Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System - Chapter 678

Chapter 678: How to deal with enemies from all sides (part 2)
At the same time there were two though different similar scenes happening at west and north from Daimon’s group previous position, let’s go with west where a group of four people with water magic beast characteristics such as patches of fish scales on their skin, gills on their necks or fins on their backs and arms, could be seen running through the frozen rocky wasteland.

Unlike Ereth’s subordinates, Marcus’s ones were pirates or member of the nomad groups that lived in the Maelstrom Sea, they are used to cold and dark environments so moving through this frozen wasteland was like a day in the park for them.

That being said, they weren’t in exactly perfect conditions either, as the worn-out parts of their clothes suggested, probably the result of having had to fight with the blood specters after being separated from Marcus and their other companions.

“Tsk, though I’m happy that we were at least sent after a female target for a change, how do you know the intel we got from that unlucky bastard is true, she could not be as impressive as we were told and our dear master told us to find the way back to him as our priority if we got separated?”, said the guy guarding the back of the group, he had gills and black fins on his neck and judging by his rebellious attitude, was clearly a pirate before joining Marcus’s gang.

“That’s what you guys now, but those that joined master Marcus’s before, know that his top priority is messing up the Clear Water kingdom, and that’s the order that was given to team leaders and above”, coldly said the man walking at the front of the group, he was slim but tall and had orange scale patches on his arms and white hair, to then add.

“And according to that guy we tortured for information, the guys from the Clear Water kingdom considered the one sealed in this place as their biggest priority to be released from the seal, so we have to get her before them, we’ll only half unseal her and capture her for our master to use as leverage with this”.

The man with orange scale patches took out a palm sized black crystal circular shaped medal with a monstrous hand with claws engraved on it.

“Is that, one of the devil items we have heard about?”, asked the man guarding the left side, he had a gray fin protruding from his back and spike-like teeth, which made him the most beast-like looking in the group.

“Yeah, a devil claw token to be more accurate, I’m only a team leader so I only got a one time use devil item, but it does pack enough power to destroy an Arch rank enemy, it should be enough to half break the seal on that woman and if it falls short, we can make some “offerings” to make up for it, so unless you want to become a sacrifice I suggest you to shut up and keep walking”, said the man with orange scale patches, to which the guy with gills and fins on his neck thought.

‘Acting so high and proud after willingly becoming a slave of that guy, what a fool, whatever let’s just roll with it, we’ll get to plunder and kill as much as we want as payment for our participation in all this at least’.

The guy with gills came back to the real world thanks to a fast current of wind which impacted his face, making his eyes get teary while he was forced to get back a few steps, as a shattering sound echoed through the air.

“Crack!”.

“Agh what the hell, it got cloudy and now there are dam strong gusts of win…”, the guy with gills had his words stuck in his throat as he heard a “thud” and looked downwards just to see a dismembered arm which was holding onto the devil claw token, which his team leader was bragging about a moment ago.

“Hey are you two alright!”, exclaimed the guy with gills as he turned to see his remaining companions, the one with spiked teeth and tall guy with hard shell-like material covering his nape and extending down his back.

“Y-Yeah but what the hell was that?”, said the guy with spiked teeth to which the other one pointed at the direction from which they came.

The other two turned around just in time to see where the shattering sound from earlier came, a crushed disfigured corpse that used to be their team leader which was at the feet of a tall imposing figure wearing black bandages to cover half of its face.

And now we put a pause to this scene to change to see what happened at the same time at north from Daimon’s group previous position, where Arlion’s subordinates were.

Similar to the other groups, this one was composed of four members, from races of the Mermen Sea, which was noticeable by the fact that though they were water magic beast descendants, they looked exactly like humans with hard to notice beast traits, like pointy ears with fish scales, or either blue hair or eyes, common traits within the Mermen Sea.

The group was being led by a man in his twenties who had pale blue hair and a certain resemblance with Walford, for a good reason he was a member of his family and while he was in a good state, the others were clearly being affected by the cold and dark environment.

“Don’t fall behind now, we were lucky to have appeared close the area where the king was originally leading us, if we rescue the one at the top of the priority list from the king, you’ll be rewarded with more than just a potion to increase your realm like before, but an actual improvement in your lineage, who knows you might be able to obtain the a higher ranked version of your original lineage, like me!”, he said to motivate the rest of the group.

The other three guys couldn’t help but envy their team leader, it was thanks to the improvement in his lineage that he didn’t fear this level of cold, even though he had no access to mana.

“Captain Thomas, how stronger is the Icelock White Turtle lineage, when compared to the original lineage of the Arcarius family?”, asked the guy guarding the left side, to which Thomas proudly answered.

“I only obtained an entry level evolution from the king, but that was enough to basically double my previous battle prowess, I who was a member of a secondary branch am now slightly superior to the heirs of the main family like Walford, luckily the king is fair and rewards are given to anyone that contributes to his cause”.

The idea of having their lineages upgraded to a higher level than the one of the members of the main families, whom they had to look up to before, was enough to motivate these guys from secondary branches of the noble houses of the Clear Water kingdom, where Arlion had secretly grown his influence for this situation.

“Hoh that sounds too good to be true”, said a voice coming from his right, to which Thomas nodded.

“I thought so too but…”, while busy bragging, Thomas realized that the previous voice belonged to a woman and there are only guys in his group, unfortunately by the time he and the others realized something was wrong, a bright red cladded arm had been slashed in the direction of the guy that was standing at the right side of the group, resulting in his body being cut in five parts horizontally, spreading blood and pieces of flesh on the ground.

The now group of three jumped away from the one who ripped their companion to shreds, due to the voice they heard it was obvious that it was a woman, and her slightly worn out majorly leather composed clothes combined with the chaotic red energy sparks that remained in the air around her made the captain of this group exclaim.

“Damn pirate!”.

Something similar happened at east and west, however the words that came from the surviving person in charge were different.

“Damn Clear Water Kingdom noble!”.

“Damn nethereal”.

And after being called out, the three figures grabbed the remains of their respective victims and immediately ran away, it’s worth mentioning that in the case of the first victim whose body exploded, only the head remained, anyway the point is that if seen from above the three figures where moving in such a way that they will converge at a given point, namely a large surface which lacked rocks and was completely covered in black ice.

However, the three groups had no idea of the previous and seeing their ambushers retreating after taking the remains of their now dead companions, to then disappear from their sight at high speed, made them react the same way.

“Don’t let it reach the marked point first!”, and so the three groups used their respective lineage energies to go after their ambushers as fast as they could.

…

In the meantime, a few kilometers ahead from the area where the previous conflicts took place, a masked silver haired youth alongside a young girl with white hair as well as tiger ears and a tail could be seen arriving not too far from the afore mentioned black ice-covered surface which extended for a couple of hundreds of meters, naturally those were Daimon and Dana.

“Stop, follow my steps from this point onwards”, said Daimon to the little tiger girl who nodded in response, Daimon who had stopped advancing first, used his foot to draw a line on the frozen ground, before he started walking around the frozen surface avoiding certain areas until they had reached the other side where a large black rock protruded from the ground.

Just in time for three figures whose identities couldn’t be discerned at first sight, to arrive and stop where that line which was drawn by Daimon on the ground with his foot, was.

The three of them broke a piece of the frozen surface with their respective abilities, revealing the body of black water that lied below the frozen surface and then tossed the remains they were carrying, making sure to follow the barely noticeable steps that Daimon and Dana had left behind, arriving behind that rock formation where Daimon and Dana were waiting for them.

“So, how did go?”, asked Daimon to those three who removed the objects that partially covered their faces, making sure that their identities remained a mystery.

“It was easy, they immediately noticed I was using nether and chased after me on the spot”, said Badr who was the one that crushed the captain of the team from Marcus’s side.

“Mm, thanks to my weakened state and the Sea Emblems I got from all of you it was easy to pass as someone from the Clear Water Kingdom”, added the sky-blue haired girl, Lyn.

“I think mine was a bit forced, for a second I thought the clothes didn’t trick those guy’s captain”, mumbled Arianna to which Daimon shook his head at her.

“Mocking attitude, worn out leather clothes, energy of a hard to identify nature as well as a captain whose mind was prompt to subtle manipulation, the chance of your cover as a pirate from the Maelstrom Sea to be seen through were basically zero”, he said.

For those that hadn’t realized yet, Daimon asked Lyn, Badr and Arianna to pass as people that would be associated with Arlion, Ereth and Marcus’s groups in that exact order, so that Ereth’s subordinates would think someone from Arlion’s group attacked them, while framing Ereth’s group of attacking Marcus’s group and last but not least making it look like Marcus’s group attacked Arlion’s group.

You should see where this is going, basically Daimon made it so that they whose temporary truce was from the very beginning hanging by a thread, to have bad blood between each other.

In Badr and Lyn’s cases the illusion was easy to pull off, one was a nethereal, a race that have shown to be working with Ereth, as for Lyn she is a member of the Northern Sea out of which many degraded lineages resulted in the noble houses of the Clear Water kingdom, so thanks to her current weakened state, the aura she radiated was that of a noble from the Mermen Sea.

The only one whose “background” required a bit of work for Daimon was Arianna, she had to pass as someone from the Malestrom Sea, or that would have been the case if the captain from Arlion’s group wasn’t from the Arcarius family.

Just as it has been shown with Walford before, they are easy to influence by Daimon now that he has a connection with Ophelia, the reason is simple, the Icelock Black Turtle family from which the Arcarius Ice Turtle lineage descends, are loyal vassals of Ophelia’s Vallmery family.

That being said, unlike Walford, Daimon noticed that his influence over this relative of Walford, was way weaker, in part because the concentration of the original lineage which he inherited was of course smaller than Walford’s, as he is not a direct descendant and in part because Arlion had done something to him, which though empowered his lineage, it also transformed it into something alse.

Which is why a disguise and a bit of acting was needed to work alongside Daimon’s influence over Thomas, luckily the pirates who are most of the times mixed races and nomads from the Maelstrom Sea are known for their chaotic and impossible to identify lineages, so Arianna’s newly obtained power was perfect for the job, as in it had nothing to do with water, but it wasn’t an elemental focused energy either, which discarded both the Mermen and Elemental seas, as for the Bone sea, Arianna radiated a strong aura of vitality so that only left the Maelstrom sea as her possible fake origin.

And all of this was planned by Daimon, based on two simple things, first and formal he knew those three idiots and their respective groups only worked together in the surface and would stab each other on the back at the first given chance, and what better situation could there be for it, than obtaining the one who was considered the most important possible ally/hostage, available in the Blood Prison realm, in other words the woman sealed here.

And second, the personality of said woman, in other words a selfish and scheming person that would prioritize herself over anything else, meaning that… she would never let go of a chance to break out of her seal, like being offered some “delicious” looking sacrifices.

“Crack!”, black chains in a state like the ones used to seal nethereals, as in their origin was perfectly fine while their extremes were corroded, emerged from within the frozen lake in many directions, not too far from the areas which Daimon avoided and marked for Arianna and the others to also avoid, to then hold onto the remains that were floating right where they had been thrown earlier.

“Your calculation hit the mark, that woman can’t see nor detect anything past a certain area”, said Daimon as he saw the black chains.

“Of course, if I couldn’t, there is no way that traitorous bit… ahem, I mean I’m glad to be of help”, said Lyn as she realized she was about to curse in front of the little tiger girl, luckily, she was saved by the next step of Daimon’s plan, as in those three groups arriving right now.

Just in time to see the chains which were dragging the remains to the bottom of the lake, to then change their attention at the ones whom they believed had ambushed them, respectively.

“How dare you!”.

“You are dead you bastards!”.

“She is the king’s top priority, leave or die!”.

Naturally, the members of the three groups all saw red when their gazes fell on their respective “enemies”, and as expected, the attacks immediately became present.

“Booom!”, different energies flew all over the place destroying parts of the frozen surface of the lake, wreaking havoc all over the area, disturbing the work of the one at the bottom of the lake, making the unsealing ritual which was being prepared to fail.

“Aghhh damn it!!!”, after a loud cursing voice made its way to the ears of all the presents, the sphere of chains sealed in this lake, fiercely emerged splashing black water in the vicinity, which interrupted the three-way fight, because only Ereth’s subordinates had natural resistance against it.

“What are you fools doing, if you want to fight go do it somewhere else!”, shouted the woman sealed inside the sphere of chains.

This of course made the focus change back to the woman, and the reaction of the three groups were different from each other.

“We were sent by Lord Ereth who is working with the nethereals like you, help us kill those bastards and we’ll help you escape the seal”, said the one leading Ereth’s group.

“Nonsense, master Marcus will be the one to obtain victory, join our side and he’ll grant you a power and resources way above anything you have seen before!”, added the guys from Marcus’s group.

“Don’t listen to them Lady Kener, we were sent to help you without any condition by king Arlion, whose ancestor is from the White Disaster shark race, please cooperate with us!”, said the guys from Arlion’s side.

While their proposals were different, their following reaction was the same, the three leaders of the groups stared at each other and then said.

“Don’t get in our way!”, and with that, they charged at each other once again, thus starting the fight like before.

All this under the amused eyes of Daimon and the others who were watching the situation unveil behind that rock, perfectly safe from those guy’s gazes.

“Big brother Daimon was right, no matter what the woman sealed in the lake says, now that they have become openly hostile to each other they won’t listen to her”, mumbled the little tiger girl, to which Daimon nodded in response.

“And now, she has only two choices, either she joins one side which would mean dealing with the other two, or taking into account the arrogance of someone like that woman and the fact that we purposedly diminished the quality of the “materials” she could use by badly damaging them, then…”, Daimon didn’t even need to finish his sentence, before the woman sealed in the sphere of chains went with the second possible choice.

“Humph, I don’t want to deal with lackeys like you, the Lords owe me a proper chance to escape this damn seal, that heartless bastard of Dian didn’t come for me during all this time and dared to only send fools like you for me, and more importantly who the hell is Marcus!”, exclaimed the woman as she directed the many chains she could control to grab the nine guys who were in the middle of fighting.

“No wait…”, realizing what was about to happen, those guys tried to talk with the woman inside the sphere of chains, but before they could, yellow, silver, dark red, sky blue and bright red flashes passed next to them, both breaking the chains and killing the nine guys on the spot, turning them into shreds.

The silver-colored flash turned into a masked silver haired youth, who casually said.

“To deal with enemies from all sides you just need to make them fight among themselves, that will ten out of ten times give you a chance to finish them all in a single go”.

“Mm”, to which the white-haired girl with tiger ears and tail who came out of the yellow flash, nodded in response.

“It was you, you masked bastard how dare you mess with my escaping route!”, shouted the woman sealed in the sphere of chains, to which a sky-blue haired girl which came out of the flash from the same color mockingly said.

“Let’s see you avoiding being beaten to death by me this time, you coward traitor”, naturally that was Lyn whose anger went through the roof now that she had analyzed the woman inside the sphere of chains.

Unlike probably any other sealed people that has reached the surface of the Blood Prison realm, that woman managed to gain power at the peak of the Arch rank, something that was for sure possible due to whatever deal she had made with the three Lords.

But Lyn really didn’t care about that, she was angry because she calculated that the woman had enough space inside that sphere of chains to comfortably move and her state was way better than hers, in other words, her time in the Blood Prison realm has been a paradise when compared to Lyn’s.