Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System - Chapter 729 - 729: Showdown Devil VS Demon (part 1)

Seeing the black book covered in chains which was engulfed in black flames that floated in front of Marcus, Daimon couldn’t help but frown for a second.

‘A promise rank treasure… no, it feels more like a spell or more accurately an innate ability, I didn’t even know that there were promise rank abilities’, he thought as he felt the threatening aura radiated by that book, which was both corporeal and ethereal at the same time.

It felt like a hybrid between a promise level magic treasure and a grimoire like the ones Daimon and the girls have gotten through the “Fragments of Laplace”.

Promise rank is not exactly a “level” by the way, it’s unrelated to the realm of the object in question, so it would be more accurate to call it the capacity of something to automatically grow alongside their owner, just like the Trident of the Storm which was lucky to have its existence spared by Narasha, since it is not a sword unlike Adam’s treasure.

In that sense they can be considered “better” than Disaster, because while Disaster can grow by itself, it doesn’t get automatically stronger due to the one wielding it, in this case Daimon, well Disaster does get temporarily stronger if it were to devour a few Stellar rank enemies, but that’s not a permanent increase since the amount the mana it obtains that way is really small after rejecting all what the capricious black sword doesn’t like, leaving behind only the most pure and “delicious” mana, which is not even close to Daimon’s, the favorite snack of the picky eater sword.

On the other hand, since it is Narasha’s vessel, the capricious black sword does get to share her powers, it’s just that she is not as strong as Disaster in terms of raw power as of current, if she were to only depend on her own strength without borrowing Disaster’s, Narasha would be around Elaine’s level, the middle stage of the Arch rank but with higher combat prowess when compared to that.

While Disaster on the other hand, if allowed to run rampant it could exert power probably at the middle stage Stellar rank with higher combat prowess, like the snake Empress Thea more or less.

Also, unlike promise level treasures whose strength entirely depends on their owners, meaning that if their owner gets weaker so they do, Narasha prides herself in not depending on Daimon but being able to support him instead as she is his sole “battle companion”, so there are pros and cons in both cases.

Speaking of the sword girl, Daimon could feel Nasha getting a bit restless when the black book appeared.

‘Daimon, I don’t like that book’, mumbled the sword girl, which made Daimon bitterly smile to his insides, had he not been playing by the rules of the Blood Prison realm at the petition of his black sea emblem, Narasha would have come out to destroy the book with her own “hands” namely Disaster’s edge.

‘Ahem, there should be a “challenge” for you later, I’m pretty sure those three have magic weapons, maybe something they brought from their places of origin and Byron uses a great sword according to Lyn’, he said to which the sword girl happily smiled.

‘Mm~’, while Narasha looked forward to crushing some magic weapons later, one of the reasons as to why she didn’t like that black book could be seen the next second.

“Crack!”, the chains on the black blook shattered and the thing opened by itself, a palm sized projected image of a humanoid shaped male with the exception that it had black horns on his head, which was wearing a monocle and a red suit appeared above the now opened book.

“The Devil Librarian greets the great Devil Ruler, what can my humble self, do for his majesty”, said the devil projection as he bowed towards Marcus, who despite the great “respect” shown by the devil librarian didn’t seem pleased in the slightest.

“Enough with the nonsense humble act contract manager, I want to unlock page twenty-two”, said Marcus with a displeased expression on his face.

“Oh, wonderful, it shall be done in a second”, said the devil librarian with a wide smile as he returned into the book which’s pages started passing one after the other until they reached the one that Marcus wanted.

‘A magic treasure with a properly formed consciousness’, thought Daimon, that was something similar to Narasha’s case, with the difference that the devil librarian was the book and the book was him, unlike the sword girl who is a separately entity from Disaster.

But that’s not everything that caught Daimon’s interest, the promise level treasures have some sort of self-awareness themselves, the Trident of the Storm for example has shown fear towards Narasha, and Adam’s sword originally showed “pride” as it offered its power to Daimon, followed by it begging for mercy only for Narasha to destroy it and Disaster to devour it.

But they are not properly conscious beings unlike Narasha or Disaster itself, but more like advanced versions of the special magic weapons that Daimon obtained in Kerrol which have been made to preserve some of the instincts of the magic beast materials out of which they were made of, in order to offer some level of assistance to their owners when they are being wielded.

If Daimon were to make a comparison, they would be like “ghosts” which are said to retain some of the personality of who they were when they were alive, while Narasha, Disaster and that book are more like “spirits”, they are proper living beings which only lack a physical body to interact with the world, so they do it through their respective vessels.

Back to the fight, once the black book had reached the desired page, it floated to stand behind Marcus who then charged towards the masked silver haired youth.

“Swift Step”, Daimon directly used a martial art for the same reason as to why he didn’t charge at Marcus while he was “powering up” which is not his style, under normal circumstances Daimon would have done his best to interrupt the enemy because why would he allow him to calmly power up in front of him.

But he is not fighting as a system user right now, bust as a challenger of the Blood Prison realm, against a system user, therefore he can never be too cautious, which is why he wanted to get an idea of the power of that black book.

“Oh no, not this time you masked bastard!”, shouted Marcus as he was reminded of the punch to the face, he took the last time Daimon used that speed focused movement martial art.

“Black Devil Contract, Living Hell Jungle!”, with a wave of his hand, the black book which stood behind of him, suffered a change, the page at which it was open which until now showed nothing as it was in blank, changed to show an eerie densely packed jungle.

Then Daimon who was about to reach Marcus, flashed away as he heard a cracking noise coming the ground below of him.

“Crack!”, with Marcus as the center black roots with red spikes started emerging, transforming the area in a hundred meters around him into a small-sized but tree packed jungle, similar to the one pictured in that page of the book.

It’s worth mentioning that they had long left behind the jungle area, and were in a rocky wasteland one as of current, so the change in the environment was drastic, also the trees and other vegetation that surrounded Marcus were completely unrecognizable, so they obviously weren’t part of the different environments that the Lords had forced to appear in the Blood Prison realm, it was a jungle that was solely ruled by Marcus.

“What do you say, did that Adam bastard have anything like this, a single spell that can work at the same level as a Domain!”, shouted Marcus from within the jungle which then… moved towards Daimon.

The reason behind the previous is simple, Marcus was moving, so the jungle followed him, the difference between this and a Domain is that none of those trees or plants was an energy condensation, they were real and so, when they moved, they destroyed the ground in their way.

The nearby area became chaotic all of a sudden as debris flew around while black dust was raised just by Marcus charging at Daimon who found himself surrounded by black roots with red spikes as they were faster than the trees and plants to which they belonged.

“Boooom!”, Daimon directly exploded in silver energy which though made the black roots hesitate for a fraction of a second, ended up ignoring the damage they were suffering just by being exposed to Daimon’s energy, under Marcus absolute orders to then continue their charge.

“Crack!”, seeing the dozens of roots coming his way, Daimon concentrated the silver energy on his fists and punched the roots breaking them with relative ease, they were only annoying because there were a large number of them, but that was their purpose.

The main trouble came a moment later when the jungle had surrounded Daimon, up-close he could see that the trees had eyes and mouths with razor sharp teeth, truly fitting of the words “living hell jungle” in the name of the spell used by Marcus.

And speaking of the devil ruler system user, he was nowhere to be seen, though Daimon could feel his presence, it was coming from all over the jungle.

‘So, this thing acts like an extension of his own body, it’s really like a domain with the difference that even if I were to destroy it completely it won’t affect that guy, so, perhaps it’s more like Arianna’s red wolf’, thought Daimon as he poured out more silver energy.

“Hsssss!”, the black grass that was secretly starting to grow around the ground where Daimon was standing burned into wisps of black smoke on the spot as his silver energy made contact with the ground.

“Tsk, that annoying silver energy”, said Marcus, his voice could be heard coming from every direction within the jungle, as it was reproduced by the mouths of all the trees and other plants, their eyes acted as Marcus’s ones and the same applied to their mouths.

Which besides confusing the enemy and having a no blind spot view of the surroundings, also has another interesting function.

“Black Devil Bone Arrows!”, following Marcus calling out his spell, Daimon felt a weird sensation of being aimed at from every direction, normally he can tell the trajectory of a spell thanks to his innately monstrous senses which though suppressed, remained active, but this time he couldn’t tell where the attack was going to come from.

Or more accurately, he could but it made no difference because it came from all directions, as the black bone arrows that started to be shot from the mouths on the different trees, roots and plants of the jungle, the next second, suggested.

“Clang!”, that being said, Daimon simply blocked them with his fists, breaking them in groups, but unlike before, the timing, trajectory and difficulty to do so, made it not as simple of a task, it was the same spell but brought to a different level.

“Come on, I dare you to remain still and destroy my spell like before!”, shouted Marcus as he was reminded of the scene of Daimon casually smacking the bone arrows he shot at him, earlier.

“Black Devil Hell Bone Arrows!”, a second barrage of black bone arrows started pouring out from the different trees, plants and roots of the jungle, these ones were burning in black flames though.

Daimon’s eyes shone in silver light as he radiated a large wave of silver energy, which suffocated the black flames burning on the arrows leaving only the bone arrows themselves left.

“Shattering Step”, with a stomp of his right foot Daimon made the ground around him explode, the impact deviated the vast majority of the arrows which had lost a part of their momentum since the black flames were poured out.

Once the dust veil resulting from Daimon destroying the ground around him dispersed, the scene of him holding onto the sole only arrow that reached him to then break it with his bare hand, was revealed.

‘Damn it, since he is not using battle aura, he first radiated that annoying silver energy to deal with my hell darkness mana and then used the physical impact of a martial art to stop the barrage of arrows’, cursed Marcus to his insides.

It took him two separate steps, but Daimon perfectly imitated a proper martial art powered by battle aura by combining his capacity to force martial arts with his bare body and the silver energy he had obtained from the Blood Prison realm.

‘Why go through the hassle though, if I remember correctly this stupid place does grant “techniques” that can be used through those energies, they are inferior to real spells but they still contribute to offensive power since there are attack type ones… don’t tell me, this bastard is looking down on me!!!’, thought Marcus.

It never crossed his mind that Daimon has yet to obtain let alone an attack type technique, but a technique of any kind, it only seemed as if he was using techniques, because his silver energy came with healing, enhancing and purifying properties which became available per each day Daimon passed in the Blood Prison realm, and he had been training non-stop to learn how to manipulate the silver energy to make up for his lack of techniques.

So, from Marcus’s point of view, the masked silver haired youth was using boosting, recovery, defense, and movement techniques, but he refused to use attack type ones against him, which is why he thought he was being looked down upon, by a mere “lackey” of his actual enemy no less.

“Let’s see you block this without a technique you masked bastard, Living Hell Jungle, Mandragora Death Scream!”.

Black flames suddenly exploded around a particular plant which stood a few dozens of meters away from Daimon, the surrounded jungle actually broke the encirclement around Daimon, moving away as if their lives depended on it.

Then, the plant in question raised from the ground, revealing a “root” with a vague distorted human shape which trembled to then have a vertical slit that went from its head to its legs separate revealing a giant mouth filled with razor blade teeth.

“Screeeee!”, however and as menacing as those teeth looked, the real threat was the scream released by the human-shaped root which sounded like a combination of nails being scratched on a blackboard and some kind of animal screeching, which created sound waves accompanied by black flames.

“Booooom!”, the sound attack released by the plant blasted everything in its way, reaching Daimon at an incredibly fast speed as one would expect from a sound attack.

The black flames that accompanied the scream expanded all over the place, so while Daimon managed to dodge the impact of the soundwave, his clothes were now burning in black flames which he then dissipated with his silver energy.

“Tsk, he managed to dodge it, useless thing”, said Marcus as the human-shaped root shriveled up to then turn into dust the next second, apparently using that attack killed it.

‘He didn’t use any mana to make that thing release a spell, but only added the black flame mana to further empower it’, thought Daimon.

And that was the second reason as to why Narasha didn’t like that black book, she could feel mana, battle aura and other energies which didn’t belong to Marcus coming from it, which created a chaotic aura similar to what Disaster used to feel like when it was in a berserker state, before Daimon tamed the capricious sword, freeing the sword girl from the suffering she had to go through since she came to be.

Of course, Narasha didn’t sympathize with the devil librarian, because unlike her or even Disaster who though was the one who caused her all that suffering, did so not out of malice but because that was its natural need, method of sustainment and defensive instinct which had gone out of its control, she could tell that the devil librarian instead stole other being’s energies because he liked it and that is a completely different subject.

Also, and in case you haven’t realized yet, we are seeing where did the “sacrifices” made by Marcus’s subordinates, ended up, well at least a part of them since some was obviously lost in the process.

This page of the black book was created using what the Devil Tree Parasite sacrificed, and in case you think that it results in a downgraded version of the parasite’s power, that’s completely wrong.

Marcus did use the sacrifice as the mean to create this page, however the result was a combination of a ritual worked through said sacrifice, so while similar in nature, this is the devil system user’s version of the powers of the parasite, in other words a system user version of them.

And the benefits of it were easily noticeable, Marcus didn’t need to use any mana to make the jungle move and attack, it was like having an external magic core at his complete disposition, there were multiple special devil plants and vegetation with attacks and other tricks like that human shaped root and what’s more he could add more power to them, all this while being protected by the jungle, it’s a power befitting that of a system user.

“Living Hell Jungle, Vengeful Vine Emergence!”, with an angered voice, Marcus beckoned towards Daimon and dozens of black and red vines sprouted from the ground around Daimon, moving like snakes towards him.

“Hsssss!”, the vines weren’t covered in black flames, so the moment they approached Daimon, they started burning due to exposure to his silver energy, which didn’t make sense for Daimon as they were basically useless against him, with the exception that they came in large numbers from every direction.

Which sounds like a good opportunity for Marcus to try and ambush Daimon, but the devil system user didn’t move at all, instead with a creepy smile he called out another spell.

“Living Hell Jungle, Dying Vine Curse!”, the black and red vines which had turned to ashes all over the area around Daimon, came back to “life” as mana projections turning into countless red mana threads that entangled themselves around Daimon, forming a cocoon.

“Hahaha, how is that masked bastard, a technique which’s activation condition is for the plant to die in exchange for a curse that is impossible to dodge at short range!”, shouted Marcus to then condense a spear out of black flames in front of him.

“Black Devil Piercing Hell Spear!”, the black flame spear turned into a flash that arrived at the red thread cocoon the next second.

But then, his smile stiffened when he saw the red threads snapping one after the other, revealing a… green energy wood shield that blocked in front of Daimon, taking the black flame spear head on.

“Boooom!”, both the spear and the shield clashed against the other exploding the next second, however while the black flame spear completely disappeared, the shield turned into green particles that then landed on the ground integrating into it.

“What!”, Marcus nearly lost it as he felt his control over that area disappear, he couldn’t make tress and other vegetation of the living hell jungle, appear in the ground around Daimon which was now shinning in a lively bright green tone.