Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System - Chapter 681 - 681: How to deal with enemies from all sides (part 5)
Which perfectly aligned with how Daimon was planning to deal with all the bastards that had gathered in the Blood Prison realm, the Lords couldn’t act up directly, but they had an “agent” that was working with them, namely Ereth.
So, if someone messed with them while they are busy dealing with the Megalodon general and the forces of the Northern Sea, which are the enemies they are wary off, like Lyn for example, then they’ll probably ask Ereth to take care of it.
Which will point Ereth’s sword in Arlion’s direction, and while those two are busy clashing for benefits and survival respectively, that would leave the last of the bastards and one of the two which Daimon was originally targeting, alone and thinking that he was free to do as he pleased, creating the perfect chance to be hunted down, of course we are talking about Marcus.
Daimon wasn’t targeting Marcus because he is dangerous, nor is he the easiest to deal with out of the three, from his point of view Ereth is the most dangerous and Arlion is the easiest to deal with, he is targeting Marcus who is in the middle of those two because he is a system user.
After all, too many system users fighting against each other is a recipe for chaos, so taking one out of the equation, will diminish the chances of the situation taking abrupt changes out of nowhere.
Daimon never underestimates his enemies, in fact after he has made a temporary judgement of their capacities, he always doubles or triples that outcome and makes his plans with that as the starting point.
So, he of course wasn’t planning on taking on more than two of the enemy groups at the same time, originally Daimon was going to get rid of Arlion and Marcus and leave Ereth for the end, since he is allied with the Lords and didn’t want to alert them of the presence of someone strong enough to deal with someone they have had a business relationship with, for quite some time.
But then, this amazingly good opportunity to weaken two and get rid of one, with half the effort presented itself, so he of course wasn’t going to let it go to waste.
‘One idiot with a system present is enough of a headache, besides, there are other positive aspects linked to getting rid of Marcus, so he’ll die first’, thought Daimon as he looked at the crystal feather pendant which was hanging from his neck, where a certain angel girl was residing.
Anyway, all of that had to wait until they had dealt with the woman that just escaped from her seal, Claire had short green-blue hair and eyes of the same color which were slightly closed giving her a “cunning” appearance, though from Daimon’s point of view that only made her look more as a fake strategist.
A real smart and scheming person wouldn’t give even the slightest hint about it to others, lowering other people’s guards while implementing one’s strategy either by not looking threatening or by acting in a nonsensical way is a trait of those that actually know how to use their brains.
Just look at Erin’s carefree and easygoing usual attitude or to Sarah’s crazy and unpredictable self, and you get the idea.
Leaving aesthetics aside, her sea beast trait was a small horn that protruded from her forehead and that was it, but what really caught Daimon’s attention wasn’t that, but the fact that there weren’t any chains piercing her body unlike Lyn or Badr.
Which of course made the sky-blue haired girl see red.
“So, while I had to reclaim control over my body by isolating the areas affected by those damn chains, that traitor was just taking naps inside the seal?”, said Lyn whose body was burning in blue energy, she was really pissed at how “comfortably” did Claire spent her days within her seal.
“Ahem, it’s not like she wasn’t affected by the chains, like you two but the effect of the seal was changed from a physical to an energy based one, probably due to the assistance she received from the Lords”, said Daimon to then add.
“And thanks to that, even if she is able to move now, unlike you who only need time to recover to your prime, she will have to break through all the way back to her original realm”, which of course made Lyn mockingly smile at Claire.
“Hoh, a fitting punishment for a traitor, it’s a shame that I won’t get to see her growing uglier and wrinkly due to all the bottlenecks she wouldn’t be able to avoid with the resources of those cowards from the White Disaster shark race”.
From Lyn’s perspective the fact that Claire suddenly classified to become a Throne candidate out of nowhere wasn’t normal, she probably consumed some kind of extremely rare treasure to directly close the gap needed to gain the attention of a Throne, there have been cases like that.
Unfortunately, besides lacking in terms of battle prowess when compared to those that truly earned the tittle of a “candidate”, there are no other repercussions for the previous, the only reason as to why all the families that haven’t had a candidate, resort to doing the same, is because resources that can fulfill that role, are not obtainable through normal means.
At the very least one would have to look in a magic ruin from ancient times and have the luck and strength to find it, but Lyn had zero doubts that the White clan would go as far as using such a rare treasure, if it meant making a secondary branch of the Vallmery openly betray them to go to their side.
Listening to Daimon’s conclusion, Claire couldn’t help but feel a shiver running down her spine, she couldn’t see the eyes of the masked silver haired youth, but she refused to believe normal sight could see through all the effort she put to hide the side effects that being actively targeted by the Megalodon general due to her deal with the Lords, brought her.
‘Who the hell is that masked bastard, given the ability he has shown to deal with the corrosion caused by nether, he might be from a Stellar Kingdom that has fought with the nethereal kingdom before…’, she thought to then be brought to the real world, when she saw the masked silver haired youth in question, walk away from her battlefield.
“Where are you looking, I won’t be the one fighting you”, casually said Daimon, which made Claire feel her blood pressure skyrocket.
“How dare you look down on m…”, however while she was in the middle of angrily shouting back at Daimon, she suddenly turned around and using her palms as the origin point, shot two green-blue energy arrows in specific directions.
Unfortunately, her triumphant smile as she imagined Lyn and Arianna’s bodies pierced by her surprise attacks, disappeared the very second, she realized that her attacks hit nothing.
“My, you really are too arrogant, at this point one would think you would have realized that cheap tricks like that won’t work on us”, said Arianna who had appeared above Claire, her hair, wolf ears and tail dyed red just in time for energy of the same color to be radiated out of her body.
“Heh, if she was the type to learn from her mistakes, she wouldn’t have allied with those three after selling herself to become Dian’s trophy”, disdainfully said Lyn who had appeared behind Claire, a larger than usual blue energy ring was wrapped around her right wrist.
Naturally, the clear disinterest shown by Daimon along with the mocks and insults that came from Lyn and Arianna, made Claire see red.
“That’s enough you vulgar bitches!”, there she lost any interest in fighting on “equal” terms with Lyn, whom she wished to prove that she was superior to her and simply relied on the higher realm that her powers had reached to blast everything in her vicinity away.
“Boooom!”, a tri-colored energy explosion was produced as Arianna, Lyn and Claire’s energies clashed and tried to destroy the other it’s worth mentioning that their effect on the surroundings was initially different.
Claire’s green-blue energy tried to advance by piercing through the air, Lyn’s sky-blue energy expanded in the form of a shockwave which blocked the advance of Claire’s energy while Arianna’s red energy heavily landed on Claire’s energy, forcing it downwards.
The result was that Claire’s attack ultimately was stopped from advancing, to then be directed into the ground, drilling a though not so wide, noticeable deep hole into it, which was revealed once the clash of energies stopped.
Also, the yellow lightning attack that Claire expected to come her way, after seeing how Arianna worked with Dana to blind the giant snake earlier, didn’t appear, at least not in her vicinity, because the sound of crackling electricity could indeed be heard a second later.
The origin of it was the little tiger girl who taking advantage of Badr restraining the black blood tiger specter’s movements, had attacked it with lightning condensed claws.
“Roar!”, Dana’s attack left though shallow, still noticeable cut marks appeared on the tiger black blood specters, forcing a pained roar out of it when black smoke was emitted by them, all this while Daimon who was standing at a similar distance from both battlefields carefully observed without acting up himself.
‘That masked bastard is playing with me!’, inwardly cursed Claire, her figure flashed from her previous position, turning into a green-blue flash that pierced through the air, appearing behind Lyn and Arianna, to then release the energy that was cladding her in the form of arrows, in a try to turn them into sieves.
“Humph!”, only for a giant red energy wolf to suddenly appear and use its right paw to claw her way, destroying a lot of the green-blue arrows in the process before its advance was stopped, a pause that didn’t last for long as the remaining arrows were blasted away by a large sky-blue colored shockwave.
“Boooom!”, once again a thunder-like explosion echoed through the vicinity, black dust was raised due to the ground being destroyed by those three’s attack colliding head on, and their figures came out of the dust cloud the next second.
“Tsk, I guess a gap of a whole realm and a lot of years of preferential treatment is enough for even a coward traitor like her to be able to stand up to me”, said Lyn as she saw Claire who came out unscathed from their previous clash and retreated around a fourth part of distance less than both Lyn and Arianna.
That being said and while Lyn was unconvinced by the fact that she couldn’t crush Claire head on like she wanted, the most unconvinced one here was none other than Claire, she whose energy was at the peak of the Arch rank, couldn’t gain a noticeably large advantage just by having to peak Lord rank enemies working together.
The gap between the Lord rank and the Arch rank, even at the early stage is really large, so if any of those two had reached the Arch rank, the result would have been different and Claire knew it and was more than angered by it, because it meant that not only Lyn, but also the wolf-eared girl that was working with her, would be way stronger than her at the same realm.
It was as clear as day that had it not been for the difference in the strength of her energy, caused by her higher realm, Arianna and Lyn’s techniques would have crushed hers.
“Damn it!”, Claire snapped her snapped her fingers, making countless green-blue energy arrows appear in front of her to then shoot them at those two, while she flashed from her current position.
However, this time Lyn and Arianna didn’t wait for her to appear to clash with Claire, instead Arianna gazed at Lyn from the corner of her eyes, waiting for her to give her verdict.
“Above”, said the sky-blue haired girl as she stomped her right foot on the ground, releasing a shockwave which deviated the energy arrows that were coming at them, while Arianna who was cladded in the giant red wolf charged upwards, forcing Claire to become visible in order to attack Arianna.
“Booom!”, the red wolf’s heavy claws clashed head on against Claire’s energy attack, resulting in the two of them being sent flying backwards in opposite directions, but there was another difference when compared with the clash from earlier as well, because this time Lyn followed right away, appearing next to Claire with her right fist wrapped in a sky-blue energy ring.
Seeing the incoming fist which brought her bad memories, Claire inwardly cursed, she extended her left hand towards a certain direction, which made the ground tremble as a four-meter sized corroded black chain emerged from underground, to block Lyn’s punch.
“Clang!”, the fist and chain collided, producing the sounds of metals colliding, while giving Claire the chance to distance herself from Lyn and Arianna who was about to follow up with their fierce continuous release of attacks, making the giant red claws destroy the ground where Claire used to be standing.
“That explosive speed sure is annoying”, said Arianna as the giant red wolf dissipated making her hair, ears and tail return to their original light brown color as she landed next to Lyn.
“And now she has a weapon, I expected her to use it to ambush us though”, said the sky-blue haired girl.
Earlier when Claire forcefully broke the seal, the remains of the normal black chains landed on the frozen surface of the lake which remained though the black water was drained, but there were no traces of the corroded black chains anywhere.
Which would lead one to believe they were completely destroyed in the unsealing process, but of course Lyn who knew more about Claire than any of the present people, was sure that she had some of them still hiding in the vicinity to use as a trap or something along the lines of it.
After all, Lyn knows her tactics and the way she thinks, so with a bit of logic and a lot of brain power is not hard for her to anticipate to her movements, let’s not forget that though ruthless and way more battle-oriented, she is from a sister race of Annete and Mellie’s one, her memory and analyzing capacities are incredibly good.
Basically, she can predict the movements of an enemy’s fighting style after having seen or read about it, and that combined with her own battle instincts as a knight is what allowed her to be the youngest Throne candidate to have ever appeared in her family.
“Your Northern Sea lineage related techniques are better than mine, so what, let’s see you deal with this…”, with a low and angered voice, the energy on Claire’s right hand with which she was holding onto the black corroded chain, changed its color, from its previous green-blue to a black-green tone.
And now the energy radiated by her body was a mix of the two combinations of colors mentioned before, the reason is simple, she… was using nether.
“It’s not infection-related, she awakened it on her own, well, she probably did have good “teachers” to give her some advices for a really long time”, said Daimon to then add.
“And the base emotion of it, being something she definitely has a lot off was quite helpful as well”.
The base of Claire’s nether was actually outside of the spectrum managed by the Lords, as it wasn’t lust, violence or death, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t within the range of the nethereal army that ambushed the army from the Northern Sea.
“Eww, that reminds me of that fool who was destroyed by Pheli”, said Lyn as she saw Claire, which made the latter’s right eyebrow twitch.
“Well, it’s more of a related type of nether, hers is not greed based but “envy” based”, said Daimon, correcting Lyn’s slightly deviated from the correct, conclusion.
“That’s lame, I do understand where the “emotion” for that came from though, given how she can’t stand seeing mei~”, jokingly said Lyn as she gave a condescending gaze at Claire.
With extremely rare exceptions, nether originates and feeds in negative emotions, for average people, it can be the ones felt by oneself or the ones one wishes to make others feel, for those that are really talented it can be a combination of both, such is the case of the nethereal sisters, especially Jasmine who grows stronger by both feeling protected and protecting others.
So, it was not hard for Claire to learn how awaken nether, with guidance of the Lords, given how much she envied Lyn’s status as a Throne candidate which is what in her mind caused their family to be considered as vassals of the Vallmery, this was probably the benefit she negotiated with them in exchange for helping them create this nether farm, besides their future help to escape the seal of course.
“I saw the chance to get stronger and took it, let’s see you laugh when your teeth fly out of your mouth!”.
“Crack!”, the ground below Claire’s feet cracked on the spot, as she shot herself towards Arianna and Lyn, the green-blue energy which cladded her body was released when she appeared in front of those two, turning into a giant energy arrow that was met by Lyn whose right arm had six sky blue rings wrapped around it.
At the same time, the black corroded chain which Claire was holding with her right hand was thrusted towards Arianna, you might wonder how come a chain which doesn’t have a unified solid structure could be thrusted, well, it was thanks to the green-black nether, which seemed to share the “piercing” property of her lineage energy.
With a slight difference, which Arianna noticed when she used the red giant wolf’s claws to clash against the hardened corroded chain, which is the fact that her nether focused in physical impact.
Which makes sense, Lyn who is Claire’s target of envy, the base of her nether, is a knight who excels in close combat abilities after all.
“Boooom!”, the four attacks, two from Claire and one from Lyn and Arianna each, clashed head on, producing a loud explosion followed by a strong shockwave that blasted away the nearby black soil, sending pieces of debris flying all over the place, alongside two figures which were forced to retreat, namely Lyn and Arianna.
Once the dust was dispersed, a smiling Claire who was standing only a few meters away from her previous position was revealed.
“It’s a damn hassle to even awaken it, but since it’s a different kind of energy when compared to mana, gaining similar capacities to those of a battle mage below the Star Lord realm and without having obtained a “vitality vessel” is possible, so you are dead meat…”, her monologue was interrupted by Lyn, who turned to see Daimon to then say.
“Is that how the ones you mentioned, achieved it?”, apparently, she couldn’t suppress her curiosity towards the subject, even in the middle of a fight, to which Daimon sighed to his insides as he answered.
“No, resorting to a different kind of energy is valid, but they didn’t do it with that purpose in mind, she is just a downgraded imitation”.
Daimon wasn’t lying, among his friends, the ones that have obtained powers that don’t align with their paths, didn’t purposedly obtain a different type of energy for it, they instead learned of a way to make up for their weak points and flaws.
After that, then there is no problem if it leads to obtaining a different kind of energy for effectiveness, but that’s not the goal but a mean for it.
The two situations might sound similar, but it’s like comparing a boat which was patched with one that was properly renovated, both are indeed based on an already existing base, but their performance won’t be the same.
