Blood and Qi: A Vampire Xianxia LitRPG

Stretch rubbed up against John. He then took John’s hand in his own large wooden hand. The images Stretch sent were too blurry and confusing for John to understand.

John shook his head to clear it. He saw the most solid spirit he had ever seen, then looked down at the naked corpse of his brother, Yan. “He’s dead? What happened? We made a deal. We swore on our honor.”

Lilly said, “Pick me up.” John let go of Stretch’s hand and lifted his wife. She put her arms around his neck and her forehead on his cheek. “I’m sorry, my dear heart, he didn’t keep his word. He regained consciousness before you and claimed he didn’t lose. He did. By the terms set and swore to, he lost. We all attacked him while he was so weak. I’m sorry. Not everyone keeps their word like you do. The world is filled with liars.”

John felt heavy. And weak. He sent vital essence to heal. Only a little essence remained in his dantian. Something felt off to him. It didn’t feel right. His brother was a good man, an honorable man.

“What she says is true,” added Hubaba. “You won and he was going to attack you when he recovered. We have the portal anchor. The invasions are over. We’ve won.

“Whatever that powerful and potent manifestation you cast was, it weakened him enough for us to finish him off. What a manifestation! I’ve never heard of the like. He had no storage device or anything besides the equipment he wore. Lilly took his gear and the five crystals he dropped.”

Lilly lifted her head, smiled, and said, “Just to save time. It’s all yours whenever you want, my dear heart. We won! You saved Terra!”

John tried to smile back at his wife, but he felt uneasy and had a hard time forming one. He felt drained. Empty. His heart hurt and churned sourness and sadness. He felt heavy. He assumed it was due to the [Ultimate] draining him. He cast it three times in a row. And he was damaged and bleeding all over. He sent more vital essence to heal and while keeping an eye on his low essence he worked on himself a little with his [Heal] spell.

With his orb-eye, John noticed Amber in human form with crossed-arms looking sour. Stretch kept reaching out for her hand, and she kept ignoring it.

Somethings not right, thought John. He thought he was supposed to be mad at Lilly. He assumed because she killed Yan. Hubaba said Yan went back on his word, so they all did what had to be done while Yan was weakened. He had no reason to be mad at them for just doing what had to be done.

A bizarre voice reverberated around John, but softly.

[I’ll need that portal anchor back. Remove it from your soul storage, witch.]

Lilly tapped John like she wanted to get down. He set her on the ground and followed her into a kowtow along with Hubaba and Amber. Stretch remained on his feet, fearless.

From the kowtow position, Lilly held the portal anchor up. “Yes, Sublime,” she said.

The portal anchor disappeared from Lilly’s outstretched hand.

[Drop the act, witch. I heard it all. Fourth Tree twice. You are lucky…]

The Sublime sent down a feeling of overwhelming maliciousness. John thought he should care more. He didn’t have it in him to.

[I know Sunshine sent you a message, Bronze. What he put in your head were lies. We don’t want to purge this world. We’re helping to ease it into the Tree of Life at great personal expense to ourselves. Did he tell you I was cleared by the core? I bet he didn’t. The Butcher was the only g’athu to accept. The other three already have a strong presence in this universe and had no interest in your resourceless world. It was him or nothing. How was I supposed to know he was quarantined? He wasn’t allowed to bring any tech. I took every precaution. There was no chance of him escaping this world.]

John had no idea what to say to that, so he said, “Yes, Sublime.”

[The Eternal is teaching the world seed itself to cultivate. Somehow. Would we do that if we wanted to purge this world?]

John replied, “No, Sublime.” He noticed Ton-Oi sounded much sterner and taciturn than the last time they spoke.

[Is that not proof enough? I would like to kill the witch, but I hold no ill will towards any other terran. Including you.]

“Yes, Sublime.”

[None of you appreciate what we’re doing. The expenses involved. We could’ve just thrown you all to the wolves. And now…]

There was a long pause.

[The invasions were stopped far sooner than we assumed they’d be. The Eternal wants me to set up more invasions. The world seed wants more too. Tell the real leaders of this world that once the dark walkers dissipate, new invasions will start nine standard weeks after. Roughly forty-one of your days.

[There will be no g’athu. Only demons from a tenth ring planet. Since there’re only five portal anchors now, I’ll bring four dark walkers. None of you are allowed to take part in fighting the future invasions. Besides the world seed, I assume. We are doing this so normal terrans can grow stronger and get acclimated to their new reality.]

After a moment of silence, John said, “Yes, Sublime.”

[And witch, you are lucky…I could…you disgust me. Consider yourself lucky we aren’t intervening.]

Lilly loudly said, “Yes, Sublime. Thank you, Sublime.”

Long minutes stretched out in silence on the battlefield. John assumed the Sublime was finished with them, so stood. His companions followed suit.

Amber dourly said, “Great. More invasions.” She reached out and took Stretch’s offered hand.

Lilly smiled widely and said, “That’s great. For us. And Terra. Our businesses will boom. I got Hum…Hubaba a big contract helping to reverse engineer the demon tech with me. For one of the companies I sold a couple to. They can’t figure it out. They’ll throw money at us now. We’ll have an army equipped with decent minis and lasers waiting for the demons. Easy-breezy. You have no idea how much I’m making us, my pretty little monkey.”

John tried returning the smile and failed again. “That’s great. Just remember not to charge too much. We need people to be strong and free, not weak and poor.”

“Oh. That reminds me,” said Lilly. “I have to go ensure they don’t steal our crystals and loot. Especially before Stretch gets to it. Why don’t you cultivate a little, sweety. Heal up. I’ll take care of everything. You’re the hero that saved Terra. Take a break.”

John couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong. Meditation refilled his dantian and helped him heal but did little for his feeling of unease. Something was growing inside of him. Something bad. He should’ve felt victorious, but he only felt lost.

“Are you done cultivating, my dear heart,” asked Lilly. She sat on his lap and put her arms around him and her forehead on his cheek. He couldn’t shake the feeling.

Lilly poked John’s nose with her index finger and said, “Boop! The copters are waiting to bring us to the base and fly us home. You can cultivate on the flight too. There’s a big celebration for us in New York. It’s Veterans Day in the US right now. All the world’s celebrating that holiday now. Everyone but you. What’s wrong, my heart’s content?”

John sighed. “I don’t know. I think I need some time alone. You all go. Have fun. I’m going to…I don’t know. Just try and shake this.”

Lilly lifted her head and looked John in the eye. “Where will you go? What’ll you do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Please don’t leave me. I just got you back. Please,” asked Lilly, dejectedly.

“You said you were going to help with the demon tech. You have your cultivation-mat business and the other ones too. Go. Help prepare Earth for the next invasion. I just need a little time by myself to shake this.”

“Shake what exactly?”

John looked away from Lilly. “I don’t know. I feel…off. I just need time.”

Lilly’s brows furrowed. “Okay, but I don’t like this. Please don’t stay away too long. You have your phone, right?”

“Yes.”

“You remember how to work it? If I text you, you know how to reply?”

“Yes.”

“And how to answer calls?”

“Yes.”

“Is it charged?”

“Yes,” said John.

“Well, at least say goodbye to our friends. They’ll be sad if you don’t. You were supposed to be the star celebrity in New York, my pretty little monkey. Now they’ll have to make do with only us lowly helpers.”

John froze and his eyes went blank. A ball fell to the ground and lights curved all around, even high into the air. “I’m sorry, my Adon. I need you near me. I need to work on you more. This’ll have to be quick though. My vigor hasn’t recharged the blocker much. No one needs to know our business more than they already do.”

Lilly caressed John’s face. “I love you so much. I need you to love me again. I wish you could just…just…I’m so sorry, my dear heart. You make me want to do better. I’m doing so much better with you by my side again. You’ll see. Everything will be perfect. Now, you feel fine. Nothing’s wrong. You will come with us to New York.”

Lilly continued to work on John until the lights curving out of the ball flickered and died out.

Lilly got off John’s lap and they both stood. “Oh, this box has all your crystals. Stretch stole a bunch again. Two are the blue-green crystals from Yan. I kept the three others for me, Amber, and Humbaba. Hubaba. You should put them in your ring, sweety.”

After gathering all the crystals into his ring, John and his wife headed back along the battlefield past all the spirits and dead of both sides of the conflict. Many large vehicles and helicopters were in the area. He noticed many new soldiers about too.

John heard most modern soldiers had duties other than fighting, such as cooks, carters, and tinkerers. He thought it was strange. There were always some noncombatants in armies in the past, but they were few in number. The bulk of modern armies seemed to be made up of mostly noncombatants.

Large groups of soldiers in many different uniforms stood around Amber, Hubaba, and Stretch. The soldiers took turns taking photos with each. John almost smiled watching Stretch rub against everyone that approached him, unaware and ignorant of what a photograph was, trying to hold hands and communicate with each person he rubbed against.

The joy John saw on Amber’s face as she talked and took photos with all the men surrounding her caused anger to stir in his heart. He thought anger was better than the malaise he otherwise felt. He knew the crowd surrounding Hubaba was just as large, and both crowds contained many females too, but only the one around Amber bothered him.

Soldiers began looking towards John. Some waved and walked towards him. A lot of soldiers seemed angry at him. He pretended to be happy and joined in the cheer with good humor. He even smiled for photos. Thankfully, he was told to enter a helicopter soon after, ending that torture.

As the weeks passed and Earth prepared for the dark walkers to dissipate and new invasions to begin, John kept to himself as much as he could in the warehouse he was previously imprisoned in just outside of DC. For reasons he didn’t know and couldn’t articulate, his heart grew only heavier. Every day it seemed to hurt more.

President Williams granted John a full pardon for the imaginary crimes foolish people said he committed, including killing the demon under the banner of truce. That people considered the death of that demon a crime was insane to him. Did they forget what the demons did to our own? No crime can be committed against a demon. As the demons say their purpose is to kill us, our purpose should be to kill them.

John was not forced to stay within his warehouse. He preferred to. The things modern society considered crimes weren’t. He also knew he would commit many more imaginary, nonsensical crimes if he were to leave his warehouse on his own.

John’s heart did lift some when he visited many of the modern countries it was believed he could be from. From Slovenia over to Moldova and down to Greece. From Turkey down to Saudi Arabia and up over to Iran. All wanted to claim him as their own. He kept the truth to himself as he was paraded through the streets and cheered.

It felt wonderful to be wanted by so many. Only in Turkey did John escape from his guards and travel without handlers or his wife to visit the area he was born of. The mountains looked small. In his mind and memories, they were giant and majestic and much different.

Still, John knew where he came from. An old pain and emptiness within his chest was filled. It was quickly replaced with a new pain and emptiness, and a malaise he couldn’t shake off and free himself of. He was glad he no longer traveled alone, and the love his wife gave him helped fill the emptiness and darkness growing inside of him.

Lilly was very busy creating businesses and making deals, but she still spent much time with her husband, both in his warehouse and while traveling with him too.

John did his best to ensure Lilly kept the wellbeing of Earth prominent in her dealings. He wanted his planet and her people to be strong. He knew they were too weak. Technology would not fix the cultural issues that caused their weakness. The fact they saw a man killing for what all people should kill for as a crime only highlighted the issues.

John hoped the societies of Earth learned before it was too late. No world could be strong that did not allow all men to have pride and honor and defend those things with their own life and the death of their transgressors. Along with politeness, those values were the cornerstone strong civilizations were built upon. He thought of ways to make all strong, and not have the usual systems that kept the common people weak and low and complacent, without pride and honor.

Hubaba often visited John in his warehouse, and the vampire was glad to have such a good friend. The demon ran a crafting academy in West Virginia. People from all over the world competed to earn a place within that academy.

The demon also released many YouTube video tutorials on many aspects of cultivation, runes, runecrafting, alchemy, and so on. He was very popular, and John was glad the demon finally seemed to have all he ever wanted, all he was denied while a scab at Second Point, and finally had found some contentment.

Amber never once visited John in his warehouse. He only saw her in person when there was an event he was forced to attend requiring them both to be present. He did his best to ignore her, and she did her best to annoy him.

John knew Lilly spent a good amount of time with Amber and the two were fast and good friends. He knew he would eventually have to warn Amber how his wife’s games usually ended. But Amber was safe for a long while yet, so there was no rush.

Pictures of Amber were a different story. John saw those all the time. When he watched the television or videos on his phone she was in many commercials. When he left the warehouse, no matter what country he went to, giant pictures called billboards advertising a product would show him Amber. There were even advertisements that stated any stranger could win a date with her.

John wondered why Amber had so little pride and was so determined to destroy her reputation. There was a commercial advertising something called suntan lotion where Amber wore items so skimpy and small even the most depraved among common nightwalkers would be too embarrassed to be seen in public wearing such. For all intents and purposes, Amber was naked in that commercial.

Amber would waste essence constantly by showing off her various forms as if she no longer took advancement and cultivation seriously. As if the world was safe. As if there wasn’t a universe out there that Earth still didn’t know its place in. As if Amber was safe from that universe. As if she didn’t believe his warning about the Peerless.

Since Amber still had a human form past her time limit, John assumed she must’ve killed another human. No one told him if she did, and he was too proud to ask. Lilly did tell him she created a body ritual for Amber like the one she made for him.

It didn’t work out so well for Amber. Her human form, at least the beautiful one she now had, had been through very little hardship. She had nearly always been invisible in that form. If her struggles as a beastly woman had counted, it probably would’ve been a different story.

Amber was waiting for peak Bronze to get a body for her demon form, a known one from the NCS, the best she had a chance of qualifying for, [Stone Body]. John didn’t think she would put the necessary work in to get it. She was too busy being naked on the television.

John stopped thinking of Amber as he was awoken from his meditations by his wife and told there was a meeting with President Williams he had to attend.