The vampires rushed forward to pursue, but Li Xi didn't look back, plummeting straight down. His speed was incredibly fast. However, as soon as he descended to the ground level, a red magic circle suddenly appeared. Caught off guard, Li Xi was struck by a massive force that doubled his own, causing no damage but, without any mental preparation, sending him flying back.
His tumbling body crashed into the pursuing vampire ranks. Hundreds of vampires curled their lips and aimed at Li Xi, ready to strike. Li Xi, realizing he had been tricked, felt his chakra surging wildly as the 'Gate of Opening' in his left brain was forcibly activated.
"Gate of Opening."
"Open."
The scales on his body deepened in color, the veins around his eyes bulged, and his body instantly gained one hundred percent of its strength. Facing dozens of vampires poised to turn him into a sieve, Li Xi's dragon wings spun at impossible angles, transforming him into a whirling dervish.
The distance between the vampires and Li Xi was too short. The vampires had expected Li Xi, unfamiliar with the terrain below, to fall into their trap and deliver himself to them. To their surprise, Li Xi launched a desperate counterattack in an instant. His two-meter-long beheading saber, like a divine whip striking down the clouds, instantly unleashed a bloody storm. The closest dozen vampires, caught unawares, were sliced into countless pieces and fell into the volcano, their mangled remains piling up, ensuring no one could reassemble them.
Thanks to his superior eyesight, the Sharingan spun in Li Xi's eye sockets, creating afterimages and ensuring every strike landed precisely at the weakest points, pulverizing the vampires. The world appeared to move in slow motion, such was the terrifying power of his dynamic vision. As Li Xi was slicing the vampires into pieces, he could also see their corpses being successfully drawn into the magic circle. Li Xi understood; it was a bloodline recognition magic circle, like a fingerprint lock. If you weren't a vampire, you couldn't enter. This minor obstacle, however, did not trouble Li Xi. Solutions had already been devised on Earth in his previous life.
After a dozen vampires were shredded like a blender's contents, the ones behind them scattered, avoiding the saber's aura. Li Xi immediately sought Sun Er'dai, as he would need the near-death blood dragon for the next phase of his plan. However, dozens of blood blades shot through the air. Li Xi's beheading saber cleaved through most of them, but several still struck his body.
Li Xi felt as if he had been bitten by several mosquitoes. The blood blades that hit him failed to penetrate his dragon scale defense, but one managed to slice through the scales, creating a small wound that bled a few drops. The bleeding was minimal and would have healed quickly without intervention. Li Xi, therefore, paid it no mind, but he soon regretted it.
Upon seeing the wound, dozens of vampires aimed their hands at Li Xi's injury. It was like the 'Star Absorbing Great Method' from the wuxia novels; dozens of vampires simultaneously unleashed blood-elemental magic. The originally minor wound became like a breached dam, with his slightly sweet-smelling blood gushing out like a torrent, spurting not just one meter, but over three meters high. The sheer volume of blood loss made Li Xi suspect his arteries were connected to a high-pressure pump, determined to expel all his blood at once.
What panicked Li Xi even more was that upon seeing his blood, the vampires' blood-red eyes instantly turned emerald green, like starving wolves spotting sheep. In his desperation, Li Xi used a ninjutsu: "Shadow Clone Technique."
*Boom.*
Fueled by the powerful chakra of Matatabi, the Two-Tails, Li Xi instantly created over a hundred shadow clones. These clones were not strong individually but served perfectly as a distraction. With over a hundred shadow clones, outnumbering the vampires, a chaotic charge immediately disrupted the vampires' blood magic. Li Xi's main body seized this opportunity, quietly blending in with the shadow clones and making a swift escape. Trembling, he pulled a bottle of holy water from his spatial ring and poured it onto the wound. The minor injury immediately healed, making him impenetrable once more. Li Xi finally felt relieved, realizing how insidious this vampire tactic was. Fighting them required absolute focus; otherwise, a single wound could lead to death by exsanguination.
Li Xi's face was somewhat pale. The blood loss in that moment had amounted to nearly a tenth of his total body volume, and creating so many shadow clones had left him unprecedentedly weak. Taking advantage of the vampires' momentary distraction, he shouted to the distant Er'dai, "Er'dai, throw the blood dragon into the volcano!"
By this point, the blood dragon's wings had been torn off, all its teeth had been knocked out, and its eyeballs had been crushed like balls. A large, irregular gash on its abdomen clearly indicated it had been violently ripped open by Sun Er'dai's brute force. Although the blood dragon was still alive, it was clearly on its last breath.
Like an apprentice butcher, covered in blood from his own unfamiliarity with the process, Sun Er'dai heard Li Xi's command. He grabbed the blood dragon's tail and swung the fifteen-meter-long creature. Due to the abdominal gash, its internal organs seemed to gain a will of their own and spilled out as it was swung. The blood dragon's blood sprayed everywhere like a showerhead. After swinging it around a few times, Sun Er'dai hurled the blood dragon toward the volcano.
Facing the colossal creature falling from the sky, the vampires who had already dealt with Li Xi's shadow clones scattered in disarray. Anyone who caught hundreds of thousands of pounds would surely die.
"Shadow Clone Technique."
A hundred more shadow clones appeared in the sky, all rushing forward. The vampires, unable to distinguish the real body from the clones, could only kill them one by one. While the shadow clones occupied the vampires, Li Xi's main body rapidly approached the blood dragon and burrowed into its belly, safely bypassing the magic circle's detection.
With a heavy thud as it landed on the ground, Li Xi emerged from the blood dragon's stomach. He had now arrived underground. Two vampires waiting below saw the heavily injured blood dragon and intended to investigate, but were swiftly cut down by Li Xi's two blades as he appeared, covered in blood. While he couldn't defeat the vampires above, these two posed no problem.
Li Xi carefully surveyed the underground space. It was a cavern excavated over many years. Bats, constantly entering and exiting, diligently transported the blood they collected inside, returning to the surface with their bellies full. Li Xi concealed himself in the darkness, ensuring these small bats wouldn't see him. They were no ordinary bats, but rather low-level vampires who had undergone bat transformation. As the strength within his body recovered, Li Xi knew his shadow clones above had been annihilated again. In a one-on-one fight, very few in this world could scare Li Xi now. However, he feared being overwhelmed by spellcasters. Such an underhanded and devastating form of attack had almost broken even Lilith's clones, let alone Li Xi, who had almost been drained dry by a single spell moments ago. Even the first of the Eight Gates, activated by his Eight Inner Gates, had been forcibly dispelled due to the severe blood loss.
Li Xi popped a handful of Soldier Pills into his mouth. With the replenished energy, his feeling of weakness and low blood sugar improved slightly. Unfortunately, he had only drawn a limited supply of Soldier Pills, and after numerous battles, very few remained.
Amidst the earth-shattering roars from the surface, Li Xi recognized Sun Er'dai's pained cries. Li Xi immediately dispelled the summoning jutsu, deeply worried that Sun Er'dai might also be drained to death by the vampires in this short time. With his large size, he had many more points of attack, and a few minor wounds could easily lead to him being bled dry.
While there were no small bats around, Li Xi cautiously proceeded down the tunnel. Suddenly, he heard the sound of a large number of wings flapping behind him, realizing the vampires he had fought earlier had descended. Li Xi leaned against the wall, his hands transforming into stone—a transformation technique Li Xi rarely used.
As expected, a large contingent of vampires soon pursued him. However, as they passed by the stone Li Xi had become, none detected anything amiss. After all the vampires had passed, Li Xi silently began to follow them, turning into stone to camouflage himself whenever he encountered small bats. In this slow fashion, he traveled for ten minutes before reaching the location of Nasser and his group.
It was an altar exuding a strong aura of ancientness, clearly not newly built but at least a thousand years old. A massive magic circle, spreading throughout the entire city, was etched on the ground, with some parts already fractured. Quite a few vampires were urgently repairing it. This was likely the ritualistic magic circle that Li Xi had interrupted with his earth-shattering excavation. Had Li Xi not intervened, the vampires would have used this magic circle to sacrifice the entire city.
Nasser, leading hundreds of vampires, was kneeling on the ground, devoutly praying. The constantly entering and exiting small bats regurgitated the fresh blood they had collected into the blood pool in the center of the altar, then, like diligent bees, set off to gather more. The blood pool was enormous, the size of a small swimming pool. The churning blood within had no pungent stench; instead, it carried a unique fragrance distinct from dragon blood. The blood dragon Li Xi had jumped into earlier had also been thrown into the blood pool. Within a few breaths, the blood dragon dissolved into the blood, leaving not even its hardened bones. Li Xi observed intently with his special eyes and could see an ethereal mist swirling above the blood pool, refusing to dissipate. This was no mere blood pool; it was clearly a highly concentrated energy fluid. Energy-concentrated fluid; holy water, which Li Xi used most often, was also a type of this. The blood in the pool before him was the result of countless years of collection by the blood race, along with innumerable rare treasures. For an ordinary person to drink even a mouthful of this would undoubtedly cause them to explode, if not ascend immediately. The energy was too immense; even a dragon could not withstand it. This was clearly prepared for Dracula, who was on the verge of godhood.
If the blood pool were destroyed, Dracula's ascension ritual would undoubtedly be ruined. However, the person who destroyed the ritual would face dire consequences. Without Dracula even lifting a finger, the vampires surrounding the altar three layers deep would tear him apart. It turned out the vampires who had flown to the surface were not the entire force, only two-thirds; the remaining one-third were still below. Li Xi dared not foolishly test his limits. With his current strength, even with three gates opened and the red chili pills consumed, success was unlikely; otherwise, it would be certain death. Of course, even with the pills, he would still die. With no other option, Li Xi could only quietly remain a stone, waiting for a faint, elusive opportunity.
The small bats continuously spat the blood they had just collected into the blood pool. Li Xi wondered how many more people in Cardo City had died this time, estimating it to be at least several times, or even tens of times, more than during the previous Lilith rebellion. The blood transfusion process lasted for half an hour, yet the blood level in the pool showed no increase, but the emanating aura grew stronger.
The critical moment had arrived. The boiling blood pool was churning abnormally. Nasser himself was becoming restless, constantly observing the movements of the blood pool. The other vampires were even more so; those on the outermost perimeter were stretching their necks, their eyes fixed on the blood pool, like wives yearning for their husbands' return.