Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System

"Tsk, even speaking his name has a purpose what an annoying guy, then tell me something unrelated to him", said Laila which made that subordinate continue speaking.

The ten of us don’t have domains...".

"Why did you suddenly become so talkative, you fool!", said the third of the seconds in command as he appeared next to that guy to then grab the black threads piercing the mouth of that subordinate and pull on them with force.

"Agh!", to prevent an accident from happening the second in command didn’t use a spell to dispel Laila’s technique so the thread which were an energy condensation left an open wound on that guy’s lips as it was pulled out, to then be destroyed by the second in command.

"S-Sorry, I couldn’t control myself until I was about to speak about Lord Ereth, then that woman’s technique was interrupted but I still couldn’t break away from her control", said the subordinate as he directed mana to his wound to stop the bleeding.

The second in command glared at Laila, by stripping away the black thread with such force, he wanted to confirm something.

’So, it wasn’t directly connected to her lips meaning that it’s not a possession type technique, nor does it work in a similar way as a curse either, such a weird energy’, he thought.

By forcefully pulling the thread, he wanted to see if it would leave a wound on Laila’s lips, which would mean she was directly connected to it in a physical way, while combining it with mind control, but her pretty lips were perfectly fine so that wasn’t the case.

His other theory was that Laila used a curse in which case once broken there should have been backslash, but her energy was calm so that also wasn’t the case ether.

And things didn’t end there, while the third of the seconds in command was confused, the fourth was worried.

’Her technique ignored the protection of my domain and directly reached our subordinate, I didn’t even notice it, besides Lord Ereth and Lady Karla this has never happened, are these two also chosen ones...’, the fourth’s thoughts were interrupted by the first of the seconds in command.

"Don’t overthink, they are not like Lord Ereth, their energies can spike up in terms of level to those that have laws integrated into them that’s why Daniel’s domain didn’t interfere with that technique, but there must be conditions for that", he said.

This was a conclusion reached by the first of the seconds in command, because that guy who was controlled without seemingly putting any resistance had destroyed Laila’s illusion previously, and in the second instance the one to be affected was the subordinate that actually talked the least among all of them, so no one expected his tongue to slip like that.

"I didn’t expect that just speaking that guy’s name could have such an effect, he really is a pain to deal with like "Gabriel" said, on the other hand that was an interesting technique on your end", said Sera to her friend.

"Yours wasn’t bad either, one of the subordinates was taken out of the fight and we now know that not only their domains can’t be activated simultaneously, but that ten of them don’t even have one", said Laila.

All of Ereth’s subordinates were at the Arch rank, the seconds in command were middle stage ones and the normal subordinates were early-stage ones, so the fact that those ten didn’t have a domain was probably a negative effect of whatever was done to give them that weird ability which synchronized their spell casting.

"I guess that’s one thing less to worry about, that Gregor guy is annoyingly perceptive though", added Sera.

’Yeah, he still hasn’t gotten the hang of it, but he’ll realize in what we are basing the special properties of our techniques sooner or later, so...’, thought Laila.

’We have to take out as many of them as we can before that happens!’, concluded both Sera and Laila at the same time as they flashed towards the enemies.

"You are looking down on my domain too much, Black Sea Piercing Maelstrom!", black water mana gathered from all over the domain of the fourth among the seconds in command to then create dozens of water currents.

The problem is that the spell was replicated by the others, even though they don’t have a domain which should be the requirement for it, as a result hundreds of water currents were shot towards Sera and Laila whose overall positions were calculated by the first of the seconds in command.

Or that’s what he thought, but the current which should have pierced Laila, simply made her turn into black energy particles, in other words it was an illusion of herself at which they aimed from the very beginning, what’s more that "Laila" smiled before completely disappearing.

’No matter, our real target is the other one’, thought the third of the seconds in command only for his eyes to contract like needles upon seeing how Sera... casually walked through the rain of attacks they had thrown her way.

"What!", that was Laila’s doing of course, she used a technique based on the cliché of "villain’s minions having terrible aim", therefore all of their attacks bypassed Sera without landing on her.

"Black Sea Rotating Shield!", of course Sera was still not close enough to reach those guys and they used a defensive spell to block her way, but that didn’t make them safe at least from the point of view of the first among the seconds in command.

"Watch out Bradley!", shouted Gregor, in other words the first of the seconds in command, at one of the remaining nine subordinates, as Laila appeared in front of him.

The subordinate called Bradley reacted in "time" and thrusted his trident at Laila who extended her hand to block the attack.

"Clang!", the magic weapon was actually stopped by Laila’s hand which was covered in those black silk gloves, but upon a close inspection it wasn’t that she directly did so, there were black threads holding onto the prongs of the trident which is what stopped it and that was the origin of the metallic sound we heard earlier, the trident’s prongs managed to scratch her palm though.

Laila’s energy has low attack power currently and it obviously focuses in manipulating other things, its perception alteration derives from that and said manipulation property is not limited to spells or mana, it has strong physical control capacities as well, not directly but when she condenses it into threads with the help of the black gloves technique though, this is because her mastery over her energy is still shallow, anyway the point is that she has a good defense which is why it was weird that her palm received damage, when the threads should have been more than enough to stop the trident.

In other words, there must have been a reason for the previous to happen, like for example helping Sera make her move.

"White Flashing Step!", Sera’s voice reached the ears of the others as she turned into a stream of white light that then disappeared from her previous position which was at the other side of a round of rotating shield spells that were casted earlier, to come seemingly out of nowhere and appear in front of Laila.

’She is too fast, I won’t make it in time!’, inwardly screamed the fourth of the seconds in command, Laila’s figure had reappeared but her body was still clad in bright white energy and she was moving at an extremely high speed.

Which is normal, she had also used another hero cliché to turn it into a technique, this time it was the "The hero always arrives in time" one and this is a cliché that is particularly hated by both Daimon and Sera by the way.

Because though it’s called "in time" it would be more accurate to call it "late", after all in the negative version of it, the hero appears after his companions have suffered damage that goes from impactful but not actually serious, to fatal, what’s more, the hero’s appearance under those circumstances ends the participation of the ones fighting before, which makes it look as if they are useless in comparison to enhance the image of the hero.

And before you think "Wait a second, didn’t Daimon appear to help his teammates during their challenges?", it’s not the same, Daimon appeared to offer support, yes, but he didn’t directly interrupt nor solve the situation for any of his teammates, he was there to even things out if the other party tried to play tricks, but so long as that wasn’t the case, he didn’t step in and ruined the chance for his friends to grow, and more importantly his timing was perfect, he appeared before they suffered unfairly due to said tricks.

Anyway, the result of Sera’s technique was not only a sudden explosive increase in speed, she actually travelled through space though it was a short-distance jump, which is how she bypassed the shield wall blocking her way earlier and how she surpassed the reaction time of the fourth among the seconds in command into whose domain everyone was fighting currently.

’She can move through space!’, thought the first of the seconds in command, even he was taken by surprise this time, like previously stated during Marcus’s fight, moving through space is incredibly hard in the blood prison realm, even he was restricted and he is a system user, however there are exceptions, as in techniques that allow the previous, it’s just that they are probably the least common among all the possible techniques.

"White Bursting Sword!", though Sera was unable to use the "dual wielding" version of her sword condensing technique, she could use two techniques at the same time so while she was still under the effect of the white flashing step which gave her a powerful momentum to make up for the difference, a white energy sword appeared for her to wield with her right hand with which she slashed at the subordinate in front of her.

Ah right, this wasn’t counted as a surprise attack, because she didn’t hide herself, but simply moved too fast and through space but did so in a straight line, therefore, her energy gained that attack power bonus and she also called out the name of her technique, so that white energy sword carried the second strongest attack power output which Sera was capable of producing with the exception of using the dual wielding version of it, with her current level.

"Domain!", the first of the seconds in command directly shouted, however the one whose domain was activated was the third of the seconds in command instead.

"Thud!", the domain got in the way of Sera’s attack and contrary to the loud and violent clash one would expect, there was a dull sound produced due to their encounter, the physical impact of the sword was actually extremely diminished which is why the subordinate wasn’t cut in half by Sera’s attack.

"Booooom!", that being said, the energy contained on it was directly released a fraction of a second later, turning into a white stream that travelled almost half a kilometer frontwards before exhausting itself.

"Black Sea Current Step!", at the same time, besides the first and third seconds in command all the other enemies used movement spells to appear around Sera with their tridents aiming at her vitals from every direction, which unexpectedly only made the girl from the church of light smile.

And here the best part about Sera’s techniques, which is the fact that she turns the cliches into power and gets rid of the negative parts, in other words she didn’t need her companion to suffer for her technique to activate, at least for the extreme increase in speed part, however for the space travelling effect there was a need for a companion to clash at close distance with an enemy because the companion’s position acted as Sera’s "coordinate", in other words the space jump would bring her to where Laila was.

And why is that the best part about it you wonder, when those two are being surrounded by tridents from every direction, well, it’s the best because the "Laila" who was still holding onto the trident she stopped earlier with the black threads by the way, suddenly turned into black energy particles not without tossing the trident to Sera.

"White Flashing Step", were the words that the first in command managed to read from Sera’s lip movements, but he didn’t get to actually listen to them because the girl from the church of light turned into a white energy stream that vanished into space just in time to avoid all of their attacks.

"Damn it!", cursed the fourth of the seconds in command.

Sera appeared a few hundreds of meters of distance away from her previous position and Laila, the real one which had never moved from where she was originally, became visible for everyone as well.

It was a beautifully executed strategy, Laila remained behind the scenes at all times, even when everyone believed that she was really clashing with that subordinate.

’Just as I thought, Laila’s illusions are recognized as her real "self" by my energy, you could see it as in the "villain" managing to trick the "hero" easily too, but I prefer to think that we make a good team~’, thought Sera.

And she was right, Laila’s techniques were mainly aimed at the enemy she turned the villain cliches into ways to mess with the enemy, while Sera on the other hand turned hero cliches into power to attack the enemy, one weakened them and the other enhanced herself, simple and effective.

And the results proved that they were a good combination, more than a kilometer away from where those two were currently standing, the subordinate which Sera had attacked at close range was laying on the ground, he wasn’t split in half like Sera intended, but had a large wound that crossed all the way from his chest to his abdomen, one of his arms was gone and he had fainted.

That was the result after he was saved by the domain of the third among the seconds in command, which by the way had a completely different domain when compared to the one shown by the fourth one.

"An earth and darkness affinity domain, when the spells they use are water and darkness related, that guy really spared no expense", said Sera as she saw the weird substance that blocked in front of the subordinate preventing him from dying on the spot.

It was a combination of black sand that was scattered upon impact and seemed to be useless, but it consumed some of the impact before the sword reached the main defensive part which was some kind of thick clay-like substance, that was what completely nullified the physical impact of the attack and it also blocked a small part of the energy explosion, allowing that guy to survive.

What’s more, at some point the chained guy who was controlled by Laila earlier had disappeared from the black sea domain and now the same happened to that fainted subordinate as well, he was encased in that black sand and clay and absorbed into the floating piece of ground where he had landed, which then moved into the distance to stay away from the battlefield.

’I highly doubt these "mass produced" subordinates had the innate potential to control three different affinities that aren’t directly related and even oppose each other at the Arch rank only, so it was probably thanks to that guy’s arrangement’, thought Laila.

Though the bodies of Ereth’s subordinates originally belonged to the Blackfin family which gave them water affinity as its base, they already had an inclination towards darkness affinity as well, let’s not forget that the place where Daimon obtained the "seed" for the Black Armored Shark’s lineage which in his case turned into the Dracolevia one due to overscoring in the awakening mission of the bloodline temple, was a bar of some kind and that it originated in a drink that was elaborated by the family of the Blackfin duke.

Therefore, the blackfin family had what you could consider a degraded version of the Black Armored Shark’s lineage integrated into their original lineage as a whole, now it was obvious that the prime material for said drink was proportionated by Ereth or someone related to him and that he did so in order to prepare the blackfin family members for the time when he would take over, amusingly enough he also indirectly gave Daimon quite a nice opportunity which led to him meeting Jasmine as well.

The point is that these subordinates had the base for the water and darkness affinities they were showing to have, not as developed as they are though since they had water and darkness integrated into one, but that could be attributed to Ereth.

But a third affinity and one that has no relation with either of the previous two as earth, is different, earth while not as directly as wind, still opposes water so artificially implanting it onto someone would require too much effort, especially for someone whose realm is only at the Arch rank, remember that the limit for average people is a second fully developed affinity under the peak of the Arch rank.

’That guy wouldn’t do something like this for no reason, we know the four seconds in command have important purposes to fulfill and only they have domains, so it must be related to having earth affinity given to them too’, thought Laila

She didn’t even want to directly think nor say Ereth’s name in case he had prepared something for that, that’s how annoying he was to deal with in the mind of the girl from the calamity church.

Still, it was that same trait of Ereth what put Laila to think, on how did the two completely different domains shown by the seconds in command so far, would relate to each other, since Ereth wouldn’t allow them to awaken random domains.

And in case you wonder "Well, black water on one hand and sand plus that clay-like thing on the other, sounds like a rudimentary sea", yes that’s correct, Laila could even see it directly with her own eyes, however their domains weren’t mixing in the slightest.

The black sea domain was floating above the black sand and clay one, they shared a space but were not combining like other enemies had done before, because while that might increase raw power, it decreases control and Ereth is not so simple minded, thus his subordinates aren’t like that as well, they would probably use their domains together but won’t mix them to keep their mastery over them, so that’s not the end goal here.

"I already had high expectations, but that Gregor guy activating the domain of another one was quite something too", said Sera as if she could read Laila’s thoughts.

"Yeah, it’s going to be hard to completely bypass their defenses since that guy can do that", added Laila.

Out of all the seconds in command, the first one’s reaction time was on a different level, Laila now suspected that he was behind how they failed to kill the subordinate she controlled.

And she was right, Gregor had warned the fourth second in command to activate his domain, in a way that only they could hear, unfortunately he lost the surprise factor in that sense, because this time he was almost surpassed as well, so he had to call out the domain activation to shorten the casting, otherwise that subordinate called Bradley would have died, that’s how much those two pressured the enemy this time.

"Oh well, we’ll do it the good old way", concluded Sera to which Laila nodded before she turned into countless black energy particles, that then spread all over the battlefield.