Blood and Qi: A Vampire Xianxia LitRPG

The water was hot, brackish, and had a very strange taste to it, but it still sated John’s thirst. And having the bindings removed felt wonderful.

John gripped Defiance and Ah’krat’ra as a heavy stone lift steadily rose him up to the arena. Just by the feel of the crowd, he knew he was in a stadium large enough to rival the new ones he had seen on Earth said to fit 100,000 people or more. Once his head crested the floor, he saw the stadium was filled. The noise such a large crowd made was staggering.

Once the lift clicked into place, John moved off it, just in case. The crowd was very enthusiastically booing. Some tried throwing debris at him, but all items sparked and sizzled as they hit the field surrounding the arena. Even if that field wasn’t there, all the items would’ve fallen far short of their target since the ring was so large.

An announcer’s voice blasted throughout the stadium. “The primary event tonight is brought to you by Citizens Alliance Against Rot and Decay. Every year we lose more rights. Every year slaves are given more and more rights. If this foolishness doesn’t stop, and soon, everyone’ll want to be slaves. Visit an Alliance representative to learn more about their mission and which candidates to vote in and which scum to vote out.

“And now, on to the event you’ve all come to see – a dog of the Peerless being ripped apart and eaten by the vicious beasts known as chompers, max legal spread, twenty raltiel of Vorn!”

The crowd went wild with cheering. John got into his battle-mind. As the world slowed and he looked down upon himself, he adjusted his breathing and cycling techniques, tough to do while wearing the collar that blocked his access to essence. He tried casting a buff but only received painful backlash from the collar. He just couldn’t manipulate his essence enough to cast anything. Neither could he force essence into his cloak, Adumbration, get one of his bolters to move at all, or activate [Slowing Aura].

Twenty blocks of the floor disappeared. The announcers slowly said something John ignored. He had been given an injection of something his body considered poisonous shortly before being allowed to drink the brackish water. He had about three quarters worth of vital essence before that. Since receiving that injection, it had almost been reduced to half and was going surprisingly fast.

John didn’t know what he’d be facing. He had never heard of chompers or raltiel. Using vital essence to enhance himself would’ve been nice, but not a good idea. He could need all his vital essence to fight off the poison since there was a lot of it in his body, and it made him feel strange, shaky, weak, and slow.

John extended his senses as far down the empty holes as he could. The creatures were large and had blood. That was good. For some reason, the word chomper made him think of some sort of monster made of rock.

It was a relief to know the creatures had blood, but John still decided to hold off on using vital essence for now. He could do nothing else but wait for the creatures to appear. And when they did, his heart sank, and he knew he was in real trouble. Good, he thought. He’d either rise to the challenge and prove himself in this battle or die gloriously.

The best way John could describe the creatures would be as a mix of tiger and crocodile, but much larger. The body was long and went straight into a thick tail, like a crocodile, and the legs went out to the side and jointed as a crocodile’s own legs, but they were much, much longer.

The body was covered in fur, and it had a neck. The head looked strange and monstrous. Not really like a tiger’s head but closer to that than anything else John could think of. Their eyes crackled with some sort of electricity. Their maws were oversized for the large heads, and he thought chomper was a great nickname for the beasts even without having to see them chomp anything. He was certain it was a task they excelled at.

The tier of the beasts ranged from Silver to Salt. Two were Salt, two were Diamond, two were Platinum, and one was Silver. All 13 of the rest were Golds. The announcer finished saying something as the 20 stone lifts the chompers rode up on snapped into place. The crowd renewed their cheers as the chains fell away from the beasts.

The chompers all got low to the ground as they stared at John, purring maliciously, ready to pounce. John beat them to it by jumping at the closest one, a Salt. And that chomper let him know that was the wrong move as it shot some sort of beam out of its eyes that hit John and halted his momentum in the air, causing him to crash into the stone floor.

Part of the beam attack was returned to the chomper due to the [Auto-Reflect] NCU. The [Auto-Shield] NCU handled the rest of it, so John took no damage. He still had the [Auto-Shield] from his armor too.

The same chomper immediately pounced at John’s prone body. He kipped up and slashed its face with Ah’krat’ra, causing little damage to the Salt, but causing enough of a cut on its nose to halt its attack as it shook its head.

Defiance blocked the face of a pouncing Gold. John sensed the Silver dashing at his exposed back before seeing it with his orb-eye right as he was pushing the Gold away with his shield. He unveiled his soul, pinning the attacking Silver to the ground.

The Gold he had just batted away with his shield struggled to keep its feet. Many of the other Golds were slowed too. The Platinums looked like they could be affected, but it was hard to tell. It definitely had no effect on the Diamonds and Salts.

The Salt near John unveiled its own soul. If John wasn’t struggling against the poison in his system, he knew he’d be able to completely ignore the pressure from the Salt. As he was, it halted him for a moment and slowed him, his knees nearly buckling.

The last thing John could afford was being weakened during this fight. He wouldn’t allow it. The poison couldn’t be removed, but its effects could be ignored, just as he ignored pain. Good, he thought again. He wanted this fight to be as challenging as possible. The greater the odds stacked against him, the greater would be his victory, or the more glorious his end.

John straightened, turned, and sunk Ah’krat’ra deeply into the head of the Silver, killing it, but causing the sword to catch and he struggled to remove it.

The nearby Salt discharged an area of effect power around it, and it crackled with some sort of electricity, hurting the nearby Gold and causing John’s armor’s [Auto-Shield] to activate as he rolled out of the electrical field while smashing the edge of his shield against the Gold’s skull, cracking it open and killing the beast as he rolled by.

As John got to his feet, an eye-beam nearly got him. He barely managed to twist away from it and bring his shield up to block the head of a Diamond pouncing at him. As soon as the head hit the shield, he spun to the side of the beast while whipping his sword around and sending a line of blue light extending outwards from the blade to cut deeply into the head of an approaching Gold. The beast fell to the ground and twitched violently in its death throes.

The blade energy John could release wasn’t nearly as strong as he’d be able to make it if not for the collar around his neck, as it made manipulating external energy harder too. Harder, but not impossible. His sword was made for the deed, still assisting and increasing the power of what was released.

From the side of the Diamond chomper he just spun to the side of, John used his momentum to slide under the beast, and with as much strength as he could muster one-handed, he dug Ah’krat’ra along its soft belly, causing a long slash and the beast to roar in pain, but not doing enough damage to stop the monster.

Once out from under the Diamond, John rolled and impaled another Gold in the head with Ah’krat’ra, deftly removed the sword as he ran past, took out a Platinum with a blade energy attack that blew out its neck and ducked behind the other Diamond to block the beam attack of a Salt.

As the beam attacked landed on its hide, the Diamond roared in pain as it released the strange electric power around itself, and John was fully caught in the attack. It removed what remained of his armor’s [Auto-Shield] and caused the prefill [Emergency Heal] to activate.

John released blade energy into the beast’s side at point-blank range, taking a large chunk out of it. The beast bucked like a horse in surprise.

John jumped in the air, sword high over his head, preparing to release a new blade energy attack. Right after blocking a beam attack with his shield, his sword hit the invisible energy field surrounding the arena.

This caused John to shoot down towards the ground like a bullet. He was sent down at such a great speed he could do nothing but crash into the ground, only managing to twist a little and take the brunt of the impact with his shield while barely managing to keep hold of it and his sword.

John rolled away from a pouncing Salt, blocked a beam attack with his shield, dove under another as he got his feet, and ended the roll he had just dove into by slicing a Gold’s head open with Ah’krat’ra.

Since jumping high wasn’t an option, John kept mobile and avoided the Diamonds and Salts as he killed the remaining Golds and Platinums. He took a beam attack that caused his [Emergency Heal] to go on cooldown but still left a large wound in his chest. Without any NCUs left to assist, when he was caught in a crackling electric-field discharge, it left his left arm, side, head, and chest burnt and injured.

John noticed any beast that released the electrical field around themselves hadn’t done so twice. The remaining enemies, two Diamonds and two Salts, were now wary of him, scared of his bite. Not one of them was unmarked by John, though all four were in good fighting shape, and not scared enough to run.

Good, thought John.

As the next one pounced, a Diamond, John cut its neck open a little, the best he could do even with his mighty sword. He dropped his shield and sword, wrapped his arms around its neck as he twisted to its side, and pulled the giant and heavy beast on top of himself. His vital essence was almost out due to the poison. He wanted to fix that issue, and do so safely, using the massive beast as a blanket and shield.

When John pushed the dead beast off of himself, he was greeted by the large maw of the other Diamond chomping down towards him. He caught its upper jaw with his right hand and its lower jaw with his left, its fangs biting deep into his palms. He sent vital essence to strengthen himself as much as possible. He prayed he was right about the beasts not being able to use the electrical-field attack more than once.

With a mighty effort and a yell of fury, John pushed the beast’s head back and struggled to his feet. He put his right foot in its open mouth and pushed down, moving his left hand to its upper jaw. He now had enough leverage to crack its mouth wide open. He did so, dislocating its lower jaw. He left the whining creature on the ground as he dove away from a beam attack and twisted away from a pouncing Salt. He punched the beast as it went by, and it flew through the air to slam into the ground five paces away as he immediately dove away from a new beam attack.

The dive ended in a roll, and John had to roll again, barely avoiding the next beam attack. He grabbed Defiance and hid behind it just in time to catch the next beam on it. He rolled back the way he had just come from, grabbing Ah’krat’ra as he passed.

After catching the next beam attack from the Salt that was releasing them like mad, he slashed his sword towards the other Salt that was preparing to pounce again. The creature was right at the edge of his range, but the energy still caught the beast, making a slice on its face and causing the chomper to roar in pain or frustration.

More blade energy was released at the closer Salt in front of him. The one releasing all the beam attacks. After the first hit, the Salt backpedaled and John rushed it, releasing blade energy as he ran, having to slide under a beam attack of the other Salt.

Once John reached the backpedaling beast, he rammed into it with Defiance braced in front of him, knocking the beast over with its sharp claws digging into the air madly as it tried to right itself. With all the power and strength that he could muster, Ah’krat’ra was driven deep into the chomper’s belly.

John fell on top of the beast to avoid a beam attack. As he kept low, he bashed Defiance into the exposed neck of the struggling creature over and over until something broke and the beast died. As he tried to withdraw his sword from the beast, he had to give up the task and roll away to avoid the last remaining chomper pouncing at him.

After rolling away and getting to his feet, John noticed the beast was preparing to loose a beam attack so he jumped forward and threw his shield at his enemy’s head. The beast avoided the shield by hopping aside, but the beam was still released.

John, in the air and only a couple paces away, had the wrong momentum to avoid the beam. It was going to tag him straight on. Having no choice in the matter, in the mindset only the risk of death in the heat of battle can bring, without really thinking about it, more reacting than acting, he pushed and pushed on his essence, and this caused the collar to generate painful feedback he ignored and fought through.

Luckily, just in the nick of time, John forced [Slip] to manifest, and he slipped through the shadows towards the chomper, avoiding its beam.

The pain the collar caused made John dizzy with pain but did no lasting damage he could detect. He grabbed the beast and wrestled with it, punching its head over and over as he ignored its mighty paw swipes. He held tightly onto its neck with one hand to push the beast’s head backwards and prevent more beam-attacks.

Like with most things, once something that couldn’t be done was done, it became easier to do on the next and all subsequent attempts.

Now that John could bypass the collar, he could’ve killed the Salt with [Flawless Glyph of Plasma Barrage]. A bolter would’ve probably done the trick too. He didn’t want that. He wanted to beat the beast into submission with his fists and take all his annoyance and frustrations out on it. And he wanted to take what he could from his enemy.

Once the beast was beaten silly and stilled, John fed on it while draining the essence within its dantian too, causing his collar to smoke. When the beast was dead, he collected Defiance and Ah’krat’ra and did the same to the Diamond whose jaw he dislocated. The Salts were too large to raise as minions, as were the Diamonds, but not the Platinums and others. He raised five as minions.

Since John didn’t know what would come next, he stood and waited, bathing in the glory of victory as the angry crowd booed him and threw items at him. Items that would never reach him.

After long minutes, the announcer’s voice boomed throughout the stadium. “This Peerless dog is too stupid to know it’s dead. It looks like the good citizens of Vodalus and guests will get an extra show tonight. Hold a few moments as correctly rated AREBs are gathered and brought. They’ll turn this dog into mincemeat.

“For our visitors, AREBs are Anti-Riot Enforcement Bots. There’ll be 20 with max legal spread. Two rated against peak Salt, two rated against peak Diamond, and two against Platinum. If you didn’t know, even dogs made into slaves have rights here, even those condemned to death in the ring. Strict laws govern what numbers and tiers this dog can face at one time in the arena. No Transcendent can ever attack a Mortal unless attacked first.

“This seems like a very apt moment to remind you of tonight’s sponsor, the Citizens Alliance Against Rot and Decay. Every year…”

John stopped listening. Good, he thought again. He welcomed a new challenge. Li weren’t allowed to ascend to Gold until bought by a kauwa. If he were to get into trouble for breaking the rules, he’d first have to live an escape back to the Peerless. Until then, he’d give the audience their money’s worth. And he’d try to give his captors the biggest headache he possibly could.

John’s dantian was full. His foundation had settled many, many months ago. There was no good reason not to gain as much power as possible.

John sat with his legs crossed, his hands on his thighs, and entered a light meditation. He pictured his dantian and pictured himself standing in front of it, as large as he could picture himself. He bent under his dantian and placed it fully on his shoulders and back, much the same as the Titan Atlas was said to do with the heavens.

And John began ascending to Gold tier.