Chapter 553 Challenges Daphne’s version (part 4)
After observing the set up for the challenge, Daimon looked at the other participants, just like Daphne who was kept isolated inside a barrier in her own designated area, the Skelefiend and the guy from the Purple Haze sect were the same.
As for him, he appeared inside Daphne's area, Daimon smirked and casually walked towards the border where Daphne and the Skelefiend's areas collided and then he extended his arms towards the barrier just to see it easily bypassing the limit, in response a small current of electricity assaulted Daimon's hand for a split of a second before it disappeared.
Seeing the monster who casually eliminated those two, ignoring the restrictions of the challenge just like that, made the Skelefiend's face pale, or at least the expression in his eyes showed that, since he had no flesh on his head yet.
But to his surprise, Daimon's eyes glowed for a second and he then retrieved his arm before walking back to where Daphne who had a slightly worried light in her pretty eyes, after seeing the array punishing Daimon, was standing.
'System users are meant to experience some strange things due to their respective systems interfering with their lives, but for there not to be even a notification triggered, does it mean this would have happened whether he was a system user or not… that's just crazy, what kind of awakening trial did he face', thought a certain angel girl within a crystalized feather pendant that was hanging from Daimon's neck, while being invisible for others, just to hear Evangeline's voice being directly transmitted to her ears.
'That's just normal, since my dear host was already a monster before we got to know each other, just wait a for that silver armored woman to finish stablishing the contract, you'll see something really interesting~', playfully said Evangeline, which made Freya who was though in a inactive state, still conscious to a certain extent, feel somewhat worried, unfortunately she couldn't stop the process for a second time to ask Evangeline what she meant, so she'll have to trust the silver haired youth this time.
Leaving that little exchange between the three administrators aside, Daimon smiled at Daphne to assure her that he was fine and then casually sat down cross-legged behind of her, limiting himself to observe this time.
The Valas princess saw that Daimon had no wound and she let out a sigh of relief, after giving him a sweet smile, she changed her focus to the challenge that seemed to be about to start.
Just like in the previous challenge there was no explanation whatsoever, leaving the true motive of this trial up to the interpretation of the ones facing it, but at the very least the basic purpose wasn't that hard to understand.
Three dummies with two counters floating above them appeared at the other side of this place, each one aligned with one of the three participants, showing once again that though Daimon wasn't being restricted by the challenge, he wasn't counted as a participant either.
The next second, one of the two counters lit up and numbers started appearing on it, it wasn't hard to tell that it was registering the time that was passing.
Seeing that Daimon wasn't trying to go after him and the challenge getting in his way when he tried to interfere, as well as the time being registered by the challenge, the Skelefiend regained some confidence back.
"Heh, so this is just a power display trial, very good, I was worried since that crazy bastard killed those two without breaking a sweat, but it seems like the trial noticed and he can't interfere this time", said the Skelefiend.
Green mist gathered around his body to then mix with an ominous black haze resulting in a putrid smelling chaotic combination of mana and nether, the air around the Skelefiend started sizzling due to the exposure to the resulting energy, which made sense, in terms of destructiveness, the acid affinity of the Skelefiends was quite destructive after all.
Seeing the Skelefiend ready to start, the guy from the Purple Haze sect gritted his teeth, his previously despair filled expression after realizing that the gap between him and Daimon was bigger than predicted, disappeared as both his irises and sclerae painted dark purple.
He then glared at Daphne and a sinister smirk appeared on his face as he radiated poison mana, before adding some whisps of nether to it, unlike the acid from the Skelefiend, the combination of poison and nether didn't produce any bad smell, but it produced discomfort to those who looked at it, in a sense it slightly resembled the nether that Sarah obtained.
But unlike the crazy girl's nether, which was of a pure light purple tone just like the pretty color of her hair, the one of this guy had the characteristic black color of nether mixed into it, making it look like muddy water, not to mention Sarah could use both mana and nether, and this guy was losing the capacity to use mana in exchange for the use of nether.
"Acid Rain!".
"Purple Death!".
With two loud shouts, the respective attacks of those two were launched towards their dummies, they both smiled upon seeing their spells and martial arts making way through the chaotic mix of mana of different elements that was floating in the atmosphere of this place.
Only for their expressions to sour at the sight of the mana crystals that were aligned near the dummies, lighting up as they released some of the mana stored inside of them, causing their attacks to distort, diminish in strength and ultimately dissolve before they could even hit their targets.
'Idiots', thought Daimon as he gave them a mocking gaze, they didn't learn anything from the previous challenge, sure to destroy a large number of enemies highly destructive attacks are the best choice, but that doesn't mean one can just go happy trigger on a real battlefield.
He knows it pretty well, since his fighting style is pretty much on the aggressive, domineering side, and so his spells and martial arts have high energy costs in exchange for their incredible destructiveness.
A "problem" which Aura also had back when she was young, which is why she became a close combat specialist, since using her plasma burned mana like crazy, in part that's probably what prevented her from learning wide area spells like other mages, in comparison with other Half Emperors, her domain used to be considered quite small, until her grimoire solved that problem for her at least.
Daimon on the other hand, had it a bit easier since he has greater reserves of mana than probably anyone his age, not to mention he also has battle aura, but that doesn't mean he allows himself to waste it, he learned how to reabsorb some of the mana he uses through the Apex Predator, and most of the time he just uses Demon Light in a formless way as it is easier to retrieve it into his body that way.
Even the Comet Sword which is probably one of his strongest attacks, has been modified so he can do a partial release.
Of course, he knows and takes all this into account since his fighting style requires him to do so, someone who has never suffered constant backslash from using large quantities of mana, wouldn't put this much thought into it.
'Well, this is certainly her stage', inwardly thought Daimon as he gazed at Daphne, from the very beginning, the Valas princess ignored the timer, she waited for those two to attack first and only after seeing the result of their efforts, she decided what to do.
And as expected, she chose to use the Storm Stream as the huge amount of mana that was being radiated by her, suggested, in fact judging by how much she was pouring into it, and the amount of mana she used back in the first part of the challenge, she only had one shot.
"Humph, you are not the only one that specializes in highly destructive, wide area attacks".
"We were chosen among our peers for that same characteristic".
This time, they also decided to go all out, the already chaotic mana floating in the atmosphere of this place, became even more distorted, to the point that it seemed as if the air was vibrating.
Daphne ignored them, and just extended her pretty right hand frontwards, from Daimon's point of view, all the mana that she built up until now, converged on her palm and was then shot in the form of a giant stream of blue light.
At the same time, those two exploded, one turning into a river of dark green liquid and the other in a black and purple horizontal pilar of mist.
"Boooom!!!", the result was of course a loud explosion, as the three attacks landed on the dummies at the same time, Daimon's eyes which were covered by the mask of the Hollow Suit, slightly narrowed as the area was engulfed into a dazzling flash.
The timer stopped advancing before everything returned to normal, the result of the dummies was revealed the next second, those two completely obliterated their targets, leaving only a charred surface behind but the mana crystals near their targets were intact.
Daphne on the other hand, only destroyed three parts of her target, apparently part of her attack was blocked by the mana crystals, since two of them were gone and another two were full of cracks.
Daimon stood up and approached Daphne, others might not see it, since the Valas Princess has learned not to let it show on her face when she is tired, so that others couldn't pinpoint whether she can still use Storm Stream or not, but Daimon could see her mana flow slowing down quite a bit.
He walked until he was standing behind of her, to then place his hand on her shoulder, helping her keep a straight stance, which made a happy light flash through Daphne's eyes, but she then returned to reality as the other counter which has been unfazed until now, started quantifying their results.
A sepulchral silence fell in the room as they waited for the result, only for the silence to be broken when the counters stopped moving.
"Impossible, it doesn't make sense!".
"That's cheating!".
Two complains echoed through the room, while Daimon limited to smirk, the results were "0", "0" and lastly "55", obviously the zeros belonged to those two while the third result was Daphne's.
For a moment those two thought that destroying the crystals was what gave Daphne a score, but then there was a total of ten crystals and she just destroyed two while damaging another two, the others were perfectly fine, so assuming each crystal had a value of ten, the numbers didn't add up either.
"You, you did something to the challenge!", said the Skelefiend as he pointed at Daimon, just to see him shrugging.
"Why would I, from the very beginning, the only one among you four that could have caused some trouble was that little prince, this stage was not prepared for you after all".
"What the hell does that mean!", demanded the guy from the Purple Haze sect, unfortunately for him, Daimon limited to smirk to then wave his hand making a one edged black sword manifest out of nowhere.
"Dead men don't need explanations", he limited to say as he walked towards them, those two's faces paled, but then they went from hell to heaven as portals opened for them to leave, meaning they lost the challenge yes, but they were allowed to leave and they now only wished to be as far as possible from Daimon.
Unfortunately, their relieved expressions froze when the newly opened portals were covered in darkness, courtesy of a certain undead maid who was interfering with the space, Daimon then slashed down the barrier that was separating the three designated areas with Disaster.
"Hissss!", electricity crackled all over Daimon's body, but was then devoured by Disaster, causing no harm to him.
"W-Wait, we can give…", they couldn't even finish their sentences before their heads were separated from their bodies, the only one that really had some information was Ryan, it was obvious by the fact that he was the strongest out of the four that were sent here by their respective teams.
Apparently, Daphne wasn't a priority for Abaris, Ereth or Marcus, but she was for Arlion, which was understandable, considering he was the one who damaged her mana circuits and cursed Grace, so after having interrogated Ryan, there was no need to worry about killing the others, as to why Daimon didn't do it earlier, if he could bypass the barriers like he did a second ago… the answer would be revealed in a moment.
The arrays of the room came to life and surrounded Daimon, Daphne who had a bad premonition upon seeing the runes, despite not understanding them, immediately jumped in front of Daimon.
The array which was about to attack Daimon a second ago, actually stopped in cold, another different array appeared below Daphne, but Daimon destroyed it by stabbing Disaster on the ground to interrupt it.
"…"
After a couple of seconds of silence, the air distorted as a thunderous voice, came out of nowhere.
"Child, do you know "what" are you defending right now?", evidently that question was aimed at Daphne, but of course she couldn't answer and whatever was talking right now, couldn't understand Daphne like Daimon and the others could just based on those pretty expressive eyes of hers, so Daimon talked instead, or at least that was the idea, but his black Sea Emblem acted first.
The little thing flew out of Daimon's pocket and the rune shark manifested out of it, biting the "empty" space, tearing a piece of it.
"Damn it, you… where did you get that?", the originally angered voice, calmed down after seeing the rune shark swim through the air and return to Daimon's side, orbiting him a couple of times before returning to the black Sea Emblem.
"I guess you aren't that Prison Megalodon I'm looking for, since you don't seem to even know what is happening on the first stage of this challenge, let alone what is happening in the outside world", said Daimon.
Out of the piece of space that the rune shark teared apart, a sphere of light descended until it was floating a few meters away from Daimon and Daphne who was still standing in front of him.
"Where did you get that key, don't worry child, I won't try to attack him anymore…", said the light to Daphne, who didn't lower her guard, pretty much to Daimon's amusement, well to be honest, he was tightened his grip on Disaster's hilt a bit more than normal when she jumped in front of him though.
"Key, you mean this, I used it to enter this isolated place, as well as Neptune in general", said Daimon as he showed his emblem to that sphere of light, who approached them to observe the black Sea Emblem for a moment.
"I see…", the sphere of light distanced itself from Daimon and then added.
"Tell me, what is happening outside".
Daimon inwardly shrugged and then proceeded to more or less explain the deal with Neptune as far as he understood, of course he kept anything that could give him away as a system user, as well as other sensitive stuff aside.
"To think that after all these years, those pieces of trash are still alive", mumbled the light, just to hear Daimon saying.
"So, what are you doing here, what are these challenges for and most importantly how are you related to the Nethereals".
"My answer will depend on yours, kid, what are you to that girl and who did that to her?", asked the light, referring to Daphne and the fact that she couldn't talk, or more accurately referring to the damage done to her mana circuits and her lineage in general.
"I would like to know that too, there is a man, a king from many generations who executed it, but I'm pretty sure he isn't the mastermind behind of it, if he could have stolen other people's lineages from the very beginning, then he wouldn't have been forced to live in seclusion one step away from death for such a long time, after all, however I can tell you that is probably someone related to the Royal White Shark…"
"What!", the reaction from the sphere of light was quite drastic, judging by the change in the voice, which used to be genderless but now was clearly that of a woman, not to mention a really angered one.
"How does an outsider know about that race's name, I witnessed its destruction before…", the sphere of light realized it was made to talk by the masked youth, so it stopped speaking before saying.
"So, the one who harmed that child, was related to those traitors, you still haven't answered what are you to her though?".
Daimon couldn't even answer, before Daphne leaned on him, in part because that was her answer and in part because she was tired after that attack from earlier.
Unlike those two who didn't understand how come Daphne got a better score, despite she not destroying the dummy neither all the crystals, Daimon did know it, the objective of the challenge was never to destroy the dummy to begin with.
What the second counter measured, was how much of the mana that was floating on the atmosphere, could be swept up and dragged by the attacks of the participants, to then be impacted against the dummy.
How does he know it, easy, because though relatively weak as it was adjusted to his level of back then, he has experienced what the real "Storm Stream" can do… back at the trial of the lineage temple.
That's why he said that from the very beginning none of those four had any chance against Daphne, besides Ryan who could interfere as he had that disgusting bell and that red coin, which were created using "materials" gotten from Daphne and Grace themselves, their spells and martial arts didn't have the properties of Daphne or Grace's mana.
That being said, Daphne could barely do it unlike her mother, could be because her lineage and mana circuits weren't damaged like her daughters, or it could be because of the difference in their realms, on the other hand, Daphne still managed to pass the challenge with just experience.
"I see, it seems this time isn't like the previous skirmishes, in that case, let me be stubborn one last time… kid promise me that you will take care of her", said the light, to which Daimon nodded.
"I won't let anyone toy with those close to me", he limited to say.
'Such nice eyes, if only we had someone like that back then…', thought the sphere of light, surprisingly, she could actually see through the mask of the Hollow Suit, something not even Maximum Stellar ranks have been able to.
"Very well, unfortunately I can't help you advance to at least the Star Lord realm in my current state, however I can at least help you replace what you lost".
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