Blood and Qi: A Vampire Xianxia LitRPG

As John entered the portal a stinging feeling burned him all over, including his insides. He was in complete darkness for an indeterminable amount of time before he was spit out of the ground and deposited on cool sand. He hoped Amber changed her mind and did the right thing. For a moment, he thought she had changed her mind, as somebody followed him. He was surprised when his wife was spit out of the ground and deposited near him.

“Holy shit, that burned so much! Ow! You’re going to get us both killed, Adon, you fucking idiot!”

John grabbed his wife and covered her mouth as the demons were not all that far off. It gladdened his heart his wife followed him, but he couldn’t keep her safe, so he threw her back into the closing portal, cutting off her protestation.

When he entered the strange portal, it was near noon in DC. It was full night where the portal deposited him, and the cool desert air felt nice on his skin.

A large plume of some sort of odd fire could be seen going from about a hundred paces in the sky down into the demon horde. John enhanced his speed with vital essence, cast [BB Buff], and jumped to close the distance with the horde while spreading his senses out.

Many of the horde noticed John and started making their way towards him while some others directed those under them to attack him. He could clearly feel eight Silvers and a Gold, so the Silver Stretch killed was already replaced. He landed and jumped again, and the light created by the strange fire-pillar cast shadows going the wrong way, but he fought against unbind attempts as he forced [Slip] to move him through the shadows anyway.

John appeared behind the only Silver he could see and beheaded it with his shield as he drew Fireblade. An essence-shield covered the Silver, and John’s shield hardly slowed down as it destroyed the essence-shield and removed the demon’s head.

As John slashed at a couple Copper demons near him, he tried casting his newly improved essence-shield using his ‘protection’ concept with [Blood Shield] layered over it. He cast it during his battle with the dark ones in Paris, and already named it [PB Shield]. An unbind attempt worked on the first attempt, but not the second cast. He reached into all the demons he could around him, Wood, Copper, and Bronze, feeling many failed unbind attempts directed at him.

Earlier that day, as John flew back to DC from France, he did his daily allotment of training within his Mind’s Eye and learned more of blood and anatomy. He knew there was a clear fluid in brainstems. He knew it was beyond him to manipulate the fluid with his blood power. He knew lifeforms with spines and brainstems could be killed quickly if he could enter them and create a large enough clot in the arteries within the brainstem.

All the demons John entered fell to the ground, the overwhelming majority of them dead. The ones that survived would die soon or never rise again, their brains having lost the ability to perform vital functions. As he felt into more demons his essence-shield shattered, and an unbind attempt worked against his recasting of [PB Shield]. He spotted the Silver that unbound his spell and infused his armor with essence to enact its essence-shield as he jumped towards the demon.

Whatever strange manifestation the Silver used gave John no opportunity to block or even see the spell, and it ripped the armor’s essence-shield away. He landed near the demon and split him in two, ending that problem, and recast [PB Shield] while slicing through nearby demons with sword and shield.

John felt a Silver approaching from behind and felt for where the others were and was surprised to count eight Silvers still. He had already killed two. He reached into all the demons he could, got unbound the first attempt, but ultimately succeeded in placing clots while killing a few others with his sword. He jumped towards the flame pillar, cast [Flashburst Pulse] as he blocked some sort of wind blade with his shield, and smiled as he felt the closest Silver die from the sparking balls of his spell.

John landed, slashed around himself, felt into more demons, and fought through unbind attempts as he jumped again while placing clots. Something that actually hurt he didn’t see hit him in the back as he spotted the Gold, so he sent essence into his cap to activate the reflect-shield while blocking some fire darts with his shield, an arrow with his sword, and twisting around and avoiding orange streaks.

While in the air, John could see the pillar of odd flame that extended down from the sky was targeting the immobile Stretch. The Gold directing the odd flame down at the battered Stretch looked up at John, smiled, and released a small bird that flew towards the portal.

The demon stood higher and had a slightly larger soul than the other Gold demons John had seen. He had never seen a Platinum demon while on Esau, just a couple Platinum tiered beasts he avoided, but he was certain the demon was just a large Gold and not a Platinum. He wasn’t adept at sensing tiers. He had felt many Golds though, and the feel of a Gold was pretty straightforward, even if sensing the rank within the tier was beyond him.

The Gold had horns similar to a blackbuck antelope and wore a tight, black outfit instead of the armor or robes most demons wore. John realized at least one of the Silvers he killed had the same black clothings as the Gold, as did many of the lower-tiered demons.

As John attempted to feel into the released bird to place a clot in it, the odd flame stopped cascading down onto Stretch and the Gold pointed one of his hands at John.

John raised his shield above his head just in time to block a new cascade of the odd flame. It was strong enough to reverse the momentum of his jump and send him barreling towards the ground.

John noticed his reflect-shield gave out from other manifestations targeting him as he landed on the ground, straining to hold his shield above his head to block the powerful and strangely physically forceful fire boring into his shield. The force beating down on his shield stopped as he slashed at a nearby Bronze in black clothings and he sensed a group of three Silvers approaching together.

John tried to cast [PB Shield] but was expertly unbound. He tried again with the same results. Then [BB Buff] was somehow unbound too, the first time John had seen a currently active manifestation of his become unbound. He tested his plasma ring and cursed when he found it still wasn’t working.

The three Silvers spread out to surround John as he slashed at and bashed the lower-tiered demons around him. He felt a danger approaching from behind and rolled sideways to avoid it, and a stream of odd fire flew by him and into a Copper demon that had its chest explode in a mist of gore.

Since he couldn’t be stopped from doing so, John infused his sword and shield with essence as he heard a commanding voice shout out, “Melee only! I want to see what he can do with my own eyes.”

Two of the Silvers put their arms down as they looked at each other in confusion. The third Silver, wearing a black outfit, jumped towards John with a giant double-headed axe that caused a flash of memory to play in John’s mind – during a great battle he used a very similar looking axe to impress his Lilitu. What did the Hurri call me then? Teshub?

Raising his shield to block the axe, John again used an old trick and spun away just as the axe would meet the shield, and he cut the black-clad demon through the waist. The essence-shield around the black-clad Silver was cut through like paper.

John figured he had no chance of getting a manifestation off, but to let the Gold know he wouldn’t follow the orders he barked out, John tried casting [Flashburst Pulse] at one of the Silvers.

The manifestation was immediately and deftly unbound, and the Gold called out, “I said melee only.”

Five additional Silvers were approaching and two more were still in front of him. John spread his senses out and felt a total of eight Silvers still. He thought they must be replacing them as soon as one fell. One of the Silvers in front of him was still drawing the giant sword it had on its back. John rushed forward and cut the head off a Silver incompetently gripping a staff before opening the chest of the one struggling to draw a sword.

After killing some other demons near him, John jumped in the air only to be quickly taken down to the ground by the odd fire again. The commanding voice yelled out, “Stand and fight where you are.”

John disliked that it seemed he was following the Gold’s orders, but without being able to cast manifestations or jump without immediately being taken down to the ground, he had little choice in the matter. He stopped infusing his shield and sword with essence since it was overkill and unnecessary for the demons he fought. He cut through them easily with either sword or shield uninfused.

And John did cut through them, and easily, as he tried to make his way through the mad press of demons to reach the Gold. With his new body and higher [Stats], fighting the demon horde was simple and posed little danger to him, especially with the demons unallowed to use damaging manifestations.

John’s dantian was over ninety percent full, which mattered little since the Gold didn’t allow him to cast any spells. His vital essence was also near full, and he noticed enhancing his strength and speed no longer needed the same amount of vital essence it once did. Even still, he stopped using vital essence to enhance himself. It was unnecessary.

Demons rushed in on John from all directions but crowded the way towards the Gold the most. If he got within a hundred paces of the Gold, the demon would send out streams of the odd fire until he was pushed back. He took some relief in knowing Stretch was no longer being attacked and seemed to be forgotten about. He hoped Stretch would awaken, take advantage of the situation, and escape.

John wasn’t able to avoid or block the odd fire a few times. He found that being hit by it stung and tingled instead of burned, sapping his strength and speed a good amount for a little bit of time. It caused little damage to his skin, though it did burn a hole through his armor and robes and caused his skin to smoke some. It didn’t cause enough damage to be worth sending vital essence to heal.

All the demons John fought, from Wood to Silver, didn’t use manifestations other than weapon and body enhancements and essence-shields. Such rules on the use of manifestations made the fight trivial for John. When he allowed a weapon to strike him, it did no damage.

Whenever John checked the number of Silvers, it remained at eight. The horde of demons never seemed to deplete, no matter how many he killed.

Having little else to do while he made a great slaughter of his enemies and tried to force his way to the Gold, John focused on feeling into the enemies around him, his breathing and cycling techniques, and his sword and shield work.

With great sweeping blows, John would try to cut through as many enemies as possible. He practiced all the cuts from both sides with various styles, above, below, and across, slicing up close, and even some thrusts, though thrusting was the least efficient way of killing the demons, and would bind him up for a moment before he could clear his sword of the target or targets.

For the type of fighting John was engaged in, both guards and sets played a little enough role, but he still tried to get some practice in with the odd and situational guard or stance. Whenever he felt he was falling into some sort of rhythm or predictable pattern he would try out new guards or stances to strike from, even two-handed stances and techniques while gripping his sword with one hand, since his sword was very large and long and his strength was great.

Some of the Silvers in the black garb were able to block, parry, or avoid one or two of John’s blows, and he noticed the Bronze as well as the Silvers in black garb seemed to be more skilled than the other demons. Sometimes three of the black-garbed demons would work together to attack and defend against him, and he enjoyed those moments. All in all, he would guess about a third of all the Bronze and Silvers wore the black clothings.

Right outside the area the Gold would push John back with the odd fire, John prepared to close with his real opponent. As soon as the first manifestation of odd fire was directed at him, John sent vital essence to enhance his speed, rolled canted, and cleared the area with a wide swipe of both sword and shield, and rolled again, and again.

Only once did the odd flame hit John and push him back, but he was able to get close enough to the Gold to strike at him.

John tried to unbind the manifestation of the Gold as he approached but failed spectacularly. The Gold expertly beat back John’s cut with a hard block, or rebatter. The Gold smiled and reset his sword to an ox stance.

The sword the Gold used was the longest rapier-type sword John had ever seen, and it barely had a protective hilt. The blade was too slender at the hilt to be a longsword, but far, far too long to be a rapier. The blade was straight and two-edged but was clearly meant to be an odd sort of thrusting weapon. The guard would make for awkward grips of various two-handed techniques and strikes, and the blade wouldn’t lend itself to strong half-swording.

That was all true, at least for earthly weapons made from earthly materials John was familiar with. The extremely slender blade had glowing runes up and down the length of it, though John could feel it wasn’t infused with essence in the usual weapon-type enhancement. The Gold himself radiated a powerful body enhancement.

The Gold made a head gesture and the horde of demons surrounding the two backed off, and vampire and demon dueled near the prone, unmoving, and battered body of Stretch, the crazily abundant and dark-green vital essence within the puppet no longer so abundant or bright.

The demon wasn’t as skilled as Munashi, but he was nearly John’s equal in [Strength] and [Swiftness] while the Gold’s powerful body enhancement was active, and the demon was an extremely adept swordsman as well.

John reveled in the beautiful ecstasy that only came with fighting a true opponent and fellow student of the blade.

The Gold never got close to tagging John, and it took four passes for John to land a clean hit on the demon, shattering the demon’s essence-shield. As John pressed in with both blade and shield the demon stopped him by wrapping his odd fire around John and pinning his arms. The essence-shield was quickly replaced by a new one John failed to come close to unbinding.

Putting the too long rapier blade over his shoulder, the demon looked at John, bowed his head, and said, “Good. Good. You’re everything I was told you’d be, Copper. Very impressive. My name is Preceptor Muzaran. Your name is John, correct?”

John was surprised enough to forgo any manners. “Muzaran? Didn’t I kill you? Your horns are different, and your skin.”

The demon laughed. “No. Chosen are always named after our great forefathers, the Indomitable Hundred. There were actually a hundred and seventeen of them, and all the names but that of three are routinely used. I hate to be a stickler for formality, but I’d appreciate recognition of my greater tier and position.”

“Well met…uh, Preceptor Muzaran,” said John as he bowed his head, wondering why the word didn’t translate to master or teacher or instructor, but remained the old Roman word pronounced incorrectly. He thought he might remember some knightly orders using the word to mean the head of the order for a region and wondered how that applied to demons.

“I’m going to let you free now. Please don’t attack. I’d like to speak with you for a moment.” The odd fire disappeared, and John was again free to move as he pleased. “Now tell me, Copper John, why did you not strike your enemies with blade energy?”

John thought for a moment. “My blade enhancement? I didn’t need it. I cut through my enemies easily enough, including their essence-shields, Preceptor.”

“No. Weapon energy. The inherent energy of a weapon, which is not a manifestation or any use of essence or energy internal to a cultivator. Blade energy in our case. Watch. I’ll show you what I mean.”