Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System

Once the little tiger girl had her fill of both food and swimming, she came out of the lake and used the energy of the lightning tiger to dry herself up, well at least the vast majority of her body, since Daimon who at this point had dried thanks to the sun and a towel, handed one to Dana so that she could properly dry her hair.

”Thanks, are we not going to get rid of the remaining Lord ranked blood specters?”, asked the little tiger girl as she returned the towel to Daimon after having finished drying her hair, to which Daimon shook his head at her.

”No, the red strands of early-stage Lord rank blood specters do too little for me, with the exception of the first one I absorbed as for you, we’ll focus on the races of blood specters that will grant you an improvement, so the only early-stage lord ranks and below that are worth our time for the time being are, feline types”, said Daimon, to then add.

”Let’s advance a few kilometers and then gain altitude to see if we can find another water body, if not, we’ll just keep advancing and repeat the same process”.

”Mm”, the plan was simple and the little tiger girl had no objections, so they went on their way.

It’s worth mentioning that now that Dana’s agility has increased, she had way less trouble at the moment of keeping up with Daimon, which allowed the two of them to reach the next high altitude point in just a bit more than an hour, there were some clashes with a few blood beasts here and there, but nothing worth mentioning.

It was close to midday by now though and according to Dana, stronger blood specters should start appearing anytime, but nor now, let’s focus on the two figures that could be seen flashing through the face of a mountain all the way to the peak in a matter of minutes.

Once at the highest point of the biggest mountain in the vicinity, Daimon saw two possible places of interest, first there was a small pond not too far from this mountain, curiously enough, there weren’t any blood specters near it.

And far into the distance on top of another mountain, there was a crater which was filled with water, in terms of extension it wasn’t as large as the lake of earlier, but the water looked darker.

’Let’s take a look at that pond first”, said Daimon, to which Dana nodded before the two of them descended from the mountain, however as they got closer to that pond, Daimon couldn’t help but frown, there were traces of activity in the vicinity.

But they were really subtle and it was all natural, which means that whatever happened, a fight wasn’t included.

Getting close enough to the shore of the pond, Daimon pointed his right hand at the pitch-black water, to then shot a stream of silver light into it, like usual, sizzling sounds followed by black strands which separated from the water, to then burst in red flames, as a spot of the pond cleared up, was the result.

However, the other reaction which Daimon was expecting, in other words, chains emerging from the pond to then violently charge at the source of the silver light, in other words at him, didn’t happen.

While frowning behind his mask, Daimon shot a few more streams of silver light at the pond, luckily it was way smaller than the lake of before, so at the fourth try, Daimon found the area of the seal.

”What?”, the little tiger girl who has been watching Daimon, couldn’t help but exclaim with confusion on her pretty face, because the area where the seal should be, was… empty.

As in the whole thing was gone, yeah, there was a deep hole which dived deep into the ground, where the bone to which the one sealed here was chained to, should be, the problem is that the pond was still composed of black water, so this situation was not like the one of earlier, when Daimon killed the nethereal and the lake was cleared as a result of it.

’Did the nethereal sealed here broke out of the seal by himself or… did he receive help to get out?’, wondered Daimon.

And Daimon believed it, because though the bone was gone, the pond remained pitched black colored, and that meant that the seal wasn’t properly undone.

’Now that I think about it, my arrival caused Dana to be separated from Arianna and that other girl, what’s more she was transported to a random location, so chances are the same happened to those guys’, concluded Daimon to then say.

”The traces I could see around this place, are not that old, a day ago a group of three to four people was here and they probably released the nethereal that was sealed inside that pond”.

Just as Daimon was about to ask his black sea emblem, if it knew something about this, the little thing came out from his pocket and the rune shark enveloped it the next second, then under both Daimon and Dana’s surprised gazes, the rune shark jumped into the water.

By opening its giant jaws, all the black water in the pond was actually devoured by the rune shark, leaving only an empty shallow wet crater in the ground, only then did the rune shark disappear, and the black sea emblem returned to Daimon’s pocket.

”So, no explanation as always, right”, said Daimon with a slightly annoyed voice, which made the black sea emblem shake a bit inside his pocket as if apologizing.

”Ah, never mind, I already saw you eating the chains that were created by the Megalodon, so seeing you devouring the black water which was created with the help of the Lords, is nothing to be surprised at, I guess you can’t do it if the nethereal is still sealed inside of it, but when the seal breaks the black water also disappears, so it’s a one or the other kind of situation”, said Daimon.

In other words, the black sea emblem could benefit regardless of whether she nethereal was killed by Daimon, or if it escaped or was released by someone, like it should have happened here, in any case it was beneficial for him if the black sea emblem grew stronger, or at least that’s what he decided to believe.

”Whoever was here couldn’t have advanced too far, at most they should be a few kilometers past that crater lake at the peak of that mountain, we’ll climb all the way there and rest in one of the natural caves formed on its surface”, said Daimon.

It was past midday, and it was going to take them around three hours to get to the peak of that mountain far into the distance, and the day here only lasted from sixteen to seventeen hours.

Of course, Daimon knew that they would still have one hour of daylight by the time they reached the area where they’ll be sleeping tonight, and he made the decision for a good reason, but let’s leave that for later.

Daimon and the little tiger girl put hands to work and leaped through the flat area ahead of them, the reason as to why they found a very small amount of blood specters, was probably because the group that followed this direction, had gotten rid of the ones in the vicinity.

But that didn’t affect Daimon’s plans, for a good reason, he had seen how the stronger blood specters had suddenly appeared to fill all the area, the past night from within the cave.

And so, without stopping for almost four hours since the distance from the pond to that mountain, was a bit larger than what Daimon had calculated, they soon arrived at their destination, as expected the light being radiated by the red sun had started to diminish at this point.

Luckily, Daimon had already found the perfect cave to spend the night, it was at the base of the peak of the mountain, far enough from the criterial lake, but still within Daimon’s range of sight.

”We’ll stop here, let’s have dinner while we wait for night to come”, said Daimon as he entered the cave he had chosen, followed by the little tiger girl.

While eating some of the food Daimon casually took out of the inventory, Dana couldn’t help but ask.

”Are we not going to block the entrance?”, the light was diminishing with each second that passed and soon the Arch ranked blood specters will be appearing.

”Not ”we”, but you are going to block the entrance”, said Daimon as he finished eating his dinner, to then get up and walk towards the entrance of the cave.

Maybe he won’t be able to kill an Arch ranked blood specter with his current strength, but with the increased defense and his improved capacity to manipulate the silver light, he should be able to defend against one.

Which means, that going outside at night was not as dangerous as it used to be for him, Daimon wanted to hunt a few peak stage Lord ranked blood specters before the day ended, of course Dana wasn’t included in the plan this time, earlier the chains barely made his skin itch, so Daimon was sure he would be fine even if he was attacked, but that’s not the case for the little tiger girl.

Speaking of which, seeing the clearly worried expression on Dana’s face, Daimon chuckled behind his mask to then add.

”I’m not trying to get myself killed, I’ll be outside for one hour, only early-stage Arch ranked blood specters would be present during that time so there shouldn’t be any problem in any case I won’t be moving too far, so you’ll be able to see me through the spaces between the rocks that will block the entrance if you want to”.

He chose this cave for that same reason, it was close to the area where he’ll be hunting, and if it helped quell Dana’s worries, she can watch over him from the cave.

”Mm”, with a much calmer expression, the little tiger girl blocked the entrance of the cave as soon as Daimon left, and cutely peeked through the spaces between the rocks at how he walked towards a small rock formation that faced the lake.

Back to Daimon’s point of view, he sat down on top of a rock and waited for a couple minutes as night came to the Blood Prison realm, like before, the red sun was partially blocked by a big black spot and the atmosphere suffered a drastic change.

But what attracted Daimon’s attention was how the blood specters suddenly started appearing out of nowhere, they quite literally emerged from the ground, rocks or out of empty spaces even.

It’s worth mentioning that only middle stage Lord ranks and above had this capacity, the others were always in the open, but here there weren’t any blood specters before, so the weakest one as of current was at the middle stage of the Lord rank.

”Let’s see, there is a wolf there, a couple reptile ones and even a butterfly… no feline types, looks like that little girl is out of luck this time”, said Daimon.

He wouldn’t have minded hunting a feline type for Dana if one appeared, but there weren’t any in the vicinity, so he simply charged against a random middle stage lizard which had just returned after drinking water of the lake.

With a ”swosh”, Daimon’s image flashed, not giving the lizard any time to react, his right fist which was cladded in silver light descended from above, smacking the head of the lizard against the ground, making it fade the next second.

Past the early stage of the Lord rank, the blood specters stopped forming packs and became lone hunters, so Daimon didn’t have to worry about dealing with minions this time.

Surprisingly, the mutated red strand produced by the lizard didn’t result in another part of Daimon’s body to be cladded in that silver light, even if it was the first one of the middle stage which he has absorbed.

’Maybe I have to go for a different race for each first time bonus?’, thought Daimon as he charged towards a second and then a third blood specter, he even went for different shaped ones, but the result he got was the same, the energy inside their mutated strands certainly surpassed that of the early stage ones, by quite a bit, but it still fell short for many times when compared to the first mutated strand he obtained from an early stage Lord ranked blood specter.

Of course, after having dealt with a peak stage Lord rank enemy earlier, these middle stage blood specters didn’t pose much of a threat, he was faster than them and in the rare cases where the blood specters managed to react in time to counter attack, Daimon casually tanked their bites, scratches and lashes.

He was like a tiger in a pack of sheep, this situation continued until Daimon had hunted down basically all the middle stage Lord ranked blood specters.

And now Daimon found himself in a predicament, because he didn’t want to miss on the first time ”bonuses” he could obtain for the peak stage Lord rank and early-stage Arch rank, like it happened for the middle stage one.

”What the hell is going on, did the rules of the challenge change again, or am I missing something”, mumbled Daimon, it has been nearly an hour and while he did feel some advance towards the next silver light reaction, he was barely half way in, if he had obtained the first-time bonus, he would have reached his goal already.

That’s why he said he was only going to be outside for an hour, it was calculated taking into account the first-time bonus, but now the plan has gone down the drain.

That being said, the light was starting to diminish once again and the middle stage blood specters and above were going to start appearing anytime soon, and while Daimon didn’t think they could kill him easily, he didn’t want to attract them towards the cave, so he proposed himself to retire for tonight.

However, the moment Daimon turned towards the cave, a splashing sound followed by the sound of metals violently colliding, coming from not too far, immediately drew his attention.

”Clang!”, that was a familiar metallic sound, which Daimon’s sharp hearing could recognize, it definitely came from those chains that were used to seal the nethereal he met earlier.

But there was something different this time, a second metallic sound which though similar, had a slightly different tone to it.

’Are there two nethereals sealed here, perhaps?’, thought Daimon as he walked towards the origin of the sound, he honestly wasn’t going to deal with the nethereal inside this water body until tomorrow, because this crater lake seemed deeper than the lake of earlier, so though it was smaller in terms of length, clearing all the way to the bottom with the silver light was going to take some time.

But this appeared to be a different situation, so Daimon couldn’t help but go check at it, imagine his surprise when he saw two different sets of chains… clashing above the lake at the other side of the shore.

Now, with the reduced light it was harder to discern small details, specially because both sets of chains were black, but Daimon was still able to notice key differences between them, namely the extremes of said chains, one set was just like the one he has seen before, the origin of the chain was like the ones he saw sealing the pawns used for Sarah’s fight against Sheilla, with extremes that were rusty and corroded.

However, the second set of chains was interestingly inverted, the origin was rusty and corroded while the extremes were normal.

”Why are you being such a pain in the ass, what’s the use of remaining loyal after so many years, those esteemed generals of yours haven’t helped you break free from the seal!”, exclaimed an angered man’s voice.

To which a woman’s one calmly answered the next second.

”Humph, I will be free when the time for it comes, but more importantly, I’m not willing to be anyone’s slave just to get out of this seal, so even if those bastards were to come again, I will kill the one they send in just like before”.

And then, another interesting scene unveiled in front of Daimon, two spheres of chains actually emerged from the lake to then violently clash against each other, before the chains that were coming out from them tangled and then dived into the water once again.

Leaving behind a Daimon who was lost in his thoughts, since he was reminded of something he honestly hasn’t given much thought to so far, if some of the subordinates of the Lords managed to survive and be sealed instead of dying after the final battle, couldn’t the subordinates of the Megalodon, Ophelia and the other general, be the same.

’The dead nethereals were used to create the new ones in those weird states I saw before, hence why they are half monsters lacking proper bodies, that was a temporary measure implemented by Aslan, on the Northern Sea’s army side, the dead subordinates became the progenitors for the Clear Water kingdom, because the natives who were already sea magic beast descendants, somehow were influenced by the multiple lineages they had, but turns out there are survivors on their side as well’, thought Daimon.

There was another part about the previous situation which was worth paying attention to, the female voice said that some had come to offer them to free them from the seals, but it obviously came with a price and she also affirmed to have killed the one they sent into the lake.

So probably the nethereal was tempted to accept the deal, but the other person wasn’t, so no one was freed at the end of the day.

”Well, that would explain why there are almost no signs of any actions having taken place around here, those guys left as fast as their feet allowed to”, concluded Daimon, to then ponder what should he do.

The silver light can clear the water, but he didn’t know if it will affect both of the ones sealed down there, negatively, he didn’t care about the nethereal, but considering that the ones at the Northern Sea’s army were possible allies, a bad decision could be troublesome later, also there was Ophelia’s position to consider, she did him a big favor helping Daphne and preparing a solution for the duchess’s predicament after all and Daimon isn’t ungrateful.

On the other hand, that sealed officer from the Northern Sea’s army seemed to have a rather fierce personality, so trying to convince her with just words didn’t look like a good idea, she has already killed someone that promised to free her after all.

’Ah damn it, if I had access to my Dracolevia lineage at least, that would at least act as a way to smooth things over, oh well, it’s a fact that the origin of the black water are the Lords, so there shouldn’t be a reason to relate someone that is capable of clearing it up, with them’, thought Daimon.

He extended his right hand towards the lake and a second later, silver light had gathered around it, to then be shot in the form of a stream that landed on the lake a second later.

”Hsssss!”, a surprisingly milder sizzling than usual was produced as a few strands of black energy came out of the lake, to then burn in red flames, the process was slower than during day though, but the result was still the same, a spot of the surface of the lake cleared up.

And as expected, chains emerged from the lake the next second, well, only one to be more accurate and it was one which had its origin corroded, while the extreme looked as good as new.

”Who are you, how did you do that?”, a voice came from the lake accompanied by that chain, but the aggressiveness in it, made it clear that Daimon was being seen as an enemy.

”I mean no harm, honestly I’m not interested in freeing any of you two, but I would like to hear about the guys that tried to do it, in exchange for the information I’ll get rid of that nethereal sealed alongside you”, said Daimon, he was being honest, he wouldn’t mind lending a hand if it aligned with his goals.

But if the other party didn’t want it, then it’s not like he really cared about it, this could be a simple transaction for information for all he cared.

”…”, the other party remained silent for a second, before a familiar name came from the one inside the lake.

”It’s faint but you smell like lady Ophelia, are you… her descendant?”, she asked, which made the ring resting on Daimon’s left hand, to slightly tremble.