”

“I am saying words. End talking.”

John thought for a moment before speaking again. “Thank you for helping me.”

“Words. More Words. End talking.”

“You don’t mean no harm by it, but all you say is just gibberish. Even when it’s words I understand.”

“I am saying words. Talking. Words. Communicating. Words. Words. More Words. End talking.”

John checked out his plasma ring to see why it wouldn’t accept essence. It was broken. The ring had a self-repair rune grouping, as did his robes and most good items. He thought about changing it out, but it was the best ring he had. He could wait for it to repair itself.

“Okay, well, thanks for the assistance. I appreciate it. I’m heading back to my wife. You can come if you want. I don’t know if you can understand and can’t talk or can’t understand and can’t talk, but I’m going now.”

As the wooden-man replied with his nonsense, John started walking away, feeling bad to do so as it was very rude, but he saw no need to hear the wooden-man spew more nonsense. He was surprised when the wooden-man did follow him. He picked up the pace and the wooden-man did too. John jumped up to a roof and the wooden-man was right behind him, using its stretchy arms and legs when its leaps weren’t enough.

About half the way back to where he left Lilly, John was about to increase his speed to a faster jog to see if the wooden-man could keep up when he heard his wife speak softly into his head. “Stop. Still.”

John had already extended his senses but was looking for danger to himself. He looked for his wife to see if she was in trouble. She didn’t seem to be. She turned right off her side road and slowly headed down the main road.

John didn’t know why his wife wanted him to stop but he didn’t mind. He waited in silence with the wooden-man as his wife slowly made her way to him. Long after he could see her walking down the road, she waved and started to jog his way.

Once she arrived, she held her hands up and said, “Pick me up, Jim.”

John did so as he told his wife, “John.” Lilly put her arms around his neck and her head on his cheek in the old way of closeness, faces touching without sharing breath. “I know it got there a little late but technically my dybbuk killed the one you were having trouble with, so I kind of saved my pretty little monkey.”

“How’d you know? You could see us? Or you just felt all of that somehow?”

“I made a scrying ritual. Low level. You weren’t that far away.”

“How do you talk in my head like that? Can you teach me?”

Lilly laughed. “No! It comes with higher Trees. I can barely do it now and it drains a ton of vigor. Same with pulling you into my Mind’s Eye. It comes later. When I pull you into my mind now, I lose a good deal of dilation and it drains vigor too. You battled well. I’m proud of you. There’re those seven freaky snakish things we still need to deal with but most of the dark ones are gone. I can’t sense anything above Bronze, and barely any of those or lower.”

Lilly looked up at the wooden-man. “Goddamn, I wasn’t expecting it to be a Wood. A wooden Wood. Introduce me to your new, wealth-sucking friend. I’ll bet you a million dollars I can guess what he’ll say.”

John laughed. “Wooden-man, this is my wife, Lilly. Lilly, this is the wooden-man. He talks and says words.”

The wooden man rubbed against Lilly even though John held her, and then hugged her too for a moment, its painted-on eyes staring at nothing. “I am saying words. Talking. Communicating. End talking.”

John and Lilly both laughed. “Look at all that strange life essence in it. And its soul, Adon. What a strange soul.”

Lilly tensed. “Wait. Do you see this? Is…what is this? I’ve never seen the like, Adon. Wish I had the slightest clue. Those are great rewards.”

John assumed she received the same NCS message he did. “Can one of your rituals solve what it asks for?”

Lilly put her head back on John’s cheek. “No. I don’t see how one could.”

John put Lilly down and asked, “Where’s the people you hid with? Those nine in the basement?”

Lilly looked up and smiled brightly. “I left them. It’s still not safe with those snakish things out there. Three are to the north, two east, one west, and one south. It’s not even seven AM so we have plenty of time to kill them before evac, my dear heart.”

John looked at his wife smiling at him so adorably, a big grin making it easy to count the missing teeth. His heart filled with dread. He ignored his wife’s frantic pleas to pick her back up and ran as quickly as he could to the estate he left her at while he did battle. He had some issues finding it but remembered the red door.

As John entered the basement he fell to his knees and bowed his head. “Lilly. Lilly, no.”