Chapter 592: Challenges Daimon & Nethereal sisters, Reyne’s version (part 7)
Daimon's purple amethyst eyes glowed behind his mask as he scanned the undead created by Reyne, whatever method she used is something he had never seen or heard before and that is a lot to say considering that necromancy is a wide spread subject back at the four galaxies.
The usage of artificial undead is a common practice among most low and middle-sized forces, especially those that operate in the shadows, so those from noble families are taught about them, this is especially true within families and forces that have had conflict with the undead races, like the Revy family so Daimon had a solid formation in the basics of necromancy.
The first rule is that a base material is always needed, then you need a type of energy and a reanimation spell, for the first requirement, there are two options, bones or flesh, the choice depends on the final purpose for which the undead will be used.
If it is for things that require physical strength, then bones are the best choice, if it's chores that require magic, then a complete body is the best choice since a magic core is needed.
However, Daimon has never heard about a blood based undead, undead created with complete corpses don't have a need for blood, their bodies are maintained with mana that circulates through their bodies to prevent them from rotting.
In fact, for the vast majority of cases most of their organs are removed since unless the necromancer is really skilled, they deteriorate over time resulting on the undead becoming "unsightly".
Undead whose bodies are intact are incredibly expensive so they are only created at the request of the buyer, an interesting fact is that Rita belonged to that category, that merchant Falco whom she was protecting along with Horals, wasn't her final owner, he was transporting her for a client, when he had the bad luck of meeting Daimon, which resulted in his death.
Anyway, Daimon got interested in Reyne's undead creation ability, because one of the side effects of Rita becoming a terror contracted, was that her body regained all her functions, her heart started beating once again instead of being only a decoration and she had blood running through her veins as well, by all means she was alive.
Horals was similar though in a weirder sense, since the previously Bone General undead became able to use battle aura, meaning that he had vitality, despite him being a skeleton, the flames in his skull were actually his life spark, the only other undead known to be able to use battle aura was Salazar Inferas, the Lich Emperor, but that guy was rumored to have been born a human who then transformed himself into a lich, while Horals was an undead who technically gained life, the complete opposite.
And while the Blood Knight created by Reyne wasn't at that level, it was created with vitality in the form of blood, so Reyne's ability was of a higher rank compared to the necromancy known at the four galaxies.
'I remember that the noble ghouls had different blood related abilities, there was even one who could turn corpses into puppets, but this is different she took a bunch of blood and bestowed it her battle aura to make it an undead capable of independent movement, what's more that armor was created using the vitality contained in the blood, it might be a degraded version, but that's the principle behind battle aura', thought Daimon.
Reyne who could feel Daimon's interest in her ability was all smiles right now, the previous worries that clouded her heart were completely gone now, but for now and against her wishes she focused her attention on her opponent instead.
The enemy queen, who was also surprised after seeing the strange undead created by Reyne, snorted to then say.
"Even if you change the reanimation technique you use, the result will be the same, my race's innate talent is necromancy and I was personally chosen due to my high talent by my Lord, with his blessing, there is no way your creations can outclass mine".
Seeing that Reyne's undead had an armor, the enemy queen chose a high strength undead, a large number of bones from the pile she had prepared beforehand, floated away as she made some gestures.
"Bone Brute", the bones selected by the enemy queen were covered in a black substance, that was casted by her, dying them black and turning a bunch of bones into a tall imposing four-meter-tall figure holding a bone club.
"Humph, you were only able to gain the upper hand because I was restricting myself but not anymore", said Reyne with a determined voice.
Apparently in the previous rounds, instead of creating those blood undead, Reyne controlled blood to make puppets with the bones of the corpses she used, similar to the corpse puppet ability used by that ghoul, naturally she suffered similar inconveniences, as she had to control them manually.
"You say that, but you couldn't even make a weapon for your so-called Blood Knight, my creation will crush it with a single attack", said the enemy queen, as she mocked the Blood Knight whose height was barely half that of her own creation.
Reyne didn't bother to continue the discussion, she instead gestured with her right hand and a stream of blood came out of the bucket, unlike what the enemy queen expected, Reyne actually used less blood than with the Blood Knight for her second unit.
"Blood Knight", once again she bestowed a certain amount of her blood battle aura to the human shaped agglomeration of blood, transforming it into an undead, this time it was a slender one with a female shape, light armor that protected the legs and the chest only, it should be an agility focused version of the first one she created.
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The enemy queen frowned, during the previous rounds, Reyne only used one type of undead so she was taken by surprise after seeing that she could create a second type, that being said she put on a mocking expression as she took out her magic weapon, a long bone staff.
"This is the difference between you and me, Bone Sorceress", the enemy queen tapped the ground with her staff and a large amount of that black substance was produced by her, the thing moved and dragged some bones from the pile, to then turn into a female shaped undead with black inked skin.
"This is my Lord's blessing, if I wasn't chosen by him, I would have been like that thing a mere soldier, instead of evolving into a Bone Queen who can even create other mage type undead", she said.
While Reyne didn't care about the enemy's words, as she proceeded to repeat the process of creating the male version of the Blood Knight, Daimon observed the undead created by the enemy queen.
'Those undead created with that black substance feel awfully similar to what Ereth did to the people from the Blackfin family, no doubt this is the energy of that grim looking guy', he thought, referring to one of the three commanders of the Nethereal army that appeared in Agrak's memories.
The other two were supposedly, Jazmine, Reyne and Sarah's fathers, but the third one while not involved in that aspect, was the one who produced all the artificial Nethereals which appeared at Neptune.
'I wonder why those three bastards hadn't come out of their bases… whatever, with me here, they can't do anything to them', thought Daimon, if it isn't obvious enough considering how the enemy queen keeps saying Lord this and Lord that, the though weaker than what Daimon expected, energy firms coming from the enemy bases, belong to the Nethereal Lords.
Feeling the special attention that Daimon was paying to the undead created by the enemy queen after showing interest to the Blood Knights created by Reyne, a certain head maid felt her chest flood with jealousy.
'I can change my focus to necromancy if put my mind into it, that was the original talent of my race after all…', she couldn't help but say from within Daimon's shadow, making Daimon bitterly smile.
'That would be a shame, where would I find a head maid that can be at my side at all times, said Daimon, making Rita giggle.
'Mm, if young master says so, I'll remain in the shadow path~', she happily said.
'Well, at the very least I didn't have to order her to put value to her own life… unlike with Horals', thought Daimon, the Bone General originally completely disregarded his life, if his death could bring even the slightest benefit for his young master, then he would proceed without hesitating.
Rita on the other hand, reached the conclusion that if she died, she wouldn't be able to continue serving Daimon and that's something she can't allow to happen, she still lacked a bit of common sense but she was much more logical than Horals for sure.
'For now, we can see the "potential" that the original path of your previous race, followed', said Daimon to the undead head maid, the strongest mage type artificial undead known at the four galaxies were Bone Sorcerers, but the one in front of him called herself "Bone Queen".
Also, while restrained to the early-stage Lord realm due to the challenge, the enemy queen was at least an early-stage Stellar rank mage and Bone Sorcerers could at most reach the middle stage of the Archmage realm, meaning that he was seeing the next stage of a Bone Sorcerer, it was valuable information to bring back.
'Even if she evolved into an upgraded version, I can beat her easily', mumbled Rita, to which Daimon chuckled, while she is sure that she isn't a Bone Sorceress anymore, her new race hasn't been specified, meaning that whatever the requirements for her evolution might be, she hadn't fulfilled them yet.
In part this is also why he wanted to learn more about the enemy queen, that could show him how to help Rita with her evolution, he didn't want to mention it for a good reason… Horals was already undergoing said change, he could feel it.
Back at the real world since Reyne and the enemy queen just finished making their pawns, from the enemy's side, she had seven of those Bone Brutes and a single Bone Sorceress, as for Reyne she had four male shaped Blood Knights and four female shaped ones, a much more balanced team.
On the other hand, the enemy had a mage unit in her team, which might be devastating in a team fight, since Reyne couldn't produce a mage unit, she is a knight after all.
Now that both sides had finished creating their pawns, the barrier that separated them finally dispelled and they were now allowed to fight each other.
"Go crush those who oppose our Lord!", commanded the enemy queen as she flashed towards Reyne, she wanted to kill her with her own hands while also demonstrating that her undead were superior in every way.
"Block them", Reyne gave her order and she also used the spatial movement ability granted to queen pieces, to go meet the enemy.
Speaking of the enemy queen, that same black substance which she used to create her undead, covered her body acting as an armor of some sort, after all she didn't dare to clash head on against Reyne, a knight, without using a buffing spell.
"Black Plague Armor!", the enemy queen punched towards Reyne with her right hand which had gathered a large amount of nether.
In response, Reyne's delicate looking hand exploded in the same red battle aura she used to create the Blood Knights from earlier, her blood battle aura then took turned into a red clawed gauntlet with which she clawed towards the enemy queen.
"Crimson Claw".
"Booom!", the result was a thunderous shockwave followed by an energy explosion, half of the sky was lit up in a red blood colored light while the other got dyed black by the nether of the enemy.
The result was that both Reyne and the enemy queen were sent flying backwards, however Reyne only stepped back twenty meters while the enemy got blasted away a whole forty meters.
It was understandable, not only is Reyne a knight but her innate physical strength, is much higher than average talented people, back at Kerrol she won in a direct confrontation against another knight and that was when she was using her fire element battle aura, which doesn't focus on increasing her physical strength, but using heat to burn everything in her path.
'So, this is her real power in Nelapsi mode, in terms of physical strength she should be able to go head-to-head against Sarah', thought Daimon as he carefully used the infinity eyes to peek at Reyne's lower abdomen.
Of course, what he aimed was at her life spark, back then he didn't know that Reyne would end up joining his group permanently along with Jeanne and Emily, so he didn't run a deep scan on how her powers worked.
And after leaving Kerrol, there hasn't been a chance in which Reyne had a need to enter Nelapsi mode and also use the battle aura exclusive to this state, which was a blood element one, that being said he did look into her life spark when she is in human form back then.
'It's completely different… does she have two life sparks?', wondered Daimon as he saw the red solid looking life spark shinning within Reyne's body as of current.
Back at the fight, Reyne proudly stood in her place while mockingly looking at the enemy who she pushed backwards twice the distance than what she was forced to move, making the enemy grit her teeth in anger.
"What's up with that look, you should see your arm before considering this mere warm up as your victory", she said.
Reyne looked at her right arm and saw that she had a few drops of that black substance staining her, the thing was actually eating through the thin layer of battle aura covered her skin.
Reyne frowned, she tried to blast the black substance away with liberation of battle aura, but the thing actually increased its size instead.
"Mm, so it feeds on vitality", she mumbled to which the enemy queen mockingly laughed at her.
"My Lord created this to deal with knights like you, so enjoy…", the enemy queen stopped midway, when she felt the overall aura around Reyne change.
Her blood red pupils turned green again and then her arm shone in a dazzling fiery orange light, the air around her was distorted due to the high heat she was radiating, smoke was immediately produced by the black substance.
"Hissss!", the black substance started sizzling before it was calcinated and turned into black dust that fell to the ground the next second.
The enemy queen was momentarily at a loss, during the previous rounds the queens had not fought directly even once, their only interactions have been through the pawns so the enemy queen whose name is Rachel by the way, didn't know that Reyne also has fire affinity.
'Impossible, she eliminated my Black Plague nether, how can she have such opposite affinities and control them without any side effect!', inwardly screamed Rachel.
Her shock was understandable, blood affinity at its basic form is an element on the negative specter, and Reyne's blood affinity was used for necromancy meaning that her blood element was on the extreme of the negative side of the specter.
Fire on the other hand is a much more neutral element, it can be positive or negative depending on its nature, if Reyne's fire was of a destructive nature then Rachel could still find sense in her having affinity on it.
However, Reyne's fire affinity didn't produce flames, her battle aura produced extreme heat and also light and for a good reason, her life spark when she was in human form was an elemental type one.
Add to the controversy that besides her two affinities being on the complete opposites of the specter, the fact that blood by principle aligns with water which would most of the times enter in conflict with fire and then you can understand why Rachel couldn't help but curse, the enemy she was fighting wasn't like the usual random people that ended up stranded in the territories ruled by her Lord, which she captured and offered as sacrifices all the time.
'I have to admit it, these three little girls have the potential to bring the innate talent of my Ivory family to a new level, I can't imagine what kind of monsters would their offspring be~', Joanna who had remained silent while guarding Jazmine in secret, jokingly said in a voice that only Daimon could hear.
'Ahem, have there been people in your family with two different life sparks before?', asked Daimon while ignoring her obvious suggestions.
'Nope, in fact in the whole history records of my family, all the members of the royal lineage who awakened the "duality" and managed to obtain an affinity on the complete opposite side of the specter, were mages… so little Reyne is the first, little Jazmine and little Sarah are equally unique though', said Joanna, to which Daimon nodded.
Two different life sparks, of two different types, the fire is a rare elemental type while the blood one is a support type that allows her to use a special type of necromancy while still increasing her physical strength as much as an attack type life spark.
"Judging by your dumb face, I assume you believed that blood was my main focus, unfortunately for you, not only it hasn't been even a year since I became able to use it, but prior to this challenge I had never used necromancy in my life, in other words what you are having trouble to deal with is only my starting line", proudly said the Nelapsi girl.
Fire has been her focus for the vast majority of her life, not only because she had to hide her identity as a Nelapsi, but also because her fire affinity was especially effective against Ghouls, as it originates on the light element, she is Jazmine's sister after all.
Only recently she has started to actively explore her Nelapsi side, in part because she doesn't need to hide it anymore and in part thanks to Daimon being a vampire as well.
Reyne's eyes once again changed to a blood red tone, the only inconvenient she has as of current is that she can't use her fire affinity in Nelapsi mode, just as how she can't use her blood affinity when she is in human state.
So, in human state she can't give new orders to the undead she created, something that the enemy queen who was now trying to find a way to turn the tables after seeing Reyne not needing to resort on spending around twice the amount of energy when compared to the nether she wanted to dispel, which is the usual norm, noticed.
"Though I don't know why is that fire battle aura of yours so effective against my nether, to the point that you didn't even need to use a martial art to deal with the effect of my Plague Armor, there are other ways to deal with you", said Rachel, she then flashed towards the area where the pawns were engaging in a fierce battle.
Two Bone Brutes guarded the Bone Sorceress, while the other five were fighting against six of Reyne's Blood Knights, all the male shaped ones and two of the female ones, respectively.
While the Bone Brutes had a higher physical strength when compared to Reyne's Blood Knights, they were relatively slow, the male shaped Blood Knights were much more balanced, so with the help of the female shaped Blood Knight which is incredibly agile for a Lord ranked undead, they were keeping the five Brutes in check.
As for the Bone Sorceress, every time she tried to cast a spell, the two remaining female shaped Blood Knights attacked her from afar to interrupt her casting, unlike what Rachel thought, the Blood Knights did have weapons.
It's just that they produced them using blood, their arms turned into the weapons they used to be more accurate, for example the two female shaped Blood Knights that were harassing the Bone Sorceress, forcing those two Bone Brutes to remain at her side to guard her, had transformed their right hands in a bow and a crossbow respectively.
The one with the crossbow had a faster attacking ratio, she continuously shot blood bolts at the two Bone Brutes to keep them occupied while the knight with the bow focused all her attention on the Bone Sorceress, forcing her to interrupt her casting midway to use the spell Bone Wall protect herself.
This way, the advantage on the enemy's side, namely the capacity to use magic, something that Reyne's Blood Knights weren't capable off, was negated thanks to superior agility and flexibility.
The previous however worked like a charm when Reyne was in her Nelapsi form, since she could keep an eye on the battlefield through the Blood Knights and help the four male shaped ones to exchange between using tower shields and war hammers to besiege the Bone Brutes while the female shaped one used a dagger to pierce through their solid bone bodies, slowly but surely damaging them.
Their rhythm was interrupted when Reyne changed to human form and while they weren't losing, their team work slowed down resulting in a stall.
"You two charge towards the ones hiding in the back, I'll support from the rear", said Rachel as she pointed at the two female shaped Blood Knights that were controlling the battlefield.
"Dream on", Reyne who just arrived, directly attacked the Bone Sorceress who was the major problem in Rachel's team, in a try to get rid of her, just to see a black fist aiming at her head.
Reyne clicked her tongue, took out her knight's lance to block the incoming attack from Rachel, while she clawed towards the Bone Sorceress who casted a bone spear in Reyne's direction.
"Booom!", the clash between those three created a loud explosion, however this time Rachel wasn't blasted away, she managed to hold her ground, not because she had gotten stronger but because Reyne had to divide her attention in two, after all she had to defend herself against the Bone Sorceress as well.
'Humph, so what if you are stronger individually, my Lord's specialty is to fight quality with quantity, let's see how long can you hold on while being attacked from every direction', thought Rachel.