Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System

’What the hell is that sword!’, the first who saw Sera slashing her winged sword, this time aiming at his domain, actually deformed it in order to get it away from the trajectory of the sword’s slash, he was unable to use the advanced technique of molding his domain to a desired shape in order to grant it special properties, like the undead head maid can do, for example.

But he as the top subordinate of Ereth, despite being "mass produced" did have a trick up his sleeve, he could actively modify it as he wished, the difference between this and what Rita could do, is that a modification is not a solid change, it’s temporal and it doesn’t grant any extra properties at all, he also has to control it at all times for it to work.

That being said, this special trait that only the first had, and was keeping a secret until now, was rendered useless in front of Sera’s attack.

"Cough!", a thin line of blood ran down the corner of the first’s mouth accompanied by a soft cough as a third part of his domain was cut to then crumble apart, the backslash that the first suffered was way softer when compared to his fellow seconds in command, but the part of his domain that was lost was still the same.

"I-I can’t manifest the part of my domain which was cut by that woman!", exclaimed the second whose body was radiating darkness and earth mana but no matter how he injected it into his domain, it was for naught, the part that was cut wasn’t reforming.

The second is not a coward, you have to understand that a domain is really important for a mage, strong attacks can surely destroy it, but that doesn’t mean it will be gone, a mage can simply reconstruct it, sometimes immediately, sometimes after some rest, it depends on the situation.

However, this was different, the second was worried that the cut part of their domains was lost for good.

"Calm down second, it’s not gone for good, otherwise we would have suffered a way stronger shock from it, third would have directly died if that was the case, I thought she was all about attack power, but that sword seems to have sealing properties or something along the lines of it", said the first as he also tried and failed at reconstructing his domain, but noticed that when he did so, the runes that were engraved in the middle of the winged sword’s blade, shone a bit brighter for a moment.

In other words, so long as that winged sword was active, they won’t be able to manifest a third part of their domains, as you can see, just like how it was for Laila with her demon grimoire, Sera’s technique wasn’t one that purely outstood in terms of power, but included incredibly complex technique as well, and that’s because she had also surpassed the most restricted stage of her challenge, so her weaknesses and strengths were now mixing to open a brighter and broader path for the girl of the church of light.

’Fairness huh, what an interesting technique’, said Laila to which Sera smiled at her friend as she mumbled.

"Those hypocrites all repeated "justice this" and "justice that" so maybe that’s why it ended up happening in this order...", while Sera was speaking, Laila used a few black energy threads to touch the winged sword in order to analyze it.

’I see, even without trying she hid the specifics of her technique from that guy’s eyes, honestly even I couldn’t tell what the sword could do, since this is no longer a technique which focuses in mere strong power like those of reckless heroes’, thought Laila.

Sera’s white brilliant sword is a sealing and restrictive technique indeed; however, it works based on certain conditions and is backed by a strong power too, all at the same time.

In this case the condition is that Sera is not using a domain, therefore the "fair" thing would be for the enemy to not use domains, she couldn’t directly take away the domains of the seconds in command with her current power, Sera has not reached the level of using a domain with her energy after all, but she could weaken them and prevent them from recovering the lost part without any problems, so that’s what she did earlier.

At this point you should have noticed that since she has two permanent swords, they are meant to embody "justice" and "fairness", which are supposed to be pillars for a hero, as to why she obtained "fairness" first, that’s because she has a certain repulsion towards "justice".

You can’t blame her for it, she has seen too much horrible things being done in the name of justice, the greater good, you name it, so in Sera’s mind "fairness" should come first, she is not that strict either and obviously understands that both are needed though, especially when justice is the one in charge to give people what they are due be it rewards or punishments, but to ensure that is done the right way, fairness is to be met.

"I liked your technique too, it was nice seeing that guy getting what he deserved~", said Sera, amusingly enough, Laila’s technique used the word "judgement" in its name, the fourth’s actions were evaluated and he was given a punishment in accordance to that, in a sense these two complemented each other quite well, one developed a fairness related technique first and the other a justice related one.

Speaking of that, Sera’s technique wasn’t over, the white brilliant sword was a continuous technique just like Laila’s demon grimoire and in case you have forgot about it, they have been fighting outnumbered from the very beginning, and that’s not "fair" right.

"White Brilliant Judgement Sword", Sera used the winged sword to cast the white judgment sword technique, turning it into the "white brilliant judgement sword" technique instead.

As for the difference, that’s simple, she changed the condition of the original technique, judgement sword allowed Sera to attack an enemy regardless of distance, the number of times that the enemy had survived an attack that should have killed him.

But with the winged sword as the medium, the condition was different, now she could attack enemies regardless of distance until they equaled their side in number which sounds like too much, but of course it came with a new restriction, instead of restricting the number of attacks, it restricted who could be selected as targets, namely the ones considered to be the stronger on the enemy’s side.

"Black Fierce Sea Rotating Shield!", seeing the white energy swords, yeah as in more than one of them, descend from above upon him, the first casted a defensive spell, another difference is that while the number of times Sera could attack the enemies wasn’t limited now, the number of swords per round of attacks did have a limit and that was the total difference in numbers between Sera’s side and the enemy’s one, which currently was of three people, so three white energy swords descended upon both the first and the second.

"You two, guard third with your spells!", speaking of the second, he was surprisingly lucky, the sole two remaining subordinates that were left were the ones who held the connection for him, so he could still replicate the spells of the first and have his spells replicated as well, the third had one connection left too but what drew Laila’s attention the most is that the first was completely fine as well.

’That guy wouldn’t do something as dumb as securing the connection of both the second and the first with the same exact subordinates so, chances are that the first will be fine even if all of the subordinates die, perhaps even if all the seconds in command die it will be the same...’, she thought.

Like previously stated, Laila had learned how to use Ereth’s predisposition towards multiple and proper preparations, to her advantage, in this case to infer another of the first’s unique traits.

"Crack!", the rounds of three swords that Sera casted at the first and second landed on their defensive spells and made them crack on the spot, that being said they didn’t directly break through, just like with white judgement sword, casting the brilliant "version" of the technique didn’t produce the extra sword condensations, however Sera did have something new to show.

’This sensation!’, the first noticed that something was wrong as a feeling of danger invaded his mind.

"Watch out second!".

"Boooom!", at the same time as the first warned the second, the three swords attacking their respective defensive spells doubled their size and then exploded destroying the rotating shield spells and turning into white energy streams that aimed to pierce those two’s bodies.

"Black Fierce Seabed Wave Breaking Wall!", the first reacted fast enough to use the remains of the second’s spell to cast a new spell exclusive to him, creating a tall black rock wall which upon contact absorbed Sera’s attack to then crumble apart the next second.

But that didn’t mean those two could take it easy, because that was only Sera attacking, and since Laila had surpassed the most restricted part of her challenge, she could be a bit more active on the offensive now.

As a proof of it, she who had vanished from plain view earlier, became visible close to the remaining two subordinates and the third who was being guarded by them.

’Demon Grimoire, Blood Devouring Scale’, next to Laila appeared the black energy book which opened and rustled through its pages until it stopped at the one where the blood energy obtained from the fourth was being stored, the page then shone in a blood red light and the next thing that the two subordinates knew is that a red energy circular plate, large enough to cover both them and their defensive spells, appeared below them.

Teeth-like spikes grew all over the surface of the plate which then bent at its center, it was as if a giant "mouth" was closing around those two.

"Clang!", the teeth-like spikes of the plate clashed with the defensive spells of the subordinates and sparks were produced for a moment before they broke through the spells and further advanced in closing.

"What are you doing fools, get out of there already!", shouted the second, what he didn’t know is that the moment the plate had appeared, invisible red threads emerged from it and restrained the subordinates and the third as well, therefore they couldn’t move or even circulate their mana.

"Wait second, let me...", before the first could finish his sentence, the second casted a movement spell.

"Black Fierce Sea Current Step!", the second directly flashed towards those three, to then use his trident to stop the plate from closing and crushing those three with its "fangs".

"Damn it, Black Fierce Sea Converging Currents!", the first cursed as he saw a similar plate appear below him and the red threads which aimed to restrain him, forcing him to use another exclusive spell of his as otherwise he wouldn’t have finished casting fast enough to not be caught.

"Crack!", that was both, the sound of the first destroying the plate that aimed to kill him and the sound of the second’s trident cracking after giving its owner enough time to take out the two subordinates and the third out of the plate’s "jaws".

That was a new technique inspired in a cliché by the way, the "A villain targets the powerless to force the hero to act" one to be more accurate, you must have seen it somewhere already, it basically consists in creating a situation in which the hero has to take a decision that will make him forfeit the other option, both being important in maybe different senses.

It can be used by the villain to get way, as in the hero either captures the villain or saves the "powerless" victims, or between two targets that both hold significance for the hero, like a loved one and a bunch of civilians which the hero is supposed to protect, all this while the villain simply observes and "enjoys" the hero’s predicament... like a fool, which ends up being the reason of why it doesn’t work as intended.

But that’s the negative version of it, for Laila’s technique, she didn’t just remain there observing the second acting, when he who played the hero role for the technique, decided to go help the subordinates or more accurately the third, meaning that another plate of the blood devouring scale, which had twice the strength of the other one as a consequence of the second deciding who he was going to "save", which is what forced the first to resort to use the last remains of the fourth’s mana which he had access to from the atmosphere, the Laila who was casting the technique was replaced by an illusion, and the real one became visible above the second.

"White Flashing Step", and she wasn’t alone, Sera who had turned into a white energy stream, came out of space to appear right next to her friend.

’Demon Grimoire, Blood Piercing Trident’, red energy came out of Laila’s black energy book, condensing into a red trident which she then threw at the second.

"White Brilliant Bursting Sword!", the idea was to finish one of the seconds in command, the second to be accurate, before the first could interfere, therefore even Sera refrained from using the dual wielding version of her spell, but still used the brilliant sword as the medium, this time the result didn’t include any extra especial properties like with the brilliant version of the judgement sword, the result of using the winged sword to cast the bursting sword technique, was that the power of a single sword, reached the same level as the one of the usual dual wielding version of it.

’Overload!’, the first who was just coming out of the devouring plate’s jaws, pointed his hand at those two as he thought.

"Boooom!", a tri-colored, white, red and black energy explosion followed by a huge energy cloud engulfing everything in its vicinity was the result of Sera and Laila’s attack, meeting with what the first did.

...

It actually took more than ten seconds for the energy cloud resulting from that last clash to dispel, there were two completely different results for the sides involved in it as well.

First, we have Sera and Laila, who this time didn’t try to get away from the explosion, instead the two of them were actually protected by a white energy sphere which originated in an energy shield that Sera was holding onto with her left hand.

"White Barrier Shield", mumbled the girl from the church of light, similar to Laila, she used a technique that wasn’t limited by the original restrictions placed on her by the challenge, and used a cliché for it as well.

Amusingly enough it is one that could be related to the one recently used by Laila, the "A hero fails to protect what’s important for him and falls into an emotional pit", cliché.

In the negative version of it, after failing, the hero becomes unstable and weaker for a period of time, in which the villain thrives, what happens after that is that the hero either falls to the "dark side" or he rises up again stronger than before and ready to fix the situation in turn.

But Sera’s technique requires way less drama to work, basically she just needed to want to protect someone, in this case her friend Laila, and thus she was given the power to do so, there are restrictions of course, this is a defense-exclusive technique whose power can’t be used for offensive means, but in exchange the barrier projected by the shield adapts to the needs of its user, as the words spoken by the first the next second suggested.

"No way, they were hit by the self-destruction of the tridents at close range and are perfectly fine", he said while gritting his teeth as he added to himself.

’The fragments of the tridents were supposed to stick to their energy and then trigger a second attack, so what’s going on?’, he thought.

Earlier, the first knew he could not arrive in time to help his teammates, so the only option left was to interrupt their attacks even if it came with a price, the first then used his authority to detonate the tridents of the second and those two subordinates, the mana explosion blocked the energy of Sera and Laila’s attacks and also sent the second, third and the two subordinates flying into the distance to save their lives.

Then, the fragments of the tridents were supposed to act as shrapnel and damage Sera and Laila, but like previously stated, the barrier projected by the white barrier shield adapted to the needs of its user, so not only did it protect them from the energy explosion, but it created a special layer that prevented the fragments of the tridents from sticking to it, bouncing them away which interrupted their activation.

And that’s how Sera and Laila were perfectly fine while remaining in the exact same position as they were before, as for the second, third and the remaining two subordinates, well, they landed a few hundreds of meters away on a piece of floating ground.

They were alive, even the third, but the second had some burn marks on his body and one of the subordinates was missing a few fingers, quite a low price considering that they were still on the fight.

’You fool, if you had let me be the one to go assist them, like it was planned, we wouldn’t have needed to go as far as to sacrifice your tridents, now only I have a weapon’, said the first as he descended next to the second, who coughed a few times before saying.

’You... allowed them to kill the fourth without a second thought, I didn’t know if you were going to let third die as well, so I decided to be on the move instead’, which made the first felt a vein bulge on his forehead, but he forced himself to calm down to then say.

’Forget it, it’s not the time for that, there was a reason as to why I didn’t care about fourth’s death, besides the fact that he was controlled by the enemy, I didn’t want to use it until one of us actually died, but you are going to get yourself killed alongside third at this rate’.

"Black Fierce Sea Lord’s Holy Blessing!", the first raised his trident and black light radiated from it, a connection between the third and one of the remaining subordinates was created by that black light.

"Huh, what is... aghhh!", that subordinate was confused for a second, before a huge amount of pain forced a scream out of him, his body turned into black mana which was then absorbed by the third, who in comparison opened his eyes.

"Hssss!", steam could be seen coming from the third as all his wounds were healed, and his mana was replenished, in a second, he was perfectly fine just like before the battle started.

"There that’s what you wanted, so don’t you dare complain about losing half of your connection as well", said the first.

Out of the remaining two subordinates, one held a connection to the second and the other held a connection with both the second and the third, the first used the subordinate that only had a connection to the second to heal the third, so now the second lost half of his connection too, as his hair which turned dark brown, suggested.

"Heh, so he really didn’t care about the subordinates, because he is not affected by their deaths, what a hero-like trait", said Sera with a mocking voice as she was reminded of Adam’s actions, though honestly a lot of the guys subordinated to Adam through the church of light, deserved to die, from time to time appeared a few people that didn’t know about the reality of the situation, they believed that the tasks assigned to them were to help those in need.

It was normal, they were given seemingly normal tasks such as bringing resources to planets at the borders of the galaxy where pirates, mercenaries, exiles and scum in general mixed, without knowing that the church used a secret channel to "leak" information so that one of the previously mentioned, attacked the one bringing the relief, that way the hero, in other words Adam could then appear, take revenge on the one who died, recover the resources and gain the support of the public for the church, it was a disgusting play that Sera saw happen time and time again, the worst part is that only those that didn’t know the real face of both Adam and the church were used as disposable pawns for those missions.