CH40 or 58-63

On my return, the first thing I did was check the calendar on my phone to see how long I had been gone in Earth time. 7 days had passed, and all the missed calls from work appeared on my phone. I was probably fired. Getting another job like I had probably wouldn't be a good idea. I could be gone months and come back only for decades later. My mother and father could die, never knowing where I went. If I was going to keep doing this, I needed to be careful.

Outside it was still mid-April, the night air was cool, and over my shoulder, Earth's singular moon shined bright and nostalgic. Finally, I was home, and I could eat all the junk food I wanted. While I was out of a job, money didn't feel like a problem; I could trade SP for cash to be transferred to my Patreon account and my bank through PayPal. There was an app I could use to launder my transfer through numerous dummy accounts to imitate Patreon subscribers. Of course, after that, I would have to file 1099 every year.

I didn't immediately summon Elorael and Samael from their cards; there was something I needed to do first. I booted up the pizza hut app and ordered a supreme, meat lovers, and three topping sausage, mushroom, and extra cheese, all stuffed crust. Then I went to my taco bell app and ordered a 12 pack of Cinnabon, the current box, and several packs of nacho fries. Once the orders were set, I ran into my trailer and searched for the keys. The door was unlocked, and I usually kept it unlocked. I was far into the country where break-ins didn't happen.

I loaded into my pickup with my keys in hand and spun my tires out of my driveway with my windows rolled down. My long dark hair and beard danced in the wind as I sped down a gravel road. Even if I could have gotten out and run faster, there was something wholesome about bringing my pickup to 60mph.

"Thank you, come again," a bored Pizza Hut employee said with an exaggerated country draw. Honestly, I never noticed how country they or I sounded before. Elvish was a very musical-sounding language, and despite my translator, I eventually picked it up. But unfortunately, there were no accents in the language. So if I pronounced something wrong, it meant something else, and I looked like a fool because of my blunder.

I picked up my food, took a back road to a light near the local Bops, and returned to the highway going back home. I could almost forget about the last seven and a half months. The world felt fake; one wrong move and I could destroy everything around me. To take my mind off of something so real, I turned up my music to the proper volume of ear-shattering loud and jammed on my way home.

At a red light, I looked myself over in my mirror. My red lensed shades fit snug on my head, peaking through a mop of black hair, making my paper white skin and somewhat glowing skin-pop. I hadn't bothered to shave my head since going to the other world, and my hair grew shaggy and long. If not for my beard, I could fit in with the latest cast of final fantasy characters. But, while my beard could stay, the hair on my head needed to go.

Just as the light turned green, a blue light flashed in my mirror. "Fuck," I said and pulled past the light.

It had been months, and only now did I remember that one of my brake lights was cracked. That explained why I was being stopped. I fished out my license and couldn't find my insurance card; my chest compressed with an all too familiar fear. But I didn't panic; I searched my glovebox to see mice had built a home and shredded all the paper, including my card. Then, with a heavy sigh, I veered to the side of the road and prepared for the song and dance. To be friendly, I even took my shades off only to see glowing blue eyes in my mirror. So, the shades had to stay on at night.

After preparing my anus for anything, I killed my engine.

The man was clean-shaven and looked like a clerk one hour away from clocking out. I tapped my fingers against my steering wheel, confident he couldn't see it through the tint and inch of pollen on my back window. But, honestly, I was surprised I saw the blue lights.

"Do you know why I pulled you over, sir?" The officer asked. It was a familiar phrase I've heard a dozen times.

"My back left light is out, sir," I said.

"So you were driving with the light out even though it's dangerous."

"There is red tape on the light."

That was the wrong thing to say. The man straightened up and leaned against my window to make himself look big and intimidating. "I've seen you drive with that same tape for months. You need to get it replaced at your earliest opportunity. Take off your shades."

A flashlight in the officer's hand moved over to my pizza hut and taco bell. "That's a lot of food." The officer pulled out his radio and walked behind my truck. He opened the truck bed cover and rummaged through the mess before dropping it back down.

Taking off my glasses would only raise more questions. Fighting him was an option, but I didn't have any other way to negotiate with the officer. He had power over me as an officer of the law. Our society was happy to give men power over others with a badge and gun. Maybe it was just sour grapes. I always had a problem with rules not being followed or notable exceptions being given to others. Justice was an ideal I believed in, but I understood there was a limited supply of it in this world.

My Earth felt dead; I couldn't feel any qi from the man or anything around for miles. From what I could tell, the world was devoid of qi, and that was normal qi probably didn't exist before in any form. This world wasn't the same as Xion. But the qi in me hasn't vanished, and it continued to increase over time. The potions I took still hadn't run their course.

PL252

But was I bulletproof or just tough? Finding that out the hard way didn't appeal to me. I was like a kid who acts out with his friends but behaves under his parents' gaze.

My body was truly superhuman as far as I could tell. I could tank damage that would kill ordinary people with no damage and heal from terrible injuries, including impalement. Still, I didn't want to test a bullet to the head; anywhere else would be fine. A grin stretched across.

The officer returned, and I continued being polite to move this along. "Sir, I'm very hungry. Will this take much longer?" I said.

The officer narrowed his eyes. "Step out of the care, sir, and remove your glasses." I stared at the cars passing me by and knew just killing the officer wasn't an option. Yea, killing an officer of the law wasn't something I would have given much thought to before I gained power. But power gives more options, and I didn't want to take anything off the table. This was how I always thought; my first reaction was the most direct method to end the confrontation. Killing the officer was the most direct, but there were numerous consequences.

If I had just kept my mouth shut, we would be nearly done now, and all I would have to worry about was a ticket. I could go on my way, eat, sleep in my own bed, and then worry about the ticket the next day. Maybe I could convince the court office clerk to get rid of the ticket. It worked before. I closed my eyes, took my glasses off, and opened them to stare at the officer.

"Oh, nice contacts. I was expecting bloodshot eyes. Where did you get contacts that glowed in the dark?"

"Wish," I said. The officer nodded as another squad car drove up. I stepped out of my truck just as the other officer made his way over with a drug dog. I debated just killing them as quickly as I could for a moment. Elves couldn't keep up with me when I was much weaker. These guys probably wouldn't be able to stop me. I amended my thoughts to just breaking a few bones and stealing their guns.

Something pungent filled and air, and it smelled like blood. Not the hot, powerful blood of a god but something sickly sweet, wild, and hungry. The sticky sweet scent rolled off the 6ft 2inches black man. It wasn't natural, that was for sure. Humans smelled more earthy mixed with sweat and deodorant.

The dog sniffed around my truck in the front and back seat but found nothing. If I did drugs well, I had an inventory; why would I keep them in my truck. They checked my backseat as well to nothing. It's great that there weren't any drugs, the dog barked.

I turned to see an officer pull a bottle of something from an old bag of concrete in my truck bed. My attention turned back to the officer in front of me. "If you don't put those drugs back in your pocket, you're not going to have a good time."

"You have the right to re," my blow tore through his chest and out the side of his torso. The man froze as his lungs inflated out of his control, blood gushed out as his heart beat, and his mouth opened and closed like a dying fish. Screams from someone passing by woke me up from my violence. I stared down at my hand.

Not a drop of blood stained my hand; I had moved too quickly. Instead, blood from the officer touched my shoes. For a moment, I understood that I had gone too far. They had planted evidence but maybe punching a hole through their chests wasn't the appropriate response.

Something small flattened against my temple and fell into my shirt pocket. My eyes narrowed, and that fleeting feeling of remorse welled into my chest like post-nut clarity vanished.

I heard a bang resound as I walked towards the first squad car. Another bullet impacted my chest, flattened, and fell to the concrete. I grabbed the front bumper of the squad car; the metal squealed as I flipped it over onto the cop. Some of the cars slowed down to watch me and record my actions on their phones.

The officer tried to dodge the falling squad car, but he tripped over his dog, and his legs were pinned. "You can't do this; there are rules against your kind exposing themselves." My gaze fell on him, and I remained silent. "We can still work something out. Free me and give me some of your blood, and I'll talk to my master." I continued to stare at the man. "Come on, you can't expose the truth and get away with it; you need me."

The dog leaped at me, and I stepped to the side and gave it a light shove sending it flying off the road down the hill. It screamed once as it disappeared amongst the trees.

"You've given me a lot to think about," I said and stomped down on the man's head. Brains and bone splattered against my foot in a gruesome sight that made me want to wretch. I turned away and pulled my corpse collector card from my inventory. Both officers' bodies vanished into the card.

I walked over to the passenger side of my truck and put my pizzas and taco bell in my inventory. A sigh escaped my lips; all I wanted was a nice night, which was ruined. For a moment, I closed my eyes, then sighed again. Ok, first I would return home, then I would say high to my brother. I picked up my truck, stashed it in my inventory, swiped the cop's keys, and tossed his squad car in my inventory.

People were taking pictures and videos of me as I revealed more of what I could do. Honestly, this was bad, but there was a men in black or some other shadowy organization who could hide this incident. So I put my sunglasses back on and started running.

Blue lights appeared behind me along with the red lights of ambulances as I leaped into a twisted patch of kudzu and shot up high over the trees. Horses awoke as I landed and screamed as I shot across their field into a thicket of trees. My accelerations increased, and the woods blurred around me as I dodged trees and animals. As I passed, deer leaped up in the air, and raccoons fell out of trees. The lights dimmed in the distance as I jumped again and barely felt the chill of the night air. Finally, I landed in a cow pasture and shot across the field. A bull woke up and charged but soon fell behind while I picked up speed for a final leap. I landed under the blooming pear trees in my front yard and walked inside.

I grabbed the essentials the pillow made from one of my grandfather's shirts, my DVD collection, games, and systems, and finally, my computer. Once all those items were collected, it was time to head south to my brother's house in North Mississippi near the Natchez trace. I only had to worry about my cellphone at that point.

"Message, can other people track my cellphone," I asked.

"There are beings in your world who can track your qi, but none can track your cellphone while I inhabit it." Message said.

I sighed in relief, then went to my bathroom and started shaving my head. There was no sense in looking like a crazy person who just killed two men. Then again, I looked nothing like myself before I went to Xion. Once my head was nice and smooth, I trimmed my beard down to only a few inches long instead of the foot in length it had been.

Once that was done, I ran and didn't look back. I didn't know how long it would be before I was identified or what my brother would do when he found out. Harboring a fugitive could get him in trouble, but I didn't plan to stay with him that long. I needed time to eat my junk food then plan my next move. There wouldn't be any more challenges until I went to my next world. I could go to a later timeline in Xion's history or choose a random world based on magic or cultivation. Then there was that strange smell I noticed. I wanted to find out what that was.

…

The wolf howl echoed through the air a few miles out, and I pulled a full stop. Dirt exploded around me as I dug my feet into the hard ground. My back broke out into a cold sweat, and I started shaking uncontrollably. It felt like I walked from my truck to the house every dark night after a scary movie. All my childhood delusions came back all at once with one thing to say: something was out to get me in the dark. As the dirt settled on the ground, I instinctually sensed any qi signatures. I wanted to kick myself because there were none on this planet wind rushed past my back as I twisted out of the way of a clawed hand glinting ivory under the moonlight.

My inventory hotkey activated out of instinct as I was already swinging mid-dodge. With its obsidian blade, my ax appeared just in time to bury itself to the wood in werewolf fur, only to shatter when it connected. A spear 9ft long appeared in my left hand as I stabbed forward, already unequipping the ax for a short spear with a metal tip. Again, my obsidian tip shattered against the black beast's fur, and my steel-tipped blade curled when I stabbed forward. Red eyes glowed as the man's fur-covered body elongated, putting the man from the balls of his feet to his toes to tower over me by a good 3ft.

Even as my body shook and my fight or flight response kept leaning closer to flight as each of my weapons broke on the werewolf's fur, I could tell the beast wasn't doing so hot either. A smile spread across my bearded face as I changed out the hotkeys in my inventory. For now, I held off drawing my god steel blade and reached for a log with a handle bolted on its side. Of course, Samael would never consider my throw-away logs a successful weapon due to all the hot spots on the handle. But 60ft trees with ends sharpened to a point aren't meant to be wielded by ordinary men.

The black portal of my inventory opened; I gripped the bolted-on handle and pulled. Within my inventory, gravity meant nothing. So when the werewolf saw six feet of point rushing towards me, I knew the bastard was panicked.

I watched the werewolf transform more as the spear fired from my inventory. The creature's head looked like a mutated mix of wolf, man, and steroids. Its chest rippled with growing mass, and even with all the weight of a 60ft log behind it, the bastard's pelt wasn't pierced.

I sucked in a breath and sighed; I was doing that a lot lately. Power was relative, as it turned out. There were many types of power, and one was being good at tanking sharp and piercing weapons. My racing heart still hadn't calmed down, and I wanted to watch some anime and eat pizza. When were anime and pizza too much to ask for?

From my inventory, I pulled on my silver ape coat. By itself, it wouldn't stop those claws, but Samael added some steel plates for the interwoven pockets lining the coat. That should offer me some protection.

After squeezing my gloved hands to make sure they fit snugly, I approached the wolf. "If you are the victim of circumstance and just a mindless creature overcome by a curse, I apologize for what's about to happen. But, unfortunately, I'm out of options to give you a clean death. Now, my only choice is to beat you until you can't move." I said.

The monster flexed its claws. "Good luck with that meat. I don't care what kind of magic you know," my uppercut forced the creature to bite its tongue. Its body lifted off the ground, and I caught its mishappen leg.

"Where do you think you're going. That one was just a love tap; let me show you what I can do." I said and twisted, using my hips and shoulders to slam the werewolf hard into the ground. My foot lashed out and smashed the creature in the guts, and I felt my foot sink in and the ground around my stomp shattered like a buried quarter stick of TNT went off. The werewolf's arms and chest shot up while its head lagged. Its eyes were still open, but no one was home. I pulled my foot back, leaving the pattern of the bottom of my shoe and the vessi logo on the monster's stomach.

"You sure are a tough son of a bitch." I smiled at my own joke. "Traditionally, silver killed werewolves, but I don't have any, so you'll have to settle for being beaten until you're unrecognizable," I said.

The werewolf's chest slowly rose and fell. "You won't get away with this; this land belongs to my pack; our alpha will destroy you." The werewolf said.

"So, what you're saying is your kind can get stronger," I said.

"Are you scared now, wizard? No matter what you did to increase your physical strength, you'll never match an alpha." The werewolf said.

Just when things were starting to get good, I got a call. "Sorry, I got to take this," I said, and the werewolf stared at me with incredulity.

"Red, where are you right now? You said you were on your way."

"Near Egypt Mississippi or give or take a few miles, why?" I asked.

"There was a terrorist attack near the Walmart where you live. Two police officers are dead, and Youtube is deleting any account with a video of what's going on. Even the alt sites are being scrubbed." Blue said.

"Damn, man, that sounds crazy. I'll talk to you more about it when I get to your house traffic is rough where I'm at." I said.

"Alright, just get ready for mom to call you," Blue said.

I said my goodbyes and hung up the phone. The werewolf had made it a few feet but hadn't managed to move its feet after I stomped him. I retrieved my log and tossed it back into the gaping black portal of my inventory. Then my phone rang again.

"Hey, mom, I'm just passing through Egypt to Blue's house. I'm fine, don't worry." So I said the second she answered.

"Well, ok, but text me when you get there; I haven't heard from you in a week." My mother said.

I checked the time, and dad was probably asleep. He was a trucker, and he normally pulled over around this time.

A stick snapped, and I followed the sound to see my attacker. The werewolf continued to struggle as its body slowly regenerated from my beating. Really it was impressive if not for its body eating itself. All that energy to regenerate had to come from somewhere. My body used my qi reserves when I did that trick.

Impressively the beast made it nearly 20yrds.

I checked my PL, and it had risen again to 275. Our little fight had gotten my blood up and spurred on some more development. Not a lot but enough to advance what was already there. My qi didn't show any sign of stopping for a while; I might end with a PL of 1000. That really would be something special.

The werewolf rolled over on his back, and his form started to return to human form. I walked over to him, took out my dick, and pissed on him. When I was done and let those last drip drops fall, I wasn't mad enough at that moment to kill him. Crushing his ambush, uppercutting him mid-sentence, and pissing on him felt like a victory. I could have captured him in a card, but I didn't want him as a companion. I used my phone to check my direction then returned to my leisurely jog of just above 100mph.

…

My brother's porch light was on, and he was outside in his crackle barrel rocking chair styled for MSU. He took after our grandfather reading out on the porch at all hours of the night. Then again, with the number of garlic either of us ate, it's no wonder the mosquitoes didn't bother us much. But, of course, the occasional helicopter buzz of horseflies was disconcerting.

"Did your truck break down up the road?" Blue asked.

"No, I decided to get a job here. I'm quite fast these days. How are you making it?"

"You aren't brushing that aside; how did you get here without your truck? Did you take an uber or something? Was your truck repossessed?" I pointed my fingers at a nearby tree and blasted it with a low-powered green laser. Flames lit around the hole after my green laser dissipated.

Blue opened his mouth and closed it. "You have superpowers, and I'm guessing this isn't the wizarding world." I shook my head and sat down.

"Vampires, bulletproof werewolves, and wizards who travel to multiple worlds. Oh, and magic isn't hereditary anyone can learn it. There are no true names, but lots of symbols and runes with tiered spells sectioned off by complexity." I said.

"Are you here because you couldn't tell me that over the phone? Or are we dealing with a blade scenario?" Blue asked.

"I'm not sure I ran into a cop who most likely worked for some vampires, and I just crushed a werewolf in a fistfight. Well, he was probably a beta or maybe a cuck type."

"Wolves don't have cucks, and that isn't even the doesn't even go with the theme. Wolf packs only have alphas and betas generally."

"Right, well, I was pulled over at a stoplight, and a cop planted drugs in my truck, and I kind of made the news," I said.

"Well, you're already here; you might as well come inside. I'll get you a coke; you still don't drink right."

I nodded and followed him inside. After I pulled my food out, we sat down on his couch, and I took some pills. No, I didn't offer any to my brother; he could download the app and get his own. Instead, we talked about what I did in the other world while watching the Evangelion movies.

Pizza still as hot from my inventory, piled on my plate dripping with cheese, covered in sausage and mushrooms. I poured a hefty helping of homemade raunch on my plate and folded the pizza New York style, and dipped it. The nostalgia of dipping strips always played through my mind like the greatest comfort food as I shoved slice after slice in my mouth and washed it down with Pepsi. The smell of hot greasy pizza filled the air as we smashed the pizzas. Blue brought out the garlic sauce and some marinara, and it really was like old times.

I fell back into that nostalgia as Shinji finally got into the robot and fought the first angel on screen. For a moment, I wondered if his universe or a universe like his was out there. If I could capture one of those Eva's or angels in a card, I would have a kaiju-sized summon I could pilot. Of course, I need a kaiju card, but it should be possible. My mind moved back to the werewolf.

I missed an opportunity to capture him back there. But, of course, I didn't know if the cards affected the mind.

There was so much I didn't know about everything. I felt like I knew only surface-level information from qi, magic, and summoning. But then, after taking those potions and slowly rising in power day by day, hour by hour, I came to my own realization. My knowledge of qi was limited to Xion's prehistory period. They were about to enter the age of humanoid gods. I stopped the great Khan from becoming one, but there were bound to be others. From what I could tell, I was on my way to a similar transformation.

I should have captured Zosimael with a summoning card. She was the source of those potions, and there were bound to be many more gods. I even had a horse god under my control. What if I slew some of the other gods and let her absorb them? Would that cause her card to evolve, or would there be another effect? Could summons be stolen by other users?

"Red, do you hear screaming." I hadn't noticed the smell of smoke until he said something. The sound came from the west window, and the shadows behind one of the curtains were distorted. When I moved the curtain, there were three crosses in the distance with people nailed to them. Figures in dark robes moved about piling wood beside three lit torches. The people nailed to the crosses were strangers.

"Those are my neighbors," Blue said.

My mouth ran while I stared at the scene. "Do you think those figures are Satanists? You would think the crosses would be upside down if that was the case. They're moving faster than normal humans, and they're very coordinated. I can't see their faces under the hoods, even under this moonlight and with the torches. Do you think that's from magic, or do they not have faces? Are we dealing with humans or things that look like them, and how powerful are they? I should be stronger than them, but I can't know if my senses aren't telling me anything. Let's give them a litmus test."

I pulled the cops 9mm from my inventory and raised the window. "They're pretty far away. Can you hit them with a pistol?" Blue asked.

"Dad's AR15 would be better, but I'm poor and laid off, so this is all I have. If you have a .30-06, then bring it out, and we'll use that." I said.

"No, you know that's at dad's house with the 30-30 and AR15," Blue said.

I aimed the weapon with my better than human eyesight and squeezed the trigger. The bullet was off by a few feet and impacted a tree a few yards away. The black robe-wearing individuals seemed to work faster as I adjusted my aim and fired again. My shot missed its target by a few inches and hit a distant hill. Once again, I aimed carefully and squeezed the trigger. With my aim adjusted slightly better, I lined up my shot and fired. The bullet hit one of the neighbors on the cross in the chest. The woman sagged immediately and started bleeding out.

"Why the hell did you just do that?" Blue asked.

"We don't know how strong our enemies are, but we do know they plan to burn your neighbors alive. This shows them that they can't take hostages. Don't ask the follow-up question; we don't know if they can hear us from this distance. We know they didn't try to protect their hostages, so either they couldn't, or we surprised them completely." I said.

"They probably didn't expect you to be such a psychopath," Blue said.

"Their mistake, but I think I got aiming with this pistol down; killing the other two won't be a problem." So I said and aimed for the father and the son and fired on both.

Did their deaths bother me? When my father took me hunting for the first time, I felt revulsion the first time I pulled the trigger. Dad was proud that I hit it until I pulled the lever on the gun and dumped a good round in the mud. I forgot it was a semiauto rifle. My father made the experience of killing a deer for the first time a pleasant experience. I enjoyed cleaning the animal with him, but I never forgot that feeling of revulsion when I pulled the trigger. Watching people bleed out and die was a thousand times worse. I could do it; I knew why I did it and could live with it. But I would always regret it; I killed the neighbors because I didn't want to leave my brother undefended. I weighed three lives, including a child's life, against my brother and decided.

"Power is a terrible thing too little of it and your impotent, and too much you risk drowning those around you under the waves of consequences. My waves sink cities. I'm sharing the app with you." I said.

I raised my gun and shot the black robe-wearing cultists, only for small blue shields to appear and block my bullets. The scattering of blue sparks around them flashed across a sense I hadn't developed. These were mages; as I realized that and put them in a category, I could somewhat understand I struggled with why. Then, after a few more shots, my gut clicked empty.

My thoughts moved to a few simple concepts how did magic work here. Or, more appropriately, how did they extract mana from their environment. Those with a system could purchase a perpetual mana engine, but there were fuel needs for the engine. Putting it inside a necromantic dragon with its own qi hadn't really been tried, or those who had didn't spread the information around. I didn't either though I posted some pictures of Lotus.

Seeing those mages prepare to burn a family alive on crosses in front of our house gave me questions. Why was the biggest one, and I didn't want to know the answer? I had some assumptions to build on but didn't want to voice them. Blue was busy staring at his phone and downloading the app. With some help from me, he would be gone soon on his own adventure. After my brother left, that would be one less hostage for any potential enemies to take. He could be as strong as me or even stronger when he returned.

"Wait, really, you didn't tell me I would have to exorcise. I'm completely stuffed full of pizza, and it's asking me to run a kilometer." Blue said.

"You only need one of the three to avoid purgatory. Of course, it will put you at a disadvantage in power, but that can be overcome." I said.

"I would suggest doing the squats first, then the pushups."

The robe-wearing mages, or whatever they called themselves, were suddenly down a member. Most of them watched Blue do his squats until a blur snatched up another mage. I didn't hear a scream even as I listened carefully. Either the one abducting them wasn't killing them, or they were reticent about it. Once again, the blur snatched up a mage, and this time, I saw a pale face from the individual snatching up the mage.

One of the mages looked behind them to see no one there. "Nosferatu," he yelled, and the mages moved, going back-to-back. Symbols flared in front of them as the blur grabbed one by their robes and leaped up with the mage. Blood rained down on the mages, and their blue shields appeared before sputtering out.

A bullet was nothing to the shields, but a few drops of blood was too much. Did the shields have an overheating problem, a time limit, or was the blood special somehow. The mages caught under the raining blood began scratching at their skin and screaming. I decided to assume the blood was acidic somehow due to some effect of the vampire.

"What's happening?" Blue asked between gasping breathes and burps from too much Pepsi.

"A vampire showed up and started smoking the mages. Then, when they started setting up a defense, it blasted them with acid blood to break their concentration and shields. The vampire is hard to keep track of. I can't sense it, and when it moves, my eyes slip off of it. I think it's either something wired into us due to evolving on this world with them or something more mystical. Maybe a little of both."

"You seem very calm about something you can't track," Blue said.

"If it works like normal vampires and is weak against sunlight, I have nothing to worry about. You could say I'm the worst possible matchup for it. Add in my regeneration, strength, and speed with my AOE attacks, and it's not a problem. Unless these are nocturnal but not actually bothered by direct sunlight. If that's the case, then I might be in trouble." That last of the mages were silenced.

The vampire approached in a fine purple suit, with a pencil-thin mustache and eyes glowed red like radioactive blood. He seemed to float more than walk over the ground, and my eyes struggled to stay on him even at his current pace. The dark around him seemed to vibrate in his passing, and he felt less noteworthy than a speck of dust to my senses. I couldn't guess how powerful he was or what it would take to bring him down.

If he took Blue hostage, I didn't know what I would do. For the first time since coming back to my Earth, I felt like I was at a disadvantage.