Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System - Chapter 698

Chapter 698: Challenges, Alfear Princess version (part 3)
The reason of the previous is not because Tessa had mastered this technique enough to be able to cast it before calling out its name, but because until the effect was triggered, she didn’t know its name nor its special functions.

‘I thought, the result of the shield and the fixed-point technique being combined, would just result in a much more solid defense, maybe impact cancelation like the hammer one, but to think it actually… bounced the enemy’s attacks instead of just blocking them’, thought the alfear princess as she saw the green energy tree which was surrounding her until a second ago, dissolve in many bright green particles, creating quite the fantasy-like sight.

The techniques obtained through the energy of the Blood Prison realm, are just like the innate abilities learned due to one’s lineage, information about them comes to the person in question, instinctively.

But past that, they have to be processed and materialized into a practical form, and Tessa just discovered this one in particular after using a movement technique, a defensive one and an attack type one in that particular order.

“Mm, it might be that the giant tree’s creation was a result of a combination of different factors like this, I just don’t know what they were in specific…’, mumbled Tessa to then return to the real world.

Her pretty amber colored eyes lit up with expectation, she now wanted to discover more about her energy’s properties, and luckily, she still has quite a few more techniques in her repertory.

Apparently, she is the type to have many of them, like the little tiger girl for example, if Daimon where to see it, he would for sure curse because let alone a technique, he is yet to obtain the full version of his own energy and has been making do with manipulating it to imitate such applications so far.

Leaving that aside, having its attacks thrown back at itself, the pitch-black tree of course violently reacted, since it didn’t know whether that green energy tree from earlier was gone for good, because the shield mounted on Tessa’s back was still there, just like the gauntlets were still protecting her arms.

The tree spread its branches so that even if its attacks were to bounce back, they wouldn’t affect other branches, of course this applied to both the crystal armored branches, as well as the energy ones.

And so, besides the dozens of armored branches with sharp edges that charged at Tessa from leftwards, upwards and backwards, two energy puppets blocked the remaining directions.

“Green Trail, Forest Stride”, this time, the bright green energy only gathered around Tessa’s feet, instead of her legs like before, and just like the name of the technique which is “forest stride” instead of “jungle stride”, the effect was different as well.

Instead of flashing away from her previous position, Tessa instead waited until the closest armored branch was about to reach her, to then elegantly made a small turn in order to avoid it.

“Booom!”, amidst the many armored branches which were creating craters as they landed on the ground, the alfear princess seemed to be “dancing” through the battlefield, perfectly avoiding the attacks without disappearing from plain view unlike before.

In other words, unlike jungle stride which created an instant burst of increase in speed, forest stride seemed to instead improve her agility, allowing Tessa to slip away through a whole bunch of strong heavy physical attacks.

Of course, and as amazing as the previous sounded, just a single movement technique wasn’t enough to deal with the tree’s attacks, as it could also pull energy type offensive techniques, like the pair of corrosive puppets that were coming Tessa’s way as of current.

“Forest Guardian, Flowing Bamboo Staff”, the alfear princess extended her right hand and bright green energy gathered to then form a bamboo 3-meter-long energy staff, which she used to take on the punch of the first corrosive puppet.

“Hssss!”, as expected sizzling sounds came from the point of contact between Tessa’s staff and the fist of the puppet, since it is an energy condensation, it’s fists don’t carry a strong physical impact, however it compensates with a stronger elemental effect, in this case corrosiveness.

“Humph!”, the alfear princess didn’t stop there, with a decisive swing of her staff, she deviated the enemy’s fist to the side, to then change her position just in time to use the shield mounted on her back to block the kick of the second corrosive puppet.

With a “thud”, Tessa pushed her back after having successfully blocked the attack of the second puppet, making it lose its balance, to then thrust the staff so that it would be placed next to the neck of the first puppet, in order to drag it towards the second puppet.

Because she wanted to confirm something, after seeing how the puppet which was bounced back ended up destroying another tree which is supposed to be an ally of the pitch-black trees, meaning that the black ominous mana of which those puppets were composed, was unstable enough to not be able to distinguish between friend and foe, meaning that with techniques like this staff whose focus in to skillfully block and or redirect attacks, she should be able to use the enemy’s attacks for her benefit.

Like right now, since the first puppet was about to fall on top of the second one, which would end up destroying them both at the same time.

Unfortunately, the pitch-black tree while not as intelligent as the giant tree out of which the wood thorn knight came, it seemed to be capable of learning from its mistakes, so to Tessa’s surprise, the red veins which were holding the humanoid form of the second corrosive puppet suddenly lost their tension and the black ominous mana became shapeless, to then sink into the ground, alongside those red vein-like things, which apparently could separate from the main body of the tree.

“Tsk”, slightly clicking her tongue at the sight of the second puppet disappearing from the battlefield, meaning that the first one falling won’t be getting any damage, the alfear princess proposed herself to smack the staff on the head of the first puppet, but midway, with her legs cladded in bright energy, a sign that she had used jungle stride, Tessa jumped backwards, avoiding a barrage of dark crystal needles.

“Booom!”, continuous explosions echoed through the vicinity as barrages of dark red crystal needles were shot at Tessa as she moved, leaving behind a trace of destruction.

“Clang”, the last barrage was blocked by Tessa using the staff, which also signaled the end of the technique’s effect, and now the alfear princess was back to only have the gauntlets, and she was forced to move away from the energy branches, on the other hand she forced the tree to dispel one of the corrosive puppets as well, so it was not a bad exchange.

“Crunch!”, from the corner of her eyes, the alfear princess saw another of the armored branches, eating the one which was cut due to clashing with the biggest one, after bouncing of her defensive technique earlier.

At the same time, a new energy branch came from the main body and had the red veins which escaped through the ground, join it, which resulted in a contrary effect when compared to the physical branches, which’s width increased when consuming their own kind, as well as gaining that solid dark crystal armor.

In other words, the energy branch instead got thinner, gaining a much more agile aspect, also there were way more red veins on it, covering more than half of the surface of the branch.

As for what ability the reinforced energy branch gained, just like the physical branch, it was an advanced version of its original capacity to manipulate energy, as in the corrosive puppet that it created, not only had a much larger size and a clearer humanoid shape, but it was even wielding a “weapon”, in the form of a black mana spear.

Now, don’t look down on it because the energy branch had really low physical impact capacities, the tree had given it a weapon in response to Tessa’s fighting style, so that it could answer to her attacks, while still having the advantage that the whole body of the corrosive puppet is a weapon too.

As for the physical branches, a second large armored one has been born after another one ate the one which was cut earlier, and the tree adapted it, keeping one with those needles for long range, while the new one had sharp edges growing all over its surface.

“Hrshshsh!”, as if mocking Tessa, some of the spiked mouths in the middle of the eyes with angered expressions, actually smiled as if it was saying “what will you do now, bitch?”, or something along the lines of it, as they charged once again at the alfear princess.

“Clang!”, however their charge was interrupted by a bright green energy flash which landed on the incoming armored branches, exploding the next second.

“Booom!”, the explosion produced a loud sound though its power wasn’t that strong, since it only made a few cracks appear on the crystal edges of the armored branch, but it’s understandable, after all strength isn’t the focus of the previous attack.

“Forest Guardian, Shock Maple Crossbow”, as the green energy crossbow which Tessa was holding with her left hand disappeared, the tree realized the previous as well, because while the damage done to the armored branch was minimal, it was pushed back a few meters, which disrupted the continuity of its attack.

Still, the tree pushed the energy puppets, both the reinforced one and the normal one to continue their charge, at least until the normal one which was moving ahead suddenly “tripped” falling to the ground, while smoke and sizzling sounds could be heard coming from different areas of its body.

“Forest Guardian, Piercing Oak Caltrops”, said the alfear princess as she pointed her free right hand frontwards, what happened is that really small sharp star-like objects emerged from below the ground, where the puppet had stepped on a moment ago, “wounding” it, since its corrosive mana clashed with Tessa’s positive oriented nature energy, resulting in the puppet falling to the ground, where once again more caltrops emerged upon contact, essentially getting it stuck to the ground.

And then, as if rubbing salt to the wound, the alfear princess who had flashed away from her previous position by using jungle stride, appeared next to the fallen puppet to then punch it on the head, before it could escape into the ground like the other one earlier.

“Hissss!”, the left gauntlet with which Tessa blasted the head of the puppet away, was dissolved the next second since the puppet managed to release some of its corrosiveness in a try to “die together” with the one who killed it, but it was worth it.

“What, did you think you were the only one who could combine a large variety of attacks at the same time?”, mockingly said the alfear princess as she saw the previously smiling mouths on the angered eyes, getting stiff all of a sudden.

Then further provoking the tree, Tessa extended her left hand and a harmonious looking bright energy condensed around it, to then take the form of a diamond-shaped shield.

“Radiant Cedar Shield…”, not even a second later, a much fiercer bright green light gathered on Tessa’s right hand, which still was cladded in a gauntlet, to then take the form of a long spear.

“Forest Guardian, Piercing Ash Spear”, apparently the “Forest Guardian” part was need to be called out the first time, but after that the alfear princess could shorten it, or in some cases even activate the techniques without any chant.

So now, Tessa was armed with a shield and a spear as well, quite the balanced combination for control, defense and attack, but as good as the previous sounds that wasn’t her aim, but to activate another one of those combination techniques, and she succeeded at it.

“Blooming Spear Forest!”, by stabbing her spear into the ground and sending her bright green energy into the ground, dozens of bright green spots appeared all over the vicinity, a familiar sight for the pitch-black tree, one which made the wary branches had a bad premonition.

As expected, countless bright green energy spears started coming out from the ground, forcing both the reinforced armored and energy branches to fall back, which made Tessa slightly smirk, after all, while branches could retreat, the tree’s main body shouldn’t be able to… right?

Well, the alfear princess was right to a certain extent, based on the capacities that the pitch-black tree had showed so far, that was indeed the case, however the branches which had remained silent until now, suddenly opened their eyes.

At this point, one would believe that, that abomination tree couldn’t get more bizarre, it was a tree with eyes which had mouths with spiked teeth on them after all, but these recently awakened branches beat the previous, their sclerae was completely black, while the pupils of its eyes remained blood red like the other ones.

But while just the change in the color of the sclerae was enough to give those branches a much more eerie vibe, it wasn’t enough to take the tree’s bizarreness to the next level.

What did the trick, was the fact that all the eyes on the trunk of the tree, moved from their previous position, looking as if small animals were moving below the bark of the tree, gathering into a single eye with that black sclerae at the base of the area where the branches were.

“Crack!”, the ground trembled and then the tree… stood up, that’s right, the pitch-black tree broke free from the ground and using its roots which similar to how the wood thorn knight was formed, entangled and combined to form four “legs” with which it jumped into the air, managing to avoid the countless spears which emerged where it was positioned a second ago.

“Booom!”, the technique used by Tessa had strong offensive power and a wide area of effect, but it was shorter lived than the tree from earlier, a couple of seconds later, the energy spears were gone and the tree, safe and heavily landed on the ground, a bit far from where it was originally positioned, before a horizontal slit, appeared at the center of the trunk of the tree, to then open revealing a large mouth with spiked white teeth.

“What, did you think you were the only one that could move during the fight?”, said the pitch-black tree with a really uncomfortable to hear, voice, it was like the sound of nails being scratched on a blackboard combined with some animal’s screeching, but the most annoying part is that the tree, tried to mock the alfear princess, who softly snorted in response.

“So, the real “you” finally couldn’t remain hidden, and here I was thinking I’ll have to get rid of at least one of those two, before you would “grace” us with your presence”, said Tessa.

If it isn’t obvious at this point, those branches whose eyes had black sclerae, are the ones controlling the tree, they are placed where the original consciousness of the “devil parasite” is residing.

Tessa had a guess that such was the case, because in the flashes of information she got from her nature’s memory, that was the area where the parasite first landed, before extending to the rest of tree, so it was quite the “coincidence” that those branches weren’t participating in the fight.

Basically, Tessa did all the previous to force the real enemy to come out, the reason can be divided in two parts, first and formal, Daimon’s golden rule to deal with anything related to system users, don’t go for the real deal until you have ruled out at least a few of the opponent’s tricks, unless of course you are a sure to be able to crush the other party head on.

Also, being completely honest, the alfear princess was actually enjoying this fight, quite a rare thing, since as the responsible one in her small team of two, and given her calm and aloof personality, she isn’t someone to get so “fired up” when facing an opponent.

But she could tell that this wasn’t a negative kind of thing, like losing oneself to violence or anything like that, she felt her fighting spirit soar with every new technique she used instead, it was like getting super motivated, it could be beneficial as long as she kept a clear mind, which was indeed the case, considering how her actions, despite fulfilling her desire to fight in a way which she isn’t used to, still fulfilled a though hidden, important purpose.

“Damn it, you two useless idiots can’t even deal with this low-level bitch related to one of those detestable “bastards”, do you want to be eaten by me or what!”, shouted the tree, which made the wary and angered branches to retort with impossible to decipher sounds.

“Hrshshshs!”, the other branches seemed afraid of that one, so after raising some kind of short complain, they returned to being silent and the main eye of the tree dangerously glared at Tessa to then say.

“Black Death Powder Rain”, feeling danger coming from every direction, the alfear princess grabbed the shield, which was still there though the spear has been used for the previous technique, and injected more energy into it, projecting a barrier around her body.

Just in time for small black mana particles to pour down upon Tessa, they looked like rain drops, but it was actually pollen, released by the pitch-black tree, which corroded everything it touched.

“Hssss!”, Tessa’s defense immediately started releasing smoke and producing sizzling sounds, as the shield defended against the wide area attack, it was working fine keeping the alfear princess safe from the attack, but she knew her shield will go out before the attack ended, and to get out of its range, she would need to basically leave the open area where they were fighting, so she instead decided to get out of the attack’s range, with an attack of her own.

“Forest Guardian, Knockback Hazel Cudgel!”, bright green energy gathered on Tessa’s right hand, forming a large sized wood cudgel which she swung upwards, resulting in a big shockwave, which dispersed all the black mana particles in the vicinity.

“Booom!”, Tessa’s attack created an empty area within the black pollen rain, which lasted enough for it to end, successfully ruining the pitch-black tree’s plain to melt the alfear princess into a puddle of black liquid with a long-lived wide area attack.