CH32: Vampires

The pounding of hooves almost drowned out his own guilty thoughts. Phillip left his cross behind because he didn't want God to see what he would do. Wild men did evil deeds outside the eyes of polite society, and Phillip would say he was wild from time to time. The savages had to be cleared to make way for his people, and someone had to put the fear of God and King into them.

His throat was too dry. Swallowing wasn't a problem, but he felt chaffing from his throat and needed a drink. Water tasted like piss, and fresh blood tasted too good. It's one of the reasons he signed up for the raid. After he was turned, some rules were established quickly, along with the punishments for breaking them. Phillip didn't want to get staked in front of the sun like his friend Jimmy.

"But thou still drank my blood." A whisper of his friend sang in his pointed ear.

The sun burned like the worst sunburn imaginable. It wasn't bad if he wore enough clothes, but Jimmy had been stripped naked. On the third day, his mate begged him to finish the job. If someone had found Jimmy staked, questions would have been asked, and Phillip was too thirsty. Animal blood didn't do it for him always it tasted like mud, but Jimmy's blood was fire.

"Be quiet, Jimmy, thou art dead." He took the last of his friend into him to make sure he put a few drops of his own blood into the wound to heal it. A trick Jimmy taught him to not get caught feeding on the townspeople. Jimmy didn't like animal blood any better than he did; that's why he was caught.

It was a shame after Jimmy was caught, a few of the boys said they were breaking off of Mr. Penn and his rules, and Phillip wanted some blood that didn't taste like mud. Still, he remembered how hot Jimmy's blood had been and wondered if the blood of the boys he road with tasted like that.

They headed west, where a few long houses of the Delaware savages held up for the winter. Phillip felt his mouth water at the thought of some fresh blood. The savages were said to be stacked in those houses like hogs for slaughter.

He sucked on his teeth; they had sharpened recently, and he couldn't wait to test them. They stopped their horses about half a mile from where he could smell them. He remembered seeing a shark take a man on the great crossing who jumped ship when land came into view. The monster's eyes were black and merciless. Phillip bet his eyes had the same gleam in them.

"Phil, don't go feeding when we get in; we want to make them last. Remember, break their arms or choke them out. Mayhap club them no the head if thou need to but don't spill blood until we got them under control boss's orders." Ronald, a bastard son of a catholic priest, said.

The man was the Boss's second and was offered the blood before him. Rumor had it the Boss, and Ronald had it fresh from the beast. They were special, unlike Phil and Jimmy, who had it secondhand. Soldiers talked, and the talk said those who got it fresh were stronger than those turned secondhand. Phil wanted to taste it and see if drinking it from their veins would make him as strong.

They were the wind at night, moving and standing too light to make prints in the snow. Phillip saw the sentry was awake, but the savage failed to see the Boss before the sentry was in a sleeper hold. The vampire watched the man pass out without a sound as he made a move.

While the Boss was a physical type while Phillip had gained something from Jimmy. He raised a clawed digit up to the sentinel's face, and the man was entranced. Phil could feel his will enter the man's mind and, with a word, sent the man to open a door for them.

Phillip was drooling in anticipation as Ronald slipped almost invisibly through the door when it was opened. In the dark, Boss's second acted, doing what Phil did on a wider scale. Before long, a few strong-looking warriors and some fine-looking savage William made their way out with glazed-over eyes. The door was shut, and they gathered around the prey.

"Thou know the rules. The Boss decides who gets what since he's the leader. If thou manage to not kill thy prey, thou can exchange them." Ronald said.

Phillip had his eyes on a woman with almond eyes and big milky breasts. He bet they were warm and fun to play with while he fed. Then again, she had nice wide hips, and he could feel the warmth bleeding off of her. She wasn't cold like him, always cold and hungry for warmth. Touching her would be like fire.

Her nipples were already standing on end from the cold, and he wanted her sweet hot blood. The vampire opened his mouth and felt his jaws stretch for a satisfying bite.

A body blow from Boss knocked him to his senses. "We want to make them last. Drink them dry, and thou will have to drink animal blood until we find another village. The rest of the longhouse art mine." Boss said.

"Feed gently, and thou can change them out to keep our food alive," Ronald said.

The rest of the gang didn't like the sound of that. It must have been another difference between those who fed from the beast and those like him who were secondhand. It's why Jimmy had to die and why he had to leave Mr. Penn's service. Phil could tell those who fed from the source wouldn't understand the plight of those remade by the blood secondhand.

…

A storm approached from the north with a familiar feel to it. In the cultivation world, storms could gain sapience through the Dao's that naturally composed them. The formation of such a storm was a sign that the world's spiritual energy had increased enough to support such an existence.

It was a few weeks away, and he wanted to make a journey to the land where he fought Oscar when the storm arrived. With his Dao Eye and the storm's inexperience with sapience, he could potentially gain some Dao Insight from it.

A Dao insight was binding a piece of the universe's natural laws onto himself.

He had made some progress with space and could feel a minor insight form. These insights were needed to reach higher cultivation heights after the initial 3 realms.

He had prepared a new immortal's cave to fully prepare for it. It was a dug-out room on the side of a hill filled with poorly formed spirit stones. They slowly diffused their spiritual energy into the air making the cave ideal for classic breathing style cultivation. It would help him cultivate his lungs and reach the next stage of the first realm.

Silas had already surpassed pre-natal or the realm between mortal and the natal. The natal realm was all about cultivating his organs to handle spiritual energy. It started with cultivating his heart and ended with cultivating his brain. Each step costs a bit more spiritual energy than the last. As he cultivated his cultivated organs world naturally absorbed more spiritual energy. To somewhat bypass the resource need, he used a breathing technique to push the spiritual energy into his lungs for cultivation.

He focused on breathing, sucking in the pure spiritual energy in the air and holding it in his lungs. At the same time, he cultivated them with spirit energy. When he exhaled, he broke into a coughing fit, spitting black gunk on the ground. Those were impurities.

With his veins and heart, he naturally transported the impurities out of his system using his body's natural functions. His lungs were different. If he didn't get rid of those impurities, they would sit in his lungs and damage his cultivation in the future.

He gave a week to the process before the last of his imperfect stones finally crumbled, and the spiritual energy diffusing into the air was used up. By the time he left the cave, he was halfway into the 2nd stage of the natal realm and felt good. While his lungs hadn't been fully cultivated, they were clearly on their way.

Dotty waited for him outside his cave, keeping anyone, even his concubines, from disturbing him. When he emerged, he felt the difference between them and felt satisfied. Silas might not have advanced a whole stage, but he was stronger than Dotty. The spirit beast was eating well, but they were the slow and steady type unless they bonded with a cultivator and fed on cultivation materials.

Unfortunately, he couldn't stay with her for long. After a week of cultivation, his yang energy had built up and needed a release. Silas couldn't think about the Dao and needed to get his dick wet.

"Thou could use me." Dotty joked.

Spirit beasts were very peculiar about their sexual partners and what they mixed their bloodlines with. But, of course, they were also horny all the time, multiplying their normal animal desires with the sexual need of humanity. So when they were in season, it was best to get away if he didn't want to get raped or fight for dominance.

Besides that, while Dotty clearly had curves, they weren't what he wanted, maybe if it was a few more weeks between sexual encounters.

"Do thou have a moment?" Eugene asked, stopping him from getting what he needed.

"Sure," Silas said.

"I need thee to sign off on the construction of a mill. With the amount of wheat we have planned, it only makes sense to build a mill to grind it ourselves."

Silas signed off after reading the paper to make sure it was what Eugene said it was. They had taken to writing down planned building projects to keep track of everything. Like the spirit stone factory, some of the flesh puppets were running.

They were, in a sense, printing gold. Only the gold they were printing could be cultivated and used up. Silas had begun working on a primitive computer made from formations to see to keep a tab on all spirit stones they made and those used up. It was a work in progress, but when they became the currency of the land, he would be well ahead of the game.

He absently rubbed Dotty's flank feeling her silky fur squeeze between his fingers. She would need spirit stones, too, if she wanted to get stronger quickly. Their growing bond would help them reach greater heights by relying on each other. Silas could feel her desires sometimes, and they sobered him up.

Knowing her nature and not acting on it hurt her, and she started probing him to see if he was willing. It was insanity, but he understood she wanted a sign before she went all in. Their awkwardness was actually hurting both of their cultivation. Silas knew he needed to get over himself; she was a spirit beast, but he had lived two lives in normal worlds.

She was a mature adult and could make her own decisions. Dotty looked like an odd mix of horse and human that somehow tipped over into the cute side of the uncanny valley. Her mind was fully sapient, and not accepting or outright denying her advances left them in limbo.

He didn't know what to do. Silas had long ago fallen into degeneracy to the point her body didn't turn him off. The bond didn't help; it made him want to have sexual relations with her. The only thing holding him back was damaging their relationship. At the moment, they were master and horse, she carried him from place to place, and he wouldn't have sex with his car.

Silas decided that he needed to clear his mind, or his sexual desires would get him into trouble. The only thing holding him back was the ghost of the old world and an ancient book that haunted two of his lives.