Blood and Qi: A Vampire Xianxia LitRPG

A Tribulation formed around John once again. He stood in an antechamber with the largest door he had ever seen in front of him. A message from the NCS forced its way into his vision.

User is in a Tribulation. Tribulation to commence in 00h:55m:58s USACS minutes.

User is required to defeat the primary enemy within the Tribulation. Failure to do so in the required time limit of 11h:07m:12s USACS hours will result in the termination of user.

Primary enemy classified as an early-stage, low-grade Dark Walker. Primary enemy will be highlighted on commencement of Tribulation. Upon death of the primary enemy, remaining entities in the Tribulation other than user will be terminated.

Since he had plenty of time, John cleaned up the mess in his undergarments while thinking of a strategy. He knew he wouldn’t go quietly. His enemies would have to earn his death. He would give his all to this battle. He just hoped the dark walker was up to the task of granting him peace.

From what John knew of dark walkers, they had the intelligence of a lesser beast and would only attack when aggressed upon, and only then if they noticed or felt the attack. Supposedly they had some sort of damaging aura that caused more damage the closer someone got to them. They usually only had one attack manifestation, and the more they used it the faster they became undone. They had poor senses and were very resilient and hard to damage. Most lacked enough of a mind to unbind the manifestations of others.

After coming up with a plan, John meditated until there were only a few minutes left before the Tribulation started. He stood near the door. At the one-minute mark he cast [Multi-Enhancement] and [Multi-Shield] and sent vital essence to increase his speed. He entered into the mindset he learned when fighting Ukaraaz, what he called ‘battle-mind.’

The giant door parted in the middle and the two doors slowly swung inward.

John looked at a creature so large it caused his heart to sink. How can I even hurt this thing?

The dark walker was as big as some of the tall buildings he saw in New York City, with a bestial body similar to a wolf but with shorter hindlegs, and the body looked like it was made of thick and dark smoke.

The head of the dark walker was far too large for its body and looked somewhat similar to a bull’s head, but it had truly massive horns even for its already far too oversized head. It had seven yellow eyes above its mouth, and it looked like a wolf’s mouth with fangs was ripping its way out of the normal bovine mouth.

Instead of hair or a mane, the dark walker had bone-spikes surrounding its head and face and covering all its massive horns.

John could see dark ones drop away from the smokey body of the dark walker, but they were just bubbling piles of an unformed promise still. He entered the Tribulation and ran to the left. The ceiling was high enough the dark walker could rear up to twice its height and its horns wouldn’t touch the ceiling. For all its height, the Tribulation didn’t give the dark walker much room to run around.

The inside walls of the Tribulation were pocked with candle-filled recesses all over. As John ran left along the wall, the candles extended his shadow towards the beast. He slipped through his own shadow towards the dark walker, and then behind it.

Being near the dark walker caused a little pain to John, but not nearly to the extent he expected. He thought the dark and smokey-looking body might be made of shadow, and he had good resistance to shadow due to his body [Perk].

John slipped up the wall behind the beast and continued to slip and slip higher and higher. Once he was high enough up, he slipped towards the creature, then over it. He came out of the slip and jumped towards the beast’s head, needing to slip once more to land where he wanted to, behind the horns on a flat part of the skull between some spiky protrusions.

John’s essence-shield was removed as soon as he landed. His boots began to smoke as he cast [Flashburst Pulse] at the creature’s head. The three sparking balls all hit the same spot and left only a small smoking dent in the thick skull. The beast didn’t even recognize the attack. He tried seeing if his [Least Glyph of Darkflame Jet] would do the trick, and the blowback of the heat and flames hurt John and wasted his armor’s essence-shield while doing nothing at all to his enemy.

John looked down and saw many dark ones forming on the ground, the biggest being a large and man-shaped beast covered in a thick brown fur. The second biggest looked like a malicious jester. There were tiny men-things dressed colorfully that were merging together. He saw nothing that could fly and none of the dark ones seemed to have noticed him so far.

John felt into the dark walker. He wasn’t rejected from doing so. The creature didn’t seem to notice or care at all. The monster’s body had nothing close to blood he could manipulate, but the head had plenty of it. That became his backup plan.

As he stopped wasting vital essence by enhancing his speed, John noticed his footwear were smoking badly. He didn’t want to overwhelm the repair glyph and permanently lose his boots of secrecy. He hopped around while taking them off and sent them to his ring. The creature burned his bare feet, but he could deal with that.

Since his armor was also smoking, as well as everything else, John infused essence into his bracer to enact its essence-shield. It didn’t last long, but it lasted long enough to place all his items into his ring, including the bracers. He hoped his ring survived.

Now naked, John got down into a pushup position with both hands flat on the dark walker’s head. He cast [Drain Essence]. After a few moments, potent essence began to trickle into his dantian. It wasn’t a fast process but his dantian was pretty full when he started. He lifted his left hand up about a foot and tried casting [Flashburst Pulse]. Casting two attack manifestations at once was something beyond him, but he had time and the will to figure it out.

It only took John minutes to find the trick. While keeping most of his focus on continuing [Drain Essence], he forced essence through the runes that powered [Flashburst Pulse]. If it was one of his own spells using a concept, he knew he’d be unable to accomplish the deed. It would require a mind capable of thinking of two equally complicated things at once.

After the first cast of [Flashburst Pulse], John learned to turn his head and protect his eyes. His orb-eye could watch just fine. He would rather cast [Least Glyph of Darkflame Jet], and just keep the jet at a minimum with a pinpoint focus, but controlling the variables of that spell while continuing to drain the dark walker of essence was beyond him.

So, John cast [Flashburst Pulse] at the same spot over and over until his dantian had only a quarter of essence left in it. He then waited for his dantian to fill up with the creature’s own essence to repeat the process.

When the timer hit ten hours, John had made a good-sized crater in the skull. At nine hours he could tell he was almost through. At some point, he saw a message stating [Emergency-Heal] was on cooldown. His skin hurt and was dry and cracking, so he sent vital essence to heal. Half an hour later, he managed to make a small hole in the skull. The dark walker finally noticed him.

John held onto a spike as the creature bucked and reared and sent destructive smoke in a blaze out of its mouth, killing many of the dark ones it spawned with its mad rearing and its smoke-blaze. Dark ones that finally noticed John too.

John sent vital essence to quicken and strengthen himself. He shimmied down the spike, his skin smoking as he sat on the skull, his hand gripping the spike was burning badly. He began to kick frantically around the too-small crater to enlarge it. The dark walker’s furious bucking actually made the task easier, the momentum of being flung around while gripping the spike protrusion drove his limbs to smack the hole with far more power than he could’ve generated himself, cracking and widening it.

Once the hole was big enough, John carefully rushed into the hole. Pushing through the disgusting mush soothed his dry and cracking skin. He pushed himself deeper, and then deeper still. He burrowed through the disgusting stuff for a long while. He went deep enough to where he hoped any dark ones that could climb the beast wouldn’t be able to follow. He then grabbed a massive artery and dug his fangs in deeply while also casting [Drain Life].

If any dark ones followed, they never found him inside the skull of the dark walker. While alternating between [Drain Life] and [Drain Essence], John was able to send vital essence to strengthen himself so many times he felt like his body would burst. The difference within himself was so noticeable that, though he was hardly moving at all, he had an extremely hard time adjusting to it.

Once the timer hit an hour, John felt he had pushed his luck enough. He continued to feed on the artery with his mouth while filling up with [Drain Essence] and began to feel into as much of the creature’s head as he could. He didn’t know the creature’s anatomy but thought he found the brainstem, and he began to place a clot in it. He grew the clot larger and larger. After twenty minutes of growing the clot, he started to worry he was making it in an area that wasn’t deadly to the creature.

It was hard for John to tell how big the clot was as the creature was massive. The clot didn’t feel very big comparatively. He had half an hour left to kill the creature. He couldn’t decide if he should try another strategy or keep growing the clot. Half of his mind became fearful, and the other half became excited, thinking there was a real possibility his nightmare could finally be over soon. Still, he wouldn’t go down without giving his all and fighting until the last second.

When John was being punished inside Sunshine’s mind, they had talked about his manifestations some. Sunshine was certain higher-tier beings wouldn’t be killed so easily with a clot. Ascended bodies that could live in space could survive many things that were deadly to normal people.

If John went to space and was subjected to its environment, the pressure of his blood would decrease enough that it would boil somehow and for some strange reason.

Sunshine was making the point that no matter how much John thought he learned about blood, he still had a lot more to learn, and how things worked now wouldn’t work in the future, on high tier foes, or in different environments.

John needed a new strategy, and fast. He thought of casting his [Ultimate], but the area of that spell was far too small to cause major damage. There was too much blood for [Spoil] to do anything in the time he had. He assumed [Least Glyph of Darkflame Jet] would be more dangerous to himself than the dark walker, as he was pressed in tight quarters, completely surrounded by a strange type of brain matter. Unless he made more room for himself.

John cast [Flashburst Pulse]. The dark walker bucked and went mad.

John had plenty of cushioning so continued to alternate between casting [Flashburst Pulse] and [Shadow Spray] around himself as the dark walker went insane, sending John knocking about. After judging he had enough room, even with the bucking and being thrown around, he tightened his grip on the artery and began channeling [Least Glyph of Darkflame Jet] all around himself.

The blowback of the spell caused a good amount of damage to John, but he kept it going. And kept it going.

When the timer showed just under seventeen minutes, with a dantian dangerously low of essence, John rattled around the mush in the beast’s skull for a few moments, then the beast disintegrated, and he fell into a large mess of some sort of viscera on the ground. He just laid there for a few minutes, completely submerged in mush, only sending vital essence to heal while trying to adjust to his new [Stats]. None of the dark ones were attacking him so he waited out the clock.

Once the time expired, John worked on himself with [Heal] with the little essence he had left, stopping just before he completely ran out. Then he fought his way out of the giant pool of mush and welcomed the brisk air and dull sky, once again glad the sun no longer sapped him. Adjusting to his new [Stats] was taking much longer than usual and he moved strangely and carefully still.

No obvious crystals dropped from his main enemy that he could easily spot. They could’ve been in the giant pond of mush, all that remained of the dark walker, but he thought he might’ve heard something about dark walkers not dropping crystals. He wasn’t sure if that was only when they dissipated after expending all their essence, or when they were killed with plenty of essence left. He certainly wasn’t going to swim around in the giant pool of mush for months looking for crystals.

After shaking off as much of the disgusting filth from himself as he could, John walked around the outside of the pond looking for dark one crystals and getting used to how he now moved. He found no crystals and finally realized the dark walker left no spirit at all.

John could no longer feel those three women either. That made him a little angry and sad. He wanted the beautiful ladies to praise him for his great deed. And they owed him a [Title]. He was almost certain a [Title], one of the good ones that did something, was always supposed to be a reward for completing a Tribulation, granted by the entity that created it.

Killing the dark walker and attaining victory over a Tribulation those powerful women thought would kill John lifted his spirits some. He knew the amount he was able to strengthen himself with the dark walker’s life essence was a far better reward than any [Title] would be, but he still wanted the [Title], and more rewards besides. And to be praised for his tall deed.

After putting some thought into the message the ladies delivered, John decided it didn’t matter. Not for him. He knew his soul was filled with darkness. He also knew he had many white swirls.

The NCS had a lot of information on how to cultivate good karma and how to not acquire or atone for bad karma. It was the same as the vision he received when he accepted the power so long ago. It made no sense. Saving people and the like gave good karma, killing people and the like gave bad karma. Even killing bad people gave bad karma, including the killing of demons and g’athu.

John thought about gaming the system – saving people from bad people he didn’t kill, then following the bad people around and saving people from them over and over again.

It all seemed so silly. If bad people were killed, they couldn’t hurt other people. If bad people weren’t killed, they would continue to hurt people. So killing bad people was good. But not according to karma.

Doing only what karma considered to be good was impossible. The system was incomprehensible. Doing the most good often required doing bad deeds. That was the reality everyone had to live with. Honorable men had to commit sins to protect the weak and make the world better.

None of it made sense to John, and he believed anyone that claimed to understand the karma system was a liar. Heaven was an impossible prize for any honorable man of sound mind.

John wondered about Thomas. His friend had been certain that if he lived by the tenets of his Christ, he would somehow be able to enter Heaven even without having a soul. It seemed Thomas did enter Heaven, but that was only because his soul was returned to him shortly before a Transcendent unveiled its own and killed him.

John thought about that Transcendent. Another name to add to his list along with Magnus Gar’tar, except he didn’t know the being’s name. He wished swearing vengeance against those two filled him with enough fire and passion that he’d be able to shake off the malaise that dampened his spirit.

One thought almost did – if he could reach the fourth Tree, John would shove, at a minimum, two large books up the anus of Sunshine. Maybe even ten books. And leave the books up there for ten days. The thought of doing so made him smile.

John waited around the mush for many days hoping the soul-women returned. He also wanted to see if the mush disappeared so he could find out if the dark walker dropped crystals. Neither happened. But something very strange did. John could feel it in the air.

Sublime Ton-Oi spoke to John again.

[Did you feel that, Bronze? I think your world ranked up. God Almighty, this world gets stranger and stranger. The world seed must’ve gained a rank. Test the energy for me. Does it feel thicker and more potent to you?]