Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System - Chapter 709 - 709: Challenges, Little Tiger girl version (part 2)

While both being sent flying due to the deafening shockwave created by the little tiger girl stomping her right foot and also actively retreating, because the world was spinning for the panther, due to the dizziness caused by her eardrums and even a few veins of her eyes taking actual damage, the panther cursed to her insides.

‘What the hell, wasn’t speed her focus!!!’, it’s not like the panther was stupid, of course she has seen and experienced how destructive Dana’s lightning energy can be.

With half the number of slashing lights, she overwhelmed the panther’s attack not too long ago after all, however she attributed all of that to Dana’s energy and while the explosion which spread electricity all over the vicinity was caused by that same energy, the thunder-like shockwave that nearly destroyed the panther’s eardrums was the result of the little tiger girl stomping her right foot on the ground.

It’s not like the panther thinks of Dana as a frail little girl, they had clashed claws head on many times at this point, but it’s precisely because of that that the panther was taken by surprise, because even if Dana obviously is a magic beast descendant, her small frame and extreme speed should mean that she is lacking in terms of brute force.

But as the panther just saw, or more accurately “heard” given how her ears were still bleeding even after she had already started channeling mana into them, that wasn’t the case.

“Lightning Tiger Step”, unfortunately for the panther, she couldn’t continue pondering about it, because the fierce little tiger girl had caught to her and was about to slash her back with her lightning cladded claws.

“Black Shadow Charge!”, as if her tail was on fire, because that was an actual risk considering how yellow arcs of electricity were about to attack the panther’s tail, her legs exploded in black mana and then the panther’s whole body turned into a black flash that dived into the ground a dozen of meters away from her previous position.

“Crack!”, the panther’s body moved just in time for Dana’s claws to land, missing their target for a fraction of a second, making five messy and deep cuts appear on the ground.

“Humph”, the little tiger girl saw her shredding claws being avoided at the last second and she softly snorted in response.

‘I even went and blew up anything in which she could hide in the vicinity, while affecting her senses to properly land a hit on her but she dodged…’, mumbled Dana to her insides.

“Lightning Explosive Claws”, as if to vent her anger, the little tiger girl slashed both of her hands in opposite directions, releasing then slashing lights which spread through the area, landing at perfectly distanced spots.

“Booom!”, like before, the slashing lights exploded releasing violent lightning all over the area, destroying everything in the vicinity, it might look as if Dana was throwing a childish tantrum, but that was absolutely not the case as the panther being forced to abandon her hiding spot in a rush, suggested.

“Damn it!”, cursed the panther, in the small window of time that elapsed between she hiding in the shadows, and Dana raining down destruction all over the area, her eardrums had healed, in part because of her high vitality and in part because her recovery capacity is boosted while in the shadows, an innate ability she has.

However, there are also downsides to hiding in the shadows for the panther, for example, there is a limit to how small can a shadow be for her to smoothly enter and come out of it and if the limit is surpassed, it will result in pain due to forcing her way through and also wounds opening on the panther’s skin at the moment of transitioning from and to a shadow.

It’s worth mentioning that Dana didn’t know the previous, but the little tiger girl is quite observative, and the panther unconsciously committed the mistake of following a not so concealed pattern, which Dana noticed, as in she mostly chose shadows of a certain size, even though there were some good ambushing opportunities if she had taken another route and that didn’t escape the little tiger girl’s eyes.

That’s why she just blew up the objects which projected shadows of a relatively big size.

“So, I was right, if the shadow is too small you have troubles moving in and out of it and if it’s too faint you have to make up for the difference with your own mana”, confidently said Dana while thinking to her insides.

‘That means she is definitely not like the strong maid miss which sister Arianna told me lives in masked big brother’s shadow… that’s a relief’.

Though Dana has yet to see Rita in person, she was told by Daimon himself that even if peak Arch rank enemies appeared, he had a proper way to deal with them, though since the little tiger girl used to be more of a “client” she wasn’t told the specifics.

Arianna on the other hand did know about both Horals and the undead head maid Rita who is always at Daimon’s side, because he specifically shared that information with all his teammates, and the werewolf girl told Dana more about Rita during their time together, because she judged the little tiger girl to have earned a spot in the team through her actions.

Otherwise, even if Dana had gained Arianna’s affection like she did, the werewolf girl wouldn’t have shared anything Daimon didn’t tell her in specific, since she respected the limits of her martial “senior” brother.

Anyway, the point is that when Dana saw the panther having access to that extremely rare shadow affinity, a variation of the darkness one, the little tiger girl was reminded of the stories that Arianna shared with her.

Among which, there was the fact that despite Horals being the combat oriented one between them as he is a knight, he was completely suppressed by the undead head maid every time they argued, mostly because they ended up fighting after discussing who was more “loyal” to their young master, since back then those two had yet to develop to be more than Daimon’s subordinates.

And that increased Dana’s wariness about the panther, but now that she had confirmed how different her enemy is when compared to the “monster” that lives in Daimon’s shadow, she is much more at ease.

That doesn’t mean Dana is getting careless, on the contrary she is still in the process of making her own judgement about the panther’s threat level, but she can safely rule out she being anywhere close to the undead head maid.

“So, what, do you think I need to hide from you!”, roared the panther as if she knew she had gotten the shorten end of the stick, after being compared with someone else, one must know that she is proud of being the most “unique” among Marcus’s subordinates.

Not to mention that unlike others who basically gathered around Marcus out of necessity, for benefits or by the arrangements of his system’s missions, the panther was actually loyal to him out of her own will, which is also a rarity.

So being judged inferior compared to someone else, very likely someone related to the enemy of her master, while she was being chased around by whom she judged to be the weakest among the enemy team, made the panther see red.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, if Lord Marcus wouldn’t have asked me to not mess up your corpse, I wouldn’t have held myself back that much, but since you are so strong then this much is fine!”, with a loud shout to the sky, black mana exploded around the panther’s body.

“Black Shadow Assault Armor!”, compared to the huge amount of mana that the panther released a second ago, the result of the spell was a rather plain-looking black leather armor that covered the panther’s upper body and legs, which made Dana frown for a second.

That obviously didn’t look like something that could offer a decent degree of protection, especially given how much mana the panther seemed to have put into it, and that means that this armor’s focus in entirely in a different subject.

Luckily for Dana, the answer came in right away, with a “swoosh” the panther flashed from her previous position and appeared above the little tiger girl, to then claw towards her face.

“Clang!”, naturally Dana didn’t fear clashing head on with the enemy, so her right hand’s claws directly advanced to then collide with the panther’s paw, their claws clashing produced the sound of metals colliding as well as sparks.

It was then that Dana realized the other purpose of the spell used by the enemy, first in case it wasn’t clear enough, the panther had become faster enough to catch up with Dana, meaning that she had completely discarded the idea of relying in ambushes from the shadows.

Probably because she realized that Dana was going to destroy everything if needed, with the goal of cutting her path so that she couldn’t hide in the shadows, so for the panther it was actually less dangerous to confront the little tiger girl head on rather than playing hide and seek with her.

And here the second property of the armor that the panther was now wearing, came into play, because the moment Dana’s claws clashed against the enemy’s ones, which resulted in a complete tie, unlike before when Dana managed to carve though shallow still noticeable scratching lines on the panther’s claws, the little tiger girl suddenly felt her instincts warning her.

“Booom!”, Dana flashed backwards just in time to avoid two black spikes that emerged from the shoulders of the panther which were covered in the armor, to then try and pierce through the little tiger’s chest.

“Tsk, come on, weren’t you the one that was asking for a head on fight so why are you getting away now!”, shouted the panther trying to provoke Dana to attack her.

“Humph”, not that it was needed since the little tiger girl wasn’t planning to change her strategy.

“Black Shadow Charge”.

“Lightning Tiger Step”.

After sharply glaring at each other for a fraction of a second, those two both used a movement spell and technique respectively, disappearing from plain sight to then reappear high into the air.

“Boooom!”, a loud explosion echoed through the sky as Dana’s right fist clashed against the panther’s claws, her left hand was open as she clawed at the two shadow spikes that had come from the shoulder armor of the panther.

“Clang!”, Dana had successfully blocked the three attacks using just her small hands which is quite something, however it’s not like the panther was going to give up just like that.

“Black Shadow Piercer!”, black mana condensed in the form of an arm-width flexible spike that protruded from the backside of the panther’s armor, which then shot towards Dana.

“Lightning Tail Whip!”, however the black spike was met with the tiger girl’s tail which was cladded in bright yellow lightning energy.

“Crack!”, the moment the spike and the tail collided a loud shattering sound made its way to those two’s ears, that was the sound of both Dana’s lightning energy and the panther’s black shadow mana destroying each other at the same time.

And that put an end to the clash, because both Dana and the panther retreated on the spot after having used up all the momentum, they had gained thanks to their movement technique and spell, respectively.

‘That damn tail again, how can she use it so roughly, there is no way her physical body is that tough!’, cursed the panther to her insides.

Seeing Dana destroy the ground with her foot earlier and having felt the impact behind her claws, the panther couldn’t wrap her around about how could the little tiger girl confidently use her tail in such a way.

She could still somewhat believe her claws were that tough even if she is a mage, considering that battle is their purpose, but as a feline herself the panther can’t imagine herself risking her tail for such a thing.

If only she knew about a certain girl from the Snow Leopard race from the White Fang galaxy who uses her tail as another extremity for extra agility, in fact Gina, in other words Stella’s younger sister is the one in whom the little tiger girl probably took inspiration for the usage she is giving to her tail.

How was her body, which isn’t the one of a knight and hadn’t undergone the natural reinforcement that an Arch rank goes through like hers, remaining completely unscathed when being used in such a rough way, is still a mystery for now though.

“I’m aware that a tiger using their tail like me is not the usual, but why the surprise, considering your realm you should have seen weirder things so far if you have survived up to this point… I guess that explains your lack of experience”, said the little tiger girl as she placed her tail around her body.

There is something that has been bugging Dana since earlier, the movements of the enemy felt strangely familiar to her, as in she could see some of the same problems she has been facing, which are not caused by her fighting style, talent or anything of the like, but simple and pure lack of experience.

In the little tiger girl’s case it’s understandable, she has been training at closed doors, basically in secret from everyone in the Jolbaris but Leena and her brother, but the panther is a blood specter, she should have fought and absorbed a lot of other blood specters to reach the Arch level.

Especially so, considering the unique trait of being self-aware and even if like with others, Marcus had empowered her, this lack of experience didn’t make sense for Dana, because knowing Marcus, he wouldn’t have taken in the panther if she wasn’t at least a peak Lord ranked blood specter, or more accurately he would have used her as a sacrifice like he did to his other weaker subordinates.

“Humph, what can a spoiled brat like you know, just get out of my way already!”, as if Dana had stroked a nerve, the panther’s eyes shone in a black light as she rushed towards the little tiger girl.

Of course, after having confirmed that in terms of speed, they were equal as of current, the panther changed her approach.

“Black Shadow Mirage!”, the panther which was charging at Dana exploded in black mana which blocked Dana’s sight for a split of a second, what came out of the smokescreen used by the enemy were four panthers.

They all looked the same and all were giving Dana a sense of danger, somehow the enemy had created copies of herself.

The little tiger girl observed the four panthers moving, her sharp ears and eyes could hear the silent steps of the panthers, in other words the four were producing different sounds as they advanced and that’s weird.

If they were simple illusions, they would either not produce any sound, or it would be the exact same one just being “broadcasted” to the others, unless we are talking about someone really talented in such a thing, someone like Ivy and her nightmare magic for example.

The night sparrow girl can create illusions so real that they make the enemy’s minds and even their instincts believe they are real, which is how she has made groups of enemies rip their skin, twist their necks and break their limbs all by themselves.

But that clearly is not the case here, Dana is a 100% sure she hasn’t fallen in an illusion, not being able to tell which one was the real panther, made Dana decide to go for a simple solution, attack all of them at the same time.

“Lightning Explosive Fist”, with a fierce voice and an even fiercer bright yellow energy crackling on her small right fist, the little tiger girl punched frontwards and the area in front of her was engulfed in an energy explosion the next second.

This happened just as the four panthers had jumped in order to reach Dana, so they were trapped in the explosion before getting to their target.

“Boooom!”, the explosion was quite something like normal, however Dana didn’t relax, because she could still feel danger from the vicinity, the problem is that she couldn’t pinpoint the origin of it.

At least until she saw the shadow projected by her own attack ripple, the next second the panther who had a few cuts on her body, came out of the ground, her mouth was open and there was a large agglomeration of mana gathered in the form of a black flame, floating in front of it.

“Black Shadow Flame Burst!”, having bypassed the energy explosion released by Dana, the panther released her attack at point blank, the gathered black flame compressed itself until it turned into a black spot that then exploded into a stream of black flames that shot towards the little tiger girl, whose pupils contracted a bit.

Then under the surprised and angered gaze of the panther, the stream of black flames for which she had even gone through the disgrace of allowing her own ability to move into the shadows to harm her, in order to make it reach Dana… fell.

Literally, there was less than two meters of distance between the spot where the panther had appeared and where Dana was standing, the flames exploded and almost instantly reached the little tiger girl, but then a dozen of centimeters before getting to her, as if pushed by a giant current of air coming from above, the flames abruptly changed their direction, landing on the ground on the spot.

“Booooom!”, that being said, the attack still resulted in a disastrous explosion that sent both Dana and the panther flying in opposite directions, however Dana wasn’t satisfied with the previous result, so the very moment she could, her image flashed.

“Lightning Tiger Step”, the little tiger girl directly appeared above the panther, a wild yellow light flashed through her eyes as she cladded her right fist with yellow lightning, to then punch at the panther.

“Clang!”, however contrary to what she expected, her fist hadn’t even reached the panther before it was stopped in cold, by some kind of invisible to the eye barrier.

‘What is this?’, wondered Dana as she flashed away, not wanting to remain within the range of the enemy, since she could tell that her attack was completely blocked and that the obstruction in her way, whatever it was, didn’t disappear.