Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System

Chapter 585: Challenges Thea’s version (part 21)

Leaving aside Daimon and Thalia's reactions, Dorian was even more excited after listening to Gwen's tempting words, but then he seemed to have reminded something that made him angry.

"Are you sure, the previous experiment for the seventh affinity nearly caused some backslash!", he exclaimed.

"You complain now, but didn't the double darkness affinity you obtained allowed you to defeat that quack of a priest?", mockingly said Gwen to then add.

"Besides, this time it will be a single target summon, so what happened with those siblings won't repeat".

Dorian seemed to consider things for a moment before nodding in response.

"Fine if it's a single target summon, then there should be no problem, however I want to know more about the target, last time you knew the exact coordinates needed for the summon to work, so assume this time it will be the same", he said as he signaled a chair for Gwen to sit.

The silver-red haired administrator seemed displeased but she accepted the invitation and sat down, Dorian naturally sat in front of her, it wasn't hard to notice that the Abyss Snake system user was interested on Gwen.

"The target will be from a race called "Void Devouring Python", normally mortals are limited to be born with second or even third-rate space affinity, since we are talking about a special grade element, however the most talented members of the royal lineage of this race have the chance to be born with first rate space affinity, meaning that even at its base status, it will allow you to fight one or two minor realms above your own even at Stellar level".

"Of course that is for normal people, you the host I have raised should be able to jump a major realm with that, specially since the innate affinities of those snakes are darkness and space", said Gwen as she accommodated her hair.

Dorian's eyes glowed in response, not only because he was treated with respect by Gwen for a change, but because with the power to jump a whole realm, he'll surpass any obstacle in Neptune, meaning that he will be the ultimate winner.

"Okay, but where does such a talented race live, there is no way they can be found in the galaxies near this small single planet plane, unlike the previous targets, right?", he said.

"Of course not, even in Empire ranked forces, they would be a rarity… under normal circumstances, so be grateful, I used my accumulated origin to exchange for these coordinates of a family that lost in a succession war", said Gwen as she took out a marble with a miniature galaxy floating inside of it.

The moment Dorian saw the marble, he frowned.

"Forget it, I can already feel how hard it will be to stablish a summoning tunnel with those coordinates in this damn planet… unless, right I can now use this thing I got as a reward after defeating that fake bastard", said Dorian as he looked into his storage ring to then take out a black crystal, that immediately made the room go dark due to the black mist it radiated.

'That crystal looks similar to the black mineral that covered Akim's core, but much higher ranked', thought Daimon, if the black mineral covering that high Stellar ranked Nethereal which he enslaved was a torch, that crystal would be the sun, such was the difference in quality and nether contained on it.

Dorian then took his shirt off, and a red array appeared on his chest, it looked similar to the one that Gwen's bodyguards created by engraving a part on each of them, but it also shared similarities with the summoning circle at the bottom of the secret lab.

A second later, the same array was burned on the ground surrounding Dorian and then a sound of glass shattering could be heard as the space above the summoning circle was forcefully split open.

"Blegh!", Dorian vomited blood on the spot, which made Gwen almost laugh at him.

"Damn, why is it so hard to stablish the summoning tunnel in this planet, I used my last free chance and poured all my mana into it and it is still being blocked by something", said Dorian as he wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth to then throw the crystal into the space rift created by the summoning circle.

"Booom!", the moment the black crystal entered the space rift, a loud explosion followed by a discharge of mana and nether came from the dimensional tunnel, the thing blinked a couple of times throughout the whole event as if it was about to collapse, but ultimately Dorian gritted his teeth and bled to maintain the array functioning.

"Hurry and make the summon, the crystal won't be able to force a path through the blockade for too long!", shouted Gwen.

Dorian placed his hand on his chest and then shouted his lung off.

"Summon!", tattoos with different designs appeared on his skin, before phantom chains came out of his body, the scenery suddenly changed, apparently Dorian could see through those chains, everything blacked out as his mind travelled through the summoning tunnel.

The previous room projection, turned into the magnificent sight of a castle, it was Thalia's turn to recognize something shown in the projection, since this was her home, while doing her best to keep her cool she frowned as she saw Dorian being attacked by the defensive arrays of the castle.

'Damn, just the travel used too much of my stamina, the space defense of this place is too high ranked, they are going to notice me, screw it I'll randomly capture someone on the less restricted places of this castle', thought Dorian, just as he was about to stop his incursion, the array of the castle suddenly stopped restraining him.

Then a strictly defined "path" was opened for him to follow, if Dorian was surprised, imagine how Thalia felt as she saw Dorian advance through the path that opened up, just to end up at the door of a room she knew as the palm of her hand, since it was her own room.

'Hurry up idiot, the space on the island is about to collapse!', Dorian heard Gwen screaming at him in his mind, and he threw all his doubts to the wind and placed his hand on the door of the room.

What happened next is what Thalia already knew, a space rift suddenly appeared on the roof of her room, taking her by surprise and she was dragged into it, her point of view was ignored though, the projection returned to Dorian and Gwen who were standing on the previously mentioned room.

A seriously wounded Thalia was forcefully thrown out of the dimensional tunnel, which Gwen immediately closed and somehow moved to another part of Neptune, Dorian's eyes glowed as he inspected his "catch".

"Damn, I kind of had to blindly pick, but it seems like my luck hadn't been completely used yet", he said as he approached Thalia who was half conscious laying on the ground still surrounded by those phantom chains, her clothes which were magic treasures were torn here and there and all her accessories such as rings, earrings and wristbands broke down and turned into durst as a proof of how rough the travel through the dimensional tunnel was, with a sole exception a pendant that was hidden below her clothes.

"Hurry and fully restrain her you idiot, she is actually one of the royals I mentioned", Gwen scolded Dorian as she sat down, clearly her previous actions took a toll on her, so she was out of breath right now.

Dorian whose intentions were clear enough to not need a memory reproduction to be noticed by others, just when he was preparing the ritual to enhance the connection between Thalia and him, he clenched his chest with his right hand.

"Aghhh!", Dorian fell to his knees, a pair of black snake tattoos engraved on his shoulders, enlarged and started corroding Dorian's body, at the same time a pair of voiced could be heard coming from the tattoos.

"Did you think you would get rid of us so easily you fucking bastard!", the first one was a crude male voice, directed at Dorian.

"Hey, hurry up and escape, we can't him for too long", the second one was a female voice with a tinge of sympathy, directed at Thalia, helping her to regain some control over her body.

"Dam it, didn't you say you had completely finished those two off!", shouted Gwen, she got up in a hurry, but before she could do anything, Thalia crushed the pendant on her neck and she was absorbed by a portal, successfully escaping from the room.

"Nooo aghhhh!", something that Thalia didn't know is that said portal cut the phantom chains around her, making Dorian bleed from his eyes, mouth, nose and ears before passing out, the two black snake tattoos were then suppressed by Gwen, who was cursing and that was the end of the scene since Dorian was out.

Daimon and Thea both turned to see Thalia who has been silent since some time ago, she was clearly in shock and it was understandable, she believed that Dorian had a way to completely ignore the defenses of the castle where she lived, but that turned out to not be the case, he seemed to have been guided to her.

"Daimon, do you think that guy pulled that off with luck or something related to that woman…", mumbled Thalia, referring to system users, only to see Daimon shaking his head without a second of hesitation.

"No, certainly opportunities do come to us more than to normal people, but there is a limit to how much one can deal with obstacles of a higher rank than us, also Dorian wasn't a hero type so chances to turn the table around like that, aren't his area of specialty, as for Gwen she didn't interfere anymore, whatever that was, it was done from the other side", he said.

It was futile to lie to Thalia, she knew the basic rules of system users already, since she was aware of missions, she didn't want to directly think that someone who had authority over the defensive arrays of the castle guided "danger" to her room, on purpose, but Daimon directly crushed that illusion, it might hurt but it was for her own good and Daimon refused to sugar coat what he would firmly call a betrayal.

Also, if Thalia was so much alike to Thea, Daimon believed she was strong enough to get over this, and he was right, after a couple of seconds of silence, Thalia regained her composure to then slightly smile at Daimon.

"I see, thanks… leaving that aside, I finally understand how I developed the ability detect those guy's mana, back then I was half conscious, the mana of those chains was probably absorbed by me after some time, also I couldn't hear the first voice coming from those tattoos, but wasn't it similar to Travis?", she said, changing the subject.

'Those guys huh, so she doesn't include you with other system users, how cute~', jokingly said Evangeline from within Daimon's mind.

Daimon ignored that mischievous administrator of his and instead focused on Thalia's words, that would explain why Travis stopped attacking them, when he arrived at the battleground, he probably recognized Thalia since her projection was out of the body she was possessing, that pendant he threw at her was actually a way to control all his army!

"I don't think it was exactly the same "person", but probably a new being born out of what was left over from that person", said Daimon as he touched the amphora ring, the feeling he got from Travis after he self-destroyed his body was slightly similar to the fire djinns he captured, not exactly the same, but he turned out to be a spirit type of being.

It was different to Thalia, or the administrators who currently didn't possess a physical body, Daimon could tell they couldn't be put in the amphora ring, but Travis could, if he had submitted to him of course.

Seeing Thalia get all the attention, the empress felt a strange bitter sensation flooding her chest, which led her to clear her throat to speak about her discovery.

"Ahem, that "summoning tunnel" gave off a similar feeling to the space rift, below the Ryner clan's castle, perhaps it ended up fusing with it after that woman sent it away", she said as she drank from her cup.

"That could explain why there was high quality nether coming out of it when we went to see it, it was the leftover of that crystal which was attracted by Sarah", said Daimon as he nodded at Thea who hid her smile behind her cup.

Daimon then clicked on the "next" button, to go to the next chapters, there were three which specifically mentioned the snake princesses, the second one was shorter though.

Thea and Thalia were marveled at the projection disassembling to then form a completely different scenery, this time it was much more "merrier" situation, for Thalia at least.

"I know we had a bad start, but I'm offering you the chance of your life, if you submit to me, I'll help you reach heights that you can't even imagine…", Dorian's words were interrupted by a silver spear thrusting towards his face.

"Dam it", Dorian cursed as he dodged, just to see a hole being pierced through his left thigh.

"Didn't you want my space affinity, come here and receive it right into that disgusting face of yours", the fierce voice of an angered Thalia could be heard coming from every direction, making Dorian's instincts scream "danger".

"Screw it, Tyrant Hydra!", with those words, Dorian's body was encased into a black cocoon which broke the next second, as a giant snake with nine heads, each representing a different affinity based on its color and the element surrounding it, came out of it.

"You bitch, I tried to give you a chance to be on equal standing as me, but now, you'll be treated as a slave", said the nine headed snake, the heads alternated to say the words that composed the whole sentence.

"Humph", the Thalia on the projection, limited to coldly snort, she pointed her spear towards the sky and then released her domain, which similar to Thea, granted her a reinforced control over the space in a certain range.

Unlike elemental domains, like fire, water and the like, Thea's domain was more like a trapping domain that asphyxiated the enemy depriving him from the capacity to move through space, while allowing the empress to fiercely attack him from all directions.

And Thalia's one was similar, with a single but really noticeable difference, she could use space to directly attack her enemy!

"Void Sky!", with those words, it was as if Thalia's domain had turned into the snout of a giant snake, baring its fangs towards Dorian who felt his scalp numbing at the scale of Thalia's attack, he couldn't escape using spatial movement and he knew that if he tried to break through her domain, he will lose many parts of his body, leaving him with only one choice.

"You crazy woman, go die already, Chaos Breath!", the nine heads pointed at different directions and streams of different elements were shot from each one, causing a clash between the enclosing domain and Dorian's all out attack, certainly space can send enemy's attacks flying away, but there is a limit.

After all, it's not like space is naturally set up to work against anyone, it is manipulated through the mage's mana to fulfill a specific purpose, in this case by Thalia to rip apart any physical thing it touches and deviate any energy thrown at it.

So, Dorian chose the simplest and crudest way to deal with a complicated and strong spell since he lacked a proper counter, he used a stupid amount of mana to outpower it, imagine it like this, if Thalia's spell was a nuclear bomb, then Dorian poured a whole ocean's worth of water to drown the explosion.

The result was a sky shattering explosion and two figures being sent flying away in different directions, once the dust settled, the sight of a slightly wounded Thalia who wiped the blood out of her mouth was revealed.

Her domain was damaged but she was still fine, since it wasn't a physically manifested one and Dorian didn't have enough strength to destroy space itself, speaking of Dorian, his previous nine headed hydra form was gone.

"I'm going to kill you!", a hysterical scream came from a few kilometers away, while the main body of the hydra was still in a piece with some deep cuts and other scratches here and there, four heads were completely gone starting all the way from their necks, cleanly shaved with the power of space.

"I remember that, I honestly only had one more move I could use, but then that guy…fled", mumbled Thalia.

Back at the projection, Dorian returned to his human form and then took out his magic weapon, which was actually a bident only to hear Gwen's voice scolding him.

'Stop it you fool, you already lost too much against a secondary enemy, if she damages your promise level treasure, you'll have no chance against that hero guy', she said.

Surprisingly Dorian directly ignored Gwen's advice and proposed to charge at Thalia with burning hatred in his eyes, until he received a message through his communication device.

"L-Lord, the reinforces didn't arrive, the hero's armies are decimating our defenses ahhh!".

"Count yourself lucky you damn woman, once I kill those bastards I'll come to settle this score for you, so do look up for the treatment of a slave!", with those words Dorian flew away, to get out of Thalia's range of space interference, before using a one-time teleportation scroll to leave.

"That was the last time I saw that idiot", said Thalia while Daimon chuckled knowing that this was caused by Marlene's ancestors, the scene ended here and Daimon continued to the last one.

The previous scenery, was replaced by a vast burnt-out land, tons of corpses of magic beasts and people from the mermen race could be seen all over the place, in fact there were only two living beings in the whole area, one of them was Dorian whose point of view was shared with Daimon and the snake princesses.

He was sitting on the ground, leaning his back against a rock while bleeding from his stomach, the second living being was a tall young man with long black hair, someone who Daimon recognized, since he has gained the recognition of being a pain in the ass, the former hero, who caused Adam's visit to Neptune, Ereth.

"Fighting against me when you can't even use 60% of your strength, what an idiot, whatever, at least I'll finally finish this boring mission", said Ereth as he used his weapon, a trident that was now in possession of Daimon, since it was the Trident of the Storm, to rip Dorian's head off his body.

But that wasn't all, the trident produced a fierce water stream in combination with a strong tornado, cutting and destroying Dorian's corpse until only a puddle of blood and flesh was left, Ereth then nodded satisfied with his work and after waiting for a second, in which he probably received a notification, he left, disappearing from the scene a few seconds later.

"Heh, so even that cunning bastard was careless back then", mockingly said Daimon, if Dorian would have died, then the scene would have ended, so that meant that Ereth didn't double check, he completely relied on his system and missed a potential revenge, though it didn't happen, but that just pure luck.

To confirm the previous, countless small red snakes came out of the puddle of blood which was left from Dorian and piled together to then take the form of a person, who looked rather similar to Dorian but he was practically a sack of bones with skin.

"Damn hero bastard, you were right Gwen since I couldn't recover four heads in time for my battle with that guy, obtaining this "Red Fake Royal Cobra" half death ability, was a good idea even if I had to forfeit the mission, now how do I leave Gwen… Gwen!", Dorian who was rambling realized that he didn't receive an answer, no more than that he couldn't feel his administrator anymore.

"Hey where are you, this is not the time for… aghhh!", Dorian's words were interrupted midway by a bident piercing his chest, before a tall woman with silver-red hair appeared in front of him.

"Y-You, what are you doing, you can't kill me or you'll die!", exclaimed Dorian as he saw Gwen approaching him with hostile intentions, only to see the latter smirking at him.

"How can I kill someone that isn't alive as of current, I must say that your luck is rather high, if only you weren't an idiot, you could have become a host I would have chosen, back when I guided you to catch someone from a family that was out of your current level, I wanted you to die or at least end up seriously wounded to give up on the mission".

"But you actually managed to kidnap a royal of the Void Devouring Python race, I felt you had potential just for you to stupidly let her escape and then end up being wounded by her, luckily you are too much of a coward to think on a way to win instead of a way to just survive".

"You who choose the easy way to become a Tyrant by abusing of your subordinates instead of crushing your enemies, now you no longer meet the requirements to be considered even the most basic Tyrant and since my contract with you is only temporal, I won't be erased if I kill you", said Gwen.

"What are you talking about, you were the one who told me that a Tyrant doesn't need to care about the opinions of others", said Dorian as he tried to look for a way out of this situation.

"And you were stupid enough to not even try to think for yourself, like I said you had the luck to obtain such a high potential system as mine but were too much of an idiot to make proper use of it" she said as she retrieved the bident to then stab it on Dorian's head, really killing him this time.

Thalia actually smiled upon seeing the one who kidnapped her being betrayed and killed by his comrade, while Daimon frowned upon the sight of Gwen killing her host.

'No way, I thought she felt different but she actually killed her host with her own hands!', exclaimed the angel girl Ariel from within the feather pendant, in a voice that only Daimon could hear.

You might think that Ariel contributed to Adam's death not helping him anymore, but that's not the case, Adam used all the available support from his system, also he lost the qualifications to be considered even the lower type of hero and ultimately Ariel didn't do anything to cause the light idiot's demise, she just stood aside at the last moment after he ignored her advices.

Gwen on the other hand directly killed Dorian with her own hands, which Daimon thought wasn't possible, not because Eve has confirmed that they are in a life and death contract, but because he instinctively learned that the administrator isn't allowed to directly harm the host, otherwise said administrator would be punished accordingly.

'Eve, is this what you meant when you said that goal-wise she was way more dangerous than Karla?', asked Daimon.

'Mm, getting away with killing one's host isn't a simple thing to achieve, since each time a method is used it can't never be repeated again, as the rules get patched, that woman must have had reached a really high level of existence in her life, still no matter the achievement, once an administrator has killed a host then it will lose all her privileges and will be marked to be eliminated by any system user that crosses her path', said Evangeline after a couple of seconds of silence.

'Wait, you knew she was a "rogue", since before meeting her in person?' said Ariel, only be mocked by Evangeline.

'Don't tell me you couldn't feel it, little angel~', she said.

'Humph, it did cross my mind since she felt strange, but she was using origin and also the core ability of a user!', exclaimed Ariel in response.

'That's why I said that she had reached a really high level before, to be honest I didn't know the method she used before, but after seeing the memories of that guy, she turned a promise treasure into a cursed one through a ritual, killing its owner with it, then she used the corpse of the host to reform the treasure and his blood and flesh to create those new races, even his existence wasn't spared, to know about such obscure arts, the "Abyss" in the name of the system she administrated must have originated on her', said Eve to then add.

'If you call me big sister and accept to sign a contract with Daimon, I wouldn't mind sharing more of my knowledge with you~.

'My previous statement still stands, if he helps me to get rid of the Devil Ruler system user, I'll accept a temporary contract with him, however depending on what happens after that I… might consider a life and death contract', limited to say Ariel before she returned to silence, isolating herself inside the feather pendant.

All this while the blurred figure of a girl floating inside a virtual space, thought to herself.

'Hehe, I got you~'.

Unaware of Evangeline's schemes, Daimon retrieved the memory orb, he had obtained some important information just with those three chapters, obviously Evangeline needed Daimon to see and hear some things firsthand to be able to talk about some specific matters, which is why she only explained about why Gwen was an enemy to be wary off, until now.

Also, Thalia now knew more about her kidnapping, while Thea got to experience the aura of the place of origin of her race and also saw what she'll be able to do once she learns to fully exploit her innate talent with space, not to mention they got to see and learn about system users, both snake princesses benefitted from this experience.

As for Daimon, not only he saw the usefulness of the memory orb, but he also learned quite a few important things, anyway his time with the empress has come to an end, he still had a day but he was considering, leaving earlier.

As if feeling Daimon's intention to leave early, Thea jumped out of the bed and then grabbed Daimon's arm to drag him to towards the dining room.

"Let's go grab something to eat, Daimon, then I want to try the new function of the contract with you, you won't leave until then, right?", asked the empress trying her best to give Daimon puppy eyes.

Daimon chuckled in response, to then say.

"Fine, I'll stay until the portal naturally appears, but then I'll have to leave, okay".

With those words, Thea took Daimon to the dining room, followed by Thalia, not expecting what the Lamia queen had in store for him.