Reyne gazed at her lance and couldn't help but frown as she saw that black substance from earlier, staining it just like it happened to her own arm, just as she was about to change back to human form and use her fire battle aura to turn the black plague nether into charcoal, her instincts warned her of danger coming from below, making her jump backwards.
Just in time for her to dodge a dozen of black skeletal hands that came out of the ground, though she managed to avoid being restrained by the spell of the Bone Sorceress, the danger didn't end there, as the nearby ground dyed black due to substance that was covering the bones.
Feeling the mocking gaze of the enemy, Reyne stomped with her right foot towards the Bone Sorceress.
"Booom!", the ground shattered due to the strong impact and a crack expanded in the direction at which Reyne aimed, forcing the Bone Sorceress to summon a bone wall to defend herself.
Naturally, Rachel didn't miss the opportunity to sneak attack the Nelapsi girl, she turned into a black flash that appeared behind Reyne and aimed her staff which was cladded in nether towards her sides.
"Clang!", a loud metallic sound echoed through the battlefield as Reyne blocked the enemy's attack with her lance, seeing the mocking smile on Rachel's face, the Nelapsi girl softly snorted.
"Humph".
"Black Marsh", the Bone Sorceress manipulated the black substance that was staining the ground in a try to surround Reyne, but the latter's quick reflexes allowed her to avoid the black substance current that moved underground and turned the spot where Reyne was previously standing, into a dangerous looking black pond.
"You won't be able to dodge forever, you are bound to slip at some point", said Rachel, the black substance was absorbed back into the ground, leaving a lifeless patch of land behind.
Compared to other parts of the battlefield, the earth which was touched by that black substance current turned grey and practically lost all the vitality that naturally inhabits a place with abundant mana, in other words that black substance made the nutrients in the soil die.
In comparison, Reyne saw that while there were more stains of that black substance on her lance, the thing wasn't affecting her magic weapon at all.
'Mm, so her nether only works on things that contain vitality, but only these two can use it and in different scales... I see so that's the so called "blessing" she received', thought Reyne.
The Blood Knights which contained the vitality she granted them through her battle aura were clashing head on against the Bone Brutes and they weren't being infected by that black substance, meaning that only Rachel and the Bone Sorceress were capable of using producing that nether, even if the others were revived using it.
Rachel saw the light of disdain flashing through Reyne's eyes and she grinned.
"To think you'd still have the nerve to gaze around after witnessing the glorious power that my Lord granted me", she said, to which Reyne answered with a mocking voice.
"Those are some big words for someone that relies on an external source of power to get the attack power needed to face me head on but still fails to keep up with my speed", she said to then jump sidewards, preventing that black current from earlier to ambush her, since the Bone Sorceress of course didn't sit still while Reyne and Rachel exchanged words.
Rachel gritted her teeth in response, it was true that the nether which she was using to clash against a knight like Reyne, while being a mage herself, didn't originate on her, but that's not what angered her the most, but the fact that Reyne clearly looked down on the power which her master personally granted her, Rachel basically saw red on the spot.
"Enough, I didn't want to ruin you too much as I was going to present you as a sacrifice for the Lord, but I have changed my mind, your bones will have to suffice, Plague Charge!".
With a loud shout and a bunch of nether gathering around Rachel's body, she pointed towards Reyne and all the nether which she gathered was injected into the ground, which then rumbled giving the Nelapsi girl a bad premonition.
Reyne covered herself in blood battle aura and turned into a red flash, putting distance between herself and the enemy, but the spell used by Rachel had a huge area of effect.
"Tsk", the Nelapsi girl clicked her tongue as she used her lance to smash a series of black spikes that raised from the ground blocking her way.
"Booom!", the metal lance destroyed the black spikes which in a close inspection were made of multiple bones that stuck together and were then cladded into that black substance.
Unfortunately, the bone fragments which flew in every direction, gave birth to new black spikes of the same size as before, they didn't need any ground to appear and actually manifested even midair, surrounding Reyne in every direction and making Daimon who was observing the fight, raise an eyebrow.
Back at the fight, the surging black spikes cut off Reyne's path of retreat, of course Rachel knew that she could still use the spatial movement skill of the queen piece to escape, but she counted with that, the Bone Sorceress had a surprise prepared for her the moment she did, so imagine her displease when she saw Reyne standing still while being swarmed by a rain of black spikes that came from every direction.
The result were continuous "clangs" as if a bunch of metal projectiles were clashing against a metal wall, the pained wails and the sound of flesh being ripped apart that Rachel expected didn't happen.
Once the attack ended, the image of Reyne covered from head to toe with a spectral blood red armor, was revealed.
"Crimson Guard", a melodious voice came from the imposing red metallic helmet that covered Reyne's head, before the armor turned into red particles after having completely blocked a direct attack from Rachel.
"Y-You!", speaking of Rachel she was furious, she expected Reyne to be able to block her direct attack, what she didn't expect was for all the nether that attached to the armor to be utterly useless since the armor disappeared leaving Reyne in the same exact state as she was, before being attacked by the black spikes.
In other words, the previous spell was rendered useless as it didn't even manage to infect Reyne with nether to force her to change to human form in order to cleanse herself, causing an interruption in the rhythm of her Blood Knights, a chance which Rachel wanted to use to gain the upper hand.
Reyne softly snorted, basically the whole battlefield could benefit Rachel or more accurately the Nethereal Lord behind of her, also the countless bones buried which she mentioned probably belonged to the poor bastards that had come here before.
It was understandable, after the Bone Sorceress used her strongest spell, Rachel forcefully raised her powers to the middle stage Lord realm, combined with the large horde of undead, against the enemy and eight pawns, it would be a one-sided slaughter.
Ironically, the Bone Sorceress was turned into a part of this so called "graveyard" after Rachel had no more use for her, since she clearly treated her as a tool, despite being originally from the same race.
Seeing the confident enemy who even had the luxury to give a grand speech, Reyne's red eyes glowed, at the same time Rachel shouted.
"Go, drown her in the glory of the Lord!".
The black skeleton horde which was spreading that plague nether in every direction, swarmed Reyne from every direction while Rachel prepared to block Reyne from escaping through spatial movement, only to have a bad premonition at the fact that Reyne didn't seem to be even considering dodging.
"The rest of you, form a protective circle around me", she said, making the remaining part of the horde which she had purposedly kept hidden underground, to come out and form a circle around her, to block any kind of retribution from Reyne.
'She shouldn't have any long-distance martial arts, so even if she uses that annoying fire element to breakthrough the horde, I can strike her down from afar...'.
Rachel's train of thought was interrupted by a sudden painful sensation coming from her back, she slowly turned her head around just to see that two of the black skeletons had used their sharp hands to pierce her back.
But that wasn't all, before she could react, all the undead that were surrounding her, grabbed and restrained her before pinning her down against the ground.
"Let me go you lowly tools... aghhh!", Rachel who used her nether to try and blast away the black skeletons nearly managed to escape, only for many other black skeletons to raise from underground to restrain her.
"Booom!", Rachel was smacked against the ground and the held captive by countless skeletal black bone hands, so that basically only her face was visible, the look of panic and confusion in her face was obvious.
"L-Lord did I do anything wrong, please give me another chance!", she exclaimed in a hurry, only her Lord was higher in the hierarchy for the hordes created with "Death Recall".
Unfortunately, the one who answered wasn't her Lord, but the Nelapsi girl, whose mellow voice could be heard coming from the hundreds of black skeletons that were surrounding her.
"Don't tell me you can't even recognize the energy with which simple skeleton undead are being maintained".
The horde split apart, opening way for Reyne who casually walked towards Rachel, making the latter look at the skulls of the black skeletons only to nearly suffer a heart attack when she saw a red fiery mist floating where the nether, she used to revive the horde, should be.
"What did you do, where is the nether my Lord granted to me!!!", she screamed as she struggled to get the horde off her, only for the countless skeletons to tighten their hold on her body, not only that the moment she tried to use the spatial movement ability of a queen piece, a couple of the skeletons stabbed her body with their hands, forcing the process to be interrupted.
Daimon whose interested in the current situation had increased by a few notches, due to what he just witnessed, gazed at Reyne.
'She absorbed the nether gathered not only in the horde but... in the whole battlefield, just like Sarah back then', he thought.
Rachel didn't see it, but Daimon did, a few seconds ago, when the horde had surrounded Reyne to swarm her, her magic core became a ferocious beast which devoured all the nearby nether in a single go.
Similar to how Sarah stole the nether used by Karla back at Kerrol, before turning into a crystal cocoon.
For Sarah the process started back when she absorbed the nether that escaped from the spatial rift below Thea's castle and ended with the previous, the amount of nether was more or less the same as the nether that Reyne just absorbed, in other words this was the start of the process for her.
That being said, things didn't add up from Daimon's point of view, while as far as Daimon understood one didn't necessarily need to be a Nethereal to use nether, Sarah was only able to absorb nether with a similar energy firm to the smooth looking Nethereal Lord from Agrak's memories, in other words her father.
That's right, the nether used by Karla had a similar property to the one used by Sarah's father, probably because she put a lot of focus in regaining her beautiful appearance from when she was a complete being.
Besides that, Sarah only absorbed the nether which was stored in the curse marks that branded her body, successfully turning them into nutrients, the sole exception was that pure nether which came from the spatial rift below Thea's castle.
'Reyne is for sure Jazmine's sister, Freya recognized her, but then how was she able to absorb the nether of the third Nethereal Lord... I guess the situation which led for Jazmine's mother and Reyne to end up in Kerrol is more complicated than what I expected', concluded Daimon.
Anyway, for the time being he put that subject at the back of his head, there were other big doubts to focus on right now, all the nether related stuff could still be explained but Daimon had no idea of how she took control of the undead created by Rachel.
"Crimson Crown", Reyne who arrived at Rachel's position, mumbled a couple of words, the next second a liquid blood crown manifested above her head.
'No way, that feels similar to the power of the Lord!!!", inwardly screamed Rachel.