Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System

Seeing the area of the lake that had cleared up, Daimon frowned, though it certainly wasn’t a small spot, the lake was quite big, so if he wanted to clear the whole thing before going in, it was going to take forever.

’The strength of the silver light and the amount of it I can draw out of my body certainly has increased, I can now use it for a long-range attack, but the increase caused by a mutated strand is only around a tenth part of the energy the first one I absorbed had, so even after getting rid of all the blood specters in this area, I would at most be able to make the silver light clad to reach the area of my neck, in that case…’, thought Daimon as he gathered the silver light on his right hand, to then start running through the shore of the lake.

During the time Daimon has observed the lake, blood specters from many different areas around it had been dragged down to their deaths, and he was sure that whatever was hidden inside of it, was immobilized, because the chains were the ones doing all the work.

And now Daimon was going to use them to locate the exact point where the enemy should be, using the chains to do so, how you ask, well the chains had locked onto him, or more accurately onto the silver light which was now cladding his right hand.

So, Daimon simply started running around the like, using his increased agility alongside movement martial arts, while paying attention to the angle in which the chains bent while following him.

It took him nearly twenty minutes to make a whole turn around the lake, but Daimon had reduced the area in which the main body of the chains should be located, and that meant he only had to focus on cleansing that part of the lake, instead of the whole damn thing.

While smirking behind his mask, Daimon jumped into the air, and watched the chains being unable to reach him, after a observing them for the past twenty minutes he realized that their effective range out of the lake was of only two to three meters.

And Daimon had a little surprise for the one who was controlling them, he has been gathering that silver light, and now had around four times the amount which he dropped into the lake earlier.

”Go”, with a single word, the silver light that was cladding his right hand, turned into a stream which descended into the lake.

”Hsssss!”, the surface of the lake started sizzling the very moment the silver light made contact with it, the water in an area of more than forty meters instantly cleared up, and twelve black strands appeared above the lake, to then explode in red flames.

The result was that the chains started trembling, producing clinking sounds, as if the one they were connected to was shaking due to anger… or trembling due to fear perhaps, because right now, Daimon could see the bottom of the lake.

To begin with, the lake was actually not as deep as its pitch-black darkness would suggest, a bit more than four meters was apparently the average, and just like the ground above, it was lifeless and the soil was black, however there were a couple of noticeable differences.

First and formal, an unidentifiable part of a bone protruded from the ground, it was painfully noticeable because the bone was white colored, and the soil is black colored, but while that was interesting, there were giant bones buried everywhere so that’s not what caught Daimon’s attention, but the other object which was right next to that bone.

It was a ball made out of black chains which surprisingly originated in that giant white bone, after a close observation, Daimon saw that the design of the chains near and around the white bone, were the exact same as the ones he saw back at Sarah’s fight with the enemy queen piece.

In fact, only the extremes of a few of the chains that formed that sphere of chains, looked different and those were the ones that were trying to attack Daimon.

’I have no idea of how it works, but it’s obvious what will happen if the origin of the chains gets corrupted, so of course we can’t let that happen, besides this way we can also confirm another really important thing about this challenge’, thought Daimon.

The one inside the sphere of chains has killed blood specters before, and quite a few of them at that, given that other energies besides lineage ones were restrained within the Blood Prison realm, and the aura coming from it was at the peak of the Lord rank.

So, he could now confirm whether the red strands obtained by a participant, could be taken by the one who killed it.

As if feeling Daimon’s intentions, the corroded chains moved at a faster speed than before, aiming at the area where Daimon was about to land, at least until Daimon made a turn while midair, making the silver light which he had gathered around his hand in that short period of time, to be released as a stream of light which surrounded Daimon, acting as a ”shield” for him.

And as expected the corroded chains took a last-minute change in their trajectory in order to avoid Daimon like the plague, which made the latter grin.

”What happened, weren’t you so eager to catch me earlier?”, mockingly said Daimon as he caught the stream of silver light with his right hand to then throw it at the lake, resulting in the cleared area to expand five more meters.

’Not bad, I still don’t have my damn ability, but my capacity to manipulate the silver light has improved quite a bit’, thought Daimon.

He had to give the little tiger girl some credit, since the inspiration to try and use the silver light in such a way, came from how she used the lightning tiger manifestation for multiple different attacks, with different costs of energy, when her ability at its core is the lightning tiger as a whole.

This way Dana still had access to her ability as a whole when needed, but was able to reduce the energy consumption, it was quite an efficient way to manage her strength.

Leaving that aside, the one controlling the chains was obviously angered by Daimon’s provocations, but by the time the chains charged at Daimon, he had already gathered that silver light around his right hand, and the chains stopped their charge midway, which made Daimon smirk as he throwed another charge of silver light into the river, making another spot to clear up a second later.

The way that the chains attacked required them to be in contact with their target, but apparently their owner was afraid of the silver light, and that was a predicament.

Small waves could be seen forming on the surface of the lake, caused by the chains which tried to break away from the giant bone due to anger.

Unfortunately, the bone which was firmly buried in the ground, didn’t budge at all, so after throwing a tantrum, the owner of the chains changed its strategy, half of the chains dived into the lake, but it wasn’t that they were giving up.

They descended to the bottom of the lake in order to held onto some large rocks and after making sure their grip was tight enough, they raised all the way from the bottom, black water splashed out in every direction blocking Daimon’s view, but the black water veil didn’t last long, before a chain holding onto a stone passed through it, aiming to crush Daimon frontwards.

With a little tap from his right foot, Daimon flashed from where he was standing in order to avoid the ”chain rock hammer” which was charging at him, while at the same time he pointed his right hand at the lake, shooting a stream of silver light in its direction.

However, one of the chains actually got in the way of the attack, but didn’t block it directly and instead used the rock it was holding onto, to receive the stream of silver light.

As previously stated, Daimon is lacking in terms of offensive as of current, the silver light isn’t let alone an ability, but even an attack of any sort, it’s just a byproduct of the energy that is being accumulated in Daimon’s body, which happens to produce a strong reaction when making contact with both blood specters and anything that contained the same energy as those black strands.

Daimon still had to figure out why, but he has worked it out using that reaction to make up for his lack of attack power, the point is that the silver stream only caused a few cracks to appear on the stone as it blocked it.

That being said, the one controlling the chain didn’t dare to hold onto it now that it had made contact with the silver light and threw it far into the distance, and that wasn’t all, a whistling sound made Daimon who was dodging the chain rock hammer as of current, look in another direction where another chain threw the rock it was holding towards him.

’Heh, so that’s how you want to play’, thought Daimon as he saw the combination of close and long-range attacks that the chains were using against him and while it was a good idea, the one controlling the chains forgot about something, Daimon’s control over the silver light is getting better with each second that passes.

Repeating the same maneuver as earlier, Daimon shot a stream of silver light at the lake and one of the chains used a stone to block it, or at least that was the idea, but at the last second, Daimon beckoned and the silver stream actually zig zagged, perfectly avoiding the stone, landing on the lake the next second.

And in case you wonder how come there wasn’t another chain helping to block, that’s easy to solve, it’s the same principle as multicasting, making an object follow a single order like ”charge” for example is easy, but having it do something while executing the previous, like in this case having to hold onto a stone while also keeping one in reserve to defend, is way harder to accomplish, hence why multiple chains could go after Daimon at the same time before, but not now.

It was already pushing it to the limit, by using a third chain to throw rocks at Daimon, while one pursued him and another defended.

As if cursing, the chains tried to get back to Daimon following the same dynamic as earlier, however the result was the same, another cleared part of the area where the sphere of chains resided.

And an interesting phenomenon appeared now that the water had cleared up enough for the light radiated by the red sun reached the bottom of the lake.

Small but still noticeable amounts of steam started to raise up from the lake, however it wasn’t caused by the water being evaporated, it was coming from the sphere of chains instead, the parts that hadn’t been corroded to be more accurate.

And as if to confirm the urgency of the situation, the chain that was throwing stones at Daimon, immediately stopped and shot itself into the distance, grabbing a random Lord ranked blood specter and dragging it into the pitch-black water of the lake.

That being said, since Daimon had cleared up the area where the main body of the chains was, he could see what happened to the blood specter this time, apparently the blood specters dragged by the chains didn’t die immediately as he had thought before.

But they surprisingly couldn’t put any resistance, and their originally red-ethereal bodies, dyed black at an amazingly fast ratio, by the time the chain was back to its origin, the blood specter was turned into a pitch-black version of it, to then be crushed to death.

And the most interesting part came after it, there was a red strand produced of course, and it was absorbed by the sphere of chains, but at the same time a black substance was released into the water, making it turn a bit darker, it wasn’t enough to close the large spot Daimon had cleared up, but it was enough to block the light that was reaching the bottom of the lake, making the steam stop at the same time.

’I seem to remember that the water was being dyed black due to those giant bones, releasing a black substance, I guess the same applies to the blood specters that had drank it’, thought Daimon.

Ophelia had given him key information about the past back when they met at Daphne’s challenge, besides the high ranked nobles which were on par with the ones from the Northern Sea’s army, the rest of the guys on the nethereal’s side were weaker as a whole.

So they used the trait that nether has to infect and corrupt other beings, in order to enslave the magic beasts they found in Neptune’s vicinity so that they could increase the strength of their side, some of that influence still continued after the war ended and evolved to form some of the strange species that can be found in the Maelstrom Sea, like that goblin shark which Daimon had contracted for example.

And Daimon had concluded that what dyed the water black in the dreams the sea emblem had showed him, was the concentration of the blood of the magic beasts which had been corrupted by nether.

’So, they are trying to pull the same trick but using the blood specters which the Megalodon is using as guards this time around’, thought Daimon, the blood specters must have some relation to the magic beasts from back then, hell, they might even be what remained of them after the war.

Since the Megalodon somehow stripped the lineages and consciences of the three Lords, out of their bodies, to seal them in this place, while their empty vessels turned into their other halves which were the progenitors of Sarah, Reyne and Jasmine, it wouldn’t be strange if the magic beasts had gotten caught up in that, which resulted in the blood specters, as well as the giant bones that were buried all over the Blood Prison realm.

”Oh well, I now have learned everything I can without directly listening to what our ”friend” inside that sphere of chains has to say and it should be happening anytime around now, so…”, said Daimon as he looked up to the sky.

Daimon never extends a fight without a proper reason, but besides wanting to learn what the entity trapped in the lake was capable of doing, there was another reason as to why he has extended his stay in this area where the strongest blood specter was just at the early stage of the Lord rank.

He was waiting for the red sun in the sky to reach the exact same position at which it was, when his agility suddenly increased before, in other words since he had no access to a watch due to the restrains of this place, he used the position of the sun to determine the hour, and it was around this time the past day when he became able to leap through the faces of the mountains.

Of course everything was just a theory, but it didn’t hurt to confirm it before focusing on travelling, after all Daimon now only planned to stop either when night came, or when they found a water body, because absorbing mutated blood strands was way more efficient than hunting hundreds of the normal blood specters.

”So, what’s it going to be this time”, said Daimon as he tapped his foot on the ground, unfortunately he didn’t make it crack on the spot as he is used to, which means that he didn’t increase his strength.

”Tsk”, while clicking his tongue at his bad luck, Daimon noticed that the sound produced by his foot made when in contact with the ground, was slightly different, there was a certain metallic echo to it now.

And to confirm his suspicions, he stopped dodging the chain rock hammer which has been trying to get him during all the time the previous was described, and instead placed his left forearm in between his chest and the chain hammer which was about to hit him.

”Crack!”, the sound of something shattering echoed through the area, drawing the attention of the little tiger girl, who was finishing getting used to the increase in her agility, she turned around just in time to see a large black rock turn unto pieces of debris as it impacted against Daimon’s arm, which wasn’t let alone being reinforced by any kind of energy, but even under the effect of a martial art.

The reason is simple, the aspect in which Daimon has gotten that increase this time around, was defense.

’I started with an increase in ”endurance” by default which combined with the nurturing effect of the red sun, should be why I’m not getting tired, then it was ”agility” at this same hour yesterday and now it’s ”defense”, let’s hope the next one is strength…’, thought Daimon as he saw the area of his arm where the rock had impacted.

Besides some dust and a slight itch, the previous didn’t have any other result, and the one controlling the chains knew it was bad news, because the chain which now had nothing in between it and Daimon, immediately tried to go back into the lake, unfortunately for the one inside that sphere of chains, Daimon was… faster.

”Oh no, you don’t”, Daimon’s legs tensed as he exploded with a short lived but incredibly high increase in speed, it was the result of a movement martial art which disregarded safety in exchange for a stronger result.

As a result of it, Daimon’s right hand which was cladded in silver light managed to hold onto the chain in question, and contrary to what one would expect, there was zero tug war in place.

”Hssssss!”, the chain immediately sizzled as everything after the part that Daimon grabbed, separated from the rest to then burst in red flames, disappearing the next second.

And while Daimon wanted to complain because he was planning to inspect that corroded chain, he obtained a consolation prize in the form of the rest of the corroded part of that specific chain, being affected by the silver light, which resulted in it losing any strength, falling to the bottom of the lake like any normal piece of metal would when thrown in water.

Well, at least before the chain retracted all the way back to the sphere of chains, wrapping itself like the others which hadn’t been corroded.

”Gah!”, then the first sign of consciousness came from that sphere of chains, in the form of a pained gasp, which was followed by the remaining chains abandoning their tasks of defending and throwing rocks to Daimon, to go hunt for Lord ranked blood specters.

But what Daimon was waiting for, has already happened, so there was no need to just exchange moves with the enemy, it was time to finish it.

”Please keep the Lord ranked blood specters away from the lake, don’t fight them, just lure them towards you, it shouldn’t be a problem with your increased agility now in control”, said Daimon to the little tiger girl who was coming towards him.

”Mm!”, with Dana’s affirmation, Daimon… jumped into the lake, making black and clear water splash all over the place, he jumped at the area he had cleared up after all, but the water surrounding it still had that pitch black color.

The chains which were charging towards the shore of the lake, actually stopped in their tracks, to then dive back into the lake, and this time a clear voice could be heard coming from the sphere of chains.

”You actually jumped into the lake, you are dead you fucking bastard!”, it was a man’s voice, judging by its tone it should belong to a middle-aged man, and a rather cocky one at that, which made sense for Daimon.

After all, the nethereals that survived to be sealed, shouldn’t be the random foot soldiers, as those were revived in those strange states Daimon has seen before, so this one must have been an official in the past.

Though it is unclear whether he still has his memories from back then, since the ones that showed up at Sarah’s challenge against Sheilla, had no idea of what happened at the final battle, though they managed to remember their own personal information, on a way lower detail than Ophelia who also didn’t know what happened back then, though.

So now, imagine what that guy’s face looked like, when the chains which had gained an insane impulse, clashed against Daimon who was just about to reach the bottom of the lake, to then… shatter.

”Clank!”, a metallic sound so loud that it actually could be heard outside of the water, echoed through the lake as the extremes of the chains which landed on Daimon, broke due to the impact, barely making the latter tremble.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Daimon grabbed all the chains with his right hand, just in time for that silver light to lit up once again, around it.

’In a sense it’s better that the ones that survived are the stronger ones, they are way more arrogant than the soldiers, so it’s easy to take advantage of them’, amusingly thought Daimon as he pulled his hand back just a bit, separating a part of the chains, which exploded in red flames, also the silver light cleared the water which the one controlling the chains had dirtied earlier.

So, the light properly reached the bottom of the lake once again, and that combined with all the chains, retracting back to their origin to wrap around the sphere, resulted in…

”Aghhhhhh!”, a really loud pained scream.