Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System

Seeing the though wary, obviously angered expression on Sheilla's face, Daimon inwardly complimented the undead head maid for her perfect timing, before he let the black sea emblem come out to do its job, Rita had already created and invisible layer of mana for Amber.

Which she could use to either hide her from the attack created by the enemy queen, or to forcefully transport Amber out of the battlefield, Rita's mana had the property to not only be incredibly hard to detect, but also to ignore restrictions, so she could pull out such a trick.

Of course, it was a last resort kind of thing, since depending on the level of the restrictions, creating a shadow portal took a toll for her, but the important part is that she was ready to take action before Daimon even asked her to, which is something the latter counted on.

After all, while Daimon had a certain level of "thrust" on the black sea emblem, he never acted without a second and even third plan in mind.

'Good job, Rita, we can discuss a reward for you later', he said through their exclusive mind connection, making the undead head maid brightly smile within his shadow.

'Mm, thanks~', she happily said, before changing back to her serious "work mode".

'For the time being, will it be okay if I study that guy's corpse along with the maids in training, I feel like there is "something" that could benefit me from it?', she asked.

Daimon bitterly smiled to his insides knowing that the "maids" she mentioned were those women from the black night race, which were going through strict training by the undead head maid.

'No problem', he limited to say as he could feel the excitement coming Rita, she never asked anything serious from him, so this might be related to her evolution and advancement, which is an important matter.

Leaving Rita aside, Amber who didn't show an ounce of fear even when she was targeted by Sheilla, accurately gazed in Daimon's direction, just like Scarlet and the others, she could somehow perfectly pinpoint his current position, something that was still a mystery to Daimon.

"Ruby doesn't count, so you only have Jade's demonstration left to discover the basics of how our power works, don't worry, my hint is way clearer than the previous ones, contrary to what those idiots seem to believe, we don't use curses", she said with a slight smile before she was transported out of the battlefield, not without secretly sending a message to Daimon.

'Good Luck', she said with an amused voice that reached Daimon in a similar way as how Thea communicated with him, which was interesting, the Empress did so thanks to her special contract ability, which was revealed to be a… way more serious thing at least when it came to Daimon.

But the contract he had with Scarlet and the others was a normal one, they signed a soul contract with him, there wasn't any special aspect to it, besides the fact that it was of course integrated through the system, but there hadn't been any notification regarding it, so nothing has changed, at least on his side.

'Those girls surely have become livelier…', thought Daimon only to hear Eve laughing at his current predicament.

'A strong and imposing girl with a secret soft spot for you, how lucky~', said Evangeline.

'Mm, Daimon sure is popular', added Narasha, making Daimon sigh, he couldn't begin to imagine all the troubles he will have to deal with when let alone Aisha, but Erin and the others return to the picture.

Anyway, apparently, the challenge was affected by the clash between the nether used by Sheilla and the rune shark coming from Daimon's black sea emblem, since only now the winner was declared.

[A knight has been removed from the game, congratulations to the Black Queen]

With the announcement, Amber returned to the resting area where Scarlet and her other sisters were waiting for her, with a smile that wasn't a smile.

"Sorry that my hint wasn't helpful", said Lapis with obvious dissatisfaction in her voice.

"Yeah, how is it my fault that my opponent couldn't even endure a single serious attack from me, at least you had your chance to show off", mumbled Scarlet.

The red-haired girl was a bit dissatisfied with Amber for declaring that she was the strongest out of all of them, it's not like she thought Amber was weak in the slightest, but they haven't had the chance to face each other, so her fighting spirit was provoked with that affirmation.

"Ahem, let's not forget the whole point of this… besides the only one that actively showed off was Lapis", answered Amber, successfully calming down Scarlet but making the blue haired Lapis softly snort.

"That's because unlike you two muscleheads my ability can't be directly seen, also it's not like I wanted to show off, I can't use the chant less version yet!", exclaimed the usually calm and cool Lapis.

Back to the battles, the next battlefield was activated and surprisingly it wasn't Jade's turn, but Haylee's, her opponent is a sea magic beast guy that has taken a temporary semi human form and also a knight piece, while she is a bishop.

After listening to the results of the previous fights, no matter how much of a magic beast the guy was, he understood that underestimating the opponent in front of him was a bad idea, on the other hand he didn't feel pressured at all since he followed the instructions given to him by Marcus.

'She is a bishop so her strong point shouldn't be battle and she doesn't seem to be directly involved with the captain of their team, so she shouldn't be out of my league unlike those winged and colorful women', thought Garak.

While Marcus hadn't directly dealt with Daimon at Neptune, meaning he had no idea it was Daimon the one who frustrated his plans of secretly spreading his influence at the Skalia continent, as he thought it was Adam's doing.

Though Marcus originally only had Adam as an opponent in his eyes, after the appearance of both Arlion and Ereth, he raised his guard so now, he considered anyone who made it so far into the global raid, a possible threat, maybe not individually like Arlion, Ereth and Adam, but if they grouped against him, it would be bad.

So, he gave his subordinates some orders regarding how to deal with someone potentially troublesome, the idea was for them to use such information in case Adam appeared, but those precautions worked for anyone who was leading a team, in this case Daimon.

'According to the king's orders, in this case, I… should overwhelm her as soon as the fight start', thought the sea magic beast guy and so he did, the very moment the barrier that prevented the participants to move before their battlefield was activated, disappeared, Garak directly released as much of his partial transformation as he could without breaking the rules of the challenge.

His previously though wild looking, stull human figure with some scales and bone plaques here and there, expanded to reach a four-meter figure, the result was similar to the oarfish general who took care of Thea, Olander, as in Garak had a humanoid body with the head of a sea magic beast, a barracuda kind of race to be more accurate.

Naturally, his was a way less refined form, since his body had to grow to an unbalanced size and his body was covered in fish scales, unlike Olander who reached the perfect form that magic beasts who didn't want to evolve in the human direction, had, which was basically just a "compressed" state that they could use for daily life purposes.

On the other hand, this kind of evolution, had its perks, it took way less energy and practice to return to their magic beast form for example, so Garak's transformation was done in a fraction of a second.

Without saying anything, Garak pounced on Haylee, his large barracuda mouth which was filled with needle like sharp teeth, opened with the intention of tearing her apart as the starting point.

Feeling the soft sensation on his teeth, Garak inwardly took a breath of relief, thinking he had at least gotten rid of an arm, but then a muddy taste as well as a viscous sensation invaded his senses.

"What the hell!", exclaimed Garak with difficulty as he looked at what he was biting, a few centimeters away from Haylee's body, there was a wall composed of some kind of green viscous substance, blocking his way.

The barracuda guy immediately let go of the green wall and then spat whatever had gotten into his mouth, as a sea magic beast he of course could notice the water mana mixed into that substance, but he still didn't understand what the hell was that.

What he learned is that, it had incredibly high defensive properties since it could block his bite with ease.

Daimon on the other hand, couldn't help but be surprised by Haylee's change, since as a variant he could of course recognize another one, of course her case wasn't like his, were not only his affinities but even lineages mixed together to produce a stronger result.

But she had integrated her affinities into a new more complicated but also stronger version, similar to Aura, but on a shallower level, after all the werewolf matriarch combined wind and lightning to produce something akin to plasma.

"Damn it", Garak tried to let go of the green viscous wall only to realize he was being held by it, so he used his clawed hands to forcefully get away from the green wall, not without trying to rip it to shreds only to fail miserably as his hands sank into the thing.

Garak's instincts kicked in, his eyes became bloodshot and he instead of pulling his arms out, he actually pushed frontwards, managing to force his upper body through the green viscous wall to then claw towards Haylee.

"Humph", with a soft snort, Haylee's dress started dripping that green substance and the sharp claws of the enemy, simply slipped away when they were about to reach her.

"Huh?", confusion appeared on Garak's face, he changed his aim to Haylee's neck where she had no clothes or accessories thinking it was some kind of defensive magic treasure what was protecting her from his attacks, but the result was the same, he wasn't able to properly land a hit on her.

Of course, Haylee didn't simply stand there doing nothing, while the sharp claws of the enemy were trying to cut her body down, she gathered her mana and injected it into the green substance wall which was restraining the movement of the enemy.

"Gaah!", at some point, Garak started feeling under pressure, the parts of his body which were trapped into the green substance were being constricted, causing him to feel his bones creaking.

'If physical attacks don't work then…', Garak opened his large mouth and mana gathered outside of it to then be shot in the form a high-pressured water stream, at point blank.

"Booom!", Haylee reacted by summoning a second wall of that green substance to block the incoming attack, resulting in a loud explosion caused by the clash of their mana.

While the battlefield was engulfed in the mana explosion, at the resting area, Calvin who was flirting with Loren like usual, as he tried to get her to tell him about the challenge they faced.

Just like how Calvin and Michael crossed their paths during their challenges, so did Loren and Haylee, but unlike them who talked about it openly, or more accurately Calvin who pridefully bragged about it, against Michael's wishes, Loren and Haylee remained silent about it.

Not because they had a bad time, but because they wanted to surprise those two with the results, of course there was a major reason behind of it than just keeping their respective boyfriends in the dark for the fun of it.

While neither Calvin nor Michael mentioned or even made allusion to it, they knew that… they couldn't escape from that castle of the black night race, because of them, being caught was on the four, but staying there was mostly for Haylee and Loren's sake.

It wasn't their fault though, not only they are non-combatants unlike Calvin and Loren, but their realms were also on the lower part of the group, of course as part of the elite class they could deal with people in a higher level than them, but there was a limit.

The enemy side practically consisted exclusively in Lord ranks and while their lives weren't really in danger, since they had their respective trump cards, not to mention the live saving measures Daimon gave them, it was wiser to willingly stay prisoners while waiting for a sure chance to escape than being hunted down by numerous Lord ranks for who knows how much time.

Also, not only it was hard for Haylee and Loren to see Calvin and Michael having a finger removed each time they willingly lost against them at the prisoner arena, as the punishment for losing, but they felt worse by the fact that those two didn't show the slightest pain or fear about it, but were happy that they were safe.

That experience, had a deep impact in not only Calvin and Michael whose desires to get stronger now burned within their hearts, but in Haylee and Loren who absolutely didn't want to be a burden ever again.

"Hey, shrimp", Calvin tried to get Michael's attention but was outright ignored by him, which made Calvin smirk to then add.

"I bet an Arch rank magic treasure that my Loren will outperform Haylee, do you dare to accept?".

Calvin's mocking voice along with the fact that he showed no hesitation to suggest that Loren will come out on top, made a vein to pop on Michael's neck and in a rare occasion, he actually fell for Calvin's provocations.

"Show them Haylee!", he shouted.

At the same time, the clash of mana that had been ongoing for around a minute at the battlefield, finally ended, revealing the result which was a perfectly fine Haylee that hadn't moved from her position even a centimeter, while Garak had not only retreated a few hundreds of meters, but his tall body was in a bad state.

The tough looking scales that covered most of his body had patches where they had fallen off, exposing the unprotected bloody layer below of them.

"Y-You what the hell did you do to me!", shouted Garak, he could see the wounds on his body but scarily enough he couldn't feel any pain as if his mind didn't register them.

Not to mention that earlier his water canon spell was overpowering Haylee's defenses, but all of a sudden, his spell became unstable and exploded, which is what caused the mana explosion that others saw, and also what forced him back, it was still a mystery for Garak how come Haylee was unarmed though.

Naturally Haylee didn't bother to answer the doubts of an opponent, she exploded in mana and charged towards the wounded Garak, who gritted his spiked needle-like teeth in response to then flash towards Haylee.

'My regeneration is not working properly at the spots where that green substance focused, that thing must be created by combining either darkness or poison along with water, if that's the case then…'.

A fraction of a second before Garak clashed with Haylee, a black tattoo with form of a horned humanoid silhouette appeared on his forehead, then his previously bulky body actually shrank.

He went from being over four meters tall to around three meters, also his previously unbalanced body figure became much more refined, he did keep the barracuda head, but his scales took a darker gray tone, his new form looked closer to Olander's perfect temporary human state.

The difference being that, this was obviously achieved through external means, given that his body was radiating darkness mana that didn't belong to him.

Seeing the previously scale-less patches on his body, finally recovering, Garak felt relieved to have gained the "unsealing mark" given by Marcus to his trusted subordinates, which allowed him to temporarily break through the limits of his current lineage concentration.

'Just like the king said, it might temporal but I indeed evolved, this resembles the records of my ancestor mentioned by grandfather', he thought.

With reassured confidence, Garak used the short distance high speed teleportation ability of a knight piece, to appear next to Haylee, his sharp clawed right hand shot like a spear thrown by a cannon, successfully piercing Haylee's chest.

Up in the sky, Sheilla who honestly had no expectations left after seeing Bryan die earlier, was surprised to see a member of her team landing a heavy attack on an opponent.

'Tsk, unfortunately that green haired woman doesn't seem to be directly related to that masked bastard, but at this point I'll gladly accept the death of a random member of their team', thought the enemy queen.

At the resting area, Calvin for a change had a serious frowning expression, he is a close combat expert and is used to take the attacks of the enemy head on, so he could teel that attack did land on Haylee.

"Take it easy, he would have interfered if it was anything serious", he said to Michael, who was clenching his fists so hard that his nails were piercing his skin, referring to Daimon.

"I know but…", Michael's words were interrupted midway by Loren's calm and soft voice.

"You two, are really underestimating the results of our challenge".

"Well, it would be different if a certain someone had told me about it", added Calvin to which Loren stuck out his tongue at him.

"Sorry, I promised Haylee to not say it, she wanted Michael to discern it by himself", she said.

Loren's words, left let alone Michael and Calvin but even Daimon who was observing everything within both the battlefield and the resting area, speechless.

'Did all of them discussed all this "guessing" game without any of us knowing beforehand or what?', he thought unaware that a mischievous light sparkled in Eve's eyes as she had an amusing idea, which she put aside for now to then focus on the tattoo engraved on Garak's forehead.

'It seems like that weirdo had a last second lucky encounter, perhaps because his direct antithesis was killed, oh well, it might have been bad… if his opponent was a regular system user~', she happily mumbled to then yawn and return to sleep.