Blood and Qi: A Vampire Xianxia LitRPG

As John spun to strike the shadow with his sword, he imbued the sword with essence while feeling into the silhouette. The shadow’s head remained at the same location as it jumped over John’s fiery blade. The strike was aimed at the waist, which showed the shadow could contort itself in ways no normal being could.

The shadow’s defenses against essence manipulation were too much for John, but he doubted a creature made of shadow had blood anyways. If the shadow used essence, it was doing it in a way he could not feel at all and had no chance of unbinding.

Three sparking balls of essence flew through the empty space the shadow’s head occupied a mere moment before it shrunk down into the ground and grew behind John’s back again.

John blocked both strikes from the daggers or sickles with his sword, and the blows were so strong he was nearly bowled over. He then spun, aiming a thrust at the head, hitting only empty air.

John was usually faster than all he fought. This had been true since he became a vampire. Ahn was always faster than he was, and a few things here and there since the Tribulation and his journey of self-cultivation began. He never truly fought Diamond Garioch, so he was unsure of that demon’s speed. He had fought nothing that was his superior in speed while also being as dangerous as the shadow he was fighting since Ahn.

John still had to battle the other dark ones as he fought the shadow, and his dantian sat far under a quarter full. He couldn’t afford to waste essence on manifestations, and he couldn’t afford the distraction of casting manifestations even if he had essence to spare.

The heightened awareness, senses, and form John learned to enter into while fighting Ukaraaz barely kept him in the fight, along with using his vital essence to increase his speed, but he couldn’t rely on his senses, and needed full use of his eyes and orb-eye.

Besides the strange contortions, ability to move between and from shadows, and grow and shrink as it pleased, the shadow cast no spells, and neither did it manifest essence in the usual ways.

The shadow was nearly as strong as John was, and a little faster. It also had two working arms and wasn’t fighting a horde of dark ones as it also fought John.

If this thing stood its ground and stopped all the contortions and shifting between shadows and growing hither and thither, I would take its head, and piss on its corpse. I have much more skill at arms and battle, and it shows little skill in how it strikes, thought John annoyedly.

Having to somewhat run in large circles to avoid the giant swarms of bee-flies, John was glad when he saw enough of the swarms chasing him had merged to evolve into a rock-monster, giving him some relief, even if only temporarily.

Barely dodging both strikes of the shadow by the skin of his teeth again, John’s head began to pound. A short while later, he heard, or felt, skittering in his head. He didn’t know what it was or what to do about it, so he ignored it, but the noise swelled larger and louder.

Doing his best to shut the noise out, John focused on staying alive. The disagreeable resonance continued to echo throughout his head as a skittering. His head began to thrum, and it felt as if it was vibrating.

Finally, it popped. A deep, slow croak, like a death rattle, replaced the skittering sound in his head, and a voice John could only describe as dark and disturbing said, “I am in you now.”

John dropped Fireblade and pinched the bridge of his nose roughly. The shadow laughed in his head as it struck out again half-lazily, as if it thought its target wouldn’t react or give resistance. It was proved wrong as John sidestepped the blows, and his hand snaked out to grab the wrist of the shadow.

Holding on as tight as he could so the shadow couldn’t play any of its usual games, John began to bat it around at the enemies pressing in on him. He thought it made a good weapon, or would have if it stopped trying to wriggle out of his grasp and stab him.

John jumped to the top of a smaller building and tried to bite into the wrist of the shadow while avoiding the stabs of the thing’s free arm. He had no luck breaking through the skin, so instead focused on smashing the shadow onto the brick edge of the roof as hard as he could. It didn’t kill the creature, and it said into his head, “Why struggle? I am in you now.”

John cast [Flashburst Pulse] at the shadow when it was in a position he was certain it wouldn’t be able to dodge or avoid the spell from. The thing still managed to contort itself out of the way of the spell somehow, and John was nearly stabbed in the neck.

On the middle finger of the hand John held the shadow with, the only hand he had at the moment, was the plasma ring. He noticed how often the shadow was directly in the ring’s path as he beat it against the hard edge of the building. So, John tried to slice through the shadow with his plasma ring many, many times, and only wasted more essence. How is it doing this? The ring should have hit it. I will destroy this bastard if it’s the last thing I do, thought John, furiously.

“Why struggle? I am in you now.”

“I am the one in you! And your face…arggghhh,” bellowed John in rage, knowing what he said made no sense, and not caring a bit.

All the dark ones were climbing the building John was on to get at him, so he jumped back down to the road, smashing the shadow on a rock-monster with all his might. The shadow seemed unhurt, but the rock-monster was shattered to pieces.

Being in a much better position than when the shadow was loose and able to attack John freely, though it still was able to attack him with its free arm, John continued to fight the other dark ones with the shadow as his weapon. He drew breaths raggedly, as he had exerted himself for many, many hours.

The shadow would occasionally tell John it was in him now. He had no better reply to that than to use the shadow as a weapon to kill other dark ones with, and he killed many with it.

Near the start of dusk, and some relief from the sun draining him, the strange feeling from earlier intensified greatly. The shadow stopped talking into John’s head. The strange shadows became even stranger, and his orb-eye became harder to use effectively as the flickering between normal and strange intensified.

The orb-eye flickering nearly caused John to miss the new shadow that grew behind him, and he was barely able to dodge aside its attacks. He was able to bash the new shadow with the one he was using as a weapon, but it hardly slowed it down or fazed it at all.

John’s heart sank at the arrival of the new shadow, but he thought three good things did come of it. The first was that all the other dark ones stopped attacking him. They crowded the thump ritual, which was still running strong as ever, and he got pushed further and further down the road and away from his wife as he battled.

The second good thing was John finally had his question answered about whether the shadows held daggers or had sickles for hands. He knew they had sickle-hands, or did before, as both shadows then had heavy balls where hands should be.

The third good thing was they stopped trying to kill John, and instead focused on incapacitating him. That gave him a chance. Though he was hit often and hard, he was able to take the punishment they dished out while dishing out some of his own back.

Watching through drone feeds, within the Command-and-Control Center of the White House in DC, Vice President Williams said to the newly promoted General of the Army Howe and Fleet Admiral Oyamot, “Goddamn, that boy’s getting every little bit of shit kicked right out of him. He should’ve ran when he knew he wasn’t winning, back when there was only one of those shades. Took that girl and got out while the getting was good.”

General Howe said, “No sense delaying since we know where this is headed. We take these sons of bitches out while they’re so concentrated. We won’t get another chance to take out this many and keep collateral damage so low.”

“Same estimates as before? Between point-seven and one-point-five million? I agree, Mr. Vice President. We won’t get another chance with such tolerable losses,” said Fleet Admiral Oyamot.

Vice President Williams let the anger show in his eyes as he stared down the general and admiral. “I said no. One and a half million people isn’t a loss I can tolerate. These are the people we swore to protect. And if those new dark ones we’ve seen are as strong as the demon generals, they’ll just turn the strikes away. We’ll only kill more of our own. Again.”

Hitting the desk, The Vice President yelled out, “Where the hell are those reports I asked for? Is that the Lilith of legend or not? We all heard what she said about Wikipedia.”

“What does it matter? Our techs are ninety-nine percent certain they can duplicate the ritual she used to trap the kaiju. She’s a valuable asset but ultimately expendable. We need this to be a win, Mr. Vice President,” said Fleet Admiral Oyamot, returning her eyes to the feeds.

Vice President Williams resisted the urge to choke the new Fleet Admiral, but his eyes followed hers back to the feed. “We saw him kill the demon general. He gave us our only win so far. Earth’s filled with real weird shit now and most of it’s trying to kill us. Besides him and his friends. He’s buddy-buddy with a high-ranking demon. If Meghan really is Lilith, the actual Lilith, and he’s really her husband, what does that tell us about him and the chances they turn on us? Why the hell do we have so many intel agencies if they can’t tell us anything useful about these people we’re making deals with?”

Peeling his eyes away from the young man being beaten to death, Vice President Williams snapped his fingers so the admiral and general would give him his full attention.

“If they die on the first mission we sent them on, think that just may alienate their two friends here in this city? Your report told me the demon is at or very close to the same level of power as the generals. You want that thing running around the city mad at us? That kaiju in New York didn’t even blink when a nuke hit it square on the head. You both said it would work. All we’ve been doing is sending soldiers to their death and killing our own citizens. I want that to end.

“President Gillis is calling from the summit in forty minutes or so. I want better news than I blew up one of the few effective weapons Earth has in this fight. Oh, and blew up New York City. Again. I want a plan. I want actionable intelligence. Can we evac them now without just wasting more lives? Percentage chances.”

Ever since President Gillis authorized the small tactical nuke on the New York kaiju she gave most mission authority to Williams and spent all her time on the cruiser housing the leaders of the G40. He was trying his best to make some kind of lemonade with the lemons he was handed.

Williams softened his tone. “The only thing I’m certain of right now is I want their friends here, safe. If we sent them in and all four died, we’re fucked. Earth’s shit out of luck. And if this John and Meghan, or Lilith, or whatever the hell her real name is, die, how do we keep the two here on our side?

“And I want to know if that’s really Lilith. And if she is, what does that mean for us? If we keep working with her, are we going to end up wishing for the good old days, back when we only had to worry about dark ones and g’athu and demons, before fucking Lilith summoned the Prince of Darkness and they started eating our souls or some crazy shit like that?”

Lowering his head in prayer, Williams whispered, “Dear mama, you were right. I should’ve gone to church more. And just stayed a lawyer.”

Vice President Williams turned his eyes back to the feed in time to see the young man get hit so hard by both shades it caused his own head to hurt.

John tried to get back on his feet. He didn’t have much left to give, but he was still alive. And if he was alive, he could still get up. So, he got back up. The essence-shield of his armor barely blocked any of the strikes of his opponents, and the reflect-shield of his cap was just a waste of essence. He had little essence left. He had no idea how he could turn the fight around.

“Why do you resist? Why cling to the false? We are in you,” one or both shadows spoke in his head.

“Because…,” was John’s answer.

Both shadows stopped attacking. John heard in his head, “Why? We seek stillness. Why force the end of the dream? We are in you. You smell of the dream. You must do as we will.”

Wobbling on his feet, glad at least his orb-eye couldn’t be bloodied and bruised shut, John tried to think of a witty reply. None came to mind. He replied by coughing up blood instead.

John heard a strange noise, like a snake trying to twitter, coming from high above. Through the flickering of his orb-eye, John saw both shadows move together and join, becoming a much deeper darkness that somehow stood out even more clearly in the moonlit road, and would even with a pitch-black background.

The dark shadow moved towards John, lifted him, and grew longer until the shadow darkened the side of a building, then grew up along the building with John. Even though it was a very tall building, they quickly reached the top where the dark shadow dropped John onto the roof.

John coughed up some blood and tried to clear his nose of bloody phlegm. He was surprised to see he had less than a third of his vital essence left. He sent more of it to heal. He checked his dantian. It looked a good amount under ten percent full of essence. Nearly as close to five percent as it was to ten. He did have some energy ready to be converted, but not enough to make much of a difference even if he got the chance to.

Well, no one can say I didn’t give it all I had, thought John.

A hissing noise caused John to look around with his orb-eye, and he finally noticed the snake-woman on the roof. He had heard many tales of snake-women, usually with the lower half of the body being that of a snake, and the upper half being that of a normal female. That was sometimes true of the snake-woman near him on the roof, besides the normal part.

The parts of the snake-woman that were woman and snake constantly changed, and neither the snake parts nor the woman parts would ever be considered to look as a normal woman or a normal snake did. It was a grotesque and nightmare version of each.

The snake-woman had no mass of snakes where there should be hair, but John quickly removed his orb-eye from looking at her. Just in case, he thought, as he watched the darker shadow split back into two lighter shadows.

Something John could only describe as mental waves began to bombard him, and he heard the snake-woman hissing out noises that the NCS translated into a more normal voice for him. “It’s still conscious. Its sparks could hurt me, siblings, as it did the first of us.”

No response from the shadows was heard by John. The snake-woman said, “I understand. I give appreciation to my siblings. Hold it down and ensure it cannot strike me. Good. Now let down your guard so I can enter through the path you’ve made.”

Mental waves bombarded the inside of John’s head, causing great pain for a long while. He held in the screams he wanted to release, as he didn’t want them to have the satisfaction. He didn’t know how long it lasted, but he was greatly relieved when it relented some.

The snake-woman then spoke directly into John’s head. “You dream false. Bask in the triumph of the true dream. You will join.”

It felt as if John’s mind began to be drilled. Not long after a calm settled over him, and he saw an image of nothing growing further and further away, until his vision panned out far enough to see nightmares that warped and shaped reality.

There was a playground where kids were swinging and laughing, dogs were barking, and butterflies were flapping their colorful wings. Then a rumbling could be heard, and over the horizon there came a black cloud of pus and wrongness and cancer and rot that swept over the playground. Everyone started screaming and clawing their eyes and pulling at their hair.

They screamed out, “Help! What do we do?”

There was a choice.

The horror had a reason, and to join gave a purpose, and to submit gave peace. Choice was an illusion. The choice had been made for John. He was one with the nightmare, and it was magnificent. Blood would flow in mighty rivers that would join and cascade through space and time and all that is or ever was, and it would all be made right.

Nightmare and Sorrow were denied what should be theirs. They burned with righteous anger and injustice, and all would burn along with them. All would burn until they got their due. Or there was nothing left to burn.

What was once John turned to the screaming people of the playground. They ran to him. “Thank God you’re here. Will you help us?”

What was once John gave them what help he could. When he finished helping he was covered in their blood and a stream of it trickled down the hill, joining other small streams of blood, and that was good. He walked to the black cloud of pus and wrongness and cancer and rot and couldn’t tell where it ended and he began before realizing it was all the same.

The mental waves began again, but outside of John’s head, as it was before, causing him no pain. “He has joined our dream, siblings, and is one of us. His false dream is now righted. The scent that was like that which made us, the scent missing from those we must end, will also be righted once he recovers.

“The noise that calls us is good and gives much. Let us go become as much as we can while the noise still calls. We will not fade.”

The shadows merged together and retreated from the rooftop, and the snake-woman slithered over the edge of the building.

John couldn’t move. Not because of anything the snake-woman did. His body was battered and bruised and didn’t want to listen to him. He wasn’t sure what happened inside his head. It gave him a little break to recuperate some, so he didn’t mind. He gave thanks to his ability to resist mental influences prevented him from the horror of actually joining the dark one's sick dream. He struggled back to his feet, holding in all the winces and yelps of pain he wanted to let out. He hobbled to the edge of the building and looked down.

The distance to the road was much too far for John to jump down safely. He sent a little more vital essence to heal. He hurt all over and the vital essence was little help with that. A dizzy spell hit him, and he struggled to maintain his footing.

As John wiped the blood off his face with his sleeve, a thought hit him – he didn’t have to do this. Any of it. He could just stop. Either lie down or walk away. He could find Amber and take her to where people never went, and watch from afar as the world burned, and finally, however it ended, travel to the Wheel together, or beautiful oblivion.

John suppressed those thoughts, checked the veil on his soul, and sent vital essence to strengthen and speed up his dive off the edge of the building. He would not let himself succumb to craven thoughts at the end. He would not run from battle to seek comfort and pleasure. I’m no fool from Sybaris. I was born for war, and only battle will take me.