Blood and Qi: A Vampire Xianxia LitRPG

The snake became very wary of John after witnessing his [Ultimate]. It moved away as John collected two light-blue crystals from the dead pretend Exalted.

John wasn’t surprised by the snake’s reaction. It made sense. He was surprised, as usual, by how much his [Ultimate] managed to hurt him but also heal him, including his shattered leg. He was just glad the hide protocols didn’t restrict any natural manifestations, and he was allowed to cast it.

To cast an [Ultimate], all eight aspects had to be opened. Divines on the fourth Tree cast [Ultimates]. Some rare and powerful Celestials would be able to cast them too. Never Mortals or Transcendents. And the ananongs of Isb only knew the first Tree.

No other species of John’s sector knew of [Ultimates] either. He doubted anyone in the whole Milky Way galaxy did. As far as he knew, only one being in the whole galaxy had achieved the third Tree – Magnis Gar’tar.

And she had only become a Magnus in truth after meeting John, most likely learning the trick of how to escape the galaxy and truly ascend to the third Tree by Sublime Ton-Oi.

John didn’t know what effect the merging of two beings had on items, but his enemy’s items were all destroyed anyway. There was a pouch of coins that had all merged together into a big hunk of metal he took, as well as some damaged jewelry and trinkets, but the magicked ones were all broken.

“Is this all their wealth,” John asked the snake.

“Unlikely, great spirit. They’ll have their riches and possessions stored at either of their cities close to Gansett. Ogema and Naskapi too.”

John cursed. He would have to give up the wealth that was his by right of victory. At least for now. He let the ‘great spirit’ comment go unchallenged. He thought it could only help him. He raised the merged Exalted as a minion.

“I should inform you that Ino and Mena are on the way here,” said the snake. “It will take some time. They can’t fly like these cultist pretenders.”

John replied with a nod. He didn’t want to commit to anything. He wanted to avoid those two as long as he could.

“I never got your name, great spirit,” said the snake.

“I’m called John, Sovereign Odjig. I’m going back to get the crystals and check the possessions of Ogema and Naskapi. Then I’ll free the prisoners in Ingam and collect the crystals from all the dead enemies I left there.”

The snake hissed and said, “I’ll go too. I’ll clear what Mists of Kazthun I can. I also must visit Tamoit far to the north. What will you do after Ingam, great spirit?”

“Win,” replied John.

There were two other cities west of Ingam. John destroyed the cultist forces, the statues of Kazthun, and released the prisoners of both. Draining the last statue caused John to feel really itchy all over.

The city of Kardin was on the west coast. After releasing some prisoners and telling them to release the rest, John ran to a prisoner convoy headed to the city and freed those too. He then sat down to cultivate and clear the area of the strange Mists of Kazthun, as the mists made the ananong docile and sheeplike.

John had been avoiding meeting up with Mena and Ino, but the snake was sending them to Kardin. Currently, they were helping the prisoners in the two other cities John had freed.

John was better armed and armored. Not well armed and armored, just better. Kardin was ruled by a Diamond that was a decently good fighter, and that Diamond had a very sturdy mace. The head of the mace was just some big hunk of metal, unforged and unshaped, but ridiculously heavy and impossibly hard.

As he was cultivating the strange mists, John felt an insane level of danger directed at him and his reality shattered for a split second. Then the intense feeling of danger was gone as fast as it had come.

The earth around John was cracked and mangled and his minions were just particles floating in the air, including the merged Masset and Sakmaw. He was fine. But he was also very confused.

“YOU’RE CAUSING ME A LOT OF TROUBLE, CHILD. I’M BEGINNING TO REGRET ALLOWING YOU THE USE OF MY VESSEL UNTIL DIAMOND. ONCE OFF ISB, LEAVE KAZTHUN ALONE. DO NOTHING TO INSTIGATE HER AGAIN.”

John kowtowed and said, “Yes, uh, Curiosity. Thank you.” He wished he knew what just happened. He had a feeling his death was narrowly avoided. Betrayal’s specific words were ‘once off of Isb.’ He hoped that meant he was free to continue instigating Kazthun while on this planet, because he was going to.

Sovereign Odjig decided he would finally join the fight against the cultists. He offered to travel with John, Ino, and Mena and help against the remaining two Salts belonging to Kathzun.

The snake carried all three across the ocean, and the four companions met up with Archlord Sakim, a man none of them had ever met before.

Soon after, Ninigret and Sequin were dead. There were many statues of Kathzun in the lands of Uagri, but no prisoners. With few exceptions, all the living ananong there were cultists and put to death.

The world wouldn’t be free of Kazthun until all her statues were destroyed, so John set about doing so. And the draining of each subsequent statue caused him to feel stranger and stranger. He was also summoned by a Sovereign beast, a second tier Transcendent, and awarded a [Title].

‘Blessed by Exalted Manitabasso’ Title attained. While on the planet Isb, Title shows as ‘Blessed by Sovereign Manitabasso.’ When in the active Title slot, slightly increases the speed and efficiency of converting energy to essence.

It was taken as more proof John was a great spirit given form when no one could sense the [Title] after it was granted to him.

Even though he was only a Silver, all three of the remaining Archlord ananong knelt and offered fealty to John. That should’ve made the NCS consider him the ruler of Isb. It didn’t. He figured that would change after he destroyed the few remaining statues of Kathzun, but that didn’t work either.

It wasn’t the sapient Exalted beasts. None were interested in ruling anything but their own realms and Isb was an ananong planet, though John knew the NCS named them isbans.

There were two continents with high populations. One of those were the lands of Saxx and Gansett. The other was the continent called Uagri, where the cult of Kathzun first appeared. The majority of the ananong of Uagri had been sacrificed to Kazthun’s altars long ago. There were hardly any ananong left on the continent after all the cultists were killed.

After asking for maps, John headed towards the southwest. He remembered the continent was shaped like an extremely fat and thick letter J. On the crude maps he was given, the continent just looked somewhat oval-shaped, ending in vast mountains on the southwestern side of it.

Once John arrived at the mountains, he kept forgetting why he was there. He forced himself to study them. He didn’t know how he missed it before. He ran south along the mountain range and found three others.

In four places along the mountains were giant statues somewhat similar to the Great Sphinx of Giza. The base had the body of a sort-of-sphinx in an eerily similar pose as the statue on Earth, but the head wasn’t the same at all, though it still wore strange headgear.

It took John over a day to get over the mountain. Not because it was difficult, though the mountains were truly massive. He was constantly overcome by a feeling of wrongness and wanted to turn around. He also kept forgetting why he wanted to pass the mountains and would start back to Uagri.

When John finally passed the range, all he could see was thickly forested land as far as the eye could reach. The info function of his NCS helped there.

[Wasamatu, Pop. 2.1m, 487 mi]

There were no signs of any civilization on the way to the city. No farms. No abandoned villages. Nothing.

While still over ten miles out from the city, John saw a giant statue. If he had to guess, he’d guess it was of a heavily armored ananong. Off in the distance towards both sides of the statue, John could barely make out two more of the same since the foliage was so thick.

A feeling of deep foreboding caused fear in John he had a hard time shaking off. He felt a compulsion to turn around and leave. He forced himself onward. Once past the statues, the feeling disappeared, and he continued his journey.

Soon enough, once through a very dense thicket, John saw the most amazing city he had ever laid eyes upon. There were giant statues everywhere. Lush farms everywhere. All the houses were exquisitely carved from stone and each of them decorated with detailed depictions of beautiful scenes, many of which were of a massive sea creature among the waves.

There were giant structures unlike anything John had seen before, comparable to the pyramids, but very different.

And there were a lot of strange looking ananong that all froze in fear upon seeing John. They looked mostly the same as the others but were a little smaller, their skin looked like the same type of bark but was smoother and less cracked, and they had about half the warts, though the ones they had were larger and just as evenly spaced out.

From where he stood, John could practically see across the whole beautiful city. He was impressed. By the city, not its people. He stretched his senses out and could only feel three Platinums. Nothing higher.

“Call for the Lords! Call for the three Lords,” many of the city’s residents began to cry out. “Intruders! Intruders breached the defenses!”

John tried to look unthreatening and peaceful. Off in the distance, on top of three giant altar-like structures that looked like they were made of large steps, three strangely dressed ananong started to descend. The three Platinums.

Once they had descended most of the way down the giant structures, John couldn’t see them, but he could still feel them. They weren’t in a rush at all. They all stopped to gather a large retinue filled with a mix of tiers. All three Platinums started making their way to John around the same time, but slowly.

Figuring it would be more polite to wait where he was, John walked a little forward into the city and took a seat on the lip of a fountain. And waited. And waited. He thought they were lucky he wasn’t attacking the city as he had plenty of time to kill and pillage unopposed.

The three Platinums finally arrived after moseying slowly down three different streets. As if coordinated, all three arrived at the same time. The Platinums were dressed similarly, all three in the silliest outfits John had ever seen. It wasn’t armor, just bulky and ridiculous nonsensical decorations, including huge headgear.

The three lined up behind two rows of shirtless and armed Gold warriors and moved forward in unison, stopping twenty paces in front of John.

“Has the great Dankata sent you? Is she not pleased with our sacrifices any longer,” asked the Platinum in the middle.

“I wasn’t sent by anyone, Underlord,” replied John. “I don’t know a Dankata.” He remembered the snake mentioning a similar name. “Do you mean Danaka, she that doesn’t like to be tread upon?”

“Seize this beast,” ordered the middle Platinum. “Bring it to my altar for sacrifice.”

The handful of Gold warriors moving forward to follow those orders fell unconscious as John quickly drained the blood from their brains. Usually, he had to fight through some resistance when he did that. Not one of the warriors put up noticeable resistance, and neither did the middle Platinum as John pulled the blood of its brain through its eyes and hardened it, creating what he thought of as blood-icicles sticking out of its face.

As the Platinum slunk down dead, the two others became nervous and tried to run, as did the rest of the warriors and retinues of the leaders. John let all but the two Platinums go.

An hour later, after questioning the two, John believed he understood what had happened.

A very long time ago there was a very advanced city that ruled all around them. The highest tier the people knew of was Lord. Platinum. There were eight Lords of this city. They believed they were stronger than they were.

The lords attacked the great beast of the sea called Dankata. That was a big mistake. The city was rocked by massive waves and subsumed by the sea. Their empire was destroyed. The survivors made their way far to the south and built this city, sacrificing a few people daily to appease Dankata and calm her wrath.

To this day, they still thought Platinum was the highest tier anyone could achieve, not knowing about soul refinement.

After the city was built, not one resident had ever left the wards of the city once they were activated. Now, no one even knew how the wards worked, though they assumed the daily sacrifices had something to do with it. They had no idea who or what Kazthun was and had never heard of Underlords, Overlords, or Archlords.

So, the Atlantis of Isb is real, thought John. And I found it.

After forcing the two Platinums to bow and swear fealty to him, John smiled. He was kind of an Atlantan in truth now. And, according to the NCS, he was also the ruler of Isb now too.

John navigated through the screens of the NCS and passed rulership of the planet to Amber. This had already been discussed and planned. He had thought it would work like with the Ele he had fought on Earth. That he’d be able to pre-swear to Amber and spend the credits she awarded him with now.

Conquering a world by himself was in a different class and category of deeds. It had only happened once before, but Akeoli Hyavod was a Transcendent when he did so, had some other Mortal Tree Oli helping him, as well as a Transcendent Meleua backing him up, but a precedent had already been set.

Rewards for this deed had to go through and be approved by the appropriate Nanis, not Amber.

Regardless of how his reward played out, John couldn’t hold Isb hostage to bargain with the Nanis Heiau with. Not if he ever wanted to get off this planet.

Other Peerless could build some device allowing them to escape the atmosphere of the world and be collected in space. Academy graduate or not, building such a thing was far beyond John’s capabilities. He gave himself decent odds on if he’d be able to repair such a device if it was already built.

Maintaining rulership of Isb to use as leverage against the Nani would’ve been ideal, but it wasn’t to be. Passing rulership to Amber made the planet part of the Peerless Empire and considered Tech 1. She could send the shuttle down to pick John up.

John had received 37 points to each [Stat] from strengthening himself off the statues of Kazthun. He had hoped to receive more. According to Avatar, since the vital essence was so strange, he’d still be able to strengthen himself on any being higher than a mid-Transcendent.

And Avatar claimed all the strange substances John had drained helped in other ways not yet shown on the summary and would be made apparent in due time.

Jim had to remain in orbit around Isb in case enemy forces arrived. Unlike Earth, Isb contained a lot of extremely valuable resources. The metal head of John’s mace alone was worth many million crystals.

With Isb now a Tech 1 planet, invasion would be affordable to the many powers within the sector, but since Ma Aom had the closest nav beacon, a Peerless fleet arrived before anyone else.

Once Amber was relieved of her duty guarding the planet, she was ordered back to Gani. Or ordered once again back to Gani. John knew she had already received many such orders and had ignored them all. Now, she would be returning victorious and vindicated.

No ananong Kahaka, officially now isban Kahaka, would be returning to Gani aboard Jim. John was relieved about that. He knew it was cowardly and unmanly, but he didn’t want to face the people he condemned to a marginally less horrific fate after saving them from Kazthun.