Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System

Chapter 591: Challenges Daimon & Nethereal sisters version (part 6)

Amidst the chaos produced by whatever ability Scarlet used to blow up the whole upper body of a defense type earth element Knight Lord and a rook, Daimon tried to organize the few hints he got about these girls's newly acquired powers.

'So, in normal circumstances the energy they use is essentially the same as mana, despite sharing similarities with the composition of nether which I know off, they are also quite talented in their respective elements and paths, given Lapis's relatively fast casting time for someone who just became a mage and the high destructive heat of Scarlet's battle aura', thought Daimon to then inwardly add.

'Then when they use those "glyphs" the other part of their energies which is normally inactive, comes to life and grants them certain abilities, for Lapis, she somehow could change a spell for another completely different one, including the element even if she doesn't have the respective affinity as for Scarlet… I only know that the red glow coming from the below her chest plate circulated all the way to her finger when she clashed with that rook '.

Unlike the enemy knight who didn't know how was it possible for him to die just by the finger of an enemy who didn't increase his strength with battle aura, nor used any martial art and was also on the same realm as him, Daimon could tell things weren't as simple as they looked.

While Scarlet's ability seemed way simpler and less flashy when compared to Lapis's one, that wasn't the case, under normal circumstances he would have also thought that the rook's defense getting "weaker" was caused by a curse or debuff of some sort.

The rook guy thought it was a curse since unlike debuffs, curses are harder to detect unless one specializes or has proper knowledge about them, so at his last moments that guy supposed that Scarlet's life spark was a support type one and she just hid it for the right moment.

Which is why when he received the cleansing spell from the bishop, which allowed him to heal the burning sensation, he got regained his confidence thinking that Scarlet's ability was just mirrors and smoke, unfortunately he was wrong.

'And what if contrary to nether, their power puts extreme focus on themselves instead', wondered Daimon.

Nether it's the combination of one's mana and a strong desire felt by the person in question, usually of a negative nature.

At the castle of the women from the Black Knight race, Daimon saw those arrays which used other people's emotions to produce nether and at Agrak's casino he learned that nether can be used to influence others without them noticing, making them feel that same emotion, which complements the array mentioned before, it's a vicious full cycle.

So, his theory was that Scarlet and the others, obtained an inverted version of that, instead of affecting others negatively, they would be affected positively.

'Mmm, it would make sense, Lapis's voice supposedly made others have a good impression of her, but on a neutral way since she couldn't force it, that could be called harmony'.

'Also, now that I think about it, I didn't ask Scarlet about her and Ruby's own unique characteristics, while Amber, Jade and Lapis did mention them since they happened to be related to the places where those needles were used on them, I guess I'll know it after seeing the others fighting', concluded Daimon.

Scarlet and Ruby were just tortured in general without a specific direction, if anything, Scarlet was given special "attention" because she insulted that guy from the tribes by not accepting his advances, so this is as far as Daimon could guess with the information he had.

As if Scarlet could read Daimon's thoughts, she took the initiative to look in his direction to then say.

'Since Lapis did as she wanted and showed off a bit too much, I'll also give young master a hint, pay special attention to each one of our glyphs'.

Daimon raised an eyebrow in response, Lapis's glyph was visible, so it was understandable if Scarlet asked him to see it, but hers was hidden below her chest plate and they didn't spend enough time together to know about how special were his eyes.

Once again, Scarlet showed how sensitive they were towards Daimon by adding.

'That purple haired girl told us that young master can see through physical things like… clothes, so we didn't bother to use clothes and armor that didn't cover our glyphs'.

Daimon felt a headache coming his way, he actually forgot that they were left with the crazy girl Sarah without surveillance, what's more the crazy girl herself even mentioned that Scarlet and the others "smelled" like him, so who knows what barbarities has she told them.

'Okay, don't believe even half of whatever she has told u… my eyes can indeed see through physical objects though, but it's not like I use them for such things', said Daimon.

Seeing Scarlet's doubt filled eyes, Daimon inwardly sighed, who knows how much has the crazy girl "corrupted" them, perhaps she got friendlier with them since their energy did resemble nether, which she awakened back at Kerrol, similar to how she approached Haylee since she also had poison affinity.

That being said and just as Scarlet was being transported, Daimon followed her advice and while every cell of his body was telling him that he was falling in Sarah's trap, he saw through Scarlet's chest plate since he wanted to take a peek at the glyph that was still glowing on the left side of her chest.

Of course he stopped there to not see through her clothes, he had gotten this much control over the infinity eyes, but even then, he couldn't help but feel as if he was doing something bad.

'That damn crazy girl', he thought as he scanned Scarlet's glyph, unlike Lapis's one which was a light blue female figure sitting cross legged in meditation, Scarlet's glyph was a standing red female figure surrounded by flames.

It was faint, but Scarlet noticed Daimon's gaze on the area where her glyph was located and before she was taken out of the battlefield, her face slightly blushed, but by the time she appeared near Lapis and the others she had regained her cool.

Back at the battlefield, Daimon could feel Evangeline and Narasha's gazes on him and he cleared his throat to then change his focus to the last battle, he wasn't particularly interested in Julio and whatever he had gained from his challenge, if anything he felt interested in how stronger had Lance gotten, but Aisha told him to not use the infinity eyes on Julio, there must be something going in with him.

"Let's see, where are they now…", mumbled Daimon as he looked for the remaining two participants, after the bishop casted that cleansing spell on the rook guy he ran as if his life depended on it because that is the case, only for him to see how Scarlet easily killed his hope of easy survival.

That being said and while he knew he had no way to win Julio in a fight, he continued escaping, with the hope of making it to the time limit of the round, hence why Daimon had to look for them, since they had actually gotten further into the distance due to all the chase.

Surprisingly the remaining bishop, who is a water support mage, managed to put distance between himself and Julio once again, perhaps because he was continuously spamming movement spells while also casting water barriers in Julio's way.

"Tsk, the increase in mana reserves and faster mana recovery is really annoying to deal with", said Julio, his attribute might be wind which is known for enhancing one's speed but he is a knight and his life spark is an attack type one, so unlike Michael, Julio lacks that high-speed mobility, which is why his team mates casted buffing spells on him back when he fought against Aisha.

Also, Julio's fighting style focused on close combat, despite his slender frame, all the previous contributed to the fact that his opponent was still alive, that being said, he was starting to get pissed off by the enemy.

"Get away from me, your team already won so leave me alone!", shouted the bishop as he casted a water wall in Julio's way.

"Blade Hurricane Fist", wind battle aura gathered around Julio's forearms as he punched frontwards, the water on his way was immediately forced aside by the traction power of the wind rotating at high speed, making the bishop feel the urge to cry.

'Out of all the possible elements, he had to have the one who has advantage over mine, damn it, I can't let him catch up with me otherwise I am dead!', he inwardly cursed.

Daimon who was observing the chase, couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, so far, he couldn't see any difference between the current Julio and the one before the Global Raid started, unlike the others so far.

Calvin not only increased his realm, he even awakened a second affinity, Leslie got an improvement in her lineage's ability besides the increase in her realm as well, Lapis and Scarlet were the same, increase in realm and lineage ability.

On the other hand, Julio is the first participant who already was in the Lord realms previous to the Global Raid and has already integrated the reward from his challenge.

'Perhaps direct realm advancement isn't part of the rewards prepared for Lord ranks and above', thought Daimon.

Back at the fight, Julio who has been gathering energy since earlier finally gave it a use, his body exploded in green battle aura as he shouted.

"Cyclone Armor", wind from every direction was drawn towards him, before all his body was covered by a semi-transparent green armor made out of battle aura, it was a rare sight, caused by a full body strengthening martial art!

Buff spells are rather common, they mainly focus on enhancing one specific aspect, then you have those rare spells such as the ones used by the royal linage of the Light Palace, like Jasmine whose buffs can bring major multiple benefits.

The same applies for martial arts, except that even the single benefit buffing type ones are much rarer, to the point that they are transmitted as family legacies and this martial art which Julio was using, went beyond that, since it covered his whole body, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that it was a martial art that could be the cornerstone to create a powerful family or force.

Of course, the requirements were equally hard, it took Julio all the time that has passed since the round started until now to use this martial art, he used almost a fourth part of his battle aura reserves in a single go and judging by the inaudible for most people, creaking noises coming from his bones, the toll on his body was insane.

Julio put on the semi-solid helmet that was created by the martial art, which covered his upper face and his hair which used to be quite short, grew until it reached his shoulders, in a close inspection it was actually wind battle aura that acted as an extension of his hair.

The bishop who only now noticed that his opponent stopped chasing after him, turned his head around and when his gaze reached Julio, his face paled, while the distance between them was increasing, the sensation of doom also increased.

"Water Walls".

"Water Disruption".

"Tsunami!".

In a hurry, the bishop, casted three large area effects in a row, disregarding the amount of mana which he had to use, the first one created multiple walls of water in between himself and Julio, the second one re-accommodated them so that they weren't in a straight line but in three different directions, that perfectly hid the bishop from Julio's sight.

And the last one created a large wave of water that engulfed the bishop, the idea was clear, avoid being hit by Julio at all cost.

Unfortunately, things weren't going to work the way the bishop wanted, Julio closed his hand and then pointed his fist frontwards.

"Cyclone Breaking Fist", unlike his original martial art, he replaced the "hurricane blade" for a "cyclone breaking" and the result was also different, a rotating horizontal current of wind was shot from Julio's fist, producing a wind tunnel that pierced through the water walls all the way to where the water tsunami was.

Before the bishop could react, Julio jumped into the wind tunnel and he turned into a green flash, accelerated by the fierce wind currents, within the wind tunnel, Julio launched another attack, resulting in another wind tunnel being created.

"Aghhh!", the second punch grazed the bishop's upper back and nearly blew out his right shoulder.

Since the wind was dragging the water from the tsunami spell, towards it, dispelling it, he jumped out of the tsunami and started running once again, only for him to suddenly feel as if an elephant had stomped him.

"Blegh!", the bishop vomited blood as a wind current landed on his back, ripping his defenses apart and sending him flying a few dozens of meters frontwards.

With a dull sound, the bishop heavily landed on the ground, despite his wounds he turned around just to see Julio arriving at the vicinity and knowing that he couldn't escape from this one, he used all his remaining mana in a desperate attempt to take Julio down with him.

"Water Friction Saw!", that was the only proper offensive spell that the bishop knew, it consisted in creating two water streams that flowed in opposite directions, the friction generated acted as a cutting force, he was proficient on it despite being a support type mage, because that spell is also used for construction to cut material.

Julio was slightly surprised to feel the pressure from the two currents of water approaching him, however he simply extended his arms and actually stopped the spell with his bare hands.

"Crack!", at the same time the armor on his arms crumbled apart and disappeared, ripping the sleeves of his shirt in the process, but the explosion of wind battle aura was enough to dispel the sharp streams of water used by the bishop.

Before the guy could say anything, Julio flashed and used his right hand to punch the bishop on the chest.

"Hurricane Blade Fist", he probably lacked battle aura to keep using the martial arts that came with the Cyclone Armor, so he finished the enemy with his usual martial art, Julio's fist pierced the bishop's chest and the wind battle aura gathered around his arm drilled a hole through him.

Of course, the bishop died on the spot, allowing Julio to let out a sigh of relief, his body relaxed and the remaining parts of the armor disappeared, except for the helmet.

"Phew", while panting due to exhaustion, Julio looked in a certain direction, of course wasn't looking at Daimon but at Lance who was also observing the fight, when the armor dispelled, the damage to his clothes was revealed.

The sleeves of his shirt were completely gone all the way to the shoulder, also the neck of the shirt was half shredded as well, but that's not the important part but the white bandages that could be seen below his clothes, which got slightly loose changing the "shape" of Julio's chest.

The helmet slowly disappeared and while the extension of hair was gone, he for the first time removed his glasses and his face suffered some minor changes, however when combined with the bandages that had loosened enough for a couple of "bumps" to become obvious on Julio's chest, things changed.

'Oh, so that's why mom told me not to look at him… her', thought Daimon.

To be honest, Julio looked rather "delicate" but thanks to those bandages which were now revealed to be used to give a much squarer shape to his chest and the glasses which modified some aspects of his face, he simply looked like a thin scholar.

While this revelation wasn't directed at Daimon, he couldn't help but realize that it was done on purpose, to look like an accident, it would be too much of a coincidence that his clothes stopped shredding before showing anything too extreme, but that it was enough to make it clear that he was actually a she.

"Yo, and here I thought I was the worse for almost falling in that trap at our challenge, but it looks like I am not the only blind one", jokingly said Calvin as he gazed at Lance who was in awe at the sudden revelation.

"You are still the worse, you were almost seduced by that "mermaid", who was actually a male monster in disguise, you were lucky that I arrived in time", casually said Michael, revealing Calvin's shameful past mistake.

"Gaaah, shup up you shrimp bastard, we ended up there due to your mistake to begin with!", exclaimed Calvin, just to see Loren with a smile which wasn't a smile, making him curse Michael in his heart.

Ignoring those two's usual arguing, Lance was lost in his thoughts upon the revelation that Julio was actually Julia, the many close "brotherly" moments they shared together flooded his mind and he nearly facepalmed himself after realizing that he should have noticed it way earlier.

They trained, ate and even slept in the same room, it was only their bathing schedule the one that casually never "matched" at the barracks of the Neo Noble faction, also Julio's hair grew quite fast so he had to cut it almost once a week and he slept while wearing his glasses.

'I guess that's why the general always laughed at me without any motive…', he thought, Julia was general Dominic's niece, of course he knew she was a girl and he knew she was pursuing Lance and helped her become his right hand so that they could spend more time together, in hopes that he would notice her secret, but ultimately, she had to reveal it herself, since the future of Neptune was uncertain and she didn't want to risk to die without letting Lance know that she was a girl.

And without giving Lance even an extra second to prepare for what was coming, the trumpet echoed through the battlefield and the announcement came after that.

[A bishop has been removed from the game, congratulations to the Red Queen, all the enemy pieces have been eliminated, the Red Queen will be given the first move privilege]

While Julia was sent out of the battlefield, leaving Lance to deal with her, Daimon listened to the announcement which was different this time and he flew back to where Reyne and the enemy queen were.

Daimon arrived just in time to see those two finishing the preparations to use the materials from the corpse of the magic beast they chose, the results were naturally different, the enemy queen had a pile of bones devoid of any flesh or other material which could have vitality in it.

Reyne on the other hand, had a large bucket filled with the blood of the corpse which she bled fry using her knight's lance to make multiple small piercing wounds all over it.

The moment Daimon returned the battle started, normally the enemy queen would have fiercely taken the first attack, but since her team was wiped out, Reyne was given the first move so she could do nothing but watch until Reyne has made her decision.

Speaking of which, Daimon still didn't know what the rules were, since they were apparently changed for the official round, they just had to create the eight "pawns" they were going to use and send them towards the enemy, they could use them to fight against each other or go straight to the queen.

But even that has changed, now they had to take turns to make the pawns and the dynamic between them will be different, the pawns can only fight other pawns, in exchange they can gain the powers of another piece with the exception of queen or king, if they reach the base of the enemy, the rules somewhat resembled those of chess but were also different at the same time.

"Having the first turn is an advantage but it's also a problem, she can make her first pawn after seeing the result of mine", mumbled Reyne with a slightly worried voice.

Daimon chuckled, he knew that the problem wasn't that, due to the discrimination that Emily suffered back at Kerrol, Reyne kept her Nelapsi lineage powers a secret, it is true that she used her blood affinity openly back then, but that wasn't a proof of her race being quite far from what can be considered human.

While rare, blood element isn't exclusive to vampire races like the Ghouls native from Kerrol, humans and some races talented in the knight path can also be born with it or obtain it, since it's related to vitality at the end of the day.

However, the ability she was about to use, was a completely different matter, if others saw her, she would have been considered a Ghoul like Emily, which isn't true but there was no room for discussion back at Kerrol.

'She is usually so calm and level headed that I nearly forgot she is as young as Jazmine', thought Daimon.

Reyne is usually quite mature, her demeanor is akin to that of a young noble lady, except when she deals with Sarah who makes her loose her patience, or when she is with Daimon, since she acts like a little girl in love, something she has in common with Jazmine.

But that doesn't mean she doesn't have her own worries and insecurities, like right now when she was hesitating to use the other side of her exclusive ability as a Nelapsi for her benefit.

Though she already told everyone in the group about her race, and she also has stablished somewhat of a friendly rivalry with the Risha sisters, that didn't mean she accepted it herself, it was normal given how she had to live most of her life.

"If you keep limiting yourself you won't be able to join my class once we go to my place of origin, normal people are the rare ones there, just look at Calvin", he jokingly said.

"Mm~", Reyne softly giggled as she nodded at Daimon, the tense atmosphere disappeared as she was reminded that none of the people, she cared about put importance on one's race, heck Daimon could practically be a part of the race he wanted, in fact he was a vampire like her, which reminded her of something that has been running around her mind since some time ago.

'Is it true that vampires experience an incredible happiness when they drink their partner's blood', she thought as she closed her eyes and the next second when she opened them, her pupils had gone from that emerald pretty green color to a bright blood red one.

The blood in the bucket undulated as if it had gained self-awareness, with an elegant gesture from Reyne, a stream of blood left the bucket and took a vague human shaped form.

"Blood Knight", with a simple sentence, a cluster of battle aura left Reyne's hand and was absorbed by the bloody human shape, which then produced a solid metallic looking exterior in the form of a knight's armor, the helmet had a slit from which a pair of lights could be seen.

The thing had some similarities with Horals the Bone General, which made sense as it was a type of undead, that's right, Reyne had the ability to create undead using the blood of others, it's worth mentioning that her mother(s) didn't have this ability, even if they also had blood affinity and were Nelapsi, this was an ability exclusive to Reyne and the reason was still unknown.