Blood and Qi: A Vampire Xianxia LitRPG

John aimed his sniper rifle at one of the Silver mechanical-suit wearers equipped with ranged weaponry. Avatar said he should always aim at chests, called aiming center mass, but the mechanical suit looked sturdy, so he aimed at the exposed face. He turned the aim assist function of his NCS on and it told him to aim exactly where he was aiming.

In the class Avatar gave, she said firearm bullets drifted and were subject to wind and other factors and when shooting at very far off targets, the shooter couldn’t aim where he wanted the bullet to land. The same was even more true for arrows, but differently, and in a way John had long understood.

Whatever essence discharged from an essence-rifle could have weight or be weightless, and could be subject to wind, tumble, gravity, and other factors, or not subject to those factors at all. Without knowing the runes and what would come out of the rifle, the first shot was a gamble. There was a similar issue with the sniper rifles of Earth, even if the make of the rifle and rounds it fired were known, the first shot out of a cold barrel was the most chaotic and least accurate.

Since he was not a great distance from his target and well within arrow range, John wasn’t too worried about whatever came out of the barrel missing. He infused the sniper rifle with a little blood essence. It lit it up and discharged, causing the weapon to buck in his hands. The Silver demon’s face exploded. He couldn’t make out what was discharged, but he was happy with it.

John grabbed his bow and ran along the ridge while infusing new essence into his belt of hiding. The spot where he shot from was bombarded with explosions and many projectiles.

At a new spot, John saw what the great weapons on the arms of the mechanical suits that looked like cannons did – they spun around and sprayed out projectiles so rapidly he knew he wouldn’t be able to avoid such a quick and massive barrage.

The three invisible demons’ souls bobbed as they slowly approached the ridge from different angles. Four demons remained in the original perimeter – two mechanical-suit wearers with ranged weapons, the mechanical-suit demon with the crab hand and shield, and the black-outfit wearer with the giant, stout rifle. The rifleman was lying prone.

John aimed at the face of one of the two remaining ranged mechanical-suit wearers. He infused his sniper rifle and watched a new head explode, grabbed his bow, and moved back a distance while infusing his belt of hiding again.

This time the demons covered a much larger area and not only the spot John just occupied. He nearly got hit by the explosions of missiles and shots of both energy projectiles and bullets.

In a new spot, far away from his old, John watched the three bobbing souls of the hidden demons walk along the ridge searching for him. He tried to unsuccessfully stifle a cough. He took aim center mass of the closest soul and infused essence into his sniper rifle and discharged it. A mechanical-suit wearer appeared, the one with the lava whip, and the suit seemed unharmed.

John dropped the sniper rifle, grabbed his bow and nocked and loosed arrows as he ran backwards.

Two arrows entered the face of the visible demon, two more arrows knocked the other mechanical-suit wearer out of stealth a moment before two arrows also entered that demon’s face.

As John ran backwards loosing arrows, explosions and projectiles tracked him and he zigzagged as best he could. The last invisible soul impressed him as the two arrows he sent at that demon were batted aside, but the demon still lost his invisibility.

John sent four more arrows out and the newly exposed demon wearing the blindfold used his two-handed sword to beat two of those aside as he deftly dodged the other two, impressing John again.

Running canted and changing directions, John became as stealthy as he could before the belt of hiding would accept essence, letting him relax. He gave a silent prayer to the powers that be he never swapped into the physical prowess belt.

The blindfold wearing demon was hidden again too. John circled around to approach the demon from behind. He put the bow in his left hand and drew and cut through the soul with Fireblade, making the enemy visible as the torso slid apart and both pieces of the demon fell to the ground.

John immediately ran away but almost took some bullets from the rotating cannons. A coughing fit kept his belt from accepting essence and a missile exploded close enough to knock him to the ground. He got up, shook his head clear, and ran a great distance through a storm of projectiles before his belt finally accepted essence.

John made his way back to where he dropped his sniper rifle. The weapon was battered and broken. He made his way around and to the opposite side of the three demons remaining in the perimeter. That wasn’t a good position since the only exposed part of the mechanical-suit wearers were their lower faces and he had no access to it. He moved back around to a new ridge towards the front-right of where the demons were facing, stifling his coughs and spitting up blood.

While John was repositioning, a few oryx wandered into view and the demons killed them. He had always despised such wanton slaughter. He revised his opinion of why the oryx were killed when one of the suit wearers went to retrieve a dropped crystal. He remembered how things worked on Esau. The killing of creatures just made more of those creatures spawn. If a low-level creature came into view, it was killed without much thought.

Eight arrows were loosed before the remaining demons even knew they were under attack. Two to the face of each mechanical-suit wearer. He wanted to subdue the prone demon in the slick and shiny armor, so one arrow flew to each of his limbs.

All arrows hit their marks. Something exploded, then more explosions sounded off within or around the demon perimeter.

Adrenaline spiked in John as he felt a new Gold appear right in front of the portal. He noticed the prone demon he tried to subdue with an arrow to each limb was dead. He tried to infuse his belt of hiding with essence as he ran away and felt the new Gold and Muzaran cast manifestations on themselves.

With his orb-eye, John saw the new Gold was in a giant mechanical suit that fully covered its head and face. The new Gold brought an empty suit Muzaran rushed to enter.

John turned around and retreated backwards as he loosed arrows at Muzaran. The preceptor batted them aside and avoided them easily and yelled out, “Stop! Time-out! Let’s talk before we fight!”

The new Gold stood in front of Muzaran and protected him from arrows as he entered the empty suit. The suits had protection that caused the essence-arrows to slow greatly when they got near, and the arrows bounced harmlessly off the tough metal.

Once Muzaran was settled into his giant mechanical suit, he called out again with an artificially amplified voice. “Copper John, we need to talk. I saw you put a few of the earpieces you took from the Bronze challengers in your ring. Put one in your ear and bend the microphone towards your mouth so we can speak for a moment.”

Before John considered what Muzaran requested, he inspected the battlefield. The Silver he tried to subdue was a mess. The arrows went into all four limbs. An arrow to each limb shouldn’t have killed a Silver. The explosions killed the demon.

Gold demons were already giants, and Muzaran was bigger than Hubaba and Ukaraaz by a head or two. The two Golds in their mechanical suits were much larger than even Diamond Garioch.

Not only were the suits massive, but they also looked very sturdy and completely covered every part of the demons wearing them. And that slowing essence-shield seemed to cover both suits completely.

The suit of the second Gold was covered in ranged weaponry and missiles. The suit Muzaran entered had shoulder mounts, a ranged weapon on one arm, a shield mounted on the other, and a ridiculously massive sword in the right hand.

John sighed as both suits began to rise in the air and hover a hundred paces or so off the ground.

“Just so you know, we can see the heat signatures of your tracks,” said Muzaran as both suits aimed bright lights at John. “We don’t need to see you if we can see your tracks, Copper John. We’ll give you a minute to put on the earpiece and respond before we start firing.”

John coughed up blood and sent vital essence to heal before enhancing both his strength and speed. He moved away and sent more essence into his belt of hiding. He didn’t move far as the light from the suits followed him. He coughed again to clear his airways of blood before taking an earpiece out. It was made for a demon, so he had to hold it over his ear. He bent the metal wire towards his mouth.

“What do you want, Preceptor Muzaran?” whispered John into the wire.

There was no reply. John spoke into the wire many more times before calling out, “I don’t think the earpiece is working.”

“Did you turn it on? Hit the button in the center of the earpiece part.”

John found the button and noticed a small light when he pushed it. “What do you want, Preceptor Muzaran?”

“Copy. I can hear you now. Can you hear me?”

“Yes.” After a moment John added on, “Preceptor Muzaran.”

“Good. My companion is Preceptor Ungoth from the School of Warfare.”

A new voice was heard through the earpiece. “Copper John, I have great admiration for your prowess, your skill at arms, how you manage to spot hidden foes and fight well above your tier for such a low-graded race. Your capacity to adapt to and overcome all the fluid situations you’ve faced on the battlefield is truly impressive. The little footage recorded by the Silver minis will be shown in my classes. I’ve never seen one so skilled with sword and shield and bow. You fired off eight arrows in a split second.”

“Uh, thank you, Preceptor Ungoth,” replied John, then coughed up more blood.

“It’s pronounced Ungoth, but close enough.”

Muzaran said, “Listen, Copper John. You’ve done well in this challenge, but that stops here. You are coming to the War Academy. We want you to come amicably and give us your loyalty.

“I know you think I tried to trick you, but I didn’t. I told you our academy is on a seventh ring world. You had all the information. If you’re not paying attention, that’s on you. Like you, we respect courage and dauntlessness. ‘Mettle’ is my concept for a reason.

“If we fight you with these minis, there’s too great a chance you’ll die, and we’d have done all this for nothing. At best you’d be severely injured and useless for a long time and require a great expense to make whole again. We don’t want that. We don’t want to risk you. We offer a new challenge. A challenge within a challenge.

“Preceptor Ungoth is also a student of the sword, just as we are. He is also a body cultivator too, like us. We admit you are more skilled at swordcraft than either of us, but we are Golds, and there are two of us. You’re a Copper.

“To prove our good intentions, we are willing to fight you in the way you mistakenly assumed this contest would go. This will prove I wasn’t trying to trick you. And prove our academy is filled with like-minded members of the ptagmog valuing honor and prowess above all else.

“If you agree, we will exit our mini-mechs and fight you in melee. No tech. Just swords, body, and weapon enhancements.”

John coughed up blood and turned his mind towards seeing if he was being rooked somehow. The deal seemed lopsided. He wondered if he had some sort of weapon in his ring they feared since they had no reason to fear his arrows. Did the mini-mechs slow them down? The lesser versions seemed to have enhanced the speed of their users, and the little he’d seen of the new suits moving made him believe that was even more true for them.

No matter how John turned his mind and changed his perspective the deal only seemed to favor him and him alone. It seemed too good of a deal. The only explanation could be that Muzaran was sincere and wanted John as a willing student, and fighting the Gold version of mini-mechs truly posed a risk to John’s life they didn’t want to take.

“I accept the deal, Preceptors Muzaran and Ungoth.”

“Ungoth. Ungoth. And Good. We’re glad, Copper John. This is the way. We’re landing and exiting our mini-mechs. Come meet us for our duel.”

John watched the two giant demons land and exit their mini-mechs and recast their body and weapon enhancements. A giant, curved blade glowing orange and a shield appeared in the hands of Ungoth. A very large sword appeared in the hands of Muzaran and at first it glowed blue but then began to glow brown.

The body and weapon manifestation of Ungoth felt like they also applied themselves to Muzaran. Still holding the earpiece, John asked, “I thought the deal was self-only body and weapon manifestations?”

Ungoth said, “I have a benefit [Aura]. All buffs I apply to myself also affect my allies in a radius. Come forward and unstealth, Copper.”

John dropped the earpiece and approached the two Golds while putting the bow in his ring, taking out his shield, and drawing his sword. He had to cough, and it required all his will and a titanic effort to hold it in. Muzaran was speaking to him over the earpiece, demanding he unhide. Ungoth disappeared from sight, but his soul didn’t.

Creeping up behind the bobbing soul of Ungoth, John ignored the frantic yells of Muzaran demanding he unhide. He slashed through the soul. As the spirit of Ungoth rose beside the two parts of his corpse, John yelled out, “Stop yelling. I unhid.”

Muzaran cried out, “You cowardly prick!” The demon rushed to his mini-mech and reached it a moment before John reached him. The Gold had no chance to enter his machine.

John’s desire to have another worthy fight was fulfilled. For nearly two glorious minutes or so. The demon fought madly, knowing his life was at great risk.

Fireblade, infused with essence and burning hot, cut through both of Muzaran’s forearms, disarming the preceptor and causing him to yell out in pain.

John quickly jumped on the back of the demon and began to drain the Gold. Muzaran thrashed around impotently, unable to stop the vampire.

How John understood the rules, the demon could’ve submitted or cast a manifestation to end the challenge. John assumed Muzaran would do either, so he rushed to get all the essence from the Gold he could, while he could. But the demon never did either of those things.

John strengthened himself sixteen times before he knew Muzaran was too weak and drained to be any sort of threat. He said to the demon, “I didn’t trick you. You even told me what a prick I am. You had all the information. If you’re not paying attention, that’s on you. I win. You lose. Again.”

John searched the demon for the portal anchor. He knew it couldn’t go into a storage device and still work, so it had to be on the demon’s body. It took him a while, but he finally found it and sent it straight into his ring. The portal immediately closed.

John returned to draining the demon and was able to strengthen himself seven more times before Muzaran expired. He assumed the contest was over so cast [Blood Heal] in an unspecified way targeting his chest, and instead of helping, the manifestation caused him to cough up more blood.

[Good show, Copper.]

John kowtowed and said, “Thank you, Sublime.”

[I’m surprised you survived the Diamond’s attack. There’s rot in your chest you’ll want to address soon.]

John once again considered asking the Sublime for healing. He decided not to. The Sublime would’ve offered it if he was willing to give it. “Yes, Sublime.”

No reply came, so after a few moments John got up, coughed up more blood, sent vital essence to heal, and collected what arms, armor, and crystals he could, taking the swords of both Golds, Muzaran’s black outfit, the stout rifle of the Silver, as well as the blindfolded Silver’s sword, removing more Wood-tier firearms to fit them all into his ring.

Only Muzaran had a spatial storage device. That went into one of John’s pouches along with Muzaran’s ‘band of suffering.’ Everything else that survived combat was brought to the piles the Bronzes made for him.

Besides his burning chest and the coughing, John was in good shape. The powerful shot he took in his back was mostly healed. Even his robes and armor were in better shape than he thought they’d be in, already repairing themselves. He needed to check if meditation helped his chest. He sat near the spirit of Muzaran. Since he liked the demon, he was glad the demon’s spirit stood tall and whole and proudly.