Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System
chapter-386-1

Daimon raised his head, during all the tome he has been here, corpses kept falling from the sky, since he confirmed he couldn't see what was past a certain height in Neptune, he decided to give it a try here.

"Well, I don't lose anything trying", mumbled Daimon, his image then flashed as he soared into the sky.

According to Annet if you approach the limit set up in the sky, nothing really happens, you just can't advance past it, besides that even if maximum Stellar ranked experts attack it, the spell goes through it and disappears, the same happens with battle aura.

It took Daimon a lot of uses of blink to reach the limit in the sky, luckily in this dream-like world he didn't use mana or anything, so he didn't get tired no matter what he did.

Daimon then frowned, unlike the real Neptune as soon as he reached a certain height, he felt his body being pressured from above.

"What the hell, was this always here from the very beginning or it was "unlocked" since the rain of corpses started?", wondered Daimon.

Still, he didn't stop and kept ascending until he felt an invisible wall interfering with him, no matter what Daimon tried he couldn't see what was at the other side of it, when he touched it he actually felt as if a huge wight was placed on his body and was forced to descend a few hundreds of meters.

Daimon frowned, but ultimately, he stopped trying and then descended, there was no point in continuing losing time here, he had one last idea but unless it was obligatory, he won't do it.

The dream didn't last long, besides showing Daimon the rain of corpses that were falling from the skies, nothing else happened in it, probably it was only meant to show the fact that the enemies not only took the seas, but the skies as well.

The night went uneventful besides that, once Daimon left that dream he was able to have a good night of rest, since he cuddled with Aisha who was smiling even in her sleep.

…

Soon the moon was replaced by the sun and the morning came to Neptune, today was going to be an important day, it was the third day of the three-art tournament, the last one before it ended.

Daimon didn't see it that way though, he slowly opened his eyes and was welcomed by Aisha's pretty sleeping face, after making sure no one was awake, he gently kissed Aisha and then got up the bed.

He walked towards the bathroom and when he was about to open the door, it was opened from the other side and Liliana came out of it.

"Good morning, Lili", said Daimon as he entered the bathroom.

"Mm, good morning", said Liliana, as soon as Daimon closed the door behind him, she happily smiled and then returned to her bed where Yvonne and Leslie were already waiting for her, since they woke up when she opened the door of the bathroom a second ago, or more accurately when Liliana talked with Daimon.

Leaving that little episode aside, once everyone was ready they went to the dinning room to have breakfast together, Vincent returned later than what he expected, but he brought good news.

Everyone was able to sign the contract, which means at least his four students and their immediate subordinates were clean.

"Well to be honest I expect that the corruption happened on the side of the noble houses generals, since it's easier for the guy behind the Skelefiends and pirates, not to mention it's a two birds one stone situation", said Daimon.

The queen nodded as she took a bit of a toast, her manners were as refined as possible, making a delight for the eyes just to see her eat.

"That reminds me that tomorrow we have a meeting with some of those same noble houses, there are a few marquess level involved but mostly they come from earl level families", she said after she cleaned her lips with a napkin.

Daimon nodded, he didn't expect too much from the nobles involved with Blaktr, it was a place for the black sheep of the families who had money to waste, the low ranked nobles had no money for such vices, while the high ranked ones had to watch out for their image, so instead of going to such places, they have their fun at their own houses… in various ways.

So that only left the middle ranked nobles, who were also an easy target to manipulate, the queen showed her support to the low ranked nobles, in fact she appointed a lot of them, since most were commoners who gained some merits.

The high ranked nobles already had what they wanted, and only sucked up to the ones on the top like the Minister out of convenience, but the middle ranked nobles were ambitious and envied what the high ranked nobles had.

They also saw the queen as an obstacle for their goals, since she had to agree to give every title above earl, while Triten was given a yearly amount of them to grant, but even then, after a trial period of a year, if the queen deemed them unapt they were stripped out of their tittle.

In other words they were the perfect target, with the reasons and means to create waves in the kingdom, they just needed a spark, luckily Daimon found about Blaktr before the Black Wave branch in the kingdom was taken over by the guy scheming behind the scenes.

"Now that I think about it, we have some possible allies in the middle ranked noble houses, miss Annete please try to contact the family heads of the guys that travelled with us back then, I don't know about their parents and elders, but those guys aren't that bad, at the very least they didn't run when death approached them, so they are worthy of having a chance to survive", said Daimon.

Mellie who was drinking from her cup, smiled without letting anyone notice, well anyone but her sister who giggled.

"Sure, I'll give it a chance, they can be our ears in the middle noble houses circle, are you perhaps getting softer with Neptune natives thanks to Mellie~", jokingly said Annete.

"S-Sis what are you saying!", complained Mellie.

Daimon chuckled, he isn't a saint and he doesn't do charity, but certainly there are some people who deserve a chance, and those guys in the face of death instead of cowering decided to step in, even if it meant only giving Mellie a few seconds more of life, they were proud to fulfill their duty.

'Pretty words are easy to say, only actions matter when it comes to the moment of truth, though I'm not one, I don't dislike straightforward people', thought Daimon.

It's the same principle of why Erin was only able to become friends with Aura in her two thousand years of existence within the beast faction, she had other acquittances and even a rival-like relationship with Leena, but to the only one to which she trusted her back, was none other than Aura, that was before she met Aisha and not too much later Daimon of course.

After they had a nice breakfast, Vincent took them to the center of the city, by the time they arrived most of the participants were already there, Daimon could see the different results that the winners of the first rounds brought to the mood in the participants.

The crowned prince was the happiest, he had a first and second position so far, so he was the closes to become the champion, Lance was rather calm, he had a first and a third place, but his goal apparently wasn't winning but surpassing Terry, his team was full of fighting spirit despite the miserable states in which they ended yesterday, it made sense though, those guys were battle maniacs and today's round was a fighting event.

Then you have Ezequiel who had a hatred filled expression on his face, he ended up third and fourth, he was surpassed by the newcomer, of course he was angry, the only thing that seemed to bring tranquility to his life was his strategist who was openly clinging to him.

Lastly there was Walford who was all smiles, he didn't expect to surpass the crowned prince in his debut, but he was happy with having gotten a second and a third place so far, if things went according to the plan, there is even a chance for him to end in the second place, which would increase the prestige of his family, as the neo nobles have been settled in the second of the top three for a long time, and he belongs to one of the founding families.

As if someone had prepared the stage, the four of them turned around at the same time, and their gazes fell on Daimon, but they weren't the only ones, the teams of the sects were the same, since the one who should have been their leader was in that team, not to mention Cassy was there too.

Daimon completely ignored them and just went and took his seat followed by the girls, while the adults left to their respective area.

Not too long later once all the seats were occupied, the gates of the mansion of the city lord opened and the Minister as well as the king and his wives came out of them.

"Welcome to all the guests and heroes of the young generation, I hope you had taken a nice rest because today we have an intense round ahead of us, the long-awaited duel round!".

The words of the Minister increased the expectation of the participants and the spectators equally, Raymond then wave his hand and the portal to the Calm Tri-Lake forest opened.

Just like in previous days everyone followed the turn order and entered through the portal, well almost everyone, Thea remained at Daimon's side all the time, Karmandi and Lina were sent to deal with some administrative matters in the meantime, so she was enjoying her "freedom".

And though the Minister felt as if he was being slapped on the face every time he saw Thea mockingly gazing at him, he endured it and swallowed his complains, since he knew Vincent was just waiting for him to commit a mistake so that he could kick him while he was down.

Today was the turn for the third lake to be the stage for the tournament, following the order, technically this lake was the most dangerous, since they had to wait for the day closest to the harvest of the three-colored water to use it for training purposes.

And that is with the arrays and a limited output in place, the platforms attached in pairs, in the same order that the first two rounds have been using, naturally the four favorites couldn't fight each other, for the sake of the continuity of the tournament, so they were paired with the same teams they have been facing so far.

The Minister left his skybox and then floated in the middle of the three lakes, he cleared his throat and then the whole place went silent.

"Welcome to the third round of the tournament offered by my Arcarius family, let me start by saying I have been impressed by the performance of all the participants, but at the same time it's not good to force one's limits, heroes of the younger generation, always remember fast is not the same as talented".

"That being said, this third round is also different than the one you might be expecting, since this time we have a fourth round where the champion of the beast hunt will participate, also the effect of the Body Tempering lake will be applied to the platforms in use… all the time".

Some of the participants paled when they heard that, the second lake left them a little trauma, that pain they suffered yesterday was still fresh in their memories after all.

"However, don't worry since not everyone will be participating today, this duel will be upheld between the officials of each team, the captains won't participate of course".

The spectators interest was picked, the Minister has been building the mystery around the strength of the top four teams, during the whole event, now a part of it will be revealed, so of course they were excited about it.

"Captains please step out of the platforms and go to the areas assigned to your respective families or forces, the three selected officials stay behind and await instructions".

And with those words the penultimate round of the tournament was about to start.