Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System

Chapter 578: Challenges Thea’s version (part 14)

Following the sweet sound of the notification, Daimon's eyes glowed behind his mask as he saw the message displayed by the system.

[The mission "Stealing from the devil", has been updated <!>]

Daimon gazed at the notification symbol and the change that happened was displayed below of it.

[Objectives:

[Steal the legacy left to help the Devil Ruler 20% à 50% (0/1)]

Daimon couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, as usual it was hard to discern what fulfilled the conditions of the "hidden gems" and "legacies", back then this specific legacy progressed when he ripped those pages out of the Ryner clan's head diary, but considering all he learned now, those pages were probable left behind by whoever possessed Thalia's body.

And now, the progression rate advanced out of nowhere, perhaps it was because he learned the true behind that, or because he got Thalia to willingly reveal herself to him.

'Well, considering there is a chance that I had to let that crazy girl drink the poison directly from my claws for the other legacy, I guess this isn't that bad', thought Daimon before he returned to real life when he felt Thalia's intense gaze on him, he hadn't answered to her introduction after all.

'Ahem, you can call me Daimon, it's a pleasure', he said, only then Thalia's expression relaxed again.

'…', an awkward silence reigned for a second, before Thalia whose projection was floating a few centimeters above the ground, made a couple of turns around Daimon.

It was obvious that she was curious about his system, considering she somehow learned how to detect users, which was a really valuable skill yes, but it could also be a curse, according to Joanna, as those who knew or were close to system users were bound to both fortune and disasters.

'So, how is uncle's family doing?', asked Thalia, ultimately choosing not to pry into the subject of Daimon's system, for now at least, also she looked like a completely different person, to the point that it was hard to believe that this girl was about to use a suicide attack a moment ago, perhaps it's because she wasn't in a defensive stance for the first time in who knows how many years.

'Uncle?', Daimon raised an eyebrow, based on her speech and appearance, as well as the short explanation she gave earlier, it seemed like Thalia was indeed mentally younger than what both he and Thea guessed, specially if she was referring to Ryner when she said "uncle".

'I mean Ryner… he was the one who found me and took care of me after I first escaped from that scum of Dorian, considering you have the Neris's Knighthood stigma, it means that at least one talented royal has appeared among his descendants, right?'.

Her words raised more questions than answers, but given the genuine worried expression she put, Daimon decided to leave them for later and instead answer her.

'Ryner has been long gone, but his clan prospered until this day and there is indeed someone that can be considered a member of your race currently alive, the first one so far, though her lineage is still incomplete considering she can't change into beast form like you'.

A tinge of sadness flashed through Thalia's eyes, but she composed herself in no time, she probably knew that it was going to be near impossible for Ryner and those she knew back then, to remain alive until now, but she was also happy to learn that they got to live their lives apart from the chaos from back then, because they got strong enough to protect themselves.

'That's good… it was a shame that I couldn't give Ryner the space affinity from my lineage, as it was restricted for women, but based on that fang you got there, he managed to find his way around of it at the end of the day', she mumbled to then change to a lighter subject.

'Still, what's this "incomplete" lineage you are talking about, since she was able to stablish a Knighthood Pact with you, then she is a Neris royal through and through, but I can imagine what the problem is, since at Neptune the only place where I was able to absorb enough space mana particles was next to that space rift', she said.

'I guess that explains why this place was chosen for her challenge', thought Daimon, just to hear Thalia add.

'If you came all the way to this remote place, then it must be related to your system, right, what are you going to do now?'.

'I am going to destroy this place and then deal with the imposter, speaking of which do you know who stole your identity?', said Daimon, answering her question with one as well.

Unfortunately, Thalia shook her head in response.

'No idea, the only thing she said when she took my body over was that I messed with her plans, so she was an ally of Dorian, another system user perhaps', she said to which Daimon also shook his head.

'The four system users that participated on the war from back then, all died, well one of them kind of returned recently, but he is a guy and I'm pretty sure the other ones are dead', he said.

Ereth and the first Matriarch of the Light Palace, were the victors of the battle from back then, since Ereth survived and got the bonus reward of going to Kerrol, then the Hydra guy in other words Dorian and the guy who tricked Snakele's followers who was probably in cahoots with the Nethereals back then, were killed by those two as the last part of their own missions.

Ereth fought Dorian and considering how much of a pain in the ass, that guy is, it's hard to imagine him letting Dorian escape from his grasp, especially since he was already really wounded by Thalia prior to their fight.

In fact, that fight with Ereth was probably the reason as to why Dorian was so obsessed with obtaining Thalia, he knew he was no match for the hero without a realm ignoring advantage such as her especially strong space affinity.

And if another system user would have appeared in Neptune, he or she would have reigned over one of the major forces for sure and there were no signs of it, not to mention their traces would have been found through the missions generated through the opportunities Daimon stole from those two, so it was safe to assume that there hadn't been any other system users in Neptune since those four.

'You said that the "summoning circle" is a degraded version of the array Dorian had engraved on his chest, right?'.

'Mm, yeah, even if I die, I won't forget how the thing that dragged me away from my room, looked like', she said.

'Since that array appeared here, then it must have been drawn by someone who knew about Dorian's system and had the knowledge to recreate it, not to mention someone who has no problem surviving a cunning bastard like Ereth, I can only think on Dorian's administrator staying behind to cause troubles', said Daimon to Evangeline.

'Mm, that sounds plausible, however she had no reason why, if she survived then she wasn't in a life and death contract with her host, meaning he wasn't as compatible as possible with him, as such there is no obvious reason for her to go through all this trouble'.

'Not to mention that even if she obtained a temporary physical vessel and used its powers, instead of her own, just to remain here, the origin she had accumulated would still diminish with the pass of the time, cutting her connection with original abilities', mumbled Evangeline.

Unlike Karla who though also didn't have a life and death contract with her user, meaning that their bond wasn't exactly deep, still had a reason to stay behind, since her user was still alive though separated from her and as a former hero system user, there was a big chance for a huge comeback from Ereth.

But Eve couldn't think of a reason to remain in a relatively low ranked placed and even spend so many years trapped inside a dimensional rift, when it was easier to just start over… and it was then when a realization hit her like a truck, but the moment the thought of speaking about it flashed in her mind, the screen of the system appeared in front of her, forcing her to swallow her words.

Despite the anger that surged in her heart, Evangeline took a deep breath and instead limited to say.

'She isn't like that fragmented siren you fought before, goal-wise she is dangerous, be careful'.

Daimon's eyes glowed behind his mask, Evangeline's playful attitude only dimmed down when there was a really serious matter, she wanted to discuss with him but was unable to, due to the restrictions of the system, that was a mutual understanding agreement they had, also she took pride in Daimon being a monster among his peers, so if she told him to be careful in a serious way, then it was for a good reason.

'Got it, thanks Eve', said Daimon.

'Mm', with a soft sound, Evangeline softly smiled and then returned to sleep… not without glancing at the feather pendant in which the angel girl lived, to then sent Ariel a message only she could hear.

Leaving that aside, Thalia who seemed to have finished pondering about something before saying.

'Did you enter the Knighthood Pact with Ryner's descendant… due to a mission?', to which Daimon shook his head in response.

'Not exactly, while a mission was indeed involved in our encounter, I didn't know approach her for that, in fact I didn't know she was part of my mission when we met and I consider her to be my friend', he said.

Thalia thoroughly studied Daimon's expression and words and ultimately nodded, convinced that he wasn't lying, before she pointed at the still passed out receptionist and the woman from the Black Spirit race to then say in a voice everyone could hear this time.

"What are you planning to do with them?".

"I will obtain information from the woman in charge of the experiments and then will dispose of her, as for the other one, I have a younger member of her race in my group, so she'll be spared for now", said Daimon.

The receptionist wasn't similar to Zia in the aspect that she met the requirement to become a special terror contracted, but she'll be a decent servant and since she was the strongest member of Zia's race, she'll be of use in that aspect and there is room for improvement for her as a terror contracted, just look at Celia.

As for the woman from the Black Spirit race, it's not like Daimon was going to get rid of her because of her experiments, she was too obsessed with the fake Thalia, as she ignored her life in order to inform her of the situation in the lab, so there is no way she'll become a decent follower, besides it was going to be really tough to torture information out of her, so she was dying one way or another.

"In that case, let's make a deal, I'll temporarily take over that woman's body and give you the information you want, in exchange take me with you to fight that imposter, there is something I have to take back from her", she said.

Daimon raised an eyebrow in response, wondering why would she even ask for a deal, if she wanted to come and help fight against the fake Thalia, she was more than welcome to.

"I don't see why is there a need for a deal, if you need to, we can break the bars of the cage where your body is trapped…", Daimon's words were interrupted by Thalia who spoke in a really low voice.

"I can recover my body if I take back what that woman stole from me, but I…", she stopped there for a second before she exclaimed.

"Make a Knighthood Pact with me, I need to recover enough strength to be useful against that woman in a short period of time!".

Daimon inwardly shrugged, if all she needed was a contract like the one, he stablished with Thea, that was fine for him, it was basically a mutual-trust agreement with no other conditions, not to mention she even offered to give him the information in that woman's mind in exchange, it was a win-win situation no matter the angle.

'Perhaps it's a racial trait, she said that the space laws of the Neris's space affinity approached me due to my connection to Thea, so she will probably use that to recover, I have no use for them as of current anyway', thought Daimon before saying.

"Sure, let's start right away, my other companions are marching towards that woman's headquarters, so we'll have to prepare everything in the next two or so hours at most".

"Y-yes!", after saying that, Thalia's projection turned back into yellow light particles which returned to the snake statue.

"Please open the cage", said Thalia from within the statue.

Daimon gazed at Celia who immediately flashed towards the cage to then open it, it was purely mechanical without runes, but in exchange the materials with which it was made were incredibly tough and it also heavy as hell, luckily the woman from the Black Spirit race had the key in her pocket, otherwise it would have taken Celia a few hours to break a few of the bars.

With a loud "click", the whole frontal part of the cage unlocked from the rest of the structure and Celia raised it, so that the cage was now open.

"Come here please", said Thalia to Daimon who approached the cage, her projection came out of the statue once again and floated in front of Daimon as she offered her hand to him, something that wasn't necessary with Thea, but this was probably the "proper" process, of which Thea wasn't aware off, since the result was quite similar, though the message differed, perhaps because Thea lacked knowledge regarding the origin of this ability of hers.

[Ding]

[The second Neris princess has offered Knighthood to the host, do you wish to accept it Y/N]

With a nod, Daimon accepted and just like with Thea that strange connection was formed between them, however there was indeed a difference, unlike Thea, Thalia knew the benefits and perks of this contract.

From the point where their bodies made contact, in other words their hands, since Daimon was still holding onto hers, a small whirlwind formed and Daimon saw black little rune-like things come out of it.

'Those are… space laws', he thought with genuine surprise, it was a strange sensation, those laws weren't in contact with him, in fact under normal circumstances he wouldn't even be able to see them, kudos to the infinity eyes, it was more as if Thalia was taking his help to gather those laws but without directly involving him, like connecting an auxiliary antenna to get a stronger signal.

Daimon gazed at Thalia just to see her astonished expression as she looked at the small black particles that were pouring out of that black whirlwind formed above their hands.

"You, what race do you belong to, your space affinity isn't weaker than mine and your darkness actually overpowers mine!", she exclaimed, she had already seen Daimon using blink earlier, which did impress her but she as an experienced space affinity mage, quickly realized that blink had a limited range.

So compared to his talent for battle which was awe-inspiring, she thought he wasn't born with space nor darkness affinities but obtained it through his system, like what Dorian tried to do, since she saw him use a strange agglomeration of different elements as his battle aura, she fell trap to the white pale color of Demon Light since it is indeed near impossible to detect all the components of it as they perfectly integrate, but now realized she was wrong.

While Daimon didn't obtain space affinity when he became a mage, by innate he was compatible with all the elements, that isn't something he gained thanks to the system, the Apex Predator body constitution and the ability of the system to obtain skills and affinities thanks to the enemies he defeated, simply made it easier for him to develop said affinities.

Just like Evangeline said from the very beginning, he was already a monster even before unlocking the system.

What's more, while she couldn't discern whether Daimon was a knight or a mage due to the Hollow Suit and the Bracelet of the God of Mischief which Zia had returned to him earlier, she deduced he was able to use mana, based on how the space laws that were being dragged by them, reacted.

'No way, he can use both mana and battle aura, what the hell, none of those four were like this… I guess that's why Ryner's descendant chose him, all these laws obtained from such a shallow gathering process, it's insane', she thought before saying.

"Thanks, I can't handle more than this as of current", with those words, she retrieved her hand and the black whirlwind dissolved.

With a gesture from Thalia's hand, all those black particles were sent into the snake statue before her projection also entered it.

Daimon and the girls, watched with curious eyes how the statue started shaking, before it shrank from the previous hundreds of meters, to around twenty centimeters tall, only then Thalia's projection came out and entered the passed-out woman from the Black Spirit race, whose eyes immediately opened wide.

For a change, a pained a scared expression flashed on the face on the woman who didn't even value her own life, but it didn't last long, a black snake tattoo appeared on the forehead of the woman and then her eyes closed.

The next second she opened once again, but they had changed to the amber snake-like pupils which characterized Thea and Thalia, that being said, the previously black hair of the woman half faded, gaining a gray tone.

"Phew, I was worried that there would be complications since I had never used this spell, but it worked, luckily her darkness affinity isn't as trash as I thought, so I can recover a bit through her", said Thalia, though it was the woman talking, what came out was Thalia's voice.

"Now that you mention it, I thought that petrified body was the result of a curse, but you said it was you the one who did it and you also know how to possess other people's bodies, those aren't legacy spells of the Void Devouring Python race, right?", asked Daimon.

Thalia bitterly smiled in response to then say.

"No, these are the legacy spells from my father's race who are proficient in darkness element, the Stone Prison is a self-curse, used to slow down the effects of serious wounds on the body and to focus everything in recovery, as for Snake Skin… it's a possession spell, but it is only used for elders to guide the members of the young generation in their training of their darkness affinities, also it is only effective on those with darkness affinity and it only works if your darkness is stronger than the one of the target".

Daimon couldn't help but softly laugh, she gave her all to explain that those two "ominous" capacities she showed, weren't wrongly used, with that explanation she made it clear that what Daimon thought was petrification, was instead a healing method and the possession spell wouldn't work on Daimon, since his darkness affinity was superior to hers, at least as of current, courtesy of a certain Twilight Alluring Fox.

Perhaps she didn't want him to have a bad impression of her, since they had a contract now.

'So, space comes from the mother and darkness from the father, just like with Thea', he thought.

"Okay, we can talk about it later, for now I want you to write down all the information regarding the experiments that woman was assigned to do, specially those related to that array…", Daimon stopped midway as he noticed the discomfort behind Thalia's eyes, which made him chuckle.

"I'm not planning on dragging people from other galaxies, nor summoning magic beasts with their rationality destroyed due to the travel, what I am interested in, are the runes used for the array, especially those special ones which I had never seen before, after all that array bypassed the defensive arrays of your own room, a place built by a race who is talented in spatial movement", he added.

Thalia cleared her throat, she actually tried to not let it notice on her face, since she promised to give him all the information as a part of their deal, but the memory of her desperate to resist the call of the array, was still fresh in her mind so she failed to do so.

And while she wasn't planning to go back on her word, since it was an agreement sealed with the Knighthood Pact, it did make her happy when Daimon explained what was his interest in that array.

"Mm, I should be finished in an hour and half, it's a lot of information after all, also don't worry she isn't supposed to report herself until four to five hours from this exact moment, that's how much she usually takes for her daily experiments and I haven't killed her yet, so no one will notice it", she said.

Daimon nodded, he took out a few different things from the inventory, a notebook and a pen for Thalia as well as an empty storage ring for her to use later, and a couple of bags which he passed to Zia and Celia.

"Here you should be able to keep your petrified body in a ring once we turn off the space blocking arrays, Zia, you and Celia go and start placing the "gifts" we brought, after that, Zia you return to the reception, while Celia must return here", said Daimon.

"Understood young master", said those two as they accepted the bags and flashed out of the room.

Thalia accepted the notebook and the ring and put hands to work on her assigned task, and now it was only a matter of waiting for the signal they agreed on to appear.

"You too rest, Daimon", said the undead head maid as she materialized a throne out of shadows for Daimon to sit and though against her deepest desires, she also made simple chairs for the Lamia princesses and Thalia.

"Thanks", Daimon sat down and closed his eyes to meditate, while he didn't get any recoil from using Core Synchrony earlier, he still used mana and for the incoming battle he had to be at his best and the same applied for the others.

…

At the same time, a really long distance away from the secret lab, inside a dimensional tunnel, a large army travelled as a whole, at the back of the army there were a series of magnificent carriages and among them one outstood the most, which was normal since it belonged to the Lamia queen.

Inside of said carriage there were two women sitting, while there was a third woman standing behind one of them, naturally they were Thea, Mirellia and the captain of the royal guards, Nea.

"Any other news from them, miss Thea?", asked the Lamia queen as she took a sip of her cup of tea, only to see Thea who seemed slightly impatient since earlier, shaking her head.

"No, he only gave me the "Be extra careful" signal and that was it… how long until we reach the enemy's territory?", asked Thea instead, to which Nea answered.

"We'll reach the territory of the Snake Tyrant headquarters in an hour and a half, we should be able to further deepen into their territory thanks to the information about the arrays, proportioned by you, so they'll only detect us half an hour later", she concluded.

"So, two hours…", mumbled Thea, her fighting spirit was pouring out of her, making the Lamia queen softly laugh at her.

What Mirellia didn't know is that, Thea wasn't particularly looking to fight, what made her feel impatient was that earlier she had a strange premonition and she also felt a subtle change in her connection with Daimon.

'It didn't weaken in the slightest, in fact I instinctively know it was a positive change, so then why do I feel like earlier when I detected Marlene's mana on Daimon?', wondered the empress unaware that she was in for a surprise in a couple of hours.