Earth was a wasteland as humans strive to survive or die. It was a hundred years since the Great War which killed an untold number of people on Earth and left the few stragglers behind.
However, most humans now live in communes where they congregate and use what little resources that they have. A majority still live underground in large facilities and others have managed to scrounge by as slaves to the powerful vampire lords.
The other humans live in the 'Forges', facilities built by the great being Phyris. Many still question why Phyris had allowed the vampires to enslave humans but she did not give an answer. Many presumed that she was a protector for humanity, but they left disappointed when they found out she would not destroy the evils.
I was one of the unlucky ones, Jane wistfully thought.
Jane, like many humans, was enslaved to the vampire hegemons. She was used as a blood bag, cook, miner, and a servant to help the vampires keep up with their lifestyle of luxury and insanity.
However today, Jane was selected to become a sacrifice to the 'Blood Gods' whom the vampires worshiped.
She was woken up before sunset, tied up, and thrown into a holding cell where some vampires took several bites of her, giving her a moment of euphoria.
Her treatment was abysmal, but the vampires always followed the same procedures, enabling the blood of their victims to be drained before a soul ceremony.
She was brought out from her cell and put into a throne room, where the vampire lords stood in rows, with the oldest vampire on the throne. She was placed in the middle of a ritual circle which had grooves for blood to flow.
"Let it commence," the old one said out loud.
A vampire came forwards and slit her wrists to drain the last into the circle.
"I guess this is it" she muttered before passing out.
Jane had a dream. One where she was in grassy fields and opposite of her was a man who wore a dark red robe.
'Do you want power to be free?' A disembodied voice said to Jane, 'Come to me and be my servant.'
The voice echoed several times in her head, but she didn't answer.
"Why?" Jane said.
The man only stayed still and silently looked at her.
"Why did you do this to me?" she said again in a delirious state.
Jane seemed unresponsive and in her own world, questioning why her insane slavers would kill her.
The man only sighed and walked towards her in a rushed state. He bared some fangs and prepared to devour her.
However, before he could do so, a woman appeared out of nowhere in the dream world.
"Who are you?" the man said aloud.
Jane looked up and saw a woman who was dressed in a black robe.
The woman stood in front of Jane and only smiled, looking at the man curiously.
"This is our first meeting," the woman said, "I only speculated that you existed since the vampires obtained power that no mortal could have in this realm."
The vampire looked even more closely at the woman and smiled, "Ah, are you a local deity in the second realm? How rare."
Jane was completely confused as she only thought that this was a dream.
In fact, this woman was Phyris. Although she was in some ways mortal since she doesn't have magic or power, her spirit has been growing since she revealed herself to humanity. She was gaining 'Holy Power', she felt, which her spirit became more powerful over time. This game her power as a false deity which enabled her to enter dreams and some semblance of control of mortals.
Phyris only tilted her head, "Second realm?"
The man only chuckled, "I came here to get an easy meal, but who would've thought that I could get some free holy power from you?"
This was alarming as it seemed that the man perhaps had more power than Phyris and it made her feel fear for the fourth time in her life.
He stepped forward again and increased his pace. However, one thing that Phyris had an excess of was 'spirit' since it was a combination of all of her souls together. An uncountable number of souls can congregate impressive willpower.
He tried to grab her, but she just punched forward and sent several spikes towards him, ripping him a bit.
'Argh!' he grunted, "what is this?! A mortal whose spirit is stronger than a god's avatar?"
In fact, he wasn't really a god, as he was actually an undead entity. With enough power, anybody can act like a God and cross realms.
The man ran for his life and disappeared into the distance.
Phyris stayed still for a while and gagued the information that she managed to pry from him.
Second Realm? As in, there are more realms than this?
Phyris turned around and looked at Jane, whom had an observatory gaze. Jane seemed out of it and Phyris knew that Jane had limited time before she bled out.
"Jane", Phyris said, "this is not a dream."
Jane snapped out of it and pinched herself. It hurt.
"Wha... who are you?" she said fearfully, "am I dead?"
"No, you are still alive. However, not for long as you are bleeding out," said Phyris, "This is your spirit plane, where time is slower."
"Ummm, okay," Jane said, "who was that? The Blood God exists?"
"Yes. It seems that higher realms and deities exist," said Phyris, "but the deity's avatars are not that powerful here. I saved you because you are special. Your spirit is especially pure and quite shiny."
Perhaps the blood god picks strong souls to get more power over time. From what Phyris could figure out, the god devoured their spirits and memories. Perhaps that was why he created Vampires on Earth.
"What do I do now?" said Jane, "I'm about to die surrounded by vampires."
Phyris stood still for a moment, figuring things out.
"I can change your body and make it stronger, but you will lose your mortality. Other humans will only see you as a powerful tool and vampires will hunt you."
"I... Please! I want to live as I haven't even seen the sun from legends."
Vampires and their servants lived very sheltered lives underground as the sun was fatal to them. Although the sky is still cloudy from the Great War, the light was their nemesis.
The vampires inject vampiric blood into their servants to increase their lifespan and conversion rate of food into blood. It is also used to make 'Blood slaves', whom cannot fully control their bodies. The conversion process was quite pleasurable and many humans enjoyed the euphoria of being with their masters, like drug junkies who take the hard stuff.
Jane was a blood slave, one who has a certain portion of their blood replaced by vampire blood to help encourage their marrow to produce more blood. As a result, Phyris had to use Jane's leftover cells to attack the vampiric cells.
"Then this will hurt, even if you are not awake," said Phyris, "will you take me as your idol? This will enable me to protect your soul."
"Yes, hurry!"
Gods and Deities imprint their spiritual marks on followers whether the followers realize it or not. This spiritual mark costs a god a little bit of holy power and the larger it is, the more a god has to instill.
Phyris was just a fledgling deity because she was just starting to get 'praise' and 'worship'. She does not believe herself to be above the other Gods as she fears their existence. In fact, she also fears the unknown, like many humans do. This intervention was premeditated as she had finally found the courage to determine if beings from above actually existed like she had postulated. Seeing the reality that they do in fact exist terrified her to some degree.
Phyris was arrogant within her sphere, but this revelation left her with a newfound appreciation for the Second Realm since it possibly limited the higher beings from slapping her into nihility.
Phyris stood for a moment and looked to a direction of the woman's spirit realm. The realm itself was only a few kilometers in circumference so the spirit mark would be visible. However, her spirit realm was also exagaratedly larger than a normal human's Spirit Realm.
This is a first, but I have to make a visible totem for this world. Something that represents who I am in physical form that changes the spirit realm.
Phyris has seen several Deity Totems before when she was fighting vampires. The totem looked like a large blood goblet and blood was spread around the Vampire's realm. Several religious figures in the world also have a totem, which means that those deities actually existed. When she peeked at those totems in other's small spirit realms, she felt a presence suddenly look upon her and she ran for it. However, it would seem that Jane's realm was unmarked.
Phyris by herself did not have any specific concept, which it would seem that Gods and deities did. However, the closest that she felt that was the concepts of 'Life' and creation.
So instead of making a stationary totem like many deities, Phyris created a forest and a large tree, spilling her holy power. She also created replicas of her animals and creatures in Jane's Spirit Realm.
In a way, Jane became Phyris's Champion. A being who uses holy power instead of vitality to power their attacks. Of course, Phyris was not going to let her rely on Holy Power since she did not have that much to waste.
Phyris was also changing Jane's body instantaneously.
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The vampires were watching the body of the woman drain of its lifeblood in silence. However, their expressions changed when the blood stopped flowing and actually reversed back into the body. Some of the blood was evaporating into the air and her body made inhuman sounds. The body itself was quite thin, but it became thinner to make bones and tissue denser.
They looked around for a few moments and the old one gestured for a vampire to go forwards to investigate.
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The vampire went and took out a knife to stab at her neck. It sliced through but her blood didn't leak out. He tried again and smashed her head. It bounced hard, but it did not explode like he expected it to.
"What is going on?" the vampire said aloud. However, he got his answer after a few moments.
Jane's body stood up with her eyes closed.
"Is she undead now? Her heart is beating," the old one mumbled to himself.
The Second Realm doesn't allow undead to exist since mana doesn't exist.
The body suddenly took a stance that all of the vampires were familiar with: The Immortal's attack posure. This term was given several centuries ago when the Immortal fought several vampires.
"Damn, it's her!" the old one said, "Phyris."
Phyris tended to use her body like a mobile artillery station. It became obvious it was her when wood seemingly came out of nowhere and evaporated the nearest vampire, consuming his matter to create more super-hard wood and replenish the body's mass.
"Run!"
The vampires tried to run towards the door, but Phyris grew Jane's body and quickly surrounded the room in living hardwood.
Jane was now awake and was witnessing her own body being controlled remotely. It scared her as she thought that she had become a slave of another being now. Blood slaves couldn't control their bodies when asked and she felt the same here.
'Sorry', jane heard.
Jane also felt stronger than ever and that she had endless vitality. She also felt that her body was quite heavy and compact. Phyris changed her body within a few moments, attesting to Phyris's power over her progeny.
"Vampires," Phyris cursed aloud through Jane, "You are the perfect specimens and have helped me prove that deities and gods outside our realm exist. You have also helped me create a power system that also turns vitality into power. In a way, you have helped me accomplish my goals."
Vampires were technically held together by the vampiric blood gods up above. They break the laws of conservation by getting power from another realm to directly convert blood matter into the energy form of vitality, which is something that science cannot do easily.
In this case, Aeris can use her stronger spirit and holy power to affect the Second Realm, which does not contain any magic or Qi. It only has a small amount of vitality, which is normally used to power stronger bodies.
Gulp.
The vampires were not having a pleasant time as Phyris was the only entity on Earth that they couldn't handle.
"What I know about deities," Phyris said, "is they always want something. The blood god exists, but he is not that powerful here."
'Why are you not killing them?' Jane thought to Phyris.
'Answers, I'm trying to milk information from them.'
"What do you want Phyris?" the old one said her name like a curse, surrounded and bound by powerful hardwood.
"Do you know about the realms above?" she replied.
This was her goal. By going up, she can become more powerful and spread her influence. In a way, Phyris had those things, but she couldn't keep the sky from falling. Power was like a drug and even though she didn't exploit it like humans did, she wanted to not have a fear of the unknown anymore. Phyris wanted to create something original; a domain in which she was safe and free of fear. Her goals were only increasing over time.
"We know that there are several realms above us as the god hinted to us," the old one finally said.
"Several? Then how do you get to those realms?"
"Our god only told us that you have to get strong enough and the world will tell you," the old one said.
The vampires were willing to give this information, as they knew that ascending required you to have a body to ascend with, removing their fear of her when she left. What they didn't know was that Phyris was technically a hivemind of souls and her bodies were uncountable. She was not limited to a single body, so she could just send one of them up and keep others here.
"Oh?" she smiled after getting what she truly wanted.
An instant later, all of the vampires had wood through their hearts and she quickly spread roots to their minds. With her power and spirit increasing, she could not read their minds by 'seeing' how their microtubules were fashioned in their brain cells. Biologically reading minds was exponentially more difficult than using special methods later on, but she had plenty of computing power to spare.
She could perform mind reading with humans, but the action of doing so would make humans pause noticeably. Phyris didn't try to exploit this too often, but right now, she wanted answers for how vampires work and the mentality of the upper echelons.
During the mind reading session, she found out about several vampire enclaves which hide near human settlements, but do not keep any servants or plants so she couldn't find them. They didn't truly know about her, since they thought that she was like the Blood God: a deity from another realm whom can control human and nonhuman bodies. In fact, the Blood God also thought that when Phyris helped humanity around the world.
Phyris consumed the vampire bodies using Jane and finished building up Jane's body. The power to create cells infinitely was only within Phyris's domain, so Jane couldn't use it. However, Phyris gave Jane a strong immortal body which couldn't be killed, so she could just punch through trees and villains alike at the cost of vitality.
'Here you go, I will only help again when you need it,' Phyris thought to Jane after allowing Jane control of her body again.
Jane looked around the room confused.
"Am I... free?"
Phyris left Jane to her own devices as her job was done.
Jane tried moving around, but stumbled around. She was about ten times stronger than an ordinary human, so she couldn't control herself.
"Ah!"
She pushed her hand out towards the hard wood in the room and she dented it, with her body flying backwards across the room from Newton's laws of motion. This was probably the reason why Phyris tended to use growth-type weapons instead of directly fighting with her body.
"Oww"
Jane spent a few minutes trying to get attuned to her body. However, it would probably take a few weeks to months to get used to her sudden increase of physical strength and memory.
The most dangerous thing about obtaining power, was the inability to use it and hurting others unintentionally.
Was that really Phyris? The savior of the Forge?
Although Blood slaves were normally uninformed to keep them as stable cattle, there was still some gossip between vampires. Many Blood slaves secretly wished to be free of their pseudo-real bindings, the only real way to be free was to have their master die, get converted, or for them to die themselves.
Jane was still confused on how she should think and feel about Phyris. On one had, Phyris saved her, but on the other, she was sane enough not to become a fanatic instantly. Plus, the fact that Phyris can just control her body and make it strong was scary in and of itself.
She wanted to escape as soon as possible, as she was now technically free. She was pretty sure that she couldn't directly free blood slaves now, but she could kill their masters. The problem was that she still couldn't control her body and she didn't know any fighting style which could help her with her newfound body that still followed the laws of physics.
Her hands were tied, so she decided to just leave the underground chambers and see the sky for the first time in her life.
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Several vampires were having a discussion about how their blood slaves were last night. Gender didn't matter here as dominance was the same in either regard. It was rather obvious that these vampires were rather new and just got the power to control their own harems.
The vampires did not hear the fight earlier, because the main chamber hall is soundproof to keep secret discussions... secret.
Jane exited the chamber while trying to act like a blood slave. After all, she had a lifetime of experience in it. Perhaps it was her personality or that she had enough practice, the guards outside the chamber didn't notice. The guards thought that she was let go from today's sacrifice. After all, she was only a weak human and who were the guards to judge whether the council killed her or not.
She was a bit nervous, but that was actually quite common in blood slaves so she moved her way through. Blood slaves were able to come and go as it was assumed that they were under their spell.
Jane moved towards the only entrance and exit of the caverns, which was heavily guarded by vampires.
The vampires didn't really notice at first, but they had a schedule and kept records.
"Hey, where are you going, slave?" a guard finally asked.
"To the outside to gauge the outside situation for the old one," she lied.
The old one was considered as the closest thing to an Emperor, as age in vampires is equivalent to their final power. Most guards were brand new vampires who were only twice as strong and fast as humans. After all, humans weren't that strong or quick so why would the powerful ones need to stand guard all day and night? Either way, humans were given vampire blood upon birth so that they could not revolt.
"I see. Come back after sunset."
She slipped by the stupid newfangs and equipped an environmental suit to go outside through a decontamination chamber. Although vampires didn't need it, humans were still susceptible to the harsh winter and subtle amount of radiation outside. Of course, she was immortal now, but she still needed energy to repair damage, so she took a food kit with her.
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The outside was cold. A hundred years after nuclear winter would do that to a world. It didn't help that the stupid nations used hydrogen bombs over fault lines, causing several super-volcanoes to explode. It was unknown who fired first as power went out before the news could spread. Of course, fingers would've pointed at their personal greatest enemy if EMP bombs didn't go off in low earth orbit. This was only fifty years after the two world wars and this third one almost wiped humanity off of the globe.
Unfortunately, radiation only killed normal animals, so most creatures outside were just parts of Phyris acting like realistic innocent sheep, who somehow live in hyper-radioactive zones. The radiation is mostly gone, but there is still some left.
Jane stepped outside and took a moment to see the moderately bright sky through the clouds. Her goal was to act like a slave, but escape as far as possible, then train to get used to her reformed body.
She had no clue where she was, but she knew she had to get as far away as possible because the vampires would find out Phyris's little escapade. She stumble-ran when she was out of sight of the underground hatch.
An hour after she left, the vampires finally knew that somebody has slain the old one. A ruckus was raised and the guards were questioned. Several more hours later and a regiment of humans were sent out to capture the suspect because it was still daytime. The older vampires inside began their political war for supremacy as was the custom.
The outside world only had artificial life, created by Phyris. There were trees, plants and animals whom were super-evolved to survive. Of course, Jane didn't know that.
Jane moved to a fairly peaceful valley, several kilometers away from the vampire cavern. She could've gone farther, but she was still not able to control her body well enough to sprint.
She could've gone farther, but she was still not able to control her body well enough to sprint [https://em.wattpad.com/a1e95e28c58119d66de5445d3bc9019b3b601113/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f586847686d51454136686e686c513d3d2d3833323131393930372e313565643863653131393732353034363437393638373736373732322e676966?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]
Although it was beautiful, the dark skies subtracted from the experience.
She hollowed out a cave rather easily and set up what little modicum she could. She didn't know what fire was and she had little to no knowledge on surviving off the land. The biggest problem with the land was that it was all frozen and water was only available if one knew how to create fire. This was one of the things that the vampires had over humanity: Dark Vision. The vampire blood in blood slaves gave them a percentage of this ability, but it allowed them to survive underground where vampires were rampant.
Jane gained the ability to eat anything and get energy from it, even dirt. She wasn't that desperate to try even if she knew that. Another advantage was that she could directly eat snow to get water, as opposed to normal humans who would go dehydrated and just waste energy from doing so.
Her body was different and she realized that very quickly as she tried to run or train. When she threw a punch, it was fast but didn't affect her. However, when she punched a tree, she was thrown back and the tree had a portion removed.
An average human has 178 pounds of force, but her strength was 2000 pounds of force. Of course, a person properly trained black belt in karate has a maximum punching power of 400 pounds. This means that if she were fully trained, she could produce 4000 pounds of force and level a tree. Her physique was improved originally due to the vampire blood, but she still has to train to increase her strength using vitality.
The largest problem with the Second Realm was that Vitality was rare and Mana and Qi were nonexistent. Humans who had excessive muscles had to train constantly to convert food into the minimal amount of vitality. Without training, their bodies would deconstruct the muscles to sustain itself over time. However, Phyris found a way around this because of the vampires.
After some time, Jane realized that she ran out of energy. Phyris forgot to mention that physical power has an upkeep, especially since Jane was used to eating reprocessed slop in the Vampire caverns. While Phyris had nearly unlimited energy due to her massive tree and root network, Jane was alone with this regard.
Jane stopped training, and sat on the ground, completely out of it.
Then, she began to think for the first time in her life without mental censorship.
Why?! Why am I here, why did Phyris allow this? Phyris could have stopped them, but she didn't!
Jane's emotions spiraled out of control and she had a mental breakdown. In many ways, Jane was right. Phyris chose to allow the vampires to go free because she wanted to study their unique physique. However, Phyris was still woefully arrogant and naive to human emotion.
"WHY!!!" yelled Jane, "Why did you allow those fiends to do that? You can kill them!"
Anger. Fear. Blame.
Jane spent several hours tirading and hitting her fist against a wall or rolling around.
Phyris was monitoring Jane. She was not a stranger to seeing human emotions and this was not the first time that humans have cursed at her or blamed her for the catastrophe that was the Great War.
However, Jane's emotions were stunted as the blood slave mark forcefully controls human emotions to make them the perfect pets, only feeling happiness or obedience. Jane was just now feeling the tirade of negative emotions that were locked in. In some respects, her emotions were as strong as a baby would feel them.
Most slaves would normally lose all of their emotions after a time, like accepting the inevitable with a dash of stockholm syndrome. It would take years for a normal person to throw off their mental baggage to enable their emotions to come alight.
But Jane was different.
Phyris didn't know what to do, as this was the first human that she had saved with such a strong mentality, able to feel anger even after she was brainwashed from a young age. Perhaps this was due to her pure spirit, enabling her to have a strong willpower. She only saved Jane because she knew something odd was happening at every blood sacrifice, where the spirits of the slaves would get 'deleted' or perhaps moved. But she didn't know that this 'Blood God' could eat the spirit of people.
'Jane, I'm sorry.' Phyris thought to her. Phyris didn't know what else to say.
Jane continued her tantrum until her energy was below critical and she decided to eat her food. However, her overwhelming emotions only left her being drained.
Jane fell asleep with tears.
Phyris had all of the power, but what direction could she go?