Being gazed at from above by Reyne who looked imposing with that red blood crown floating above her head, made Rachel who was already being held against the ground, feel low as if her existence was insignificant.
Not that Daimon couldn't understand why, since the blood battle aura that conformed that crown was different than the one Reyne has been using so far, normally Reyne's battle aura is of a bright red tone, resembling blood which is brimming with life and vitality.
But that crown was of a dark red tone and the reason behind the difference in color and the sensation of insignificance that Rachel was experiencing was the same, it was because that martial art which Reyne just casted, used nether!
Reyne wasn't showing it, but she was as surprised as Rachel, she didn't create this martial art, nor she knew anything about it until a moment ago, it simply appeared in her mind out of nowhere when she found herself surrounded by the plague horde.
When she was swarmed by the black skeletons in every direction she intended to change back to human form and blast them away with her fire battle aura, but instead of that, her magic core absorbed all the nether in the vicinity.
Only then, Reyne used Crimson Crown since her instincts urged her to do so, the result was that she somehow overwrote the control that Rachel had over the plague horde and made herself their ruler, of course while Rachel couldn't see any of that, Daimon witnessed everything with the infinity eyes.
'I guess it was to be expected for these three to have lineage memories like Ivy and the others, that still doesn't explain why Jasmine's sister is instead related to the nether of the Bane family's Nethereal Lord, when her father is that other guy', thought Daimon.
Back at the battlefield, Reyne closed and opened her hands a couple of times, feeling the difference in her body, her realm didn't increase but she did feel stronger.
'Mm, is not quite there yet... I still can't reach the level of that crazy woman', she thought referring to Sarah, Jasmine didn't notice it because she doesn't consider Sarah a threat due to their close relationship, but Reyne just met her and they still don't get along exactly good, since their personalities are completely opposite.
So, the moment they reunited in this land where nether is abundant, Reyne could feel how strong Sarah really is and as much as she hated to admit, she wouldn't be her match in a real fight.
It wasn't her fault though, because Sarah had already absorbed enough nether to awaken her nethereal side, while Jasmine and Reyne hadn't undergone through that process, not to mention that the crazy girl seemed to be especially talented with nether.
"That reminds me that I haven't seen her using nether to fight, she was already dangerous enough with battle aura", said Daimon as he stole a gaze at the crazy girl who, immediately noticed it and smiled at Daimon's direction.
If Reyne had a martial art which worked with nether, there is no way Sarah doesn't have one, that being said Daimon isn't sure about whether he wants to see it or not.
Anyway, back at Reyne, the Nelapsi girl snapped her fingers and a few dozens of plague skeletons swarmed the Bone Brutes which were still putting up a fight against her Blood Knights.
What followed was as expected a slaughter, the Bone Brutes were held back by the small plague hordes and while they managed to destroy some of the skeletons, the resulting many fragments of bones, turned into new skeletons, but the new ones were different as in the mist they radiated wasn't black but red.
It was an interesting sight, to see skeletons covered in a blood red mist swarming other undead, unfortunately Reyne didn't have the leisure to study if they gained any new characteristics, she could feel that this state of hers wasn't going to last much, so with a silent order the Blood Knights attacked their enemies through their own allies, destroying both the skeletons and the Bone Brutes.
What's more the black nether which was used to create the Bone Brutes, was freed the moment they were destroyed, the black substance from earlier actually tried to escape back to Rachel, which caused a tinge of excitement to flash through her face, only for her newly found hopes to be extinguished as she saw with horror, how the thing was forcefully dragged towards Reyne.
"Mm?", the Nelapsi girl this time had the chance to see the process, the black substance moved against its original trajectory and landed on his hand, Reyne unconsciously closed her hand and the black substance was absorbed into her body.
"No!", what followed was a hysterical scream coming from Rachel, since she felt the connection between herself and the "blessing" that her Lord granted her, being severed on the spot.
It was different than what happened with the plague horde, because though she used nether, that was what she and the Bone Sorceress gathered, not the original black substance which allowed her to evolve.
As a matter of fact, the moment Reyne absorbed that nether, two things happened, first the dark blood crown floating above her head, became more realistic before disappearing, turning into red particles that returned to her body and second, Rachel's previously boosted realm, returned to the early Lord realm.
"Aghhhh, how dare you steal the blessing of my Lord!", but that wasn't all, Rachel's body trembled, her previously black inked skin turned gray and her hair dyed white, that was the basic appearance of every Bone Sorceress, in other words she regressed to what she used to be before receiving the favor of a nethereal Lord.
Reyne ignored the curses of the now Bone Sorceress Rachel and proposed to kill her with her lance, since now that the blood crown had disappeared the plague horde which she controlled had started to disappear as well.
Only for her lance to be stabbed on the ground, instead of Rachel's body, the many black skeletons where still there but their hands were empty now since Rachel had disappeared into thin air, which made Reyne frown.
'That wasn't the spatial movement ability of a queen piece...', she thought as she scanned her surroundings looking for Rachel, also the black skeletons all returned to what they used to be, a bunch of bone fragments that fell to the ground a second later.
No matter how hard Reyne looked around, she couldn't find a trace of Rachel, which probably meant that whatever means she used, were past the Lord realm, strangely enough, she didn't have to do no anything to solve the problem.
"Ahhhh!", a pained scream drew Reyne's attention back to the place where Rachel was being held down, earlier.
To her surprise, the Bone Sorceress actually came out of the ground right where she was laying down before, there was a difference this time though, this time there were a bunch of wounds on her body, she had lost any capacity to move and could only give Reyne a poisonous gaze as she said.
"Impossible, this is an escape ability which I received thanks to my evolution, even if you stole my Lord's blessing, there is no way a mere Lord ranked knight who hasn't gained the capacity to control space, could stop me from leaving!".
"Well, that's an easy to solve mystery, I didn't do it", said the Nelapsi girl, while she couldn't see how Rachel escaped earlier, she did manage to catch a glimpse of how she reappeared and a certain person came to her mind.
Rachel's face twisted with anger on the other hand.
"All that talk about external powers and you had to rely on the same thing to win, no matter my Lord will avenge me".
Speaking of the crazy girl, she appeared next to Daimon and made a few turns around him while licking her lips as if she was looking for a chance to jump on him.
"Enough messing around for now, those guys can communicate between each other, so now that they had gotten a much more realistic scope of the average strength of our team, they will be prepared to deal with them, not to mention that they will assume you can use nether as well", said Daimon.
Sarah nodded and then in another surprising turn of events, instead of trying to jump on Daimon, she slowly approached him and held onto his arm, earning a questioning gaze from the latter.
"So, if I destroy them without the need of any assistance, can I get a reward?", she asked with an honest expression on her pretty face, which made Daimon get even more wary of her, it was so strange to see the crazy girl acting "normal" that it was actually scary.
Reyne who managed to get a wind of what Sarah was saying, felt he urge to stab her with her lance but Jasmine calmed her down, as for Daimon he couldn't pinpoint what did the crazy girl wanted but since she was at least being much more tame than normal, he agreed.
"As long as it is "reasonable", we can talk about it".
"Mm, thanks", she cutely said to then let go of Daimon and change back to her usual self.
"Let's go Haylee and everyone else, we have some bastards to kill~", she said, earning a snort from Ivonne, besides the Night Sparrow girl which is a knight piece, the other pieces consisted in Haylee, Amber, Jade and Lance, a bishop, a tower and two knights respectively.
'At the very least she didn't call Yvi, "bird girl", I guess that can be considered an improvement', thought Daimon as he saw the group being transported to their respective battlefield to then follow behind.
Sarah and the others, were immediately met by the enemy queen and her subordinates, among which the remaining Keran twin, Bryan could be see, well he didn't know that Daimon had killed his brother not too long ago, based on how he had a predatory gaze when he looked at the enemy team which was mostly composed of girls.
That being said, any pretense he had was shattered when his eyes landed on Lance who casually met eyes with him to then ignore the Keran prince, which made the latter grit his teeth.
'A lowly commoner dares to look down on me, a royal, just wait, I'll crush the so-called pride of the neo nobles', he thought.
Besides Bryan, there was another familiar face in the enemy team, Sarah's cousin, Purplehaze, whose eyes were filled with hostility.
"Where is she!", he exclaimed to which the crazy girl giggled as she casually said.
"If you are talking about Jas, she is enjoying a nice "rest" in the company of her a certain person, something that shouldn't worry someone who has nothing to do with her~", while Sarah's words were rather normal, her suggestive voice made it sound extremely naughty.
And for some reason that had an angering effect on Purplehaze who seemed to be about to explode, until the enemy queen glared at him.
"Enough, control yourself damn it", she said, to no one's surprise she shared some characteristics with the women from the Black Night race which Rita captured, a seductive well proportioned body shape and dark pink hair.
'She is probably one of the leaders of the settlements of the Black Night race, which made enough "contributions" to be promoted by that guy', thought Daimon.
According to the women from the Black Night race, those who contributed enough to gain the favor of their Lord, were transported to his side to directly serve under him, that was the major reward they all aspired for.
The other pieces of the enemy queen were either sea magic beasts, subordinated to one of the rulers of the Maelstrom Sea or pirates from Marcus's team.
"I'll pick first if you don't mind", said Yvonne as she manifested her black feathered wings and flew towards one of the pirates, just to be intercepted by one of the sea magic beasts, a tower piece to be more accurate.
"I'll be your opponent", said the magic beast, the pirate which Yvonne was targeting was a bishop, she wanted to show off the improvement of her long-distance fighting abilities, after all she is a bow user.
But apparently the strategy which the enemy team planned to use, was to not let them pick their opponents this time, Yvonne didn't care though, she nodded and then both of them were taken to their own battlefield.
Next was Lance, who was immediately paired with Purplehaze and a pirate, since the nethereal sisters only had five of the 6 pieces, one of each of their teams had to take on two enemies at the same time, for Reyne, it was Calvin, as for Sarah it was Lance.
In case you wondered, it was actually decided through a coin toss between both queens, the winner got to choose who would face two opponents, Reyne lost by the way, but Rachel was tricked by Calvin's fool outside appearance and choose him, without knowing that he was the hardest nut to crack in terms of group fighting.
In Sarah's case, she won and while Yvonne wanted to be the one fighting two enemies, the crazy girl ignored her and chose Lance, not because he is one of the renowned three male geniuses of Neptune, no, but because he fought against Daimon at the tournament and the crazy girl wanted to mess with him, of course she also knew that Lance is quite outstanding within the team.
"So, it's you two this time, fine by me", limited to say the taciturn neo noble, his mind was still assimilating the fact that Julio was actually Julia.
"Tsk, I wanted to kill that commoner, whatever, I'd rather "enjoy" my fight", said Bryan as he gazed at Jade and Haylee, only for his sight to be blocked by Amber.
"Oh well, you'll make do for the time being", said the Keran prince, leaving only Haylee and Jade behind.
"I want the bishop", said a magic beast guy as he glared at Haylee who shrugged in response, as for Jade her enemy was a pirate.
With the pieces having their enemies assigned to them, Sarah and the enemy queen were brought upwards into the sky, where they had to wait for the pieces to finish their battles before starting their own.
And so, Sarah's challenge began.