Chapter 577: Challenges Thea’s version (part 13)



With Rita flying them at high speed, the group flashed through the around four kilometers of metal filled levels before reaching the fifth one just in time to see a giant dent appearing on the metal gate.

"Booom!", the gate managed to resist the impact but the metal churning sound was so loud that it made the younger Lamia princess cover her ears, probably because as a someone with a magic beast lineage she had sharp senses.

"Sometimes I think it's not fair that only sis had the talent to be a knight...", mumbled Naomi, it's not like she was making a fuss out of nothing, the metal door was strong enough to contain the middle stage Stellar ranked magic beast that was trying to break out for at least half an hour if left alone.

So, the sound produced by the clash of such a strong metal and the brute strength of the magic beast, resulted in a sound that was like nails on a chalkboard for those with sharp senses and not the best physical defense or an active defensive spell which was specifically designed to filter extreme sounds.

"Now, now, don't say stuff that makes you sound like an old bitter woman, if we were both knights our teamwork wouldn't be as good as it is now, right?", said Ferris as she patted her younger sister's head a couple of times.

Leaving the Lamia sister's exchange aside, Daimon observed the door being constantly hit by the magic beast on the other side and he turned to see Zia to then say.

"I leave the middle stage ones to you, I don't want to waste too much time and we are staying a couple of hours anyway, so feel free to use your domain to finish the fight as soon as possible, within the limits of this place's space of course".

"Celia, the two high stage ones are for you, Rita you keep blocking what is happening here from the outside and keep an eye on us, we'll take care of the Arch ranked mob, any questions?".

"No", the girls answered in unison and then with Celia taking the vanguard, the door which the magic beast was trying to forcefully open from the inside, was easily opened from the outside.

Unfortunately, the excited roars from the magic beast came to an early end when Zia entered its sight.

"Mountain Shattering Hand", with a soft voice, a giant hand of around two hundred meters was summoned by Zia, grabbing the magic beast nearest to the door, a dark brown lizard with a missing eye and metal spikes shoved in many parts of its body.

"Screehhhh!", naturally, the moment the enemy's vanguard was attacked, the other magic beasts immediately reacted, but so did Zia her light brown hair seemed to glow for a second and before the other middle stage magic beasts could react, giant rock hands emerged from the ground below them, completely suppressing them and dragging them towards Zia.

That was the Amber Asper Snake race's innate ability "Flash Cast", it allows Zia to instantly cast simplified versions of a spell, in this case she used it on "Mountain Shattering Hand", which is a single target spell, turning it into an area of effect one, without the need of having to go through the casting process again.

The result were the ten rock hands which were dragging the surprised magic beasts towards the east of this level.

In case you wonder how is such a strong innate ability not being abused to rain down hell in combat, the result could be seen on the last five or so rock hands, which were already being shattered by the magic beasts shaking their bodies.

Skipping parts of the casting process by using "Flash Cast" reduces the strength of the resulting spells, not to mention it uses a whole bunch of mana in a sole instance, which is why Zia had to train a lot in order to not be affected when using her innate ability.

All those inconveniences made it so being a vanguard in the battlefield, would be inefficient for her race, but they were perfect for information gathering and communications, after all with a single activation of "Flash Cast" they could transmit a message or move through space, more than three or four times the same distance as others after the natural reduction on the efficiency of the spell, which is still a huge advantage over others.

Naturally the price in mana is astronomical, but in a war where communication devices are most likely going to be restricted and information has to be brought personally, Zia's race is a trump card, this innate ability is the reason as to why the sole other person in the whole lab who knew about the underground facilities, in other words the receptionist, is also from the Amber Asper Snake race.

The last thing Daimon saw from Zia was she smiling while she summoned her domain, trapping the ten middle stage Stellar magic beasts and herself within a giant stone sphere she condensed by using her domain, even if direct battle isn't her specialty that doesn't mean she is weak by any means, crowd control requires less strength but more wit and she is perfectly capable of that.

"I'll be back as soon as possible young master", said Celia as she summoned two giant streams of rotating black water which forcefully dragged a red snake with protruding fangs and something that looked like a purple giant salamander, those were the sole two high stage Stellar magic beasts.

Despite their high realms, they lacked wisdom which is it was so easy for Zia and Celia to bring them into their domains, thus preventing them from wreaking havoc in this underground level.

That being said, the beasts had already done some damage to this level, even if Daimon's response was way faster than what the one who thought of this safety method predicted, the magic beasts were basically enraged after being tortured and experimented on, at this point they just destroyed everything on sight.

"Tsk, around 30% of this level's retrievable technology and information has been lost, Rita, can you record all the information available in this level?".

"Mm, don't worry and fight without any restraints", said the undead head maid, to which Daimon nodded before gazing at Ferris.

"I already know the answer but just to confirm, you have no trouble dealing with multiple peak Arch rank enemies at the same time, right?", he said.

The older Lamia princess smiled in response before her body exploded in a strange combination of dark gray and metallic green battle aura.

"Acid... no, metal, but then why does it have two different colors", mumbled Daimon, while changing one's energy color is possible just for aesthetics, Daimon is sure that Ferris wouldn't do something so vain, but at the same time her battle aura had two different colors but its overall feeling was that of metal element.

"So even you can be surprised, let me tell you a little secret, sister is the sole person ever recorded in Draim's history who has been born with dual metal affinity", proudly said Naomi.

"Hoh, judging by the pride behind your words, one would think you are the one with such a unique talent", jokingly said Daimon, earning an annoyed gaze from the younger Lamia princess while she showed him her teeth.

"I'm joking, I must admit that it's a first even for me, I know people with both light and darkness affinities and even a really special variant with an incredibly strong affinity, but double same element affinities, that's new", added Daimon, the air around him became heavy before his body exploded in white flames as he activated Core Synchrony.

Seeing Naomi slightly shivering just by the proximity to his Demon Light, Daimon softly laughed, he really left a long-lasting impression on the poor Lamia princess, just to mess up with her a bit more, he allowed his current peak Lord realm aura to be visible for her.

"Ahhh, I knew it, there is no way you could be so strong with a realm lower than mine!", exclaimed the younger Lamia princess, who was still trying to find an explanation as to why she a peak Early stage Mage Lord was so intimidated by a star ranked knight to the point that she felt like standing at the border of the abyss when she compared herself with Daimon.

"If that's what you think, you are in for a surprise, there are at least a dozen of people with lower realms than yours who aren't weaker than you", casually said Daimon referring to the Risha sisters and the others.

In a rough calculation, Daimon believed that Naomi should be able to fight against multiple peak Lord stage enemies on her own, which is not bad at all as she would be jumping two minor realms, however she still lacked if she wanted to cross a major realm and battle an Arch rack, while Ferris on the other hand could even if barely, fair quite nicely against half step Stellars.

"Don't bully her too much, Naomi is still quite young and she has yet to obtain her second affinity which is why she might appear to fall behind me in terms of talent, but I can assure you that isn't the case, mages are rarer than knights in the Lamia royalty and they have it harder to reach higher realms, such was our grandmother's case", said Ferris defending her younger sister, in case you wonder, Naomi is currently a water affinity mage.

Daimon couldn't help but frown behind his mask, certainly he had both darkness and space affinities, like Thea, but that shouldn't be enough to make the woman in the statue, think he belonged to her race, much less if she was who she claimed to be.

'My contract with Thea would explain the space laws from her race approaching me, though I couldn't see them... but none of my lineages have any relation with Thea's race', thought Daimon, before an idea struck him like a lightning out of the blue.

'Ryner's last fang', he concluded, the gift that Thea gave him as a sign of friendship, originally Ryner didn't have the space affinity of Thea and Thalia's race, what he inherited from Thalia bestowing some of her blood to him, was darkness affinity which integrated with his original water one, however at the end of his days, Ryner managed to obtain space affinity.

And while it was too late for him to exploit the potential of the lineage from which his derived, Ryner left this opportunity to his future descendants, with the years the bones were used for multiple purposes but the upper fangs weren't suitable for anyone, so they kept accumulating mana, growing in power until they reached a level where they radiated a similar aura to the one of Thalia's race.

Which might explain why the fake Thalia was suppressed by Thea's spear, according to the empress herself, it was lineage suppression, now the problem lied in what to tell to the woman inside the statue.

'She really hopes that I am a member of her race, maybe that's why her hatred towards system users isn't being directed to me as of current, so if tell her otherwise, the reaction will probably be quite violent on the other hand if I lie, I might obtain some information out of her but... I have zero doubts that she'll discover the truth sooner or later, since she is someone that managed to screw over the hydra guy', thought Daimon.

Ultimately Daimon chose to tell her the truth, not for sympathy towards her, but because he was guided here by his instincts, when fully focusing on helping Thea with her challenge, so this encounter must be really important for her, also in his experience choosing the easy way out, might be satisfying on the short, but at long term you end up loosing more than what you won, just look at the corpse of the light idiot in his inventory.

'My lineage isn't related to yours', he said, in case you wonder why he didn't mention Thea, he didn't trust the woman yet, right now she knew nothing about him and it was better to keep it like that, it would be easier to notice if she lied or tried to trick him this way, since she affirmed to be Thalia and he more or less knew about Thalia from two different sources, namely Thea and Marlene clan's records.

As expected, Daimon could feel the gaze from the woman in the statue, getting colder on the spot, but behind all that, what could be felt was disappointment.

'In that case, I might as well tell you why I hate those like you... I was forcefully taken away from my natal galaxy by the one on which that array was inspired of, Dorian the user of the "Abyss Snake Tyrant" system'.

Daimon remained silent, he couldn't detect any lies in her words, also he finally discovered the name of the hydra guy, who caused so much troubles to Thea and Marlene's clans.

'So, he "summoned" you with an array like that one, but then why didn't you lose your sanity like those magic beasts?', he asked, to which the woman softly snorted.

'Humph, don't compare that degraded thing with the real deal, as a member of one of the twelve royal families from my galaxy, I had already started the process to surpass the Stellar realm, I was in the middle of my advance when that despicable array appeared in my room and dragged me into a chaotic dimensional tunnel'.

'Next thing I knew, I appeared in a room that only had a large bed, where that guy was sitting while I was chained to the ground by that array which was engraved on his chest, it costed me my advance, a part of my magic core and having to detonate my protection pendant but I broke my restraints, half-tore his chest open and then escaped by jumping into the nearby ocean', she said, taking a moment before continuing.

'Who would have thought that the bastard of Dorian would then chase me to the end of the world in order to "tame" me, I only understood why after seeing the monstrosity in which he had transformed himself by forcefully integrating all those magic beasts into his body, he wanted my space affinity'.

'Luckily it was his own greed what helped me ultimately driving him away, his previous victim from which he obtained darkness affinity wasn't completely gone and in the middle of the battle in which he finally managed to corner me, she messed with him for a second, giving me the chance to land a fatal wound on that bastard, forcing him to run with his tail between his legs... unfortunately my already wounded body started to succumb to the side effects of forcefully destroying the connection he tried to force onto me', she proudly said.

Daimon's eyes glowed behind his mask, her story matched with what he knew, but there was still an unsolved mystery.

'If you defeated him, how did you end up trapped here?', he asked, just to hear the woman gritting her teeth in response.

'Because even after his death that bastard came back to haunt me, I had built a place to recover and even obtained trustworthy allies, but I... lowered my guard after getting news of that guy being killed and it was then when "she" infiltrated my body, stealing my control over it while trying to use me to invade my world through a space rift that I was investigating back then'.

'My followers noticed it and most distanced themselves from me, but they weren't strong enough to stop me, so I decided to take things in my own hands, after leaving a "safety measure" as a last gift for them, I used my last resort which essentially turned my physical body into a prison, interrupting her midway and forcing us to wander in the dimensional tunnel for quite some time, along with the ones that were tricked to follow her'.

'Unfortunately, while she was tied to my now petrified physical body, she still managed to find a place to stablish herself and controlled those guys to develop her own organization, I hibernated a few years and when I woke up, I saw that disgusting array once again, she started summoning magic beasts to use them for experiments and ultimately created a though inferior, still related lineage to mine, in order to escape this prison'.

'From that point onwards, she has been torturing me to obtain the memories of my galaxy, since she is trapped her as she lacks that special space rift from back then and the magic beasts, she summons basically lose their mind, ah right, she also tried to obtain the memories from the races of those two girls, but there was no progress is that area'.

'I see, so you gave your blood to someone else besides Ryner, so that there would be a descendant with the strength to oppose the one who stole your body, if she ever returned, right?', asked Daimon.

'Yes, it was in a hurry but that girl had such a firm determination in her eyes so I... WHAT DID YOU SAY!', the woman who was calmly answering, stopped midway before she finally realized that Daimon said Ryner's name.

'H-How do you know about that, don't tell me this aura... you killed their descendant!', she exclaimed in horror

And with that Daimon was convinced, because her reaction was genuine, now imagine how the temperature dropped when he took out Ryne's fang, allowing the misunderstanding to further develop.

Daimon could see the statue shaking, the woman was clearly enraged thinking that he had done something to Ryner and that girl's descendant, still he decided to stop her before things got serious, after all he could feel mana secretly coming from the deepest parts of the statue, when before there was no such a thing.

Of course, at this point just words would be meaningless, so he instead allowed her to feel the contract he made with Thea, because while the aura she felt indeed came from Ryner's fang, it was easy to discern the kind of relationship he had with Thea, based on the mutual-trust link that was stablished between them.

'No way, that is the "Knighthood Pact" of the royal families and it was properly stablished on top of it!', Thalia exclaimed in surprise, the suicide attack she was preparing, dissolved on the spot, what's more the snake statue glowed for a second before a few yellow light particles emerged from it, to then gather before taking human form.

A tall slender girl descended in front of Daimon, it was a young girl of around 17 years old, looking not even a day older than Aisha or Sarah, she wore a black sundress made out of condensed darkness mana, which allowed her frail looking shoulders and pretty bare feet visible, similar to Thea she had amber snake-like eyes, her face also shared a certain resemblance with the empress, to the point that they could be confused as sisters.

However, there were a couple of really important differences, first and formal, she looked younger than Thea who appeared to be in her middle twenties, which was weird considering Thalia should be older than Thea and second, her hair wasn't of that deep black inked color like the empress, but completely white, which didn't go along with the fact that she had darkness affinity.

Also, her skin was quite pale, giving her a sickly fragile appearance, though that last part was understandable, considering her vitality was like the blinking flame of a candle in the middle of a storm after all she has gone through.

"Allow me to introduce myself again, I am the second princess of the Neris royal family, Thalia Neris", she said out loud as she pulled the sides of her dress, allowing the other girls to listen to her for the first time since their previous conversation started.

Before Daimon could even answer, the familiar sound of a notification rang on his ears.

[Ding]