Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System

"White Brilliant Judgement Sword", though Sera felt a bit angry due to the previous, she didn’t "recklessly" charge and instead pointed her winged sword at those guys.

"Clang!", the result was that the two rounds of two sword projections now, since one of the subordinates was dead so the enemies only surpassed Sera’s side in number by two instead of three currently, clashed against an invisible mana wall.

"Tsk, that annoying guy’s mana is being used to cast a barrier", the girl from the church of light clicked her tongue at the result, that spell used by the first came with a protective barrier which Sera couldn’t see but she knew the enemies were temporarily "unreachable" for her by instinct, she still attacked to confirm the previous though.

’As expected of that guy’s subordinates, they did learn from their mistakes’, jokingly said Laila as if to cheer up her friend.

The first had suffered a loss at Laila’s hands earlier, when she manipulated them to have the time to converse with each other and develop the scenario for the fourth to feel unappreciated, though the first didn’t know that much, he did realize that they were allowed to have the time to speak with each other that much without Sera attacking them, on purpose, so he did properly prepare defensive measures this time around.

Speaking of which, it took the third a few seconds to come out of his daze and once he did so, he was reminded of the many times when he was nearly killed after being wounded, when the first could have healed him instantly like that and couldn’t help but grit his teeth.

Earlier, neither the second nor the third say anything about the first not using his recovery spell, because it indeed had a long casting time, which might make you think "wait, that spell didn’t take that long to be casted" and that’s because what the first used was not the recovery spell that the other seconds in command knew about.

’Hey, first, why the hell didn’t you use that as soon as I was wounded, that bitch could have killed me!’, said the third as he glared at the first.

Even the second who was actually thankful that the first didn’t abandon the third, couldn’t help but add.

’Calm down third, first healed you at the end of the day... that being said, wouldn’t it have been better to use this spell earlier when there were subordinates not tied to us, at least you could have told us about the existence of this spell?’.

Surely if the first had taken the decision of using this spell when there were more subordinates alive, then the second wouldn’t have lost half of his connection like currently.

’You think such a strong spell can be casted limitlessly, or what, I not only healed third but also replenished all the mana he had used during the fight, it’s a special spell that I can only use with the help of Lord Ereth’s mana which he personally granted me, I can only use it twice in a month’.

’As to why you didn’t know about it, that’s because Lord Ereth himself told me to keep it a secret, unlike you, there are zero chances that the enemy can get information from me, so it’s only normal that Lord Ereth confides certain things only to me who act as his intermediate with you all’, calmly said the first.

The interesting part is that before this fight started, the second and the third wouldn’t have even asked such questions, they would have directly inferred that Ereth wanted things to be that way, but now that their connection was damaged their way of thinking changed.

That is another of the reasons as to why Ereth communicated certain things only to the first, because the deaths of the subordinates didn’t affect him like that.

’Fine, if that was Lord Ereth’s order then I have nothing to say about it, but what are we going to do now, there are only three of us left, and while I’m completely recovered, I still don’t have a third of my domain since that woman cut it up, are we going all out?’, said the third to which the first shook his head in response.

’No, we lost that opportunity when the fourth changed sides and then died’.

’If we are not going to go all out, shouldn’t we send our remaining subordinate away, he is definitely going to be targeted by the enemies?’, added the second to which the first nodded.

’That won’t be necessary, once the barrier disappears don’t worry about defending, nor about the remaining subordinate, we’ll charge at the light user woman to attack her, just use your fastest attack type spells and leave the rest to me’, said the first without offering any other explanation.

Unfortunately for the second and the third, the barrier while practically isolating them from Sera and Laila, had a short duration, also while the barrier stopped Sera from reaching them, the fierce girl from the church of light didn’t stop shooting light energy swords at them, so they had no time to ask anything else.

"Crack!", the moment the barrier showed signs of disappearing, all the seconds in command nodded and casted their spells.

"Black Sea Fierce Current Step!", now, neither the second nor the third could replicate the spells of the first anymore, but thanks to the barrier, they started preparing ahead of time, so the second and third casted their movement spells at the same time as the first, flashing from their previous positions at the same time.

"C-Captains!", the subordinate who didn’t partake in the previous conversation, saw the three seconds in command leaving him behind and shouted at them, which was actually counterproductive, as he was just drawing attention towards himself.

You couldn’t blame him though, not after seeing how easily Sera could kill the subordinates now, and also not after he saw how the first used another subordinate as a sacrifice to heal the third, so he naturally feared that he was abandoned by the seconds in command.

That being said, the subordinate inwardly let out a sigh of relief as he saw the first, second and third appear around that dangerous light user enemy which could kill him in a fraction of a second, with attack type spells ready to be casted at her.

"Black Fierce Seabed Sharp Rock Rain!", the first one to attack was the second, he created arm sized black rocks which were then shot at Sera.

"Black Fierce Seabed Sand Wave!", then it was the third’s turn, he simply casted a whole bunch of black sand that engulfed both the spell of the second and Sera.

"Black Fierce Sea Tsunami!", and the icing on the cake was of course the first, who went with a water spell, individually those spells lacked lethality since they were the ones those three could cast the fastest among their attack type repertory, but when stacked like this, things changed, wet sand is heavier than dry one and the sharp rocks were mixed into it, then everything was revolted around by the first’s tsunami.

"Clang!", clinking sounds could be heard coming from the mix of sand, rocks and water in which Sera had been trapped, that being said not even a grain of sand or a drop of water had reached the girl from the church of light.

"White Barrier Shield", a light energy shield floating at Sera’s left side was projecting a small barrier around her, protecting her from those three’s spells, she had manifested the technique before calling its name out loud too, a sign of her improvement control capacities.

"Dual White Bursting Sword!", what’s more, while the shield was floating next to her, the two permanent swords, namely the winged one and the normal one, were being wielded by Sera who used them to shorten the casting of the dual bursting sword, it was the normal one not a "brilliant" version, because she needed two winged swords for that apparently, not that it mattered since the good old dual wielding version was enough to set off alarms in the minds of the seconds in command.

"Watch out!", the first warned the second and the third to move which they did just in time to avoid a pair of white energy streams coming from the inside of the spells which they were maintaining even as of current.

"Booooom!", those three’s spells were blasted away on the spot and while the first and third were able to properly dodge, the second was a bit too slow and he was grazed by one of the two white energy streams from earlier which destroyed his right sleeve and left a burnt mark on his arm.

Of course, while Sera was dealing with those three, Laila didn’t just remain waiting in the shadows, a second ago just when Sera casted her dual bursting sword, Laila who had been preparing her technique, appeared above the sole remaining subordinate.

’Demon Grimoire, Blood Execution Guillotine’, blood energy chains emerged from the open black book which Laila was holding onto with her right hand, to then wrap around the enemy’s arms and legs, holding him in place as a sharp blood energy blade appeared above him to then descend upon his neck.

"Captains, help!!!", feeling the dread of death coming to him, the subordinate shouted and this is where we were before, in other words it was when the seconds in command were focused in not being obliterated by Sera’s dual white bursting sword’s attack, the first and the third dodged but the second was grazed and his arm was burnt due to it.

"Crack!", but then just as the subordinate was feeling despair, the sharp blade which was descending upon his neck was stopped in cold a few centimeters away from that guy’s skin and it broke due to the impact.

’I’ve got you’, thought the first who had been seemingly focused in dodging Sera’s attacks until a fraction of a second ago.

"Mm?", Laila who had black energy glowing in her eyes raised an eyebrow as she saw the barrier that had protected the subordinate expand before she could react, to isolate both the enemy and herself, inside of it.

"Black Fierce Sea Lord’s Holy Investiture", the first raised his trident and that black light which was used to heal and help the third recover, shone on it once again, the spell was different this time and so was its effect.

"Clang!", Laila who created a blood energy trident to attack the barrier saw it being bounced away just in time for that black light to reach the subordinate with which she was trapped.

"Andre, you have been granted a second in command’s position, with Lord Ereth’s approval you are appointed as the new fourth, kill that woman, while inside the barrier she can’t do anything to you!", shouted the first.

This is what he was aiming for from the start, the first used the remaining subordinate as bait and focused on Sera to create the chance for Laila to attack, in order to trap her within the temporary barrier that accompanied this other special spell he could use with the help of Ereth’s mana.

The holy blessing one was a recovery type spell which healed and replenished mana while the holy investiture one allowed the first to replace seconds in command with subordinates in case it was needed, he could only use those spells two times in a month each and they required a heavy price to be paid, so the first is way far from the light princess in terms of support abilities though.

But well, his idea worked and now the new fourth had condensed a black water sphere in front of his hand.

"Go to hell, Black Fierce Sea Piercing Current!", or so the first and the others thought until they saw that black water stream pierce through Laila’s head, only for her whose head was being pierced by the spell to casually say.

"So that’s why the previous fourth was abandoned so easily, the seconds in command could be replaced, to be honest I expected more, that was predictable", once "Laila’s" lips stopped moving, she turned into black energy particles that disappeared into nothing.

’No way, she can use such strong attacks through illusions now!’, inwardly screamed the first, the answer is yes, courtesy of her progress in the challenge combined with the fact that she can use the demon grimoire technique to support her attack techniques as well.

The first’s idea wasn’t bad, after having achieved the effect he wanted, by showing complete indifference towards the life of a subordinate, since he heard Sera’s angered voice when he used that guy as a sacrifice to heal the third, he left the other subordinate behind as bait in order to attract Laila who hasn’t been their main target during almost the whole fight and trap her within the barrier.

Unfortunately for him, Laila no longer needed to act personally to use attacks that could kill subordinates or actually wound seconds in command anymore, and she learned to be cautious by seeing Marcus’s continuously brute forcing his way through things after his "schemes" failed all the time, so she of course sent an illusion, because she didn’t forget who she was dealing with, subordinates of an "enemy that is fundamentally different" in Daimon’s words, you know the rest.

And the bad news kept coming, because the next second, the real Laila appeared behind the third who had lowered his guard after having successfully dodged Sera’s attack.

’Demon Grimoire, Blood Execution Guillotine’, the demon grimoire that Laila’s illusion used was the real deal though, she could manifest it through her illusions or call it back to her side as she pleased, and now she repeated the technique from earlier.

"Black Fierce Seabed Sand Step!", the moment chains came out of the demon grimoire, the third used that space movement spell from before, this time he did manage to get away from Laila, because he overloaded the spell with mana as his reserves were practically full thanks to the first.

"Aghhh, I’ll fucking kill you!", that being said and while the third indeed got away, in fact he even appeared inside the barrier that was still protecting the new fourth as apparently, they could enter and leave at will, when the third became visible again, there was something missing, his left arm had been ripped all the way from his shoulder.

What happened is simple, his arm got caught by the blood energy chains so the third severed it in order to be able to escape.

"White Flashing Step", since the one who attacked the third was the real Laila, Sera who had turned into a white energy stream, came out of space and appeared right next to her friend, preventing the first and the second from charging at her, forcing them to retreat and regroup with the now wounded third inside the barrier of the new fourth.

"D-Domain!", speaking of the new fourth, after seeing the third nearly being killed and knowing that he couldn’t move that fast since his "specialty" as he only had half of a connection like the rest of the seconds in command, besides the first of course, weren’t movement type spells, but wide area ones, similar to the previous fourth, he directly manifested his domain.

"Wait you fool...", the first hadn’t even finished his sentence, when Sera casually slashed her winged sword and as a result, even while they were within the protective barrier, the new fourth suddenly coughed blood.

"Blegh!", that was because a third part of his newly gained domain crumbled apart due to Sera’s power, you couldn’t blame the new fourth though, he didn’t have a domain and felt unsafe so he rushed to use his new power to solve that.

’Damn it’, cursed the first to his insides, it’s not like he expected to avoid Sera’s technique, he had confirmed that its effect would be guaranteed to work so long as the conditions were met, unless a force strong enough to deeply interfere with the blood prison realm was used to resist against it, like a system user for example.

If it was Ereth the one who was targeted, he could work around it, but the first isn’t Ereth of course, so he simply wanted for the new fourth to use his domain at his call to make use of its whole power before it was weakened by Sera, a shame that it won’t be possible anymore.

And the headache of the first wasn’t limited to the new fourth only.

’Fourth, that woman’s red energy is hurting like crazy, use a water cleansing spell on me!’, said the third as he trembled, unlike Arianna’s blood energy, Laila’s one was on the negative side of the energy spectrum, courtesy of the demon grimoire, so it was burning the third’s wound from the inside.

"Black Fierce Sea Cleansing Wave", the new fourth did as he was told and after the third stopped going crazy due to the burning pain on his shoulder and the wound closed, he then glared at the first.

’So, can we fucking go all out this time, or do we have to follow another of your stupid plans that aren’t working against that woman?’, he said to which the first frowned.

’It seems like you blame me for your wounds third, but you were targeted because of that bad habit you have to lower your guard when you believe you are safe, the only stupid one here is you considering you committed the same mistake twice, also don’t forget that I’m Lord Ereth’s representative’, said the first, he didn’t show any anger but his natural "I’m your superior" tone and expression, irritated the third more than if he had lashed at him.

This is because the connection has been weakened, because if this had happened before he wouldn’t have questioned the first like this, now that the first had reprimanded the third, he added.

’We are going all out, fourth you are new to this, but you got knowledge regarding our dynamic the moment you were granted the position, right?’, he said to which the new fourth nodded.

’Y-Yes, but let me be on the rearguard until I get used to it’.

’That’s fair, I’ll be on the vanguard for defense, third will cover our backs and fourth will offer support, is that okay with you, first?’, said the second before the third lashed at the new fourth, for asking to be on the safer spot.

’Okay’, and with the first’s greenlight, all the seconds in command extended their hands frontwards and finger sized crystal tubes with a gray liquid inside, appeared in front of them, interestingly they weren’t using storage rings, but used a spell of sorts to retrieve those things.

’That felt like when Daimon took out food for us, so those tubes must have been kept in the "inventory" of that guy’, thought Laila whose eyes were glowing in a black light.

Though to avoid influencing them too much, Daimon didn’t explain about the system in specific, at this point basically everyone in his team knew that he had a special space storage that wasn’t limited like space treasures would be, on him at all times.

And while Sera hadn’t heard the word "inventory" because Adam planned to take her for himself at some point and didn’t want her to die, Marcus didn’t care about Laila’s life, so he had directly mentioned the inventory in front of the girl from the church of calamity without any care in the world.

Laila couldn’t see how the inventory operated, but she could at least tell that it wasn’t a "normal" space treasure, like in Daimon’s case, which is how she reached the conclusion that they had access to Ereth’s inventory just for this item in specific.

"That barrier is getting annoying", said Sera who has been throwing energy swords at it, but couldn’t break it, which has been honestly getting on her nerves at this point.

’Yeah, but only for now’, added Laila.

"Black Fierce Sea Lineage Release!", back to the enemies, they drank the content of those tubes and then all exclaimed in unison.