Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System

"What!", the seconds in command from second to fourth couldn’t help but exclaim, in that short moment, they tried with all their might to not let go of their tridents but it was futile, the moment the black threads produced from the destruction of that trident, reached them, their magic weapons were out of their reach.

Laila even played with them, because while the tridents were taken away from their hands, they weren’t dragged away into the distance which allowed one of the subordinates to extend his hand in order to reach out for his trident, only for his fingers to pass through it, in other words the trident in front of him was but an illusion.

’A disarming technique that sends the weapon into an isolated space, while she creates illusions of them, damn it’, cursed the first of the seconds in command.

He was already wary of Laila because Sera had an ability that allowed her to travel through space in the blood prison realm, but this was out of his scope as she wasn’t the one affected by it, but her technique which moved through space instead.

Speaking of said technique, she used the "A villain steals the hero’s signature weapon" for this one, which consists in taking the enemy’s weapon and giving it a purpose completely opposed to what it originally had, she basically "desecrated" the trident she stole from that subordinate and then turned it into black threads with which she banned the usage of trident type magic weapons, so the stolen trident went from protecting its owner and comrades to put them in risk, the result was as you saw.

As to why a magic weapon of the same type was needed as the medium, that’s because this technique affected space so of course it came with stricter conditions for its activation, similar to Sera’s white flashing step which needed Laila who is not apt for continuous close combat exchanges currently, given her lack of attack power, to act as the coordinate for her which meant she had to be close to the enemies for the technique to be most effective.

And as if having their magic weapons taken away if that wasn’t enough, while those guys managed to use their domains to block the secondary attacks launched by Sera’s movement technique and the swords condensed when she casted said technique, when Sera reappeared, she was in front of one of the subordinates with... two white energy great swords being wielded by her.

"Dual White Bursting Sword!", white piercing step didn’t limit Sera from using the dual wielding version of her currently strongest attack technique, so of course she went with it.

"Domain!", not seeing any other possible way to save the life of the subordinate which was being targeted, the first among the seconds in command directly used his own domain this time.

"Clang!", and just as Laila had guessed, his domain while not being overwhelming by itself, it had the capacity to influence the ones of his fellow seconds in command, as in Gregor raised a triple layered defense made out of black water, sand and clay as well as black rock in that specific order.

What’s more, the black water which was being burnt while it consumed Sera’s light energy, suddenly gained a fierce current which repelled the sword.

"Crack!", the defensive creation made by Gregor crumbled apart, but so did Sera’s attack which didn’t explode because most of its energy was consumed by the black water.

If the fourth of the seconds in command had tried to do that by himself, even with a defensive spell, he would not have been able to consume even half of the energy contained in Sera’s sword, with the black sand and clay as well as the black rock domains added by the third and second, half of the physical impact and another fourth part of the energy would be nullified, so there would have still been an energy release, not as strong as it should be, but it would happen.

However, with the mana of the first added to the mix, the sword was completely blocked without the need to use a spell but just a defensive mana creation, which would make one think that Sera should not be happy at all, but contrary to that, she actually smiled, the reason being that the sword on her left hand had... disappeared at some point.

"No!", both the first of the seconds in command and the fourth one, turned to the left where one of the solid spheres of darkness energy which had solidified to trap a subordinate, suddenly disappeared, just at the right moment for a white energy sword which was being controlled by black threads to replace it.

"Aghhhh!", the subordinate who didn’t even have the time to realize he was released earlier than others, was directly pierced on his chest by Sera’s white light energy sword.

"Booooom!", the sword exploded on the spot engulfing that guy, and just as Laila had thought, there was nothing left of him by the moment the energy cloud dispelled, it took them quite a bit of work but they finally managed to outright kill one of the enemies instead of just leaving him out of combat.

Normally, the sword should have left the enemy at death’s door only, because it wasn’t used in a "straightforward" way by Sera, but Laila used the "A hero’s power when misused by the villain can cause a lot of harm" cliché to make up for the lack of that power boost as she manipulated the sword, so the result was as if Sera had directly slashed the enemy with the sword head on.

That being said, all they did previously was a distraction, they needed to draw the attention of the first among the seconds in command, so Laila contributed by isolating a few subordinates with a technique that allowed her to ignore his first alert, which made him deem it "safe" as that was indeed the case, while inside those solid darkness energy spheres, they couldn’t be attacked, the technique limited itself to restrain the target in exchange for its toughness.

However, what Gregor didn’t know is that Laila could dispel it at will, that was the arrangement behind the scenes which a proper villain should have up their sleeve and then we have Sera who contributed by using her strongest technique the exact way she should, which forced the first to focus in defending the one who was targeted by it.

Sera honestly and without any hesitation slashed both swords at the same time trying to cut down the enemy in front of her, her clear intentions further tricked Gregor and then Laila took control of one of the swords, the rest is history.

"Nice!", said Sera as she turned into a white energy stream which disappeared into space, dodging the attacks of the four domains, to then reappear next to Laila who nodded at her friend.

And now, what they have been wanting to confirm was in front of their eyes to see, because the moment that subordinate died, an angered and pained expression appeared on the faces of the seconds in command.

’They aren’t mourning their deceased teammate and their mana seemed to be unsettled for a second there, without altering their battle capacities though, a "punishment" for not fulfilling the orders given by that guy perhaps’, thought Laila.

"Mmm, doesn’t the fourth look different, his hair is closer to black than dark blue now", said Sera as she pointed at the fourth of the seconds in command.

’He was also the only other one besides the first, that showed such a strong reaction when that subordinate was about die, was there some sort of connection between them?’, thought Laila as she gazed at the enemies to then add to herself.

’Now that I think about it, it is weird that there were more seconds in command than regular subordinates, normally it should be the other way around, originally it slipped past my mind because that guy shouldn’t be judged by normal standards according to Daimon, and there was also a possibility that there were more regular subordinates but they died since they are weaker, however if that was the case... for there to be exactly ten of them left like this, it goes past a coincidence’.

Let’s not forget whose "assistant" Laila used to be, Marcus had a predisposition for ritual type magic like the ones he used to create the hellscapes, so the girl from the calamity church learned a lot about rituals, like how symbolism in numbers is used for many aspects in it.

"Ten is often used to symbolize "completion" in ritual magic, so now that one of the subordinates is dead, perhaps whatever that guy did to change them into what they are now, has lost some of its effectiveness", said Laila, for a change she expressed an important conclusion of herself out loud, which could be seen as she committing the capital sin for a "villain" to let their tongue slip and lose their advantage due to that, however that wasn’t the case here.

The reason is simple, this statement she made, was really easy to confirm and would be left exposed in a second so Laila revealing that she knows it, has no negative impact on their side, the enemy on the other hand is bound to show some reaction given that their secrets are being seen through, especially the one who was affected the most, and that is something a proper villain could work with.

"Crack!", in fact Laila didn’t even need to act to confirm the previous, the effect of her two techniques ended and both the isolated subordinates as well as the trident magic weapons which were trapped in a separate space, returned to the battlefield and to their owners respectively.

And while everything seemed the same, both Sera and Laila’s eyes shone for a second as they exchanged gazes to then jump into action again.

"White Piercing Step!", at the same time as Sera’s movement technique released its secondary attacks, three energy sword condensations one per each word she used to chant the technique were released alongside them of course with all, well, the remaining six subordinates as well as the four seconds in command, now present in the battlefield, they could take on one attack each and the first would still remain free to act according to the situation, that being said the seconds in command obviously went for the sword shaped condensations while the subordinates blocked the secondary attacks of the movement technique.

But it didn’t matter as all of that was just to keep them occupied.

"White Flashing Step!", while under the effect of the white piercing step, Sera used her second movement technique, which she was unable to do previously by the way, a sign that her control over her energy had just improved, that was her focus since strength-wise her energy was incredibly powerful from the very beginning, the result was Sera turning into a white stream of light which disappeared into space the very second, she had become visible.

Laila on the other hand remained exactly where she was, the problem is that not even the first could tell if that was the real Laila or just an illusion, in the meantime many "Lailas" appeared all over the battlefield.

"Black Sea Crushing Wave!", the fourth among the seconds in command directly used his wide area attack spell which was replicated by his teammates to destroy all the illusions in a single go, very much like he had done a few times before.

The result was different this time though, the areas where the illusions were floating a second ago, now had "sewing marks" made out of black threads which were holding mana of the domain which was used by the enemies to attack.

Of course, said sewing marks were "small" around arm sized and didn’t seal that much mana, with a total of ten of them the whole length of the black sea domain only shrank ten centimeters, but the fact that no matter what the fourth did couldn’t reintegrate that mana into his domain was quite something.

’Oh, that was the "Villains use their minions to waste the hero’s energy" cliche, turned into a technique, right’, thought Sera who was still inside the space tunnel but observed what was going on outside.

She was right, since Laila’s illusions of herself were counted as real, their "deaths" were real too, and so this technique with which she sealed a part of the enemy’s mana every time one of her illusions was "killed", a part of the enemy’s mana was sealed by it, leaving behind those black thread sewing marks.

They could be destroyed to liberate the sealed mana, but it was with that intention in mind that each mark only sealed a small amount of mana each, it would require twice the mana that would be recovered to destroy them, so it wasn’t worth it.

And while the fourth of the seconds in command was cursing to his insides due to seemingly having become the target for all the humiliating stuff lately, a bunch of "Lailas" appeared around the enemies but didn’t stay for long and actually disappeared on their own turning into solid black threads which charged at them on the spot.

That was Laila’s sign of improvement by the way, her illusions now could carry more "power" even when they were created in large amounts since unlike Sera her focus for improvement was that instead of control which she didn’t lack in the slightest from the very beginning, this was the opposite of the technique she used to seal the mana from the black sea domain too, since that only worked if the enemy destroyed the illusion, not if Laila herself did it, but this way she could create black threads out of them and use them like this now.

"Black Seabed Rock Dagger Rain!", the second among the seconds in command took over and casted a spell which was replicated by the others, as a result countless black rock shark knives appeared and spread in every direction cutting the threads released by Laila’s illusions.

But they had another thing to worry about, namely Sera who appeared without any traces of it happening, above them, apparently, she didn’t need for Laila to take illusion form to use it as a coordinate anymore, just the "seed" of the illusion worked for her now, since her control over her energy had improved.

’What!’, the first of the seconds in command whose hands were free and has been waiting for "Laila" to appear near them, in order to rain down attacks on that spot, was taken by surprise, he couldn’t detect the seeds of the illusions after all, still this is why he wasn’t participating in the previous, to be able to fully direct his attention at Sera when she appeared.

"Black Fierce Sea Shield!", apparently when he took over the elements of his fellows seconds in command alongside his domain, the word "Fierce" was added to the name of the spell.

As a result of the previous, black water whose surface was revolving seemingly having strong currents running through it, accompanied by black sand and clay as well as black rocks gathered to then form a round shield which blocked Sera’s way, the spell was replicated by the others and covered those ten in every direction.

"White Bursting Sword!", just at the same time, Sera slashed the light condensed sword against the shield in front of her, the three smaller swords created by her words landed first but were repelled by the black water, they did destroy the currents though, so the white bursting sword pierced through it to then land on the solid layers below of it, that didn’t prevent the black water from consuming the energy of the technique with each fraction of a second that passed though.

’Laila is not the only one with a new technique, I can do it too!!!’, inwardly shouted the girl from the church of light.

"Crack!", to everyone’s surprise, the single white light energy great sword which she was wielding suddenly tripled its size to then break through the shield with which it was clashing, before exploding to release the energy contained in it.

"Boooom!", naturally, Sera had already used white flashing step to get away before the explosion engulfed her, she used one of Laila’s illusion seeds to appear far from where the enemies were and waited for the energy cloud to disappear.

That was a technique she created with the "Heroes power up when cheered by others" cliché by the way, you know those moments when the hero is being surpassed by the villain but then allies, or a crowd that is present during the battle but doesn’t do anything to try and help and simply watches, starts cheering on the hero who then proceeds to spike up in power out of nowhere.

Well, Sera took that and turned it into a boosting technique, since she turns the negative aspects into positive ones, there was no need for others to cheer on her out loud, the only condition for the technique is that she had to motivate herself, no casting was needed, she didn’t need to do it out loud either, the restriction is that she can only boost techniques that are active at the time, not in preparation for her next one like usual boosting techniques, which is understandable, the hero only spikes up in power in those moments, it’s not supposed to be proper advance.

"Hey, I’m the one whose energy is supposed to grow in terms of power, so why are your attacks getting stupidly stronger instead", mumbled Laila to which Sera softly smiled as she answered.

"Well, heroes are supposed to grow stronger quite fast, you’ll have to put effort if you don’t want to be left in the dust~".

Their little exchange was interrupted as the enemies became visible once the energy cloud disappeared, the sight of five destroyed shields two of which belonged to seconds in command was revealed.

That could have been counted as a waste of time, since Sera’s attack was ultimately blocked, if the hands of the fourth among the seconds in command weren’t shaking as there were some burnt marks on his palms.

"So that’s how the death of that subordinate affected him", said Sera to which Laila nodded.

"Mm, his casting is still replicated by the others, but other’s casting is not replicated by him anymore, so, naturally there is a gap in the timing and in strength when it coms to spells casted by the first, what an unlucky guy, had it been the other way around it might have been harder to notice the difference".

Apparently, the subordinates acted as the connection for the whole group, those traits that made them similar in a strange way were secured with the subordinate’s lives, of course Ereth is not the type to put all the eggs in a single basket, he made it so the two aspects, in other words the capacity for one’s own spells to be replicated and replicating the spells of others, were secured by different subordinates for each second in command.

One must give it to Ereth as this arrangement was way harder to achieve than your usual ritual, which would collapse when a part of it was lost, he set it so that in case one subordinate died, not everything would be lost at the same time.

The shared traits were hair color and eye color, only ten subordinates were needed to secure the traits and considering there were sixteen seconds in command alive, the limit should have been of twenty, which means four connections per subordinate, and seeing that only the fourth of the seconds in command lost the hair color trait related to the capacity to replicate spells casted by others automatically, three of the twelve seconds in command that followed Arlion to fight against Aisha must have lost the eye color which is tied to the capacity to replicate the spells of others, or the hair color with does the opposite.

The fourth was really unlucky, chances were on his side because only four seconds in command were here and yet the one killed was tied to him, also it was tied to the capacity of replicating the spells of others which was the worse option to lose.

Why is that the case you wonder, well, if he had lost the capacity to have his spells replicated by others, he could have made it pass as if he was assigned a different role, like watching from the side and interfere when he saw fit, like the first did earlier, other’s spells would still be casted by him, he simply wouldn’t take the initiative to cast on his own and that was it.

But since it was the other way around, in order to not let the enemies, know how he was affected, he had to time casting the same spells as his companions as perfectly as possible but manually, and the first’s spells were way more complex than what he is used to, like that shield so there was bound to be a gap somewhere at some point which is what happened earlier.

He was already lucky that with their domains out at the same time, he could cast the first’s spells on his own despite his incompetence with earth affinity as his domain is water-related, but of course Sera and Laila are hard to trick so they realized what was going on after a single exchange and now he has become the weakest link in their battle formation.