Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System - Chapter 732 - 732: Showdown Devil VS Demon (part 4)

“Crack!”, seeing the ground cracking around Daimon, the devil ruler system user snorted to his insides.

‘So, what if you destroy the ground, my spell doesn’t need a physical surface to be casted’, he thought, he believed that Daimon had made the mistake of thinking that since the devil shredding hand emerged form the ground, a solid physical surface was needed for the spell to be activated, but no.

“What!”, under Marcus’s eyes of disbelief, he saw the magic circle he created using his black flame devil mana suddenly being drowned in green lively grass until it was overtaken, leaving behind a patch of vegetation in the shape of said magic circle.

On a closer look, only now did Marcus realize that a green energy wood boot had covered Daimon’s right foot, it probably happened a fraction of a second after he used the martial art so due to the dust veil that raised when the ground was destroyed, he didn’t see the green energy wood boot appear.

Earlier, Daimon didn’t want to protect his body, instead he wanted to stop the spell so the green nature energy is the one that came into action instead of the brown-red one.

But that’s not what was driving Marcus crazy right now, but the fact that the bright green nature energy that Daimon was using just “sealed” the activation of his spell and turned his devil mana into a patch of vegetation which by the way blocked the living hell jungle from moving through that piece of soil.

‘Would you look at that, my silver energy clashes with Marcus’s devil mana but Tessa’s energy instead converts it in nutrients, there is no conflict so there is no resistance from it’, thought Daimon.

He had a rough idea of why, the alfear princess is a rare case of having dual affinities from different oriented elements that don’t enter in conflict, though her darkness affinity was dormant it didn’t diminish the power of her nature affinity in the slightest.

‘I see, she must have finally awakened her darkness affinity thanks to her challenge’s reward, not bad’, concluded Daimon as he saw the green energy boots covering his feet disappear the next second.

The only thing that indeed seemed like an inconvenience is that unlike the brown-red energy that not only didn’t need Daimon to actively use it when he was about to receive a physical impact, but could remain continuously covering him so long as he kept supplying energy to the armor, the green energy was a single use kind of thing, after the effect came into play, it disappeared and had to be activated again, in exchange it had much more varied usages when compared to Femi’s brown-red energy.

‘Mmm, their energies amusingly match their personalities so…’, thought Daimon as an interesting idea flashed through his mind before he tensed his legs to flash away from his current spot.

“Boooom!”, the haunted locust tree general appeared out of nowhere to then smack his halberd where Daimon was standing a second ago, like before once the enemy had gotten close enough, even without the green energy mask which saw through the deceiving spells of the wraiths from the burning mind hell devil mana, Daimon could tell by instinct where danger was coming from once it had reached a certain distance from him.

“Black Devil Hell Shredding Claw!”, that being said, Marcus already took that into account, so he who had been replaced by an illusion and intentionally kept distance from Daimon earlier when he used his spell which ended up failing courtesy of Tessa’s nature energy, descended from above upon Daimon with his clawed gauntlets burning in black flames, aiming at his chest.

“Crack!”, Daimon’s reaction time allowed him to create a green energy wood shield in front of him, however Marcus directly destroyed it in a single go, which made Daimon raise an eyebrow to his insides as he blocked this time with his right fist.

“Clang!”, Marcus’s clawed gauntlets which had the black flames burning on them diminished thanks to the green energy wood shield, collided with Daimon’s fist that was enveloped in brown-red energy armor producing sparks and the sounds of metals colliding.

“Boooom!”, a loud shockwave expanded with those two as its center before Daimon was forced to retreat, leaving a trail of destruction on the process, at the same time Marcus’s black clawed gauntlets let out dark pink steam before lighting up in black flames like before.

Though Daimon didn’t suffer any wound because the brown-red energy armor protected his physical body, Marcus still managed to push him back in a physical clash.

Since Daimon wanted to know what was going on with the gauntlets, what allowed Marcus to increase his strength out of nowhere like that, the green energy wood mask covered his face like before.

In the case of the haunted locust tree general he was being buffed by the black flame horse which was possessed by the wraiths, but Daimon was sure that wasn’t the case with Marcus.

“The gauntlets are possessed…no, they are “eating” one of the wraiths”, said Daimon as he saw a dark pink humanoid shape being constantly chewed by a razor toothed mouth at the center of Marcus’s gauntlets.

Though Marcus had control over the devil mana that came alongside each of the “hellscapes” as Daimon decided to call them, he couldn’t use them directly himself, it’s more like he created entities which he then controlled to have access to spells that used the devil mana in question, for example those special trees and vegetation from the hell living jungle.

The reason behind the previous is simple, Marcus didn’t aim to awaken multiple varied affinities like Daimon, probably because as a mage he didn’t want to deal with the overload to the body that the previous would come with.

One has to admit that he was actually smart this time, he created “devils” which would take on the toll of handling those different devil mana affinities, while he ruled over them, quite fitting of his system and also from a devil king type which is supposed to have subordinates to deal with the “minor” enemies.

That being said, there were also inconveniences, the most direct one being that to have access to the spells of those different devil mana types he had to give the order to the proxy in question and that required time which is why he also made guys like the locust tree general whose sole purpose is to be physically strong to fight and earn him that time, the problem is that Daimon was too fast, he could bypass the general and aim for him directly.

So, he used a trick to go around that limitation, he ordered one of the wraiths to continuously cast a mind-body boosting spell and then fed it to his gauntlets so that so he could skip having to cast a spell, so long as the wraith’s life lasted, he would be in a buffed status because the gauntlets were drawing in mana from the burning mind hell.

“Tsk, that mask again, Black Devil Hell Step!”, honestly Marcus wanted to keep how he had attained this new strength a secret a bit more, but given how that green mask allowed the enemy to take a “peek” at his administrator, he already knew that it was futile, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t annoyed by it though.

“Clang!”, Marcus who disappeared from plain sight a second ago, appeared next to Daimon to then claw towards his neck only for a punch to meet his burning clawed gauntlet.

This time however, he moved fast enough to arrive before Daimon could raise a defense using the green energy, so the black flames on the gauntlet were still burning fiercely when Daimon’s fist collided against it.

Contrary to what he expected, the brown-red energy armor covering Daimon’s hand didn’t melt due to the high temperature of the black flames, because like Femi said herself, her race is used to live in volcanic caves and work using the magma flowing underground for their smithies.

“Hssss!”, still, with a wave of silver energy the black flames were suffocated leaving behind only the physical clash, which once again ended with Daimon retreating less than half of the distance when compared to before.

On the other hand, Marcus didn’t stop his assault just like that this time, the haunted locust tree general who was slashing his halberd at Daimon’s back, became visible the next second, while at the same time Marcus charged at Daimon, it was a pincer attack.

“Black Devil Hell Edge!”, with a loud shout, both the claws of Marcus’s gauntlets and the halberd of the haunted locust tree general exploded in black flames, the devil system user was using a spell two times simultaneously, the general lacked the capacity to use spells, but the horse didn’t so with its eyes glowing in dark pink devil mana, his four legs lit up in black flames as he used the same movement spell as Marcus earlier.

“Clang!”, under Marcus gaze of disbelief, the halberd of the haunted tree general was blocked by the green energy wood shield which he had become able to cleave through without much trouble thanks to being buffed by the horse, completely stopped the general’s attack and that wasn’t all.

His clawed gauntlets which were blocked by Daimon’s fist, had their black flames suddenly devoured, he retreated on the spot leaving behind two small green grass patches which were created using his darkness mana.

“What, do you think you are the only one who can combine different types of energies?”, casually said Daimon as he saw Marcus’s surprised face, the shield which was still blocking the halberd from reaching Daimon’s back showed no signs of disappearing after a single clash by the way and also had a layer of solid brown-red energy covering its surface.

In contrast, the brown-red energy gauntlet covering his hand had a layer of green energy burning around it, this is the idea Daimon had earlier, since the energies of those two resembled them so much, he thought of trying to combine them and it perfectly worked.

For reference, Daimon already thought of trying to add his silver energy to Femi’s one, so that he wouldn’t need to extinguish Marcus’s black flames separately which slowed him down as it was a different process, but it didn’t work.

The same applied when he tried to reinforce Tessa’s green energy to extend the life of the shields and other equipment created with it, using his silver energy, it didn’t work, but it turned out that when it came to their energies they easily clicked together.

‘Perhaps, it’s because unlike my energy which by the way I still don’t know to what lineage belongs to, those two’s energies have some things in common’, thought Daimon as he saw the reinforced energy wood shield and the energy metal gauntlet shinning in green light.

Tessa’s energy granted special effects to “equipment” just like a dwarf blacksmith would do, while Femi’s one while being metal oriented focused in reinforcing “living beings” instead of weapons and the like since it protected the body.

As it turns out, the nature energy condensations could be passed as living beings, therefore Femi’s energy could reinforce them, while the metal energy armor that protected Daimon’s body was recognized as equipment by Tessa’s nature energy thus granting it a special effect.

‘I didn’t think it was going to succeed this fast, but I guess it was to be expected considering how those two are inseparable’, amusingly thought Daimon, Tessa’s “Mother Nature” and Femi’s “Gaia” represent basically the same thing from different points of view, it’s a complex subject similar to how hard is to define those two’s affinities.

For Femi’s affinity while it does majorly feel like metal, it englobes also non-metallic minerals, everything that could be used by a blacksmith to craft things seems to be a part of her affinity, in Tessa’s case, her affinity seems to englobe the cycle of life which includes death and decay rather than just the positive aspects that a nature affinity result of wood and water combining, would.

Anyway, the point is that their energies acted just like those two and happily cooperated with the other like good friends, so Daimon didn’t need to put much effort to combine them like this.

“Swift Step”, with the reinforced green energy wood shield still floating behind his back, Daimon tensed his legs as he used the movement martial art to charge towards Marcus who had a bad premonition fill his heart.

“Protect me you bastard!”, he shouted to the haunted locust tree general who had disappeared after his attack couldn’t break through the reinforced green energy wood shield, to then block in front of Marcus.

Daimon who became visible a couple of meters away from Marcus closed his right hand and then while a brown-red energy gauntlet shinning in a dazzling bright green light covered his fist, he also said.

“Shattering Fist”, so far Daimon had only used martial arts through his bare body, using the silver energy separately since he was already reinforcing his body with it and he couldn’t use it to attack as it lacked offensive power, therefore he pulled a diluted version of a real martial art with energy and a purely physical technique, in two separate stages.

But now Tessa and Femi’s energies actually worked at the same time as his purely physical martial art, so while the result was still different than Daimon powering a martial art with battle aura, the resulting attack was not far from the real deal.

“Crack!”, the solid defense of Femi’s energy plus the capacity of Tessa’s energy to devour the black flame devil mana and use it to its advantage, resulted in Daimon’s fist directly breaking through the burning halberd to then blast away the whole right arm of the general, before continuing towards Marcus hitting him with the shockwave.

“Booooom!”, Marcus jumped backwards managing to avoid the direct hit of the shockwave, thanks to the body-mind coordination boosting spell of the wraith he crossed his arms in front of him but he was still hit by the explosion.

“Ack!”, for a second Marcus lost his hearing sense while flying backwards with blood coming from his ears, the devil system user had his eyes turn red due to anger.

“Page nineteen!”, he shouted, both due to anger and because he currently couldn’t tell how loud he was speaking, as his ears were still affected by the explosion, the devil librarian came out of the black book behind Marcus and then shuffled through the pages until they reached the desired one, returning to the book the next second.

“Black Devil Contract, Golden Opportunity Mountain Hell!”, the ground behind of Marcus trembled and cracked as dark metallic yellow devil mana emerged forming a small range of golden metal hills which covered a total of a hundred meters.

“Crack!”, a piece of one of the golden metal hills broke and disappeared, making sparks of the same color appear around the haunted locust tree general, condensing into an arm made out of dark yellow devil mana.

Those same sparks appeared around the halberd, but instead of creating an energy version of the broken blade, the thing returned to normal with the difference that the edge now had a dark yellow gleam, that devil mana was of metal affinity apparently.

And in case you haven’t realized it, the hellscape in that page of the black book was created using the sacrifices of the spear wielding nethereal that fought with Femi as well, amusingly enough that guy also had lost an arm due to Femi’s energy, just like the haunted locust tree general, interestingly enough despite Tessa also originally fighting two enemies, as in the tree parasite and its shadow, only one page was created from them, maybe because they both were trees anyway, on the other hand why wasn’t the area covered by the living hell jungle two hundred meters instead of a hundred though.

“Ha!”, seeing Marcus forcefully stopping his retreat while his body seemed to become stronger as he had those golden sparks surround him, Daimon couldn’t help but frown behind his mask.

‘Another one of those tricks to cut the casting no… he covered the existence of the proxy from that hellscape with the wraith’s deceiving spells, simply by using chant less casting when calling out the spell to hide it.

‘The jungle didn’t have any specific inclination, but that hill range feels like greed nether, I don’t remember a greed nethereal being among your subordinates but I guess, the other guy fighting Femi might have obtained a second type of nether when fighting for his life’, thought Daimon as he saw the third area created by Marcus.

Most of his teammates fought two enemies, so even if he managed to use the energies of all of them, he’ll still be in a 2v1 fight, however his situation was different from Marcus.

The devil ruler system user obtained external assistance from the hellscapes depicted in the black book, but that wasn’t him increasing his devil mana reserves, Daimon on the other hand saw his energy reserves increase by a certain amount each time he had successfully transformed his silver energy into the one of another person, by a fourth of his total capacity to be more accurate.

In other words, with each new energy type, he obtained a 25% increase of energy reserves, based on the new total, so the increase brought by the brown-red energy was for 25% of 125%, instead of a 100% like it happened with the bright green energy, and it was all his silver energy so Daimon could shape it to either of the three energies he could currently control as he wished.

In Marcus case, once the picture of the hellscape faded, the page will lose its power, he’ll probably be able to recharge it with a ritual, but that’s not as good as simply having it recover naturally like Daimon’s energy.

“The group tactic didn’t help those subordinates of yours very much so, I wonder why would you believe it will work for you”, casually said Daimon, which made the ghost-like administrator laugh and clap.

“Not to mention that judging by the small size of the living hell jungle, something must have gone wrong with the black devil contract registration of the grimoire~”, added Lezabel which was like rubbing broken crystal shards on a wound for Marcus.

“Golden Opportunity Mountain Hell, Greed Golden Imp!”, believing that Daimon didn’t notice how he had already called out the proxy from the golden hill range hellscape, Marcus just called out the name of the spell he casted without chanting earlier, they were simple words with no power in them, Marcus simply lifted the illusion covering the thing.

Or maybe not, there was a big chance that the proxy which appeared on the golden hill range, which was a one-meter sized golden little devil which was flying by flapping its small wings, was an illusion while the real one was hiding.

Daimon knew why Marcus was going through all that trouble though, that golden imp lacked both offense and defense unlike the haunted locust tree general which was strong physically or the wraiths which could turn ethereal and hide into the ground to then retreat to the burning mind hell, the imp was a pure support type mage, as the repaired halberd, the buffed physical body of Marcus and the energy arm that the general had gained, suggested.