The world was a smear of bruised purple and sickly green. Vicky's lungs felt like they were full of acid-soaked sand. Every pump of his legs sent a jolt of agony up his spine, a dull echo of the thousands of impacts his body had absorbed.
He was running on fumes. Not just physical exhaustion—his Chi was scraped dry. He had been regenerating it on the move, a trickle against a torrent of expenditure, but it wasn't enough. The constant sensory enhancement, the bursts of speed to close distances, the Chi-laced strikes to shatter skeletal armor—it had all drained the well. His vampiric nature gave him stamina far beyond any human, but even that inexhaustible well had a bottom, and he was dredging it.
His vision blurred. The trees around him seemed to warp and twist, their dead branches reaching for him like the skeletal claws he'd been shattering for hours. He stumbled, catching himself on a rotting trunk, the bark crumbling to dust under his grip.
Just... a little further. The boss. Have to find the boss.
He'd been following a thickening miasma of dark energy, a trail of breadcrumbs left by the plane's master. But the trail was long, and the hordes of wandering monsters were endless. He was a lone predator swimming through an ocean of enemies, and the tide was wearing him down.
He pushed off the tree, his legs wobbling. A wave of vertigo crashed over him. The world tilted, his thoughts fogging over.
No. Not here.
He forced one foot in front of the other. And then another. It was a pathetic, lurching stagger, a mockery of the supernatural speed he commanded. He was a machine breaking down, pistons seizing, fuel lines empty.
He broke through a final line of thorny, dead bushes, tearing his already-tattered clothing. He expected more forest, more gloom.
He saw lights.
Faint, flickering, and yellow. Not the angry red or violet of magical energy, but the simple, mundane light of fire. He blinked, thinking it was a hallucination. But the smell hit him—woodsmoke.
Through the haze of his exhaustion, he made out crude shapes. A low wall, built more of packed mud and rotting logs than stone. Beyond it, small huts, thatched with grey, dying reeds. A village. A tiny, pathetic spark of life in a world of death.
The relief was so profound, so sudden, that it was the final blow. The willpower that had held his body together simply... snapped. His knees buckled. The last thing he saw before the world went black was the soft, flickering light of a torch just yards away, behind a flimsy, makeshift gate.
His body hit the dirt with a heavy, final thud.
He awoke with a gasp, a predator's instinct overriding his body's protest. He shot upright, his hand flashing to where a weapon should be, his fangs instinctively descending.
He wasn't in the forest.
The air was still, tinged with the smell of dried herbs and the lingering scent of woodsmoke. He was on a simple cot, a rough-spun blanket—damp and smelling of mildew—covering him. The room was small, lit by a single candle. The walls were uneven, made of wattle and daub.
He heard a sharp intake of breath.
Vicky's head snapped toward the sound. In the corner, huddled near a small, smoldering hearth, were people. They weren't monsters. They weren't skeletons or ghouls. They were human.
Or they had been.
They were frail, withered to the bone. An old man, his skin like yellowed parchment stretched over a skull, held a simple wooden spear, though his arms trembled so badly he could barely lift it. Beside him, a woman, equally ancient, clutched a rusted knife. They looked terrified, but they stood their ground, shielding two others who cowered behind them. A fifth figure, a man who looked younger—perhaps forty—but just as emaciated and sickly, stood near the doorway, holding a pitchfork.
Vicky relaxed, just slightly, letting his fangs retract. He raised his hands slowly. "I'm not going to hurt you."
His voice was a raw croak. He realized how thirsty he was. The hunger was there, a dull ache, but the thirst was a fire.
The old man, who seemed to be the leader, squinted. "It... it spoke. It's not a mindless one."
"I'm... a traveler," Vicky said, his mind racing. He swung his legs off the cot. The movement was fast, and the five people flinched as one. He was still weak, his Chi reserves were at zero, but his base physical stats were monstrous compared to these... husks. "You found me outside."
"Aye," the old man said, his voice a dry rustle. "At the gate. We... we thought you were dead. Then we saw you were still breathing. We brought you in."
"Why?" Vicky asked, his eyes scanning them. They had no power. No Chi. No levels. They were civilians. In a world like this, they were food.
"We... we are not monsters," the woman whispered, her voice trembling. "Not yet. We do not... leave souls to the darkness. Not if we can help it."
The younger-looking man, the one with the pitchfork, stepped forward. "Who are you? What are you? We saw your... face. When you woke up."
Vicky paused. There was no point in lying. "My name is Vicky. And I'm a Vampire."
They tensed, but the terror was... muted. It was the terror of people who had accepted their fate. A vampire was just one more nightmare in a world made of them.
"A vampire," the old man, Rowan, repeated. He lowered his spear, his strength failing him. "It matters little. You are armed. You are strong. We are... this. All that is left. If you mean to feed, do it quickly."
Vicky stood, his own exhaustion forgotten, replaced by a profound sense of... unreality. "I'm not going to feed on you." He looked around the small, cramped hut. "How many are you?"
"Five," said the man with the pitchfork. "There were... there were thousands, once. Generations ago. Now... just us five. Myself, Albert Cole. Our elder, Rowan, and his wife, Elara. And Marcus and Lyra." He gestured to the other trembling couple.
"What happened?" Vicky asked. "Where did you come from?"
Rowan sank onto a small stool, his breath wheezing. "We are... castaways. That is the word from the old stories. Our world... it was called Xylos. It was... green. It was beautiful." A tear traced a path through the grime on his ancient cheek. "Then... a shadow fell. A dark being, a creature of pure malice... it came to our world. It commanded an endless army of monsters... ghouls, shades, beasts of chitin and shadow... they poured from rifts in reality. It was a tide of death, and we were... nothing. Our world was devoured, piece by piece."
He looked at the dirt floor. "Our ancestors... they were scientists, mystics. They poured all their remaining power into one great... Gate. A way out. It was a one-way trip. A desperate gamble. A few thousand of us... made it through. We arrived here. This... cursed plane."
Albert Cole spat. "And it has been cursing us ever since. This place... it has rules. A 'system,' the first arrivals called it. But it rejected us. We couldn't gain 'levels.' We couldn't gain 'strength.' We were just... food. The monsters hunted us. The air itself... it's poison. It saps our strength, withers our bodies. We age... so fast. I am forty years old. I look four times that."
Vicky's mind reeled. These weren't natives. They were refugees from another world, trapped in a plane that was actively killing them. They were like a failed transplant, the host body of this world rejecting their very existence.
"For five generations," Elara whispered, "we have hidden. We have... survived. Our ancestors built this village, 'Sanctuary,' they called it. Now... it is a tomb. We are the last. When we die... Xylos dies with us."
The silence in the hut was absolute, broken only by Rowan's ragged breathing.
Vicky looked at them. Five people, waiting to die, who had used their last dregs of strength to drag a stranger—a vampire—into their home to save him from the monsters outside.
He had come here for a quest. To kill a boss, to gain power, to save his own skin. These people... their plight put his own struggles into a harsh, new perspective.
He made a decision.
"You saved me," Vicky said, his voice firm. The five looked up, startled. "You had no reason to. You had no strength, and you spent what little you had on a stranger. I will repay that debt."