Andrei looked around the facility and really was not sure what he was in. He had gone through a secure door that led to the fight with the beast but that was just another large room that was completely empty and had a hole in the wall that seemed to be a bit larger than the beast. Andrei went to the hole and sure enough it led to the outside and Andrei figured he must be in an abandoned warehouse or facility that no one could use anymore.
Andrei walked around the perimeter of the building and noticed that it looked more like a castle with multiple pointed spires and there was an entrance with two massive doors that would split open left to right. What he was not aware of was when he arrived the whole castle lit up for a moment, signaling to many others that someone had returned. Most hadn't paid attention to the old castle on the outskirts so far out that most never traveled near it.
What Andrei hadn't figured out is that he had just arrived in a castle that was connected to the planetary network that the Vampires had on Dracula. So he could not see any buildings, creatures, people, only the vegetation that had a crimson tint to all the foliage.
Andrei was looking at some of the vegetation when a sinking feeling came to his stomach. He hadn't been able to put a finger on it but then he remembered that back when he first gained his power he had a nightmare about being killed. He kept reliving it and kept changing his decisions but the same outcome.
Then Andrei realized he didn't see Fluffy, Burny, Prince, or LaLa in that nightmare so what if he just changed that outcome, he pondered. The one thing he knew was that he was looking at that piece of vegetation on all of them. So he summoned his pets and thought to Prince and LaLa "be on your guard as I have dreamed of dying over there." They proceeded with caution till they had reached the vegetation and that is when they could feel the ground rumble but also start to hear what sounded like a herd of wild animals. The seven of them were in a circle formation with Andrei in the center and the six surrounding him as they prepared for whatever was coming.
The first thing Andrei can see is the vegetation shaking and bending and then finally beasts similar to the one he just fought were charging and there were a lot of them. Andrei had produced his longsword and prepared for battle. Burny lit up his head intensifying how crazy scary the humanoid beast was, the clone did the identical move. LaLa hissed out and the beasts stopped in their tracks for a moment.
They all felt the power that came from the hiss and it caused a bunch of the weaker beasts to second guess what they were doing. Prince pulled out his elemental Katana out of nowhere and dashed forward, slicing the closest creature to him that had stopped from the hiss. Fluffy and Clone followed suit attacking the closest and the battle began.
Soon the lines were broken from the chaos of the amount of beasts that were attacking. Andrei was hoping to thin out the lines by dropping meteors on the back row. He could tell they were dying 2-3 at a time from the EXP popping as his visual display was now showing him in combat where everything was.
He hadn't noticed this before but his combat heads up display was now giving him loads of information including health bars of enemies. The meteor would hit and 2-3 health bars would disappear from his view and 1,000 EXP would pop as they were considered advanced tier beasts at least in EXP equivalency.
The first beast to hit Andrei did so in the back knocking him face first into the ground. The beast jumped into the air to pounce on Andrei for the kill but was split in half by Prince's Katana that somehow he had thrown 20 yards then summoned a new one or it was conjured back, no one was sure but Prince was smiling at the perfect throw and told Andrei to watch for the close ones.
Andrei knew Prince was right and stopped dropping meteors and started attacking closer ranged beasts. He noticed he had leveled again as he was getting EXP for all the kills. The number of enemies had not slowed down after a half hour of fighting till a dark figure appeared.
The beasts all stopped attacking and seemed to cower in fear of the figure. It was several hundred yards away from Andrei's party; the beasts had quickly scurried out of the way in between the two forces. The dark figure Andrei used his "Identify" on it and "Vampire" is all that it stated. Andrei's body that was tensed up from the combat became relaxed and he spoke out "Fear is what caused this attack, for you should fear me, but if you think you can overpower me that is not in the cards buddy."
"Haha, that is a good one, you're a human, I can smell you from here. You understand that I am a vampire, I am eternal, you are a mere mortal." the vampire confidently spoke. Andrei hadn't realized it but the vampire was now extremely close having closed the distance while speaking at a great speed while not appearing out of breath and the speech was calm.
"How many more do I have to hunt down that are with you?" The vampire spouted and was now 31 yards away. He could sense the power coming from Andrei and stood just outside of its influence not sure what was radiating off of Andrei. Andrei decided to take the first chance in the situation and told his pets to hide. All of them simultaneously looked at Andrei shocked and frustrated as they wanted to attack the vampire.
When the 6 disappeared into Andrei as well as his armor showing he was a military private. The vampire was startled and was no longer as confident as he once was. He had never seen anything like what he just witnessed and he was several thousand cycles old. "Who are you?" was all that escaped his lips almost in a confused tone.
"My name is Andrei, I came from that castle and am on a mission to find out more about vampires. That being said, I have seen you in my dreams and you killed me every time I attacked you, but you never spoke to me and I didn't have my pets in these nightmares. So either you're going to try to kill me now which my pets will not allow to happen or we can talk this out as I have no desire to kill you." Andrei was hoping this hail mary was good enough but he was ready to summon his army and his gear back on the second he felt threatened.
The vampire took a step forward and instead of being harmed he all of a sudden felt really strong and agile. He had only felt this from a few of the leaders of the vampires but nothing this powerful. He thought for a moment he might have to get rid of Andrei and he literally felt the presence leave his body, upon thinking no he gave me his word he is not a threat and suddenly he felt the power again.
"Remarkable, this feeling, only the Counts have this type of presence and yours can sense intention. I have never experienced this before, Andrei you don't understand how confusing you are to me right now. Did I witness two familiars and four beasts enter your body? I need to know more about you and we must make you a vampire." the vampire casually spouted to Andrei as if this was a normal thing to say to someone.
"Woah, can you take me to dinner first?" Andrei responded to the vampire. "I don't even know your name let alone what a vampire really is other than a mythical creature in folklore from where I come from." Andrei took a step back while making this comment showing the vampire to slow down.
"But you came from Count McGuiness' castle, you must be a descendant of the Count in order to be able to port to its castle. Counts and their descendants have DNA that allows the individual vampire to port to their home castle when traveling home. It's a nice shortcut as the general population of vampires that use portal travel have to go through the main portal which is guarded in the King's Castle and you have clearance and be given the proper equipment for survival."
"I am rambling, sorry, you are a human that came from a counts' castle that has been dormant for hundreds of cycles. Not many vampires even remember this castle and it is why we sent an army of our "Crazed". The vampires that get addicted to beast blood become beasts themselves and we call them the "Crazed".
"It happens to vampires that don't want to be a part of the vampiric empire so they can't find human blood and they become "Crazed" from the beasts that they eventually feed on. We wrangle them up and keep them caged until visitors to our planet arrive." The vampire continued.
"My question is how did you get inside of the counts' castle if you're neither vampire nor McGuiness?" The vampire inquired from Andrei.
"First of all, how do you know I'm not a McGuiness?" Andrei retorted back.
"The way your face scrunched tells me you know a McGuinees carnally and that would make it awkward if you both were." The vampire casually spoke to Andrei as if it was the most obvious tell anyone could give.
"Tell me, what do you know of vampires?" The vampire asked Andrei who was now wondering if the beasts were going to attack or run off, they all stood there as if they were all emotionless and bored at the same time.
"You are the first I have ever met. Two days ago I received a message from my best friend who passed over a month ago that told me vampires and other things were real. That it was up to me to find and harness all of your powers." Andrei wasn't sure if he gave up too much information but the vampire laughed.
"Oh boy this is a good one, I'm glad I didn't kill you like you said I kept doing in your vision. Just hearing that was worth it, sorry to burst your bubble but blood powers are only accessible by Vampires so you will have to become one. The ritual is known to take most powers away from humans being turned."
"What makes you think you can learn our powers?" The vampire still hadn't identified himself and Andrei was getting annoying thinking of him as just this vampire in front of him.
"Dude, what do I call you?" Andrei finally blurted out without responding to the previous question.
"Ha, I forgot the fact you don't know me. I haven't had to introduce myself in so many centuries. It feels that I almost forgot that I was supposed to, Tupac Kander." with that he did a bow that looked to have been practiced a few too many times as it was perfect.
"I can learn your power because I was told I need to learn them if I am to save the Galaxy." Andrei then replied to his previous question.
"Haha you're getting better by the second kid, how the hell can you say something so confidently and be so naive." Tupac commented on what was just told to him.
"Let's spar for a minute, just prepare to fight for a minute and I will show you what I can learn." Andrei told Tupac confidently staring him in the eye, making Tupac lower his smile and straighten up.
"I accept the sparring challenge. Prepare yourself!" Tupac got into a battle stance that was very different from what Andrei had ever seen. "Skill Sap" was run on Tupac and a new ability tab was opened up exactly like Andrei was hoping would happen. He quickly had to guess what would impress Tupac the most and "Blood Dagger" made the most sense, while Blood Bat and Blood Boil he wasn't sure what those would look like or be impressive.
[New Ability tab unlocked: Element Blood]
[New Skill learned: "Blood Dagger" LVL 1]
["Blood Dagger" Eject blood from palm in the form of a dagger. Effective range of 5 yards.]
[-2HP per use]
Does it take away from my health? Andrei thought, well this is going to make my life much more complex but he then remembered he had the passive to heal. He wasted no time and produced his first ever "Blood Dagger" that he purposely fired to the side of Tupac. Then Andrei felt the Focaine move to his hand to heal it and his HP returned to full.
"Wait WHAT THE HELL!!!" Tupac shouted and the beasts that had been close by jumped back and scurried away from them. He sniffed the air and he could still smell a human in front of him.
"Ok now I am not only impressed but we need to get you more of these powers because I want to see what more you can do. Tell me what is your most powerful ability?" Tupac was gleeful in his speech making Andrei want to show him just to keep him excited. So he figured why not "Final Form: Rage" and all his freckles lit up. What Andrei didn't know was Tupac had seen this ability once before and dropped to a knee.
"Forgive me lord, I did not know of your return." Tupac looked apologetic and had his head down.
"What the hell are you doing now?" As Andrei looked at the vampire kneeling in front of him.
"You don't even know who you are yet do you?" Tupac questioned Andrei. Now that was starting to get annoying to hear about everyone knowing who he was but he had no idea.
"Will someone please explain to me why I keep getting that kind of reaction!" Andrei pleaded with Prince in his head and Tupac in front of him but neither knew how to say it.
Tupac stood there looking for the words to say till finally "Your presence means there is imbalance in the galaxy and that the powerful need to be culled. That is on you and I will not be one to stop you, I will help you in any way I can. It's been a long time since I have seen you, old friend. If I remember right you just have to keep finding more people to increase your powers as you can only get one at a time from an individual, is that still the case?"
Andrei's jaw was on the floor, Tupac just explained "Skill Sap" better than he could have thought to say it to anyone. He stuttered in his response but got it out "Y-yes, that is still the case"
Tupac looked him over and thought about what to do about the fact that he was smelling human. He finally asked "What if I bring some vampires here to spar with you, how long would it take to learn our abilities?" Andrei had no idea how to respond to that, only thinking about needing to be back in 2 daysish.
"I need to be back in two days, how many vampires could I learn from and how many abilities do you guys have?" Andrei responded. Tupac looked at him blankly as he was calculating that information in his head. Then he tried to think of who would be cool enough to come and spar for a moment to then teach Andrei an ability.
"The 10 Counts of Dracula have 10 unique abilities to each of them and their descendants. Those 10 unique abilities also vary in their strengths as there are abilities that have lots of different options to specialize in. We also have Death Knights that are the security force of the empire, I am one of those. We have many unique abilities as well."
"You personally took my Blood Dagger ability, might I add that it looks cooler than mine." Tupac smiled at Andrei when making this comment. "Give me 20 hours and I will be back to this castle with 100 vampires, succubus, ghouls, demons, and fairies. Be prepared to learn them and leave as I will not be able to explain how the human in front of them is getting more and more powerful if you show them even one of the abilities. I will gather them to experience your presence in which they will want to meet a God."
Andrei just stood there as Tupac walked back towards the vampire empire. Did he just say 100 new powers tomorrow to learn from but then I need to retreat which he must assume I can portal, Andrei pondered. He looked at one of the beasts in front of him and shot out a "Blood Dagger" which pierced its arms that it had put up to defend itself. It screeched out and leapt at Andrei.
Andrei remembered that the head being chopped off and then being chewed up by the clone meant that he needed to go for head shots or neck shots with these daggers. The initial daggers that had shot out were going off straight like an arrow, now that he was thinking of chopping off the head at the neck they spun out of his palm right away. Tupac had turned around to see the fight to see what would happen and the moment he saw that he just smiled and gave a hearty laugh and continued to walk off.
"Use these guys to get stronger, tomorrow you will learn more than you can imagine" Andrei thought to himself and he gave the command for them to attack one at a time to the "Crazed". Andrei noticed when he chopped off the head of the first one only one turned to him and started to attack. He found it odd but was thankful so continued to use his new attack that needed to hit the neck or head. These beasts were acting like training dummies and Andrei was enjoying it.
He then told Fluffy's clone to fetch the blood cores from each after their deaths. LaLa jumped and tested the closest head while there were multiple that had died. She looked at it and stuck out its tongue and tasted the blood core that was exposed, it appeared she could just pull out the blood core with her mind as the blood core appeared out of the head in front of LaLa's face. She then swallowed the core and it appeared in Andrei's inventory.
Andrei was attacking them more and more efficiently and it did not take long for "Blood Dagger" to level up. He decided to go with "Blood Bat" to see if it was offensive or defensive. Blood Boil seemed to be offensive and he kept that for last.
[Skill leveled up: "Blood Dagger" LVL 2]
["Blood Dagger" ejects larger daggers that go further. Effective range of 10 yards.]
[-3 HP per use]
[New Skill learned: "Blood Bat" LVL 1]
["Blood Bat" which summons a bat of blood that will circle the user and defend and attack threats within 3 yards of the user.]
[-10 HP per use]
He decided to see what two of these would look like and what -20 HP just from summoning them would do to his passive. Sure enough his passive triggered and the bats of blood had risen from his shoulders and the pouch let out a small amount of green Focaine that quickly regenerated his shoulders.
He watched as his HP was full within 20 seconds and thus figured it was 1 HP a second to regenerate. The blood bats flew around him then settled on his shoulders and appeared to just stand guard. He couldn't even feel them as they felt weightless so he moved forward as the next beast was many yards away now that many had fallen.
Andrei didn't even attack and just waited for the bats to do their thing and sure enough when the beast was about to claw at Andrei they both shot out and sliced the claws off both arms. Then went straight for the neck and chopped the head clean off, returning to his shoulders.
They fought another one but like before the beasts were figuring out his attacks. Both blood bats ended up getting killed in the next fight and Andrei realized he needed to use them efficiently not just rely on them. He also summoned four of them this time and backed away from his next opponent while he waited for his HP to return.
This time he sent out a "Blood Dagger" to chop off its leg and in doing so caused the beast to bend over which left its neck open for an attack from the bats. It made short work of the beast with the bats returning to their perch on his shoulders.
He continued on through the rest of the beasts making short work out of them. Not sure what to do but knowing he was going to get a major boost in what he now realized was 15 hours he headed back to the castle he originally ported to.
[Level 8 achieved: +1 Skill stat allotted +1 HP +5 Spirit]
[Skill leveled up: "Blood Bat" LVL 2]
["Blood Bat" can now be used as a "Blood Dart". Summoned blood bat can be sent to an opponent within 10 yards, increased size of blood bat.]
[New Skill unlocked: "Blood Boil" LVL 1]
["Blood Boil" is a curse to the blood of the opponent that will make them itch and will re-expose any wounds not fully healed. Lasts 30 seconds, has less effect the more it's used on the same opponent]
Andrei was thinking about all that he had learned in what was really an extremely short time that he wasn't really getting far with anything but he was learning so much.
He was thinking about how he learned his final form and the feeling when he concentrated on his Zii as Jojo had called it. He had remembered he thought he saw more than just that energy so he sat down in the center of the first empty room from the broken opening and concentrated on that feeling.
He calmly meditated on the feeling and soon he could see the light that was synonymous with his final form. Then he noticed there were swirls of energy that weren't the light but were the colors of the elements.
He started to concentrate on the fire element red and swirling energy started to gather together and it formed this little tiny dragon. The dragon roared but it was so small all Andrei kept thinking about was how cute it was and it reminded him of Mini.
He felt like he might have figured something out so he thought of the water element and the blue energy swirling around and formed a small wolf. His thoughts shifted to lightning and the shape of the swirling energy changed into a yellow cat which threw Andrei completely off.
He shifted to Wind and the swirling energy became a white eagle. Focusing on Nature created a green python which surprised Andrei just as much as the cat did. He didn't know what they meant but then he remembered he knew another element and it was swirling around still.
The crimson red formed into a bat similar to his blood bat. They all seemed small and then something crazy happened. His image of all of them changed as the rage energy was in the center and then the rest started to move around the perimeter in a circle around the rage.
He could now see that the wolf was the largest and he figured that had to correlate to the fact it was the highest level ability he had.
He came out of his mind on the energies and checked to see if he had new abilities and at least there wasn't any notifications. He then checked the Zii tab and saw greyed out Final Form for each of the elements. Says reach level 100 in each element to unlock.
He realized he needed to teach all of Death Squad Zii so that they would be the most elite unit possible. Jojo had told him that few knew of this, it made Andrei sad that it was held a secret as it seemed like it would make everyone more powerful.
Andrei searched the castle and came across rooms with old beds that had not been touched in ages. He settled on one of them and closed his eyes. He had set an alarm for 30 minutes before they were due back so he could make sure he was up and ready to go. Hearing his alarm clock he bolted up with a sense of purpose he had never felt before.
Andrei was actually nervous because he was about to meet 100 strangers that were different races to anything the Galactic Federation had enlisted. What troubled Andrei the most is that he was going to have to learn a lot but also not sure how to explain his new abilities to anyone else.
Andrei decided fully geared with pets out on full display would make the biggest impression on the strangers. Prince and LaLa stood on each side of him with Fluffy and clone standing on Prince's side and Burny and clone standing on LaLa's side. They stood in the open field just outside of the castle grounds waiting for the oncoming party.
A distant rumble could be heard and as it got closer it was a combination of both lots of beings talking as well as simply removing the vegetation out of the way by some of the larger beings in the group. Tupac was in front and when they were just outside of Andrei's sphere of influence Tupac turned around and gave the following commands.
"You will not speak to him, you will walk up to me when I get closer, when you reach me you will think about sparring with him for 5 seconds then think of it no more. You will feel his presence leave you when you think to spar and then you will feel it come back when you stop thinking about it." Tupac was quite assertive in his voice and they all looked at him with respect knowing that he could kill all of them as he was the leader of the Death Knights.
Tupac turned around with a smile and walked to 15 yards away from Andrei, when he stopped before turning he gave a bow and said "My Lord". Andrei wasn't a fan of this but decided not to make a scene in front of everyone.
They trickled in one at a time and Andrei would "Skill Sap" them. He felt a weird pain in his chest and he dropped to a knee for a moment. This action caused Tupac to glance at him then he yelled out "Everyone who hasn't stepped into her presence do so now and think of sparring him. Andrei lift your ass up and concentrate!" Tupac rushed over to Andrei quicker than Andrei could even see him move and lifted him to his feet then went back to his position, the act made Andrei realize how quickly he would have been defeated if they fought.
Andrei had closed his eyes from the pain but forced them open and then saw all the health bars in front of him. He thought "Skill Sap" as quickly as he could and the pain intensified in his chest and it now felt like he was going to explode from within. He was positive he was going to die the pain was so immense, he was positive he had sapped the last succubus so he then thought "Portal Goliath" and he was instantly transported to the Focaine bath in his chambers.
Tupac was standing there with a smile on his face, he could smell the changes happening to Andrei and was pretty positive he could smell him change into a Count right before being ported out of the situation. Tupac knew what was going on to Andrei despite Andrei having no idea. He then looked at all the souls in front of him who were now disappointed because they couldn't figure out what just happened.
They were told they were going to meet a god and nothing about that seemed like meeting a god. Tupac looked them up and down and decided this was too much of a hassle to deal with and proceeded to kill them all. Once the last was dead he whistled a fierce whistle that traveled a great distance. Not long after a pack of demons that consumed flesh arrived and cleaned up the dead. They had their fill and headed back to their den that they were kept in.