Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System

And of course, Sera and Laila knew it, because after exchanging gazes for a second, one turned into a white stream of light to then disappear into space while the other simply faded from plain sight before dozens of Lailas started appearing all over the battlefield.

Unfortunately, the enemies couldn’t use that as a reference to know where Sera might be coming from, because seeds of the illusions could work as coordinates for the girl of the church of light now, so the pressure on the enemy’s mind doubled and it was worse for the fourth of the seconds in command.

"Black Sea Crushing Waves", the fourth directly used his favorite wide area spell which was replicated by the others, sweeping the battlefield in every direction while destroying Laila’s illusions.

However, the fourth knew that didn’t mean the enemy’s road to them was cut off properly, since earlier one round of the spell didn’t get rid of the indetectable illusion seeds, for a good reason though.

While the durability of the multiple illusions had improved it wasn’t to the point of not being destroyed by receiving attack type spells head on, they could now seal a part of the enemy’s domain after being destroyed, which they did again as the new black thread sewing marks that were floating in the sky here and there suggested.

However, the seeds didn’t count as illusions and lacked the capacity to seal the enemy’s mana even if they were destroyed, but it’s for that same reason that Laila could make them quite durable in exchange, you could say that the illusions and their seeds complemented each other.

"Damn it, Black Sea Crushing Waves!", and so the fourth of the seconds in command casted the spell again, which made the first frown.

’Hey, Daniel, it was time to cast the defensive spell’, said the first in a way that only the seconds in command could hear, that being said the other seconds in command as well as the subordinates replicated the spell once again.

"Crack!", as a result while they couldn’t pinpoint the exact origin, there were some small breaking noises produced by the seeds of Laila’s spells being destroyed by the second round of spells which the fourth initiated.

"White Piercing Step", Sera who came out of space a few dozens of meters away from the enemies, because the seeds that were closer to them were destroyed as they were hit by the strongest part of the round of spells, directly used her other movement technique, resulting in a round of secondary attacks and three sword condensations to be shot at the enemies.

"Black Fierce Sea Shield!", thanks to the larger distance that needed to be covered by Sera due to the seeds closer to the enemies being destroyed, they managed to raise a defensive spell perfectly in time, the first was the one to cast the spell which was replicated by others, except by the fourth who had already casted it by the time the first did it, luckily the first took over and the casting for the others was his version of the shield which even when weakened put the subordinates on par with the normal spells of the seconds in command with their domains active.

’Hey fourth, don’t mess up our strategy’, said the third of the seconds in command to which the fourth retorted.

’They are going to target me, so I have to act first, besides first can take over in your case so why are you worried about, the one in actual danger here is me’, he said.

Which is true, his casting wasn’t as fast as the first one’s but since others spells weren’t replicated by him anymore, he had freedom over it which allowed him to recover a bit faster than his peers, the cost is that his spells were obviously not as strong if they included other affinities that weren’t the ones he specialized in, namely the black water one, so he was the obvious target.

"Crack!", taking advantage of that, Sera naturally aimed to break through the defensive spell formation through the shield casted by the fourth of the seconds in command, so her secondary attacks and the sword condensations attacked his shield in particular, destroying it just in time for a white energy sword to appear for Sera to wield with her right hand.

"White Bursting Sword!", Sera slashed her sword which passed through what was left of the shield casted by the fourth as if it was made of paper, however, the sword cut nothing because the fourth of the seconds in command had moved to occupy a part of the protected area of one of his subordinates.

"Black Sea Rupture!", black water gathered in front of the fourth’s hand to then be shot at an incredibly high speed towards Sera who in response released the sword’s energy.

"Boooom!", the highly pressured water current which aimed to cut Sera in half was met with the huge energy explosion caused by the sword and an energy cloud engulfed everything in the vicinity, naturally by the time this happened, Sera had turned into a white energy stream and disappeared into space to then reappear a few hundreds of meters away, Laila also became visible next to her friend a second later.

Once the energy cloud was dispelled, the sight of the enemies who had managed to stay perfectly fine for a change was revealed, that being said, the atmosphere on their side wasn’t as harmonious as it should have been considering that they blocked Sera’s attacks without suffering a loss.

’Daniel, you are using one of the casting chances of the group irresponsibly, the defensive spell should come right after the attack type one, do you not care anymore just because you can’t replicate the spells of others?", said the third of the seconds in command.

’Huh, it was thanks to me changing to a double round of attacks that the light user woman was forced to appear at a distance enough for us to properly guard against her’, said the fourth to which the second added.

’I agree with third this time, our strategy was devised by Lord Ereth himself, sure your bet was on the spot this time and you certainly contributed by using your own spell separately at a decent timing earlier, but it was also your shield the one that was breached by the enemy’.

’Yeah, and all because you were afraid to be targeted by the enemy’, said the third.

’And what do you expect me to do then, to just wait for that woman to cut me down because my spells are weaker than the ones you receive from Gregor, besides Lord Ereth also gave us a strategy in case the connection of any of us four was cut and I’m properly following his instructions, you doubting about my actions is the same as doubting of Lord Ereth himself!’, exclaimed the fourth.

’Enough you three, Daniel’s actions might have been hasty and he should have indeed told us what he was going to do ahead of time, but the idea behind of it was not wrong, using an irregular pattern seems to work better against those two, we are just not used to it because it’s the first time we find ourselves in this kind of situation’, said the first putting an end to the bickering between the seconds in command.

That being said and to the fourth’s displease when he was giving a "proud" gaze at the third and second, the first also added.

’Still, you can’t continue to act as you please fourth, we are lacking hands here and I have to stay aside to act according to the situation, you can act independently but only after the group’s safety is assured and don’t use the connection so that you don’t use the casting chances of others to not mess with the group’s tactic’.

The previous made the fourth’s happy mood sour while the third and second gave him "I told you" gazes instead, which made the fourth grit his teeth to his insides as he said.

’So, if I solve the lack of hands on our side there won’t be a problem anymore, we just need two subordinates per each one of us for the basic complete formation to be maintained, right?’.

The first raised an eyebrow at the fourth, but he still nodded.

’Yes, with two more subordinates the formation could be maintained and you would gain a larger amount of independency since I could use them to replace your defensive position’, said Gregor to which the fourth pressed his hands together to then gather black water mana from his domain.

’What are you...’, the third’s words were interrupted by the black water mana condensing to turn into two black clouds which moved in a familiar direction, for the seconds in command not for Sera and Laila, it’s worth mentioning that the spell used by the fourth wasn’t replicated by the others as he didn’t use the connection, but more importantly they had no knowledge of the spell that the fourth just used and that included the first.

"Black Fierce Sea Shield", not wanting Sera and Laila to get in the way of whatever the fourth was doing, the first naturally used a defensive spell to block in front of them, in case their short-lived debate was used by those two as an opening.

Back to the fourth’s spell, the two black clouds stopped above two different pieces of floating ground, to then let black water rain pour down on those pieces of ground, making the third and the second among the seconds in command have their eyes contract like needles as they realized what was going on.

’Damn it, Black Seabed Sand Storm!’, thought the third of the seconds in command as he casted a spell which resulted in large amounts of black sand flowing through the whole battlefield as it was replicated by his teammates.

’Black Seabed Heavy Rock Rain!’, the second also casted a spell, his created large pieces of black rock which descended from above aiming to crush Sera and Laila who flashed away to dodge them, since once again the spell was replicated to increase its range.

This was all a smokescreen only though, while the spells were interfering with Sera and Laila’s field of sight and distracting them by making them dodge the giant rocks, the second and third each focused in one floating piece of ground which had a black cloud above it, making them flash towards where the group was gathered, reuniting inside the defensive perimeter of the spells they just used.

"Hssss!", once inside the area covered by the black fierce sea shields, the pieces of floating ground fell apart and the clouds dispelled revealing two of the subordinates that Sera and Laila had taken out of combat before, there was steam coming from their bodies as the wounds they had suffered were healing at a visible ratio, including lost limbs, they were perfectly fine now.

Well, in terms of health at least, because while their wounds were gone, they didn’t recover their mana and fatigue, that being said they were apt to fight right away, the second and third casted those spells to keep Sera and Laila busy so that they couldn’t interfere with the healing process and to bring them into safety as well.

Normally one would think that the second and third would be incensed due to the previous, the fourth once again didn’t give them heads up in what he was about to do, so they had to improvise something out of nowhere, however instead of that there was surprise on those two’s faces.

"Hey, what’s going on here, besides first and tenth no one of us is supposed to have such strong healing capacities", said the third out loud due to the surprise, luckily for him the first had blocked the sound from escaping their defensive area.

Don’t get it wrong, Ereth wouldn’t commit the stupid mistake of having his subordinates who are supposed to fight in group to lack support, all of the seconds and command and the normal subordinates had self-recovery capacities, they lacked the ability to heal others only, with the exception of the first and tenth among the seconds in command, this was a side effect of the ritual he used to make his subordinates become as they are, as the next words from the second among the seconds in command suggested.

"So, the material used for you had decent healing capacities and you regained some of that because your connection was lowered to a half", said the second.

"I didn’t know it would be the case, but yeah basically, of course my healing spell is not as strong as first’s one and more importantly I can’t use it more than once per day, since this wasn’t supposed to happen, but we can make the most out of it now", said the fourth, his original affinity was water and while the guy who was used to create him wasn’t a supporter but an attack type mage, water affinity has decent healing secondary properties.

"Not bad fourth...", for a change even the third was about to praise the fourth, but the first interrupted.

"It was good to make use of a weakness to our advantage, but fourth, now those two will for sure try to look up for the remaining subordinate instead of focusing on us like they have been doing and we can’t keep a clean track of the darkness user woman", said Gregor.

There was a reason as to why he hadn’t used his support recovery spells yet, the first knew that the enemies won’t let him use it a second time as that was the spell which required the longest casting time among his repertory, so he was saving it for when a second in command was wounded or if the enemies managed to outlast them in terms of energy reserves.

In other words, for a single instance of gain, they have made it hard to take advantage of a long-lasting benefit instead, not to mention that they indeed had no way to keep a track of Laila’s actions so if she went to look for the remaining subordinate who was being kept hidden, they wouldn’t know it and they can’t spare the attention to guard him at all times either.

"White Flashing Step!", unfortunately time was up for them, while the previous took long to explain, the conversation only took a couple of seconds in reality, after which they had Sera charging at them.

In fact, they were too invested into the conversation so they didn’t notice that the girl from the church of light had disappeared into space midway through their debate, not that they can be completely blamed though, as indeed what the fourth did was not within the expectations of the seconds in command.

’Well, for now let’s use the recovered subordinates to reform our complete formation, fourth you can act independently but if you have other tricks unknown to use, share intel with us before using them’.

’Third, second, use your detection wide area spells, but spread them all over the battlefield, we need to be on alert so that other subordinate is not killed by surprise without helping the enemy reduce their searching range’, said the first as he adjusted their strategy to adapt to the changes that the fourth unintentionally caused.

’Black Seabed Sand Alert!’, the third dispersed invisible black grains of sand all over the battlefield without especially focusing in any area to not give any hints to Laila about where the remaining subordinate was being hidden.

’Black Seabed Rock Alert!’, the second’s detection spell was different, he basically placed markers on all floating pieces of ground, if someone targeted or approached them, he would be alerted of it.

Of course, both spells were practically useless against Laila as she could trick their mana to be undetected, however they would indeed be useful if Sera moved through space to appear near where their subordinate was kept.

And that was their intention, after all, it was proven that Laila has low attack power so even if she found the subordinate, she won’t be able to instantly kill him, but Sera can do it, so they had to be warier of her in that aspect.

"White Bursting Sword!", speaking of which, Sera was demonstrating why that was the case, because while she was still unable to use the dual wielding version of her sword spell after using the space movement one, not only did the sword condensations caused by her casting reached the defensive spells, but the sword technique suddenly tripled its size as Sera was slashing frontwards.

That was of course caused by her self-boosting technique which only needed Sera to motivate herself in her mind, earlier she missed the timing to use it because she was going to activate it after breaking through the enemy’s defense, but the fourth suddenly attacked her.

Sera had a hard time thinking on something besides the enemy she was dealing with on the spot, because she doesn’t have the bad habit to lose focus midway through a fight, it wasn’t her fault though, it’s not like Sera can’t do multitasking, she just hadn’t gotten used to a technique that has to be used while another one is being executed.

"Crack!", this time Sera not only slashed through the shield created by the fourth of the seconds in command, but also through the shield that was right next to it which happened to belong to a subordinate, destroying them both with the physical impact of the boosted sword.

"Black Sea Rupture!", the fourth was there to welcome her once again but Sera’s eyes weren’t on him though, she gazed at the two subordinates which she had cut down personally and softly snorted.

’So those clouds indeed were a healing spell of some sort like Laila thought, how annoying’, she thought as she released the energy contained inside the boosted sword.

"Hssss!", naturally with Sera having used the self-boosting technique on the bursting sword, the fourth’s spell was directly obliterated upon impact producing sizzling sounds as the black water current was evaporated and the energy stream of the sword technique still advanced towards the enemies.

"Black Fierce Sea Rotating Shield!", however, like the first said, with more hands they could complete their formation even if the fourth moved independently when he saw fit, so the first who remained aside directly casted a new defensive spell, this one was the improvement of the first one they used the most, but with the help of the four domains at the same time.

"Booooom!", the ongoing energy stream was met with a triple layered defensive shield which had black water with fierce currents twirling in it, the energy explosion engulfed the first shields destroying them, but the technique was stopped midway through the total defensive spells.

"White Piercing Step!", that being said, the assault wasn’t over, because the enemies weren’t the only ones who had a new trick to show, Sera was the same, as in this time she used her self-boosting technique in something other than the bursting sword, namely her movement technique.

Now, that technique was supposed to only be used on attacks, and Sera has not overcome that limitation yet, however white piercing step produced secondary attacks with it, therefore she could apply the "Heroes power up when cheered by others" cliché technique to boost it as well, with her improved control capacities now.

What’s more, the thing was surprisingly applied not only to the secondary attacks from the white piercing step, but also to the sword condensations from the "Heroes speak pretty but empty words" cliché technique, and so, the secondary attacks reached half-technique level and the sword condensations became as powerful as the base form of the white bursting sword.

"Crack!", and all of that was directed at the remaining shields that had suffered a boosted white bursting sword landing on them, so as you can expect, they were destroyed upon impact.

The third saw in horror how Sera who had managed to destroy all of their defensive means head on for the first time, all by herself, didn’t go after neither the fourth nor one of their subordinates, but after him instead.

"White Bursting Sword!", just as a white energy sword manifested for Sera to wield, the first whose reaction time was surpassed by the boosted movement technique Sera used, changed to use the remains of the spells from the other seconds in command to forcibly speed up his casting in order to catch up with Sera.

"Black Fierce Sea Converging Currents!", he even cut the casting shorter by not using a defensive spell, but an attack type one, because otherwise the third would lose an arm in the best-case scenario.