Chapter 570: Challenges Thea’s version (part 6)
Outside of Thea's room, the younger Lamia princess who just arrived was in awe at the fact that the whole wall where the door to the main guest's room should be, was now replaced by dark void.
Naomi frowned, she tried to knock on the wall but to her surprise her hand sank into the shadow veil, making her jump backwards in a startled manner, it didn't last long but she felt a shiver ran through her whole body starting from her hand which passed through the shadow veil.
'This must be that guy's doing, what is he doing to big sister Thea…', thought Naomi with a sulking expression, unaware of the fact that it was the undead head maid who borrowed Daimon's fear infusing aura to scare her out so she would leave.
But apparently the undead head maid underestimated the stubbornness of the younger Lamia princess, who simply snorted and then sat down while leaning against the wall at the front.
"Humph, you'll have to leave at some point", she mumbled as she closed her eyes to rest.
Back inside the room, Daimon who was oblivious to the mischievous deeds of the undead head maid, clicked "yes" on the previous notification, you might wonder why did he drink the content of the crystal container if all he needed to do was to click "yes", the answer is both simple and complicated.
Sorting practically anything through the system is most of the times easier and the benefits are often obtained in a short period of time yes, but by doing so there are opportunities that can be missed, systems aren't almighty after all.
In this case, Daimon was both processing the blood through the system and through the Apex Predator body, of course there exists the chance that his efforts end up being fruitless, relying solely on the system is what mediocre guys like the idiot hero of light do, and Daimon personally sealed his fate, so he won't allow himself to grow complacent.
Besides it was none other than Eve who between lines told him to always try to make out the most from an opportunity, whether the system is involved or not.
Leaving that aside, knowing that processing whatever would be left from the blood essence, after the system did its own thing, would take a long time, Daimon inwardly opened his eyes and found himself in the same limitless ocean where he took the trial of the lineage temple back then.
'I wonder if this limitless ocean represents the Dracolevia lineage, I wonder how would the trial space will look for my vampire one, for now if there won't be a trial what will the process be like?', thought Daimon, things were different this time though, as there was no trial for him, he wasn't going to obtain a new lineage but improve the Dracolevia one.
Speaking of which, the answer to Daimon's doubt appeared floating on the sky in front of him as the image of a tall woman with disheveled brown hair and dark gray eyes, wearing a brown dress with metal armor, materialized a few meters away from him.
However, the projection didn't last long as the image dissolved into countless small particles of light that fell into the ocean, next he saw a notification appearing in front of him.
[Ding]
[The result of the blood essence assimilation is being calculated…]
Daimon simply waited for the result to be shown, there was no trial so the result was completely random, to his surprise what came next wasn't a notification, but a soft voice speaking to him.
"To the one who has inherited my Gray Eyed Naga blood essence, please make sure our race survives in this cruel world".
[Ding]
[Congratulations, on having obtained:
Dracolevia Lineage "Minor Enhancement X1, Enhancing of Existing Trait X1, New Trait X1]
[Upgrading process will start now (Remaining time: 29 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes)]
"Hoh?", Daimon watched with interest not only the result he obtained, but also how the surface of the water trembled and a small island started surging from the bottom of the sea.
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The process was certainly different than what he expected, as for the message he heard that was probably the last wish of the first ancestor of the Naga race, since she left her blood essence to her friend hoping to prevent the two races from going to war.
'Time to go back', thought Daimon, since a moment ago he has felt Thea's gaze intensifying, she hadn't interrupted him so it shouldn't be anything urgent, but it was hard to ignore the empress's gaze.
Daimon opened his eyes in the real world and the limitless ocean disappeared, replaced by the comfy and luxurious room of Thea, speaking of the empress, her amber snake pupils were intensely fixed on Daimon's face, more accurately on his right cheek, making the latter wonder what was happening.
"Did something happen?", he asked only to see the empress pout as she mumbled.
"Mm, your body suddenly shone in a mix of yellow and blue light and a kiss mark appeared on your right cheek, judging by the mana I could feel, it seems like my general got closer to Marlene while I was trapped here, risking my life…".
Daimon's lips twitched a bit, he was sure that the effect of the title "Lucky Charm", wasn't used, otherwise the one-year countdown till the next time it would be available would be added next to it in the titles tab, so it wasn't that, not to mention the very specific description given by Thea, which included the kiss mark on his right cheek.
'I guess that when coming from an angelfish princess even a friendly peck, holds more weight than what I thought, it's worth investigating later with Marlene, I didn't notice anything when she did it, nor felt anything out of normal earlier though', he thought.
For the time being he put the subject at the back of his mind, since he had something more urgent to deal with, a strangely pleasing to the eye jealous Thea.
"Her challenge was my previous stop, we found a way to solve the curse that was casted on her race", he said, which as he expected made the empress's mood improve on the spot.
"Really!", she exclaimed, Marlene is her best friend so of course she was happy to hear such good news, however she still stubbornly bit her lip the next second and looked away.
"I suppose that would be enough to earn such a reward from Marlene", she mumbled.
Daimon chuckled, though he found this side of Thea rather amusing, there was someone clearly waiting outside of the room for them, so he decided to solve the misunderstanding.
"I was helping her with her challenge, of course as a friend I'm more than willing to offer my help to Thea as well", he said.
The empress's eyes sparkled in response, the previous irritating sensation that lingered in her chest, disappeared like magic, she turned to see Daimon with a smile on her pretty face as she took out a bottle from her storage ring.
"In that case, share a drink with me as part of my challenge", she said as she drank from the bottle to then pass it to Daimon with expecting eyes, though Daimon he isn't a fan of liqueur, this was made using tri-colored water, so he gladly took up the offer.
The empress happily smiled as Daimon handed the bottle for her to keep it in her ring.
"Let's grab something to eat before going to sleep", said Daimon.
"Mm", Thea nodded as a magic beast descendant, she is always up for some delicious food, also she has many things she wants to tell Daimon, mainly about how has her adventure in Draim, went while he wasn't here.
'Rita', with a single word, the undead head maid dispelled the shadow veil, and Daimon jumped out of the bed to open the door, just in time for him to directly face the younger Lamia princess who rushed towards the door the moment it appeared.
Naomi froze upon the scene that welcomed her, standing a few meters away from her, Daimon had removed the mask when he started meditating, so his face was visible for the younger Lamia princess now, as to why he didn't wear it again, queen Mirellia has shown her sincerity not prioritizing making a formal contract, so he decided to answer in kind.
'No way, he how can that rude guy be so good looking!', inwardly exclaimed the younger Lamia princess, she tried to change her focus just to see Thea who was just getting up from the bed with a happy smile, making her imagination run wild.
"We are going to the dinning room, feel free to tag along if you want to", said Daimon, while he didn't hold it against Naomi for her harsh words, he also didn't really care about her, still he offered her an olive branch by inviting her to dine with them.
Ignoring the younger Lamia princess, Thea guided Daimon to the dining room, the staff of the castle was given some time off, but luckily the royal family could anonymously order food from all the high-end restaurants in the capital, thanks to how easy it was for the people in Draim to use the space as a mean of transportation.
It was like an improved version of the service arrays that the biggest forces used at the four galaxies, Thea demonstrated how to use it and ordered food for the two of them, since Daimon asked her to choose.
"So, how strong is that woman, Maximum Stellar rank?", asked Daimon to which Thea shook her head in response.
"No, she is still not at that point, her artificially created lineage is too incomplete, but she has reached the extreme peak of the high stage, honestly I would have been in some trouble to clash head on with her, if my spear wasn't somehow suppressing her power", she said.
Daimon nodded, it made sense that in a head on fight, Thalia would be stronger than Thea, not only she had knowledge from a higher ranked place than the empress, but she has been around for dozens of thousands of years, while Thea is on the same age range as Erin and Aura.
Besides that, the challenges didn't measure something as simple as raw strength, but the unique talents and abilities of the girls, Daimon is sure of that, so while getting rid of Thalia might be an important part of the challenge, that doesn't mean Thea has to do it alone.
"I'm sure that if you join hands with queen Mirellia, dealing with Thalia shouldn't be impossible", he said.
"Humph, of course, mother is the strongest knight of our kingdom", a slightly aggressive voice came from the corridor, as the younger Lamia princess arrived.
"Hey little princess, did you finally come out of your daze", jokingly said Daimon.
"J-Just call me Naomi okay!", exclaimed the princess, to which Daimon shrugged.
And so, the three of them enjoyed a nice dinner, Daimon took the chance to solve whatever doubts he had about the Meliun kingdom, including the information about the key important figures who will be showing tomorrow, surprisingly the older princess Ferris, didn't show up to dinner, apparently this was normal since she spent most of her time in the training room.
…
After dinner, Daimon and Thea returned to the room to have a nice night of sleep, and so the darkness was replaced by a bright morning a few hours later and Daimon who was sleeping next to Thea, slowly opened his eyes after listening to someone knocking on the door, it was rather early in the morning so Daimon felt lucky they went to sleep early yesterday.
He got up the bed and opened the door, the dazzling sight of queen Mirellia wearing an elegant emerald green dress, was what awaited Daimon at the other side of the door.
The Lamia queen scanned Daimon for a second, this was also the first time she has seen his real appearance, but besides having to admit that the silver haired youth was quite a handsome man, she was marveled at the strong Naga-like aura that radiated from him.
'I thought he would at most feel like the young descendants of the Naga royal family, but in terms of quality his aura doesn't lose against the one of their kings, was this caused solely by the blood essence or is it related to the strange resonation I felt back then?', wondered the queen as she greeted Daimon.
"Good morning, thanks for giving that harsh daughter of mine a second chance, the event will start in an hour, I will send Ferris to escort you two, please prepare yourselves", she said to then graciously take her leave, or at least that's what she intended only for Daimon to say.
"Let's deal with your little poison problem first, I can't completely eliminate it in a short period of time, but reducing it until it is harmless for some time would take a few seconds".
The queen turned around and gazed at Daimon, trying to discern if he was bluffing and she was amazed at her conclusion.
'He is telling the truth!', it's worth mentioning that she has used tons of potions and even meditated in the pool at the basement, and that only slowed down the spread of the poison in her body and slightly reduced the toll it had on her, which is why she has been maintaining her Lamia form lately, in order to not look tired.
"You are not the first nether afflicted person I have to deal with, in fact I know which Nethereal is behind whatever king did it", said Daimon, courtesy of Agrak and his "closeness" with the crazy girl and her mother, the nether affecting Mirellia's body is the same as the one that use to freely roam in Bell's body.
In other words, the guilty was either Sarah's father, or a Nethereal directly subordinated to him, considering the queen is a high stage Stellar rank, a Nethereal in a similar realm would be needed to harm her.
Unfortunately for said Nethereal, Daimon isn't a newbie when it comes to nether like back then, he has learned a lot about it thanks to the Global Raid and though limited to Agrak's clan's nether, he fully understands how it works.
Not to mention has had enough practice with Sarah and Bell, so he offered his hand to the queen who accepted the invitation, intrigued by what would happen next.
The answer came a second later when an invisible tremble travelled through the nearby atmosphere, before Daimon's body exploded in white flames making Mirellias's pupils narrow like needles.
Despite not being limited to live underwater, as a race closely related to the sea, Lamias are commonly born with affinities related to it, that being said, previous to their life in Draim, they didn't live under the sea and those who maintained their lineage close to the original one, had a wider range of option when it came to the affinities they could be born with.
For example, Mirellia despite her gentle vibes is not only a knight, but also has a highly destructive attribute, derived probably from a mix of the original affinity of her family's lineage and the one that their nameless benefactor had, poison and metal, resulted in acid, in other words the Lamia queen is a Variant, similar to Aura as she inherited dual affinities that ended up mixing and complementing each other perfectly, fusing into a single stronger one.
Don't confuse Sarah's corrosive poison as acid, in her case that is the result of her dual darkness and poison affinities, but she isn't limited to that and can create and use a plethora of poisons with different effects, it's just that the crazy girl likes turning her enemies into bloody puddles.
Mirellia on the other hand is limited to melt anything her battle aura touches, and yet even with such a strong and dangerous affinity, the moment she saw those flames a chill ran down her spine, it was as if every cell in her body was screaming "danger", of course that only lasted a fraction of a second and what followed it was a complete and easing calmness, despite those flames still being there a few millimeters away from her.
"Don't worry, despite how it looks, my battle aura isn't "fire", so just being exposed to it shouldn't be detrimental for you", said Daimon, confusing the previously tense expression on the Lamia queen's face as an innate averse to fire caused by her lineage.
"Mm, it's not that, those whose blood hadn't thinned past a certain point allowing our environment to influence them too much, wouldn't be weakened when facing fire or similar elements, it's just that Mr. Gabriel's battle aura is… terrifying, is this normal among outsiders?", curiously said the Lamia queen.
"Oh, sorry about that, it had to be done this way for the "treatment" I recently came up with, to work, also you can call me Daimon, that's my real name and no, my battle aura is not normal by any standards", casually said Daimon.
The queen's interest went through the roof, but she kept her doubts for herself for the time being, next she felt that dreading aura with which the silver haired youth rendered her younger daughter defenseless, pour out of his body like a tsunami, there was a major difference this time though, the intensity of it was way different.
'His killing aura is so strong that it is distorting the mana in the atmosphere, I had only seen psycho from the Dark Berserker clan being able to accomplish such a thing… no this is different, way more refined and also I don't feel like vomiting just by being exposed to it', thought the Lamia queen.
What she was seeing was Daimon showing off his Overlord Pride, as to why he was doing something so unlike him, it was part of treatment, after entering the Global Raid and sorting Agrak's memories, Daimon has finally realized why his Demon Light is so effective against Nethereals, to the point that he can easily inflict pain just by being exposed to it.
"Fear", his Overlord's Pride aura is an agglomeration of the fear he has inflicted upon others, murderous intent caused by killing a lot and lastly the aura of his superior bloodline, which includes his Apex Predator, Vampire and lately the Dracolevia lineages.
And according to what he knew about Nethereals and later confirmed by Agrak's memories, Nethereal's mana or nether, is composed of an element and something derived from an emotion, for example greed in Agrak's case, as for the element all the natural Nethereals he has met so far had darkness affinity, but that could be a result of whatever happened after Agrak screwed up, since the three leaders didn't seem to have darkness affinity nether.
So, the way to deal with Nethereals is either having an element that far outclasses theirs, or being able to inflict them an emotion strong enough to mess with their nether, and Daimon had both from the very beginning, battle aura is ultimately an energy expression of the physical body, so Demon Light inflicts both physical and mental damage to his enemies as it carries the fear caused by his aura.
Amusingly enough it is a vicious circle, being wounded by someone from a lower ranked place made the Nethereals afraid, which messed with their nether, then the fear innately brought by Demon Light, further affected them, in other words they were a bad match for Daimon.
It's also worth mentioning that Aurora managed to utterly destroy Nethereals during their last fight, not only because she concentrated her light mana to its utmost limit thus far outclassing the nether of the enemy, but because after she learned the truth behind the disappearance/death of her daughter, her hatred/anger towards Nethereals soared to the sky, so superior element and strong emotion, you get the point.
Back to the new "treatment" Daimon thought about, the point was to not inject his Demon Light into the body of the other party like he had to do with Sarah and Bell, strangely enough those two were somewhat resistant towards it, Sarah even enjoyed being exposed to the fear factor of it, so with a lot of focus and cautiousness he was able to drive out nether directly, but that wouldn't be the case for everyone.
So, he created this alternative method using his newly acquired knowledge, he exposed the target to his Demon Light and then instilled a though short, still significant fear on it, the result is what was happening right now.
"What is this?", asked the queen as she saw a wine-red colored mist coming out from her right shoulder, right where the sneak attack that poisoned her had landed, the thing seemed to be alive as it tried to get away from Mirellia, only to miserably fail when Daimon said.
"That's the little bastard that has been bothering you", with a snap of his fingers, white flames encased till the last spec of that red mist, which was of course nether, Daimon casually compressed it until a palm sized white flame sphere with a wine-red colored center landed on his hand, only for him to send it to the inventory the next second, that nether surpassed any other one he has seen before, including Agrak's, well there was an exception and that was the "emotionless" pure nether that freely roamed in the dimensional tunnel that brought him here.
"Phew~", the Lamia queen heavily exhaled and mana gathered from all over the place, that nether came out with a portion of her mana so she had to replenish it, however she didn't feel that uncomfortable and weakening sensation anymore, now she just needed a bit of time to return to her prime, but for now she directly drank a few potions and ended up in a way better status than earlier, her innately white skin regained its healthy luster and her green aquamarine eyes shone brighter as well.
"Thanks…", said Mirellia, she was still processing what happened a moment ago, so she couldn't find the words to thank the silver haired youth in front of her, ultimately, she decided to show her gratitude with actions through the alliance they were in.
"You two can come out, I knew you were here from the very beginning", said Daimon, after a couple of seconds an impossible to understand rambling came from below the staircase as the two Lamia princesses approached them.
"Now don't take it against them Mr. Daimon, I'm pretty sure these two were just worried about me", said the queen, which was understandable, the previous outburst of Demon Light was what got the attention of Ferris, that being said, Naomi has been spying on them since before that, waiting for him and Thea to come out of the room.
Ferris gave Daimon a gratitude filled gaze, she could tell her mother was better now, as for Naomi she stole gazes at him from time to time, while avoiding his eyes.
"We can have a friendly celebration later, those old geezers will be arriving in a few minutes so let's head to the royal meeting chamber first", said the Lamia queen as she read a message that was sent to her communication device.
With a small nod, a large portal appeared in front of them and the whole group jumped into it, of course Daimon put on the Hollow Suit before that, mask included.