Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System - Chapter 703

Chapter 703: Challenges, Dwarf Princess version (part 1)
That being said, Tessa didn’t leave the stage yet, with her chest slowly going up and down as she calmed down her breathing, she was lost in her thoughts as she inspected her own status.

“That las technique, it drew more energy than what I instinctively felt it would…”, mumbled the alfear princess.

Slowly, almost artistically the intricate smooth wood armor covering her body, started crumbling apart, because the technique had reached its end, in fact the same happened to the giant energy cage and even to the enlarged body of the emerald vine python as well.

This resulted in a pretty ethereal scene, since they all slowly decomposed into green light particles that raised into the sky, quite the amazing sight to be honest, to the point that Tessa couldn’t help but softly smile, feeling a calm but strong sensation of peace in her heart.

And before she noticed, a wisp of fierce bright green flames had started burning in her right eye, a slightly pained frown flashed through the pretty face of Tessa, but it didn’t last even for a fraction of a second, before her body was embraced by a warm and kind silver light which willingly entered the green flame burning in her right eye, instantly easing her expression.

“Nature Shrine”, mumbled the alfear princess without she noticing, then behind of her, the image of an ancient worn-out wood building, condensed out of the energy particles that were being released into the world, which by all means shouldn’t be usable for anything, since they had fulfilled their purpose after being used to power their respective techniques.

Despite the elegant and calm aura radiated by the building in question, the truth is that its appearance made it look as if it had been devastated by a war, most of the shrine had burnt and cut marks.

But then among all that black burnt destruction, a tinge of vibrant life became visible, as the vine whip which contained the consciousness of the wood thorn knight, flew towards Tessa, diving into the image floating behind of her.

“What is going on…”, mumbled Tessa who had regained her consciousness a second ago, just in time to see the vine whip enter that strange manifestation, now imagine her expression, when a “fence” made out of vibrant green vines appeared in the front yard of the shrine.

Once again, without she actively doing so, her pretty lips opened and a sentence whose meaning was unknown to her, came out of her mouth.

“Spirit Calling”, Tessa’s voice was soft and gentle, like a breeze in a comfortable day of spring, however the effect caused by them was quite different to it, wisps of black light emerged from the area where the second tree had died earlier, to then fly into the shrine’s image.

Contrary to what one would expect, that black mana not only didn’t add even more gloominess to the image of the burnt down shrine, which had just been invigorated thanks to the appearance of the green vine fence, but the result was even more on the positive side.

Under Tessa’s pretty eyes, a third of the destruction marks on the shrine turned into black particles which gathered at the right side of the shrine, condensing into a gray withered looking tree sapling, which despite its appearance had leaves and was perfectly healthy, that was just how it looked.

‘I see, this is what happened to the giant tree, it’s just that I can see and actively participate in the process this time, that means I passed my challenge…’, thought the alfear princess whose eyes got sleepy out of a sudden.

Still, before she closed them, a thin black mist gathered in front of her left one, though it only lasted for a second, her body was covered in layers of black and bright green energy, forming something akin to a rose bud which then sank into the ground.

All the trees in the vicinity, which were freed from the control of the devil tree parasite, trembled before they started making their branches clash, not as in they started fighting, it was more akin to “clapping” since they weren’t damaging each other for a change, after that, each tree used one of its branches to cover the area where Tessa was resting, forming a strong barrier, they clearly were protecting her right now.

…

And now we can actually leave Tessa’s battlefield aside for a moment, but don’t worry, she stays relevant because the next one, is her best friend’s one, the rather unrefined Dwarf princess’s one to be accurate, let’s go back in time just a couple of minutes.

Femi whose fight was the first one to start, had been flashing around trying to properly land an attack on her enemies, just to be frustrated by the branches of the trees in the vicinity interfering at the last second.

Which allowed those two nethereals, the slim one with dark pink hair and the tall and buff one with dark red eyes, to shoot nether arrows and thrust that black spear at her, respectively.

That being said, Femi’s heavy metal energy had turned a large area of the battlefield into a shredded mess, sure the branches of the trees got in her way, but she ripped the trees that messed with her, to shreds in response, not to mention that those guy’s attacks didn’t manage to pierce through her metal energy armor… at all, if anything they left “scars” of different size and depth on her shapeless energy clad, but she had not suffered any wound so far.

So, despite her fight having been going on for a bit more than her teammate’s ones, they were in a stall, unfortunately what the enemies wanted to happen, in other words, wearing Femi out so that they could easily take her down, didn’t happen, because she wasn’t using wide area attacks, all her energy was concentrated around her body, she only expanded it or contracted it at will, depending on the situation, so her consumption was minimal, a little trick she learned thanks to Aisha’s flexible fighting style.

“Clang!”, an energy arrow coming from the right and a stream of solid black nether coming from the left were smacked away by the dwarf’s princess hands, producing metallic clashing sounds.

“Damn it, why doesn’t she look tired in the slightest, we have been coordinating with the trees to!”, cursed the violent faction nethereal.

“She is just a brute, that’s why I wanted to go deal with the other girl, I bet my fight would have been over by now, and we could easily crush this bitch with that so called “general” or whatever”, added the lust faction nethereal, which made Femi mockingly laugh for a second as she landed on the ground after blocking those attacks.

“What’s so funny!”, angrily exclaimed the tall nethereal, to which the dwarf princess casually said.

“It’s just that I listened to your friend running his mouth without knowing what he is talking about, I don’t blame him though, superficial fools always confuse Tessa’s calm nature with weakness, when the truth is that in nine out of ten times, her fights end before mine”.

“Nonsense, that tree-loving bitch might even hesitate to cut the enemy lord Marcus specially prepared for her, Shattering Devil Fall!”, the spear wielding tall nethereal flashed from his previous position, appearing above Femi to then thrust his black spear at the dwarf princess, releasing a pillar of black nether that descended upon Femi.

“Boooom!”, the dwarf princess directly punched the incoming martial art with her right fist, producing a thunder-like sound followed by a violent clash of energies, of course Femi didn’t stay still, because she isn’t fighting one enemy, but three of them.

“Deceitful Arrow Rain”, with an “elegant” voice, the lust faction nethereal, whose body had disappeared from plain sight, the moment Femi was occupied with clashing with the tall nethereal, called out his spell.

Like before, that guy’s voice seemed to come from every direction and his attack was the same, countless black-pink nether arrows suddenly surrounded the dwarf princess, who was about to get out of the way since the spear wielding tall nethereal was going to use another martial art.

“Humph”, softly snorting at the tricks the enemy was trying to pull, Femi ignored the threat of the hundreds of arrows and casually flashed through the wide area attack, making continuous “clinking”, sounds to echo through the battlefield.

‘Did she just fucking jump straight into my attack without a second of hesitation!’, inwardly cursed the lust nethereal, angered that his trick was seen through.

The truth is that the vast majority of those nether arrows were just light illusions with a bit of nether to give off a dangerous aura, at the same time the real dangerous ones were hidden within the fake arrows, the look and feel the same, but the attack power of the spell is concentrated in those, it’s an attack that combines strength and deceit.

But then, Femi ignored the countless arrows which were blocking her path and forced her way through the enemy’s attacks, the interesting part is that she perfectly avoided the really dangerous arrows, which made the lust nethereal see red, Femi’s energy clad had expanded to around ten meters with her as the center a second ago, but now it was all concentrated in less than two centimeters.

“What the hell are you waiting for, turn her into a damn sieve already!”, ordered the lust nethereal, to the violence nethereal who was gathering nether for a stronger attack, you might wonder why would the lust nethereal direct Femi’s attention to the one who was in the process of preparing a strong martial art, instead of towards himself and the reason is simple, he had the support of the trees to get in Femi’s way.

As expected, branches with black and red bone thorns came from all directions, swarming the dwarf princess to create a perfect window of opportunity for the spear wielding nethereal.

But then just as Femi was about to expand and sharpen her energy clad to cut through the incoming branches, they suddenly started trembling midair, out of nowhere the branches “withered” and all the black and red bone thorns burned to ashes in a second.

“What!”, the lust nethereal nearly had a heart attack as he saw the previous, while Femi smiled to her insides, her body exploded in dark metallic gray light as she flashed from her previous position, to then appear next to the violent nethereal, at his left side to be more accurate.

As straightforward and ruthless as Femi appears to be, she is not dumb in the slightest, in fact contrary to her persona, the elegant and knowledgeable Tessa wouldn’t be sure to win against her friend in a battle of wit, that being said, she prefers much direct methods, which is why she comes of as a simple-minded girl instead.

“Watch out!”, shouted the lust nethereal, but he was a tad too slow and now, a perfect chance to take advantage of the previous presented itself, because Femi appeared at the non-dominant side of the violent faction nethereal, and before he could stop channeling battle aura into his spear, Femi who concentrated all her energy clad into her right hand, punched at his left shoulder.

“Crack!”, first, a loud shattering sound echoed through the air, as the dwarf princess’s small fist when compared to the broad shoulder of the nethereal, landed on his shoulder, making his arm was instantly bend inwards, crushing his bones and flesh, to the point that the area of contact was… flattened, in fact Femi’s fist reached the enemy’s ribs after destroying the arm, and also broke a few of them.

“Ackkkkk!”, naturally the violence faction nethereal, was forced to scream due to pain, but as someone used to war and well, fighting in general he immediately released all the nether he was channeling into his spear in order to counter-attack.

“Booom!”, the violent nether battle aura of the enemy exploded in every direction, trying to blast away the dwarf princess, luckily for the nethereal, Femi indeed retreated due to the previous, unfortunately she was completely unscathed because she had distributed her energy clad evenly like before, thus blocking the impact, while being forced backwards.

“Devil Blinding Arrow!”, of course the lust nethereal, wasn’t as stupid as to not notice that something was wrong with the trees and cast a quick spell to disrupt the enemy, in order to buy some time for his companion to reunite with him.

And so, a bright neon pink energy arrow exploded above, creating a blinding wave of light that engulfed everything around Femi.

“Humph!”, it didn’t last long though, because the dwarf princess used her metal energy clad to tear through the blinding light bomb, ending the effect, revealing the current state of the enemies.

The lust nethereal was fine, besides the clear anger that was burning in his eyes as he glared at Femi, it was of course caused by the fact that her words about Tessa ending her fights before her, turned out to not be a bluff.

“The trees are not listening, so what, this doesn’t prove anything!”, shouted the lust nethereal, to which Femi simply shrugged.

“It doesn’t matter, regardless of the reason, the truth stays that you lost your field advantage”, she said to then add.

“So how about you stop playing around, you have that trick up your sleeve right, changing forms whatever it means”.

The expression on those two’s faces was truly worth seeing right now, even the volent nethereal who was channeling battle aura to cover his arm in a try to heal the wound, only for sparks to be produced as his battle aura clashed with Femi’s metal energy, had the words “How the hell does she know about that!”, written all over his face.

“Don’t tell me you nethereals have such a poor educational system that you don’t you know that there are metals in one’s bones”, casually added the dwarf princess, which made the violent nethereal grit his teeth.

After closing his eyes for a second, his right hand exploded in dark red nether, which he then used to… chop his own arm from the base, the reason is simple, Femi’s metal energy had invaded his bones through his wounds and was messing with his arm.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t recover, but it was a risk since the enemy could exploit said invasion to create an opening, so he got rid of all the affected area, very much against his wishes.

“Lord Marcus has mysterious ways, I’m sure he’ll help you regenerate that, or even better, he might give you a stronger one”, said the lust nethereal as he shot a wisp of dark pink nether to his companion, right on the base of his shoulder.

That was of course meant to block the pain, because lust nether has the capacity to trick one’s mind, it didn’t eliminate the capacity of the violence nethereal to feel, just the pain was blocked, the reason is that he condensed his battle aura which had grown fiercer, into a temporary arm to continue with the fight.

And in case you wonder why was Femi not attacking, a smirk on her pretty face, followed by the lust nethereal’s expression visibly souring, was the answer.

“Tsk”, the previous reaction was caused by the fact that Femi didn’t charge at them, even though there was a clear “opportunity” there, it was a trap, because invisible to the eye, there was a dark pink barrier surrounding those two.

Femi instinctively felt that there was “something blocking not only in front of the enemies, but all the area around them, which is why she didn’t charge at them, also she now released a few thin waves of her energy, which stopped before reaching those two, effectively revealing that something Femi instinctively noticed.

Now that the whole trap was deemed useless, the lust nethereal stopped holding back and the image of a black bone altar with a giant skull in its center appeared behind of him.

Unlike the altar used by the devil tree general, the bones on this one had dark pink stripes in some of them, also the design was much more “refined”, but the differences didn’t stop at physical level.

The lust nethereal had it easier when compared to the devil tree general, he didn’t need to catch his sacrifice, instead he looked into his pocket and took out a dark pink crystal that looked rather pretty, but made Femi slightly wrinkle her nose.

“Disgusting”, directly said the dwarf princess, that crystal was an agglomeration of life… blood and flesh and not from random people, no, all of that was radiating lust nether.

In other words, that crystal was created through a ritual that used corpses from other lust nethereals, whose sealing locations were of course leaked to Marcus by the guy in front of Femi.

Apparently, the ritual that the lust nethereal was going to use was different when compared to the one of the devil tree general, too, because the giant skull wasn’t the one receiving the “offering” this time, the dark pink crystal flew out of the hand of the nethereal and landed on the altar.

“Forbidden Desire Devil Altar!”, the lust nethereal called out the name of the ritual spell, which was indeed different than the one used by the devil tree general, the crystal started glowing and cracked, releasing the energy contained inside of it, which created four wisps of pink flames, one at each of the four corners of the altar.

“Forbidden Desire Devil Sacrifice”, the flames flew into the giant skull, whose jaw trembled, pink flames burned in its eye sockets as the thing… spoke.

“Speak, what do you want in exchange for your offering”, said the skull while dangerously looking at the lust nethereal.

‘According to lord Marcus the origin of the term “forbidden desire” in the ritual spell he granted me, refers to the fact that if asked for something that is worth more than the offered sacrifice, the altar will… kill the caster instead’, thought the nethereal to then gaze at Femi as he said.

“Give me something to suppress strong close combat specialized enemies with metal affinity”, the lust nethereal clenched his hands, he was playing with his life here, because who knew what the limit of the “credit” he had, was, if the altar deemed his petition to be too much, he’ll be the one to die.

“The deal is acceptable”, and with those words, the pink flames on the four corners of the altar were consumed and the skull shot a black and pink stream of light towards the lust nethereal.

“Ack!”, the sudden torrent of nether which entered his body, made the netheral grit his teeth, his upper body lit up in pink flames which condensed into armor the next second.

“Lust Flame Devil Armor, perfect for dealing with metal affinity enemies, the transaction had concluded”, said the skull on the altar before it turned into black particles that dispersed into the air.