Vampire's Slice Of Life

'Tribulations should arrive any moment now.' Lith thought to himself while looking around.

His core was forming and as much as Lith knew, the tribulation would come at any time to stop him from ascending and having his core formed.

Rising up in ranks in the mortal realms was easy and not risky. One would be a mortal even if they become Rank 9. Except, they would have a long lifespan.

But long didn't mean infinite or inexhaustible and it was limited.

A Rank 9 could live upto ten thousand years without any problems but they would then die of old age when they exceed that limit and reincarnate again. 

Rank 1 could live upto a hundred years, they were the ones with the shortest lifespans. 

Rank 2 could live upto 200 years and the lifespan increased by hundred years upto Rank 5 where it would become 500 years.

At Rank 6, due to the qualitative change happening, the lifespan doubles and a person can live upto a thousand years.

Rank 7, a person can live upto 2500 years, Rank 8 it was 5000 years and Rank 9 was 10,000 years.

Tribulations thus didn't appear unless one was doing something heaven defying and challenging the natural laws and rules of the universe.

But after Rank 9, things were different. Tribulations didn't appear for Half Saint Ranks as this was a transitioning phase.

Tribulations appeared for everyone when they would have their core undergo transformation and turn into an immortal core.

The laws of the world wouldn't allow people to turn into an immortal and defy the natural order and thus tribulations would take place depending upon the person's strength and their foundation.

Lith knew about it and was expecting one to arrive at any moment.

But he was slightly in doubt and fully on guard as he had no idea what type of tribulation might occur here in this place.

Firstly, he had a solid foundation and he knew about it. He was the strongest in his rank and although this was a good thing, it wasn't so much when tribulations would arrive.

Lith's tribulations was bound to be really strong due to that.

Secondly, he was in the astral world and not in his own one. 

How would this place be, Lith had no idea, and how much the strength of the tribulation would be, also had no idea about it.

Lith could only grit his teeth and brace himself.

A while passed.

The tribulation finally arrived.

Winds howled and the strong breeze made Lith's clothes and his long silver hair flutter. 

In Lith's vision, there was no one else present in this Astral World apart from him and the golden light around him. He was fully focused and had his attention on the tribulation. 

What was happening externally, he kept only a small part of attention there and focused fully on the tribulation as it took a greater priority and was a risk to his life.

Soon, the howling of the winds transformed into a gray vortex out of which many tiny bugs appeared.

Lith squinted his eyes to see what these bugs were. But despite noticing their cricket-like body and grey colour, Lith wasn't able to point out what type of bugs they were.

Lith waves his hand in front of him and created a barrier made up of Dark elemental energy and covered himself, defending against the bugs.

It was better to be cautious.

The bugs moved towards Lith at great speed and immediately hit the barrier.

The bugs weren't able to penetrate inside and Lith sighed in relief.

But soon, his relief was for naught as the bugs ended up sucking the elemental energy out of the barrier and ended up weakening it.

Lith was surprised as he noticed it and immediately cast a Fire spell — Flame Slash towards the bugs and killed them.

Some bugs that weren't able to react got burnt while most escaped from the fire. Some bugs got on top of the blades of flames and sucked the elemental energy out of the flames.

It was now clear to Lith that these bugs had the power to suck elemental energies.

The bugs continued to charge towards Lith and their goal was to get in touch with his body.

Lith could tell what would happen if they ended up sticking onto him. He thus extended his wings out and flew in random motions to dodge the attacks of the bugs.

The bugs swarmed together and attacked Lith.

Millions of them ended up creating a storm of bugs and rushed towards Lith. Their speed was anything but slow and threatened Lith.

'Elemental attacks don't work…' Lith thought while dodging and thinking of a way to attack them.

He decided to use his spiritual power if he couldn't use elemental energies.

Lith opened his palm and willed his spiritual power to manifest into a sphere. A grey sphere of around six inches was formed on Lith's palm and Lith immediately threw it towards the bugs.

His spiritual power hit the bugs and exploded but Lith noticed that it had little to no effect.

'What even are they…'

This was the Astral World and Lith's own. He had no knowledge of it and he could only do trial and error to try beating them.

With the attacks Lith did, it was evident that the bugs weren't too powerful and could be killed but their numbers were so high that doing any attack would get absorbed by them and become null.

'I should try using area of effect attacks.' Thinking so, Lith did some hand gestures while running from the bugs and finishing casting the spell, he looked at the bugs and said softly,

"Blazing Fury." 

A huge tide of flames appeared out of Lith's body and engulfed the swarm of bugs.

The bugs chirped loudly as they felt the high temperature from the flames and a burning sensation. This sound wave was intense enough to rupture the eardrums of people below Rank 6 and Lith, having the body of a Half Saint currently, felt a slight tingle in his ears.

The flames that Lith sent ended up burning a good one-tenth of the bugs before it got absorbed by them as usual.

Lith didn't waste time and sent another attack and he attacked with Blazing Fury four times in a row.

Lith was getting a hang of finishing these bugs. As long as the attack was intense enough and could kill a group of bugs in an instant, it was a good attack.

Lith sent out waves of other area of effect attacks and in no time, he ended up killing half of the bugs.

Lith was relieved to know that the situation was under control but it wasn't for long when he heard a faint cry of some creature.

Lith looked in the direction of the sound and noticed it coming from a vortex.

In no time, five eagle-like birds, over thirty feet tall, appeared out and charged towards Lith while letting out an angry cry.

It was as if Lith had killed their nine generations and they were thirsty for Lith's life.

In just a breath's time, an eagle closed in on Lith and this caused alarm bells to ring all over his body and made him aware that he was in danger!

Lith immediately cried out in his mind after distancing away, 

'They can use Space!'