Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System
chapter-378-3

Daimon looked at the current results and smirked, based on how the four favorites were fairing so far, he had an idea of was going to win this round, which made him lost a lot of interest in the leftover half of the first round.

Though he managed to see some of what Walford could do, the crowned prince, Ezequiel and even Lance, weren't revealing their hands, if anything Lance proved to be a decent commander, but that was already within Daimon's calculations, since he was part of the army.

Daimon came out of his daze, when he heard the alfear princess's voice.

"I just thought about it, but were you the one who sent those guys to spy on us?", she asked with an accusing expression on her pretty face.

Daimon shrugged in response.

"It wasn't me, naturally this kingdom has its own intel net, some of them probably were the subordinates of the queen... speaking of which, you'll be staying with us from now and onwards, I'll tell you two everything once we are back at a safe place".

Tessa nodded, without knowing she'll be getting more than surprised later on, when Daimon tells her about the Global Raid, and the undercurrents that threatened with destroying Neptune.

Back at the lakes, the other participants were finally catching up with the favorites, or at least that's what they thought.

But they weren't the favorites for nothing.

Corey who was the one who used more mana in the team of the crowned prince, approached Terry and, they changed their formation, previously the strategist and the prince were escorted in the middle, but this time they stood one at the front and the other at the back of the group.

"Young master Terry, I'm ready, please do the honors", said Corey.

The crowned prince nodded and then tapped his foot on the ground, a sky blue colored mana then leaked out of Terry's body and then a circular plate made out of mana appeared both in front of Corey and in front of the group.

Corey then punched the plate, which waved a bit, producing a peculiar sound, surprisingly, the second plate in front of the group also vibrated and then, Corey whose eyes were closed shouted.

"The first fifty meters we can run straight in the direction we have right now, then we have to turn to the left, hurry up, the traps seem to move with time!".

After saying that, they whole group started advancing, needless to say but the crowd was excited to see such a creative display of two different innate abilities working together.

Mellie who was sharply observing the team of the crowned prince's new strategy, explained to the others what happened.

"The innate ability of uncle Vincent's family, is called "Water Armament", they can mix water and mana to create temporal reinforced objects, it might sound simple but it's a really strong ability, as they can manipulate them, however they wish... then the people from the Delphini family have the attribute "Vibration", so they can use a short-range sonar of some kind to explore".

"In this case, the prince used his ability to expand the range of that, but not horizontally, but vertically, since their maze is a hidden trap type, the roads are narrow, so they can be perfectly covered by the original range, but the traps hidden below the ground are harder to locate".

Daimon nodded, but he was a bit curious, since Mellie's ability was way different to that, she could create sound explosions, and use the bow of her fickle as a sharp weapon by making it vibrate, not to mention attack the balance of others by using certain frequencies.

But that guy's focus was totally different, his ability had a wide area, but a weaker effect, noticing Daimon's expression, Mellie proudly smiled before saying.

"Sis and me are different, they use vibrations to map and explore and up to some extent they can detect treasures by their "rhythm", that's why our father's studio was full with strange things he found in his trips".

"But we use it for a different thing, our ability has a shorter range, but it's more concentrated than theirs, so we can not only detect but interrupt the "rhythm", our analyze resonance is different, which allow us to memorize the pattern of the rhythm of things, though they differ, the base is the same, that's how sis blocked all the pirates related to Black Beard", confidently said Mellie.

Daimon was still amazed by the ability the queen showed before.

'It sure is good to have her as an ally, instead of an enemy', thought Daimon.

Though the crowned prince's team was the first one to finish changing their formation, the other favorites didn't get left behind.

"Spear of the sea, at my command, formation number 34!", shouted Lance.

"Ohhhh!", the rest of group roared, they started running towards the near mountain, like fierce beasts, making everyone wonder what the hell were those madmen going to do.

And pretty much akin to the reputation of the neo nobles, they did something barbaric.

"Now!", with Lance's signal, every one of them stabbed their spears on the ladder of the mountain and then used the impulse, to propel themselves around thirty meters ahead, not only that, they were all applying mana on the tip of their spears, so that they wouldn't land directly on the mountain, in case there was a trap there.

"What kind of circus act is this!", shouted the Blackfin Duke, making Dominic grin.

"Unlike you, we neo nobles train every day, so far we have developed fifty formations that adapt to 50 different landscapes, those are our pride and honor, 50 bloody battle spear formations", said the general as he laughed out loud.

They had some merit though, none of the members of Lance's team were knights, and yet they had the physical strength and the dexterity to do that, it's a skill that was honed with lots of training.

For Daimon, this reminded him a bit of Gina's fighting style, she used the momentum on her weapon to increase her mobility, though this was just a generic copy of that, since Gina had a genuine mastery of her body, probably due to her snow leopard lineage.

"General Dominic's subordinates are as "unique" as usual, I guess they do have a point in using spears as their symbol, since it's a weapon with a vast range of usages", said the old Minister.

Maybe others could question the methods of the neo nobles, but their results were as amazing as always, leaving those two teams who took the lead, the focus changed to the team of the Arcarius family.

"We might have been in trouble in previous generations, but now, we have mages to make up for it, Susy, create a path of water in front of us, the rest grab my shoulders and hold on, princes this time we'll only need one to use the ability, the other please be on the look for threats".

Walford remained on the front, but this time he didn't create a large wall with ice battle aura, instead of that, taking advantage of the heat that leaked through the floor since they were in a volcanic zone, the mage of their group created a "water slide".

Then Walford's body grew as large pieces of ice attached to him, the rest of the group held on to that, being near to his ice battle aura was perfect as the heat was starting to take a toll on them.

"Ice shell dash!", while it might sound funny, with the mage creating a path ahead, and one of the princes guiding them, Walford only had to become the ride, so after taking some impulse, he threw himself at the ground and then slid frontwards, using the water slide as well as the impulse created by one of the princes.

Basically they found a way to reduce the friction, which made up for one of the princes not using their ability anymore, in this case it was Ryan, as he apparently had mana sense, so he was the one guiding, while his brother was the muscle, not as much as Walford though, the ground in the area was quite irregular, so pieces of his ice shell, were being scrapped with each centimeter, which forced him to replenish it from time to time.

Still it was a good display of teamwork, since unlike back at the sea open area, here they had to be on the look for sudden lava surges, which were way more dangerous and couldn't be as easily dodged by ice spells as the whirlpools that formed at the sea maze.

Right now, the Minister was all smiles, his grandson was demonstrating that he was at the same level of the favorites, especially because the son of the Blackfin Duke was yet to leave the middle spot.

"What the hell do you mean, with "I can't detect the quicksand, as fast as they appear", aren't you an earth mage, just like your brother Roman!", shouted Ezequiel at one of his subordinates.

To be safe, he brought a pair of mages of different elements, enough to cover most situations, water, earth, wind, fire, nature and lastly he and his "secretary", which had darkness affinity.

Back at the first round, he lost one earth, one wind and one fire mages, but he didn't care, since he still had one of each left, so what was the big problem, it's what he thought, but apparently from the pair of brothers who had earth affinity, he lost the one who was more skilled on it.

"I'm sorry young master, sand is an affinity on its own, my older brother is closer to it, that being said I can solidify the quicksand if needed, but we'll have to be careful, since my senses can't penetrate deeper than one meter, if a magic beast or a traps comes for us, then well sink".

Ezequiel felt the urge to curse, he was about to shout at his useless subordinates, when his secretary helped him calm down, by whispering at his ears.

"Don't worry, what contributes the most to the final score is that the strategist and the captain reach the exit first, if you and me make it through, all these idiots can be used as trampolines if needed".

Ezequiel nodded and then shouted orders, his formation didn't change, but he did make some adjustments to the order, first the nature affinity mages will make something to support the floor below their feet using vines, then the earth element mage will prevent them from sinking, while the others were in charge of keeping him and his strategist who was also his favorite partner, safe, so that they could reach the exit.

"Advance, even if you are left behind, don't worry, money, fame and status, I'll grant them to you, the Blackfin family promises!", he shouted, while inwardly he snorted.

'You better work hard to pay for the resources my family has fed you'.

...

As the minutes went by the four favorites were reaching the area near the exit, making the crowd excited, so far their performances were quite different and yet, they were tied, the winner will be decided based in a the slightest details.

To the Blackfin Duke's delight, his son's team, though had reduced in half, was at the head of the race, even ahead of the crowned prince who used to be the in the first position.

"You see that, you madman, that's the difference between efficiency and barbarity", said the Blackfin Duke with a disdainful voice, to which Dominic just offered a toast in response.

"I'm going to enjoy your reaction in the next few minutes, blacky".

Listening to the crowd suddenly going crazy, the Blackfin Duke turned to the origin of such reaction, just to see the neo noble's team who took a deviation, to reach a high hill.

"Formation number 10!", with just those words, all the members of the team formed up in pairs, then their spears connected with each other, to form a large harpoon-like spear of, of which everyone held on, with Lance's spear being the tip of it.

Back at Daimon's skybox, Leslie frowned.

"Are they going to...?".

Daimon leaned back on the couch, as he gave his verdict.

"It's over".

"Spear of unity!", with those words, the whole group jumped out of the hill without a second of hesitation, they became a flash light that led to the exit of the maze.

Practically almost at the same time, the crowned prince and Lance's team reached the exit, but the first platform to open its exit was... Lance's one.

"Ohhhhh!", the crowd went crazy, though the results needed to be calculated, at least the winner was decided, why, because Lance didn't lose any of his teammates and he arrived first, unless the judges were blind, there is no "but" that could be used to disparage their victory.