While for others, the giant red pillars might be terrifying, considering the facts that they were created by sacrificing countless of human lives and they are also part of a large scale array, which has the property to intimidate, for Daimon it was just a big open target.
The rune masters of Kerrol were outdated from Daimon's point of view, for starters, this array, not only interfered with the human side, but it applied to them too, the barrier around their headquarter was cancelled due to the red pillars.
It wouldn't have really mattered since he has the infinity eyes, not to mention Rita at his side, but one of the most important parts of an array, is to hide they way the energy used in them, flows.
Otherwise, someone with sharp eyes, can look into the inner circuit of the array, and crack it from the inside, or exploit a flaw.
The Ghouls were confident that humans who used a different system in the form of Beast Equipment, wouldn't know about how their arrays worked, and their rune masters sucked too, the result was a trash inferior product of an array that was full of openings.
For example, the screams that could be heard coming from the Ghoul headquarters, were caused because this array had the property to infuse the energy gathered in the pillars, into the many distribution spots, designated by the creator of the array.
But there was also a "safety measure", which is the fact that for it to work, it had to first pass through a main node, that was of course the distribution spot reserved for the Blood King.
The previous is the reason as to why the attacks from the fire mages, didn't do noticeable damage to the red pillars, nor caused any waves within the Ghoul headquarter, the Blood King simply infused his battle aura into the array to protect it, since it was a two-way path, to give him full control, in case some of the Ghouls got any funny ideas after receiving a power up.
Then, you might wonder why now the Ghouls were screaming in pain, if the previous worked like a charm to protect them from being affected, by the attacks of the human fire mages, the answer is quite simple, the moment Archbald felt the attack that was charged by the cross bow, he immediately cut off his connection to the array and ordered the Ghouls to do the same.
Needless to say, but there were those who obeyed on the spot, those who reacted too slowly and those who made it look as if they were reacting too slowly, since they were intoxicated by the power of the boosting effect caused by the red pillars.
Daimon who had experienced it himself, knew that the boosting effect didn't come with its drawbacks, it stimulated one's darkest side, and that had quite a lot of weight, considering the effect only worked on those whose nature and affinities had extreme negative properties, at least that was Daimon's conclusion based on the fact that Jasmine didn't receive the boosting effect, but Sarah and him, did.
As to why it didn't help Jeanne, Emily and Reyne who also had the "evil" nature, blood affinity, that's because their natures were different, unlike Ghouls that had negative trends, those three were Nelapsi, who were on the neutral side, having both human and vampire sides, which is why they didn't have the need to even drink blood much less human meat and could obtain nourishment from normal food.
ραΠdαsΝοvel.cοm It's worth mentioning that the Ghouls created from implanting Ghoul's blood into a human, like Felix, would have been unable to receive the boosting effect of Kerrol, too, which was probably intentional as the Blood King who was the one behind that project, didn't wish for a second power to appear in his backyard.
Anyway, the greedy and slow bastards that were screaming soon stopped, after Archbald was forced to personally act as a firefighter, flashing here and there to smash the distribution points, that were now causing a fire to spread around the headquarter.
Naturally, the humiliation of forcing him to do such a mundane job, made the Ghoul's eyes to dye red, as he glared at the sky, where the "origin" of all this, was casually floating behind the enemy lines.
'Fucking bastard, he hid the ability of that stupid cross bow on purpose!', he inwardly swore.
The black mantled woman, had informed Archbald about the fact that they couldn't forcefully, transport anyone on the masked youth's group, because the cross bow prevented it inside of the labyrinth, which eliminated the easiest way to recover the trident.
But she didn't mention anything about the cross bow regaining its offensive type abilities, he who now had Adam's sword, understood the terror of these type of magic weapons, unfortunately though he could wield the sword now, he was unable to access to its abilities, he was given the sword, because with it he would be able to wound system users.
Also, the sword itself was of quite a high quality, even without any extra ability, it was still sharper and sturdier than any magic weapon Archbald has seen before, leaving the trident aside of course.
Archbald waved his hand and a dozen of red spears formed in front of him, before they were shot at an insane speed towards, the enemy.
The spears flashed through the sky, some were aimed at the human army while some were aimed at Daimon, old Ben and the others stepped in, knowing that the others would suffer wounds if they tried to block that, so they blocked the spears aiming at the human army, thinking that the one that nearly killed them earlier, would protect Daimon without any problem.
But they were wrong, Rita was one of Daimon's trump cards and this wasn't her time to shine, so instead, Jeanne and Emily stood up, and punched the spears with their hands that were covered in their respective armors, making the spears explode in tons of little shards, that were incinerated in white flames the next second.
"Tsk, what the hell are you waiting, commence the offensive you fools!", Archbald's voice echoed through the whole area, making the air tremble, the Ghouls naturally listened to the call of their king and poured out of the tents rushing upwards as they flew to be floating in front of the human army.
Only Arch ranks were present in this face to face confrontation, on the Ghoul's side the reason is that, most of the Lord ranked soldiers were killed by old Ben and the others earlier, and their boosting process was forcefully interrupted by Daimon, as most of the screams that could be heard, were coming from them.
As for the human side, bringing Lord ranks who would be easily killed by just the after effects of the attacks of the Arch ranks, was a stupid idea, because all the nobles from the middle stage of the Arch rank and above, could use large quantities of human blood and flesh for their abilities.
That being said, the previous doesn't mean that there won't be a minor battlefield, since there was that noble family that could use a half-baked necromancer ability to summon skeletons and zombies.
"Booom!", the Ghoul's usual strategy was to use those things as a meat shield, but this is where the Lord ranks that stayed behind, came in handy, the moment the "Death Wall" formed, it was blown away by a yellow ray of light that was shot all the way from the human headquarters.
"We might have been arguing among us, but we never stopped developing weapons for the survival of the human race, how is it, the first ever extreme long range Weapon Equipment, that can defeat quality with quantity, "Wrath of the first king", quite amazing, right!", shouted old Ben at the Blood King who was joining his army, along with Paula, the girl from the church was still recovering in the royal tent, due to Adam's attack.
Needless to say, but Archbald glared at Paula with angered eyes, there was no report of such a dangerous weapon in the information brought by Felix, the attack wasn't strong enough to harm him, but with enough of those, they might be able to kill a middle Arch rank.
"We didn't know anything about it, our spies were never able to infiltrate the high echelon of the Adjudicators, where the last generation weapons were developed", said Paula in a hurry, after what happened earlier, she knew that Archbald was furious, and she also experienced the terror of an angered system user, so now she could only rely on Archbald, to block Adam from killing her, that white ray shot by his sword, still made her feel horrified, if she was a minor realm weaker, she would been vaporized, it was ridiculous given the large gap between their realms.
"This is why, they all must die today, don't spare a single one, kill, deprive, pillage, ravage, it's us or them!", shouted Archbald.
"Arhhhhhh!", the Ghouls roared, even if the boosting process was interrupted, some obtained benefits, but were unstable right now, so they were like beasts that had gone mad, mostly the lower ranked nobles.
The humans felt intimidated by the tsunami of enemies that was approaching them, but then Old Ben took the initiative to motivate them.
"Don't cower, we emerged victorious against the Blood King before already, this is just a repetition of that battle, brace yourselves, grit your teeth and kill your enemies, for you families and all of our companions that had been killed by those fucking monsters, charge!".
"Haaaa!", a second tsunami of people was created by old Ben's works, that being said, the battle immediately separated in many parts, those who didn't have domains or battle avatars, took their fight towards the ground, while those who had it, raised high into the sky to clash.
That only left behind the leaders, in other words, Archbald, the two Archdukes that survived the previous clash, among which there was Emily's aunt and the guy who killed Emily's father, there was also a new addition, due to the boosting process, one of the Dukes had advanced and was now an Archduke, there was also Paula and an old man from the traitors of the church stayed behind.
There was no need for words, old Ben, Antonio and the male elder from the church directly rushed towards Archbald, and went up the clouds, where their confrontation started, the second in command was actually Paula, as she was the bride of the Blood King.
"Leave that girl alive, the rest, kill them all, also be aware of that brat with the cross bow", said Paula, her designated enemy was actually Oliver, the two Archdukes were intercepted by Jeanne and Emily, but they didn't take the fight away and remained nearby.
The remaining female elder from the church, glared at the old traitor, previously Dorothy was fighting against him, but she was out of the picture now, so now there were two choices, she could take on the recently ascended Archduke or the old traitor.
She turned to see Daimon, who was calm despite the fact that Jeanne and Emily weren't guarding him like before, and she nodded at him as she rushed towards the old traitor, who was the stronger of the two, since the Archduke had recently ascended.
The Archduke was actually quite familiar, because it had some resemblance to Dilan, speaking of which, their ancestor was one of the two killed during the previous confrontation, so this Archduke was the new ancestor of Dilan's family, and was closer to him in terms of generation, long story short he was his grandfather.
So, the Archduke was glaring at Daimon furiously, but he wasn't stupidly charging, since he was wary of the cross bow in Daimon's hand.
"Give me my grandson back and I'll give you a painless death, what do you say?", shouted the Archduke while keeping some distance.
"That would be heard, considering he is dead", said Daimon with a smirk, the Archduke saw red, but managed to not blindly charge, instead of that he just leaked a lot of mana and broke some bottles of blood, spreading a red mist through the whole area.
Daimon casually aimed the cross bow at the sky and white flames condensed in front of it, before a white flame arrow was shot from it, exploding on the sky, producing a rain of flames.
The Archduke felt a sensation of threat and immediately covered himself in a cupule of blood, but to his horror the white flames were burning through his defense, and actually increasing in amount.
"What the hell!", the Archduke immediately discarded the shield and jumped out of it, as if he was avoiding the plague, his face paled as he saw the blood cupule fully turning into white flames that didn't disappear but instead flew towards the masked youth, and surrounded him, while covering the white cross bow.
"How the hell did a mere Lord rank destroy my sanguine shield!", he shouted, what just happened didn't make sense, the aura radiated by the masked youth was only at the early stage of the Lord rank, so what just happened should be impossible.
The Archduke then paled when he saw Daimon aiming the cross bow at him, and to his horror the white flames produced by the burn of his own technique, were now moving towards him.
"Damn it all!", the Archduke felt his blood freezing, his body exploded in blood red mana, as he casted another long range spell.
"Blood Tsunami!", one of the singularities of the blood element, is that it can take both liquid and solid forms, and while the Archduke can't create blood like Archbald, and has to rely on an external source, he still can change the state of the blood with ease.
In his mind, the only reason as to why Daimon's flames were able to burn his shield, was because the blood was in a solid state, so this time he tried to drown the flames with a wave of liquid blood.
Just to face the horrifying reality that his tsunami of blood was "infected" by the white flames, reduced in size, and ending up as another group of white flames.
The Archduke's eyes got bloodshot, his mind was having trouble processing what was happening, he finally achieved his long awaited dream of becoming an Archduke, it was with an artificial method, unlike his ancestor, but he could feel the strength boiling inside of him.
And now, his attacks were being overwhelmed by a member of the young generation, so easily, he was being driven man.
Daimon saw the Archduke losing his cool and he smirked, the problem with boosting effects, that allowed one to cross realms, is that they always put a huge load on either the body or the mind.
That being said, he was "cheating", because he had activated Core Synchrony but was using the effect of the bracelet and the hollow suit to cover it, surprisingly he still couldn't advance his realm to the Arch rank, and was limited to the peak of the Lord rank, but he obtained full control over the traits that a Knight Lord would obtain, if talented enough.
That's how he was perfectly controlling the white flames, resulting from his Demon Light using the enemy's attack as fuel, he had obtained full mastery of Will Manipulation, so the flames that weren't created by him, but produced by using other things as fuel, which he could previously only use at short distance from him, before losing control and intensity, were now under his control.
Jasmine, Reyne and even the crazy girl were amazed at how Daimon was easily dealing with the attacks of an Archduke, because unlike others, they knew that the cross bow wasn't doing anything, Daimon was just holding it for appearance sake.
Naturally, Daimon was only putting on a show, he had barely used any stamina, mana and battle aura, and instead used the attacks of the enemy as fuel, but it was working like a charm.
The Archduke kept trying to defend and attack from afar, which resulted in some white flames using all their fuel and disappear, but they were replaced by more, until the nearby area was illuminated in a bright white light, produced by the river of flames that surrounded Daimon.
"Fucking monster!", shouted the Archduke as he saw his now missing right arm, the wound was cauterized so that it wouldn't regenerate, unless medicine was applied, something Daimon learned thanks to Reyne.
That only proved that Ghouls were indeed a low ranked sub lineage of whatever the species of the Nosfear is, according to Aisha, the Nosfear Matriarch, used to be the weakest among the vampire Half Emperors, but if they have to choose, the other Half Emperors wouldn't want to fight with her, who is said to be able to regenerate even if there is nothing left from her body, it would result in a frustrating eternal fight, that would eventually turn to her favor when the other party gets tired.
That's why Victor didn't dare to push the thing regarding him marrying the young miss of the Nosfear, and instead went for Aisha, who didn't have the support of her family, and ultimately was forced into living with the Naktis.
The Ghouls in comparison, could be stopped from regenerating, regardless of how much blood they have in store, as long as their flesh was affected to a certain extent, poison, light and fire were especially effective in that aspect, and Demon Light contained all three of them, which the Archduke didn't know and that's why he was freaking out at the fact that he couldn't regenerate his arm.
Daimon suddenly snapped his fingers and a tsunami of white flames, rushed towards the Archduke, whose pupils contracted like needles, the guy immediately turned around to leave but was met with wall of white flames blocking his path.
'How, I made sure to not let those disgusting flames get behind me!', inwardly screamed the Archduke, only to realize that the red pillars were still burning in those same white flames that have been tormenting him for the past minutes.
"Fuck it, domain!", the Archduke finally couldn't hold it, if anything the Ghouls had a similar amount of pride as vampires, but just like the vast majority in front of a life-threatening situation, they threw away their facades.
The Archduke limited the area of his domain to around two hundred square meters, creating a giant red capsule, which was full to the brim with blood, and corpses that floated and moved here and there.
To Daimon's surprise, blood entered the corpses and the thing started swimming towards them, but neither him nor the girls panicked, they were perfectly isolated, by a small layer of white flames that were covering their bodies.
"Humph, with my domain active, all the mana in the area has become blood attributed, if you want to use those disgusting flames, you'll have to use your reserves and there is no way you surpass me in that aspect!", shouted the Archduke, just to see Daimon smirking.
Sarah's body shone in a dark green light, as her battle aura exploded out of her, making the nearby blood turn black and lifeless, then at Daimon's left, Reyne whose eyes had turned bright red colored, was messing with the control of the blood element, she might be weaker than the Archduke, but her in her vampire form, her lineage was way purer and stronger, so her control over blood was on a different level.
As a proof of it, the three Nelapsi, could create blood mana or battle aura, instead of just controlling it, with the help of external sources, something that only Archbald was capable off, on the Ghoul side.
And then there was Jasmine, who was standing behind of Daimon, her pretty lips opened as she said two words.
"Silver Spear!", silver light covered Daimon's body as the image of a silver spear appeared above him, he had de-activated Core Synchrony, and instead just took advantage of the boosting effect of Kerrol, since Jasmine's spell required the target's realm to be equal or lower than hers.
In any case Daimon was acting as a knight, so the only thing he was using Core Synchrony for, was obtaining a larger and stronger amount of mana, to use less than what he would have needed, to turn the enemy's attacks into fuel, earlier, but inside of a domain the amount of mana didn't matter.
This way, Daimon's knight realm was at the early Lord rank, but his battle prowess still received the boosting effect, and with Jasmine's spell, well, let's just say that the Archduke nearly shit his pants, when he saw the white flames gathering in front of the cross bow.
"Hissss!", the blood nearby the white flames instantly evaporated, creating a space devoid of any blood, which shouldn't have been possible, unless his domain was being attacked by another domain.
Domains were already touching the level of laws, which is why all the mana inside a domain, would be of the same element as the one with which the owner has affinity, as of current, Daimon could burn through weaker laws with enough Demon Light, but using them as fuel was still out of question and while Core Synchrony transferred a part of the Soulmates's realm to him, their laws, affinities and other things weren't included in that… yet.
But Jasmine's spell, amplified every aspect of the next attack, times three and that included the laws mixed in Demon Light, previously when she buffed Daimon the effect wasn't as noticeable in this aspect, because the quantity of laws contained in a star ranked Demon Light was too small.
And when he increased his realm, he couldn't receive the buff from Jasmine's spell, but in Kerrol, the situations weren't mutually exclusive, Daimon's realm wasn't higher than Jasmine, but his battle prowess and comprehension of his battle aura were at the early Arch rank level.
And so, Daimon's next attack reached the level of a domain.
"White Heavenly Javelin", with a few words, the white flames in front of the cross bow, compressed, until there was only a small white marble floating in front of it.
Which then broke, and a three-hundred-meter wide, white flash was shot from it, the Archduke who tried to leave, just to notice his body couldn't move, tried to protect himself with a wall of solidified blood, but was immediately engulfed in the white ray, that evaporated all the blood in its way.
"Booom!", all the presents who were fighting their own life and death battles, were temporarily attracted to the pilar of light burned through the domain of one of the Archdukes, blowing up a large part of it and then piercing the clouds until it disappeared on the horizon.
"Arghhhhhh!", what followed that amazing sight, was a pained scream, and an incomplete body falling from the sky, a domain is the most powerful ability of an Arch ranked, but it can also be its weakness, if one's domain suffer a certain amount of damage, there is a recoil, how much damage is needed for the domain to crumble apart and how strong is the recoil, varies, but whatever was needed for this Archduke in particular, Daimon met the requirement.
Which is why, his body which only consisted in his trunk, one arm and his head, which was heavily burned, was falling from the sky while the red cupule that used to be his domain was dissipating.
A sepulchral silence fell on the battlefield, the Ghouls had unsightly expressions on their faces, as they saw one of their powerhouses ending in such a miserable state in less than half an hour.
"Ohhhhhh!", the humans on the other side roared as they charged against their respective enemies, with renovated courage, despite they knowing Daimon wasn't exactly their ally.
But then, a couple more of people came from the headquarter of the Ghouls, it was none other than Adam, who was accompanied by a blue haired woman wearing a black dress, and a veil.
Daimon could see Jasmine's pretty face fill with anger, not because Adam had gotten a new toy, but because she could tell that the woman was the black mantled figure that kidnapped her.
"Don't worry, have your fun and leave the rest to me", said Daimon in a calm voice, which made Jasmine smile at him as she nodded.
"Mm".
"How about a good luck kiss~", as always, the crazy girl was pretty much in her own little world.
"Thanks to the heavens you aren't the one that has to keep track of the battle", mumbled Reyne as she nodded at Daimon.
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