Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System
chapter-544

"Here", Daimon gestured at Daphne so she held onto his shoulder, whatever was alarmed due to all the noise made by those three idiots, was quite fast.

Daphne didn't stop in the ceremony and directly grabbed Daimon's arm, which Daimon didn't mind, instead he used blink to flash three times from where they were previously sanding to the base of the giant mountain-like wall ahead of them.

Without letting go of Daimon's arm, Daphne looked downwards to the area where she fought earlier, the ground shook for a moment before a large bone hand came out from below.

The ground split apart to reveal a three-meter-tall creature made out of bones which clearly didn't belong all to the same creature, it was basically a mass of walking bones, which was powered by something Daimon and Daphne also, easily recognized, nether.

Daphne's pretty eyes gazed at Daimon who then said.

"That isn't a Nethereal nor a Skelefiend, but an undead, it's something that can be found back at the four galaxies from where I come, one of the many artificial undead races, a bone golem".

How could Daimon not know about it, since bone golems were the prototype for race to which Horals originated, the bone general, of course in terms of strength, quality and potential, a bone golem can't hold a candle in front of a bone general.

But it is understandable, since bone golems are set to be only around the six to the ninth star realm, unable to ever advance like all the artificial undead, meaning that they can never reach the Lord rank.

So, you might wonder why such a weak creature made Daimon leave in a hurry, to not be detected by it, the answer is pretty simple, that wasn't the only thing that was arriving at where they were.

From a large patch of petrified trees, a second different creature came out, this one also looked quite strange, since it had no skin, some parts of its body had the bones exposed but the vast majority has flesh over it, unlike the bone golem, this one was actually alive.

But instead of a heart, it had a mass of nether beating in its chest, or at least that's what Daimon's infinity eyes showed him.

"Where are the intruders, you better not have eaten them you sack of useless bones, otherwise I'll consume you!", shouted the newcomer with a guttural voice.

"Hehehe, why are you fighting among yourselves when there is no prey here, they probably escaped after being injured due to internal conflict", a suggestive voice came the "ground", or that seemed to be the case, before a puddle of a black substance emerged from the rocks to then turn into a feminine looking creature that seemed to be made of black mist.

Daimon frowned, the third creature also had nether being used to sustain its existence, but on her case, it was attached to the skin, the way nether was used on the three creatures was too different to belong to the same faction.

He already had his suspicions due to the inconsistence of the assassination order put for Jasmine when she hadn't been born yet, and earlier he more or less confirmed the fact that… there was more than one high ranked Nethereal.

How did he confirmed it you ask, the hero had Nethereals at his side including that Garrius guy who is supposedly the highest ranked Nethereal being a "Representative" the rank right below a Lord, and also the only Nethereal with memories prior to having appeared in Neptune, at least according to Akim.

But then the Chailioudus ruler wasn't with them, but with Abaris and just like Thea suspected, that guy also had traces of nether on him, though it was different to the first cases Daimon has seen, it was more similar to the nether that Karla had.

That meant there were at least three Lords among the Nethereals, two of them possibly being the fathers of Jasmine and Sarah who at this point was safe to assume cooperated with Abaris to a certain extent, and then there was the one behind Garrius who had some sort of deal with Ereth and Karla.

And then as if things weren't complicated enough, a rock near those three, exploded and a figure came out along with a stream of high-pressured water, the figure was revealed to be a humanoid fish-looking creature, it looked similar to what magic beast that take a temporary human form would look like.

'A primitive merman of some sort…', is what Daimon thought the latest to the party looked like.

Apparently, no one else was coming, because once the four of them were gathered at the place, the hostilities started.

"Sack of bones and disgusting lump of meat, you two arrived first, hand over the visitors or die", demanded the primitive merman.

"A walking fish is acting so brave on an earth domineering environment, I guess it's true that stupidity is passed down through beast's bloodlines", disdainfully said the black mist covered feminine figure.

"Shut up, don't think we have forgotten about you whores attacking our caravan and taking our guests away", shouted the merman as he released his mana pressure, which made the other two creatures join hands to counter it.

In terms of realm, the strongest here was the primitive merman, being at the peak of the early-stage Lord realm, the flesh creature and the mist covered creatures were both at the early stage of the initial Lord realm and then the bone golem was at the ninth star realm, so to deal with the merman they actually had to join hands to fight in a 3v1 situation.

However, one's realm isn't everything in a battle, Daimon has been observing his surroundings and the amount of water mana in this place is extremely thin, while darkness, death, fire, poison and other elements in the negative side of the specter were quite abundant.

It wasn't to the point where the atmosphere will grant a boost, like back at Kerrol, but the merman will be at disadvantage at the long term.

'Should I wait and then interrogate the winner, or should I just kill three and leave one alive, the merman looks the like the obvious choice, but then wasn't the hero allied to the Mermen Sea back then…', thought Daimon to then return to reality as he heard the mist covered feminine figure saying.

"What taking away, I simply offered them a more "tempting" deal which they couldn't resist, at least the majority of them, there were some weirdos who resisted and even killed a few of us so we had to join hands to capture them, besides isn't it your sea race's fault for not assigning enough people to protect them, we live in a very dangerous place after all~".

Daimon felt as if he was hit by a lightning out of the blue, he looked into his inventory and then took out the sigil lector which he modified with the magic technology of the mirror plate, the thing immediately started looking for a match with the signals stored in its data bank, and not even a few seconds later a few images appeared on the screen of the sigil lector.

The images were the following, a brown colored dune with the head of a coyote on top of it, a red winged cyclone, a green pond with a tree on its center, a yellow sun with a cross and lastly a grey sword over pointing upwards.

Daphne felt the aura around Daimon changing for a second, before he returned to normal, which made her look at him with a worried expression on her pretty face, she has gotten to know Daimon quite a bit after the time they had spent together, even if she isn't talkative for obvious reasons, Daphne is a good observer and the occasions where she has seen Daimon being angry are really scarce and all ended in tragedy for the other party.

Seeing the worry in those pretty light blue eyes, Daimon smiled and then said.

"It's fine, it seems we have found ourselves a "shortcut", I'll be back in a second", Daphne nodded as she saw Daimon jumping downwards.

…

Back at the ground, the four creatures have been fiercely fighting against each other, the primitive merman used his claws to shatter the bones of the bone golem and ripped one of the arms of the flesh creature, but the mist covered feminine figure left some scratch on his body which had started to infect the nearby scales.

"Today, I'll eat fried fish for dinner and gain a new arm!", shouted the flesh creature as it rushed towards the primitive merman, who snorted and then gathered mana in front of him to shot a clear stream of water.

The bone golem jumped in front of it and blocked the attack, the bones shattered more, but the nether flame in its skull lit up and the cracks closed in a matter of seconds, though the bone golem had many disadvantages, it had the ability to regenerate its bones as long as they weren't utterly destroyed and the soul fire didn't extinguish, so they were basically efficient meat shields.

The mist covered figure emerged behind the merman and aimed at its neck, but then a huge pressure fell from above interrupting the fight.

"Booom!".

"Aghhhh!".

A thunderous sound followed by a miserable scream echoed through the area, when the curtain of dust that was raised by the impact, was dispersed, the image of a masked silver haired youth whose foot was pressing the head of the mist covered woman, against the ground was revealed, there were some dim white flames covering his foot, that got more active whenever the woman tried to move, which were the origin of the high-pitched screams.

"What the hell are you…", the flesh creature was about to demand Daimon to release the mist covered figure, when the bone golem exploded in white flames being reduced to ashes in a matter of seconds, and that wasn't all, the flesh creature looked downwards just to see a black sword piercing his chest.

The guy didn't even have a chance to scream before he was deprived from all its vitality, and became a dried mummy just to break down into fine dust the next second, everything in less than a minute.

Daimon then looked at the merman before saying.

"You, describe the "guests" you mentioned", he casually used Demon Light to burn the thing below his foot, which made the merman be wary of the silver haired youth, but then, he noticed that they were now surrounded by a ring of those white flames which killed the bone golem instantly, something he couldn't do.

"How can I be sure that you won't attack me when you hear my answer, they didn't seem to be in good terms with each other, so you might be their enemy which will make you my enemy too?", asked the merman, despite its appearance it was fully rational, unfortunately Daimon was not in the mood to dialogue with him.

"You can be sure that I will kill you if you don't give me an answer, also I assure you she won't lie when I ask her so think twice if you are even considering on lying", said Daimon as he increased the output of his Demon Light burning more of the mist that was covering the feminine figure.

The merman thought about it for a couple of seconds before sighing and then saying.

"There were a bunch of them, but the ones in which I ended up in good terms were just a small group, to be honest all humans look similar to me but one of them was especially hard to forget, it was tall for a human and had brown hair, according to the members of my clan that managed to hold until we arrived, that guy was the one that stood up and fought alongside us, so while we don't even know his name, my clan has a debt of gratitude with him".

"I see… you, tell me where do you keep your captives", said Daimon to the previously fully mist covered figure, which was now revealed to be a pale skinned woman below the mist which was burned by Daimon's Demon Light.

"I'll talk, please make it stop!!!", shouted the woman, which Daimon did, as soon as the flames returned to Daimon's body since the body of the woman was no longer covered by that black mist, the exposed parts dried and withered as if they had aged thousands of years in a second.

The woman whose face was still covered by the mist gave Daimon a hatred filled glare, but then seeing those terrifying flames appearing on the sole of his feet which was still stomping on her neck, made her answer immediately.

"They are alive, my family is one of the leaders of the nest where the group to which that guy who resisted is held captive, so if you take me as hostage for negotiating you might be able to free them".

"Don't believe her human, every nest of those whores has at least one peak Lord stage existence guarding the fort, she just wants to take you into a trap, if you are that person's friend then join us to lunch an assault on their nest", said the primitive merman just to see Daimon shaking his head.

"No thanks, I don't have time to waste, so I'll directly go, besides she didn't seem to be lying about the hostage exchange, so her clan must value her life", he said.

The merman thought about it for a second before ultimately nodding.

"According to the clan rules if I can't convince you I must accompany you, I might not be as strong but I can at least hold some of them of, so allow me to go with you… the one who held onto his life to tell us what happened was my older brother, I must honor his memory by helping his benefactor".

Daimon shrugged in response, with a native ally guiding them they will be able to avoid dangerous places.

"Do you have a way for us to move at a fast continuous speed?", he asked, using blink all the way wasn't realistic, who knows how far it was and his mana with not be able to take him there.

"Even in this cursed land, there are small water streams, we'll be there in less than an hour if we use them as our transportation mean".

"Let's go then", said Daimon, he grabbed the woman by her neck, all the areas that weren't covered by black mist had deteriorated at this point, but the woman didn't dare to complain and Daimon didn't care.

The two of them then jumped to climb the wall, along the way Daimon reunited with Daphne which to the merman surprise, gave off a somewhat "familiar" sensation which he couldn't pinpoint.

With the primitive merman who was called Razer, they climbed the giant mountain-like wall quite easily, avoiding parts that easily could have separated from the mountain causing them trouble.

Once they reached the peak of the wall, Daimon finally got a good picture of the place where the global raid was happening.

And that wasn't all, the unmistakable sound of a notification echoed in his mind as a screen appeared in front of him.

[Ding]

[Congratulations on making it to the start of the global raid, the first part of the event has been unlocked (The challenges will not be counted if the participant dies, and the team who kills a participant that has completed a challenge will gain that score, the scores will be calculated based on the team leader with the highest result):

[Challenges available: 20]

[Challenges completed: 0/20]

[Remaining time: 72 hours (starting now)]

[As a team leader you can share this screen with your teammates, do you wish to do so Y/N]

Daimon was lost in his thoughts for a second, he could bring twenty people with him, but he didn't find enough incomplete emblems, not to mention he didn't have that many people to come with him, but apparently the number of challenges didn't diminish, it's just that less people will have to do them.

He of course clicked "yes" and then dismissed the notification to observe the landscape in front of him, they were on top of a rock formation, but at the other side of it, there wasn't the face of a mountain as it appeared to be, no, the internal part of the mountain was actually a giant skill with multiple eye sockets, a familiar sight for Daimon as he has seen something similar in those dreams before.

And that wasn't all, there was a varied landscape as the layout of this place seemed to be divided in four, a sea of clean blue water, a desert filled with giant withered bones, a forest which seemed to be made out of flesh and lastly a completely black land where the light faded.

"Those women live in the lightless area, we are from middle ranked clans so we should arrive at her nest in a couple of hours, if we go through a secret route, with her help we should arrive in less than an hour", said Razer.

Daimon nodded and then turned to see the woman.

"Call your mother and tell her to open up a path for us to negotiate, if I feel the slightest trap, I will burn something", he said.

The woman trembled remembering those white flames, under Daimon's supervision, she was allowed to use some sort of communication device and then the group started advancing in the direction that the woman was given by her mother.

Daimon naturally took a moment to confirm that there was no trap, with the help of Rita's senses, only after that, the group started advancing in direction to the lightless area.