Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System

Chapter 740: Showdown Devil VS Demon (part 12)

’Arch rank, this masked bastard crossed to the Arch rank!’, inwardly cursed Marcus as he wiped the trace of blood that was staining the corner of his mouth.

And here you might wonder why the devil ruler system user is so surprised, when he was capable of producing a whole bunch of proxies at the Arch rank, out of which only the black pink bow, the golden imp and the brown and dark blue snakes remain as of current though.

The answer is simple, throughout the whole fight Daimon never used even the slightest amount of mana nor battle aura, he stuck to his guns and only used the strange energies that are provided by the unique environment of the Blood Prison realm.

Achieving the Arch rank by going against the rules of this realm is not as hard as achieving it while following them, as a proof of it with some tricks and sacrifices Marcus could produce a subordinate whose battle prowess wasn’t weakened by the blood prison realm at the early stage of the Arch rank, namely the snakes, this was achieved by using a blood specter as a base.

But when he tried to make one of his subordinates make use of the energy of the blood prison realm, he only managed to raise one at the Lord rank, which was the panther in other words the initial form of Reyna and she lost that capacity after using the first altar spell, not to mention that she was considered to have a lower "potential" than the blood specter with which Rendon shared a body, it was in part because of this that the lioness was to be controlled by the snake if it was in danger.

Of course, this happened because Marcus was unaware of the fact that Reyna had created her own altar spell, one that didn’t depend on him, on the other hand knowing Marcus rather than nurturing the talented lioness, he would have probably turned her into a test subject and turned her into a sacrifice, so he was at fault for not being a trustable ruler.

To exert Arch rank power within the blood prison realm by not relying in the different energies you are subjected to the pressure of this place, which affects your battle prowess and this effect exponentially increases the further you go.

That’s the reason as to why instead of empowering the snake proxy, Marcus divided it into two at the early stage of the Arch rank whom by working together can fight a middle stage Arch rank, then by adding the power of the hellscape they can contend with an enemy with battle prowess equal to someone that is not being restricted by the blood prison realm at the middle stage of the Arch rank, like the lioness with the manticore energy manifestation.

But then, Daimon crossed the gap between the Lord and the Arch rank by himself solely relying in the energies of the blood prison realm, so instead of simply not being restricted by this place, he is... being boosted by the blood prison realm, not directly of course, but he was granted what he wanted the most as of current, the ability to use martial arts.

’To think this place could change a martial art into a technique ran with energy instead of battle aura, sure the origin of battle aura is vitality which is the same for Arianna’s energy but battle aura mixes both vitality and mana, so this is like casting a spell with battle aura or a martial art with mana’, thought Daimon as he saw the burning red energy clad that was enveloping him.

That’s what allowed him to use the previous martial art as a technique, so long as he was clad in Arianna’s energy, the blood prison realm would grant him this "privilege".

"It was so frustrating to not be able to use any proper techniques", casually said Daimon as he opened and closed his right hand, interestingly enough there was still no technique available to be empowered with his own silver energy, which means that he hasn’t reached that step yet, but this was more than enough for Daimon as of current.

"Lightning Thunder Step", with a couple of words, bright yellow lightning covered Daimon’s legs as he flashed from his previous position, this was the real martial art out of which the basic swift step and shattering step were devised, and it combined both speed boost and attack power as Marcus was about to learn.

"Black Devil Hell Flame Rain!", with the frontal legs of the domain regenerating Marcus gathered mana in front of the domain’s mouth, forming a sphere similar to when he used the hell canon, but this time he made the domain’s mouth point upwards before releasing the sphere which exploded the next second turning into countless wisps of black flames that rained down in the vicinity.

The idea was of course to buy some time since the densely packed rain of black flames covered every possible route that could be used to reach the domain, unless of course the enemy could move through space, but that was impossible here, even Stellar ranks would be suppressed to barely travel a few meters through space within the Blood Prison realm, unless they spent years creating a permanent flaw in the space restrictions to move through specific spots, like the Lords did to influence the blood prison realm.

"Crack!", unfortunately, Marcus underestimated Daimon’s speed, by the time the black flame rain started descending from the sky, he had already appeared next to the domain with his right leg clad in lightning descending towards the left side of the domain.

"Crack!", the lightning contained in Daimon’s leg exploded, destroying the rock armor and cracking the left side of the domain, before the physical impact of the martial art kicked in.

"Boooom!", the next thing Marcus knew is that the domain was smacked against the ground, making his head shake, blood dripped out of his nose which confirmed his fear, Daimon could hurt him through the protection of the domain now!

"What’s the big surprise, mana and battle aura counter each other, my vitality simply is stronger than your devil mana as of current so of course you can’t negate all the impact of my attacks", said Daimon as he pointed his right hand at Marcus.

’Luckily, Dana’s element is lightning otherwise I would have to do with pure physical martial arts’, he thought to then gather both Ariana and Dana’s energy.

"Lightning Suppressing Palm", with a few words, a thirty-meter sized red energy palm enveloping in fierce bright yellow lightning was shot by Daimon’s hand, descending upon Marcus who gritted his teeth as he stomped the right frontal paw of the domain which had just regenerated, onto the ground.

"Black Earth Devil Hell Piercing Spear!", using the mana of the dark brown snake, the domain made a giant rock pillar which was burning in black flames raise from the ground to block the incoming giant lightning clad palm.

"Boooom!", both attacks met the next second and they destroyed each other resulting in a large explosion.

"Ack!", Marcus felt his innards shake due to the shockwave result of the previous, he didn’t bleed unlike before, but he still felt pain.

’Damn it, that energy armor is blocking the impact for him!’, cursed Marcus to his insides, as he saw Femi’s energy shine around Daimon completely nullifying the shockwave so that it wouldn’t affect him.

Daimon disappeared from plain view and Marcus finally couldn’t keep his cool, the gauntlets which he has been using so far lit up in black flames and a magic circle appeared above them.

"Crack!", Daimon who appeared in front of the domain slashed the spear at Marcus who blocked it with the armored claws of the domain that were burning in black flames, surprisingly he was able to defend without the claws breaking though they cracked, Marcus didn’t suffer any backslash at all either, but the domain was still flung a few dozens of meters backwards due to the impact.

"Using a magic treasure against an enemy that is fighting only with techniques is already a disgrace and yet, you went a step further and activated your promise level gauntlets", said the ghost-like administrator Lezabel as she saw the black metal gauntlets that covered Marcus’s arms.

The moment he changed from those provisional gauntlets to these ones, the restrictions of the blood prison realm weighted down on Marcus but he didn’t care, he didn’t have to do anything to resist the pressure, since the system protected him, this was a basic duty and even if Lezabel didn’t actively did it, the system helped.

"Shut up, he can use a weapon if he has the ability this place is actually beneficial for trash like him because there is no way he has any treasures that can contend with mine anyway, at the end of the day the winner is the king and the loser is the bandit, if it wasn’t for the damn step by step process, I’m forced to follow he would be dead already, so I’m the one who has been fighting at disadvantage!", said Marcus with an angered voice.

At this point it is clear that Marcus should have a higher limit than Adam, unfortunately he is tied to "change forms" in sequence instead of being able to dispose of all his strength as he pleases, while the hero idiot was simply arrogant and didn’t use his whole strength from the very beginning, until he was forced to.

It’s probably arranged like this so that the hero has the chance to pull some bullshit "growth" out of nowhere through the fight, with which he will be able to contend with the devil ruler’s final form, have someone interfere to help him or have an ally sacrifice itself to buy Adam an opportunity to kill the enemy or escape if the situations demand it.

As to why Daimon guessed it’s like that, that’s because those two completely relied in their systems, which indeed granted them strength in an incredibly short period of time and without having to train or suffer in the slightest, they just followed the arrangements of their system’s missions and that was it, but that also comes with consequences in both their personalities and powers, tying them to the concept of their respective systems.

Despite what Marcus said, being forced to wield his promise level treasure against a "normal" person instead of his supposedly fated enemy, was humiliating, but since he was throwing all pretension away at this point, then he decided to do it properly

"Golden Opportunity Mountain Hell, Origin Boost!", out of the remaining golden metal hills, half exploded and turned into golden sparks, then the black and pink bow which had secretly disappeared into the burning mind hell the moment the tail of the manticore energy manifestation dragged the general towards the lioness, flew out of the sea of burning pink flames in the form of a black-pink energy flash.

The golden sparks met with the black-pink flash midair, as a result the bow actually dissolved into said energy flash to then descend into the domain’s forehead, all the previous was actually just the prelude, the spell was used in the domain, but it needed the bow as medium to be casted.

The black-pink energy flash condensed into an adult arm sized wisp of flame which made the eyes of the domain change to that same color.

"Thunder Roaring Lion Fist", at the same time, Daimon’s voice could be heard, followed by a twenty-meter sized red energy lion’s head with bright yellow lightning fiercely exploding around it.

"Clang!", with a smirk Marcus used the right frontal claws of the domain to block Daimon’s technique, clashing against it for a second, the rock armor was destroyed but the fierce roaring energy lion head was... destroyed on the spot.

"Lightning Suppressing Palm", Daimon who had appeared above Marcus pointed both of his hands at the domain and shot thirty-meter sized energy palms clad in lightning towards the enemy.

"Black Devil Hell Slashing Claws!", this time Marcus didn’t block the incoming attack with just the domain but used a spell, slashing the frontal claws towards Daimon’s martial art releasing ten burning slashing lights that clashed against the two palms.

"Booooom!", a loud explosion echoed through the battlefield as both attacks destroyed each other, Daimon had retreated out of the immediate impact area but Marcus was closer and yet he didn’t prompt the domain to move so he was directly engulfed by the energy cloud resulting from the two attacks colliding.

Once the explosion dissipated, Daimon saw the domain coming out of it completely unscathed, besides the broken parts of the rock armor which repaired themselves in a moment.

"It sure is convenient to have "someone" controlling the domain on your stead, perhaps if you weren’t a piece of trash, you could have enjoyed this level of power without limits and without having to sacrifice the bow and half of the remaining power of the golden mountain hellscape", said Daimon as he gazed at the arm sized black-pink flame burning at the center of the domain’s forehead, which made Marcus click his tongue.

’Sure, this masked bastard noticed it’, he thought.

The reason as to why Marcus could now remain unfazed when exchanging moves with Daimon, is because the domain could now open the portal to the shadow realm by itself.

Marcus could do it as well but that would divide his attention and he of course isn’t as proficient in devil shadow mana as the lioness was, so the strongest defense ability of the lioness couldn’t be properly implemented by the domain once she cut ties with Marcus.

So, the devil ruler system user gave "life" to the domain, by using the proxy of the burning mind hell in other words the bow and the boost of the golden imp, he transformed the bow into a new consciousness which was then infused into the domain.

The process itself is not that hard to understand, it was similar to how undead are created, by making a corpse produce soul fire, however Marcus transformed an albeit artificial, "being" into a spiritual form which he then fused with an inanimate object, instantly granting it decent control over the abilities of what it possessed.

One must remember that artificially created undead, unlike the natural races that are born that way, have limited intelligence they only follow orders and act based on programed parameters, the only exceptions to that so far being Rita and Horals, and Marcus achieved something similar to that, but it was temporal, the bow spirit created with the bow as the medium will die after some time, so Daimon immediately lost interest in this method.

"Not to mention that you wouldn’t have to deal with such a fierce lioness", added Daimon as he looked at the second battlefield.

"Earth Devil Beast Piercing Stalactite Rain!", the dark brown snake casted a barrage of ten-meter rock spikes which flew towards the lioness only for the rune on the second segment of the manticore manifestation’s tail to lit up in brown-red light.

"Ding!", a layer of Femi’s energy covered the manticore energy manifestation and then when the spell reached her, the stalactites exploded upon contact producing continuous metallic sounds, while being completely unable to harm the lioness who didn’t even flinch.

Unlike Tessa’s energy which was adapted so that the lioness could wield it in the form of poison energy instead of the ability to make several constructions with different purposes, the other energies so far kept their normal function.

"Water Devil Beast Suppressing Giant Tsunami!", the dark blue snake in comparison poured mana into the two hundred sized black water sea hellscape, making it surge on every direction, raising a tsunami that swept towards the lioness aiming to drown her alongside the manticore energy manifestation, keep in mind that this scene developed midair since both were flying.

In response, the rune on the third segment of the manticore’s tail lit up in bright yellow light and lightning of the same color crackled around the right frontal paw of both the lioness and the energy manifestation enveloping her.

"Booooom!", the lioness slashed her claws frontwards and the manticore followed her motion, the lightning clad claws of the manticore released five slashing lights that split the tsunami right in the middle, so that it didn’t even touch a single of the feathers on the manticore’s wings.

"Rooaar!", the lioness proudly roared to the sky, standing there unfazed after taking on two spells from the enemy without having to resort to a technique herself but simply by manipulating the energies she had at her disposition, that was before she flashed from her previous position.

"Black Sky Charge", appearing above the dark brown snake, the lioness had managed to use delayed casting for her movement technique in such a short period of time, you must know that she was new in what using techniques regards, after all she lost all her spells alongside her shadow mana, so it was amazing to see her reach this level of mastery so fast.

With a cold light shining in her eyes, the lioness made the tail of the manticore flash towards the dark blue snake instead, the lioness certainly preferred to fight and crush her enemies head on, however this wasn’t an honorable fight between warriors, but a fight to the death and she wasn’t fighting for herself but is supporting the one that freed her from her trash previous master, so she of course displayed the cunningness of a veteran warrior and while distracting the snake with the highest defense making it shield itself, she attacked the dark blue snake instead.

"Hisssss!", seeing the tail coming towards him, all the alarms rang in the dark blue snake’s mind, the poison energy contained in the stinger of the manticore’s tail instantly killed the haunted locust tree general and while the snake had black corrosive water devil mana, he didn’t want to be injected with that horrifying poison, especially because it did keep the suppressive effect that Tessa’s energy has over negative oriented things, so once injected it would feed on the snake’s mana to propagate.

"Water Devil Beast Barrier!", while diving inside the hellscape, the snake created a barrier with black water which was directly pierced by the manticore’s tail, because like previously stated, the dark blue snake is not defense oriented.

"Hssssss!", though the tail didn’t reach the snake, the stinger still shone in a bright green light and released poison energy which started corroding and invading the black sea, forcing the dark blue snake to instantly cut off the corrupted part of it so that the poison energy wouldn’t reach them, before both snakes frantically put distance between themselves and the lioness.

"Damn it!", seeing the snakes being forced into a defensive position by the lioness, Marcus couldn’t help but curse, the hellscape was fine, it recovered the part the dark blue snake discarded to prevent further damage, but the poison energy basically countered him, as for the dark brown snake it was in an even more precarious situation, because the lioness’s greatest strength was her destructive power, she could burst with both great physical and elemental damage.

’Fucking useless, every single one of them is useless!’, cursed Marcus to his insides, the snakes working together should be able to at least tie with the lioness, but as things turned out they couldn’t hold a candle to her.

"Ancient Sea Battlefield, Fallen Champion!", with bloodshot eyes, Marcus waved his hand and the two snakes dived into the black water hellscape, which then started releasing cold black mist, freezing into a giant block of black ice the next second.

"Clang!", the lioness slashed her lightning clad claws at the block of ice but instead of crushing it as one would expect, the manticore claws only left shallow cutting marks on it.

Luckily, she didn’t need to continue assaulting the block of black ice since the thing cracked and exploded the next second, revealing the snakes which had hidden themselves inside of it earlier, which had combined in a single snake again, this one had both brown and blue scales covering it and had a one-hundred-meter large body though, not to mention that it radiated middle stage Arch rank power.