More Assassins? Really?

I spent the next few hours filling up more of the nexus points in my body. I was able to get up to 128 filled nexus points. What was I filling them with? Life essence, of course. A more condensed liquid form of it. Life essence entered the body in a gaseous form, but through meditation and intense concentration I could transform it into other states of matter.

The system informed me that the nexus points and their connecting tubes would eventually be used to channel and harness Vi, but the liquid life essence was the fuel the Vi would be created from. I wasn't in the Vi Condensation Stage yet. I was preparing for it.

After a few hours had passed, Victoria burst into the room and closed the door. "I talked to the Elder Ravenkin. He said he would look into the assassination attempts, but aside from giving you bodyguards, he had no ability to prevent vampire families from sending assassins after you."

"Why did you burst in here?" I said.

"I'm getting to that. He gave me some bodyguards to take to you, but assassins attacked us on the way here. The bodyguards were killed, and I made a run for it. I could've handled at least a few of them myself, but there were too many of them," she said.

"Is the door going to hold up? Couldn't they just break in here?" I said.

"They'd have to be very strong to do that. The doors and walls are reinforced against unwanted entry," she said.

"How many were there? We might be able to handle them if we work together," I said.

"About twenty," she said. "We might be able to handle them, sure. Or we could stay in here forever."

"Funny," I said. "Seriously, though. We should try to take them out."

I handed her a sword from the three I took from the assassins. I pulled the remaining two out of their scabbards. I yanked the door open and stepped out of the doorway. Two assassins came falling into the room. Apparently, they had been trying to break the door down.

I chucked the two swords I was holding at them. They stuck in their backs. I peeked around the door and didn't see any assassins immediately trying to get in, so I closed the door and walked over to the assassins on the floor.

I pulled the swords out and stabbed them back in a few times until I was sure they were dead. Then I chopped their heads off. I wasn't sure what killed a vampire at this point, but I'd always heard head-chopping was a surefire way. I had forgotten that with the assassins in the hall earlier.

I grabbed their swords as well as the ones I was holding and held three in my left hand and one in my right. I peeked out of the door into the hallway. I looked left and right.

I was surprised to find that all the assassins were huddled up on the side of the hallway to the left of my room door. A ways back too. They looked to have crossbows out though. Not good for me.

I put my arm around the corner of the doorframe and threw a sword at the huddled up group of assassins. I got one in the chest, and he fell over. I threw the three remaining swords and hit one assassin every time.

Then I jumped out into the corridor and activated my daze ability. I zigzagged down the hallway as I ran towards the assassins. I twisted and spun and jumped to avoid the crossbow bolts. One of them still hit me in the thigh. I ripped it out and jumped onto the closest assassin and stabbed them through the eye with it.

Then I pulled out my sword and just started stabbing and slashing wildly. I took a few more out before I got filled with bolts like a pin cushion. They all tried to reload though, and my daze ability made them fumble and drop their bolts. While they were trying to pick them up, I methodically stabbed each of them in the stomach and chopped their heads off.

[… Life essence extracted. You have broken through to level 8 of the Major Vampire Lord Realm]

After I had finished chopping the heads off all the bodies, I put my sword away and grabbed the crossbows and bolts of the assassins. I threw them in my room and grabbed Victoria.

I pulled the bolts out of my body as we walked. I watched the wounds heal right before my eyes. Well, vampiric regeneration worked, so that was a plus.

"Is there a place we can train?" I said. "I need to get stronger, fast. If the lead elder can't help us with the assassins, I just need to be stronger and preferably faster than them. And some more abilities would be nice."

"Well, the monster habitat system works down here too. I could throw some more monsters at you," Victoria said.

"That sounds good. I assume you only have unintelligent monsters at your disposal," I said.

"Yeah, the sects have a treaty where we aren't allowed to keep members of any of the sects prisoner. Trolls aren't included in that because they've never formed a sect. Probably don't have the organizational skills for it," Victoria said.

"Makes sense," I said, remembering my troll opponent wasn't the smartest creature I'd ever met. "This time I want you to throw another troll at me but I want a torch or something with fire. I have an idea."

Victoria led me to a large building in the corner of the complex. When we entered it, I saw that 80 percent of the room was monster habitat and 20 percent was outside of it.

I entered the airlock and walked through the other side. "Troll me," I said. I had a duffel bag full of molotov cocktails and a couple lighters. I brought a backup in case I dropped the first one.

Victoria opened her mouth like she was going to make a joke, but then she decided against it and just released the troll.