Chapter 666: The secret of the black water lake (part 2)
That was the last condition Daimon planned to test, he didn’t know if the previous groups of blood specters had already drunk from the black lake, but he had already sorted out three key points, first the target had to be a Lord rank, second, he had to use the silver light to fight against the blood specter for a black strand to appear and third, he didn’t need to be the one to kill it, so long as they were attacked by the silver light once, there was a chance for that black strand to be dropped.
Meaning that he could help his teammates increase the benefits they obtained from defeating a Lord ranked blood specter, by just wounding them like he did with the ram for the little tiger girl, but to make this a standard, he still needed to find out which Lord ranks produced a black strand.
And the first idea that came to Daimon’s mind was of course trying with a blood specter that had drank the water from the black lake, it was quite a simple reasoning, as in black water and black strand.
And so, Daimon charged against his designated target, a group of blood specters that had a feline form, they looked like wildcats to be more accurate, all the feline shaped blood specters that were present looked like that.
Daimon has seen some cheetahs and leopards the past night, but the weakest was already at the middle stage of the Lord realm, so they wouldn’t appear this early at morning, as to why Daimon chose them, well, he wanted to see if blood specters that produced a black strand, whose races shared some similitudes with the lineage of a participant, would give any other extra benefit for the participant in question.
It’s been confirmed by Dana that such isn’t the case for the regular blood specters, but it was worth giving it a shot, since the ones that produced a black strand already were rewarding more energy when defeated.
"Same dynamic as earlier, attack when I give the signal", said Daimon to the little tiger girl who nodded in response, just in time for Daimon to kick one of the star ranked wildcats which tried to ambush him, sending it flying into the distance, to then fade, it was insta-killed with a single hit.
’Wildcat blood specters don’t have a strong offense, they specialize in speed... I really feel bad for them having to face big brother Daimon’, amusingly thought Dana.
The sole advantage those wildcats had, didn’t work against Daimon who even without access to battle aura, could use movement martial arts, resulting in the wildcats scratching empty spaces whenever they tried to attack Daimon, who had already flashed away from his previous position.
Speaking of which, seeing Daimon continuously flashing with the help of a movement martial art, when not too long ago he couldn’t use it without some time in between, Dana couldn’t contain her curiosity about it anymore.
"Is it okay to use so many martial arts without battle aura, doesn’t it hurt?", she asked, to which Daimon who grabbed a wildcat by its neck when it tried to pounce at him from above, to then smack it against the ground the next second, answered.
"If I was relying just in the nurturing property of the red sun, or if they weren’t movement type ones, two or three martial arts would have been the limit every day or so, but my agility increased exponentially earlier and even without any energy usage, my body is tough and my natural recovery does the rest of the work, there is a little sting in a specific par of muscles here and there, but that’s it".
The reason as to why Daimon has only used movement martial arts, when his biggest lack as of current is in terms of offensive, considering that without the silver light, dealing with middle stage Lord ranked blood specters would be the limit, is because it requires way less effort for him to pull them off as of current.
Those large leaps he used to travel through the mountains, weren’t a martial art, that was just a normal step taken to the extreme thanks to the sudden increase in agility he gained out of nowhere yesterday, he wasn’t "faster" but his steps covered longer distances and that was it, but now he was using a martial art to increase his speed instead.
And the extra agility made it way easier for him to execute the movement martial art, which is why he could even use them continuously without any repercussions.
"You see, some of my master’s training methods were way harsher than this, so I’ll be fine", he said, making the little tiger girl giggle in response.
"I see... I guess miss Aura is stricter than aunt Leena when it comes to training", she mumbled, Leena was the one who trained the little tiger girl and while she is not soft by any means, she didn’t push Dana to the limits like Aura has done with Daimon.
Of course one couldn’t blame Leena, Aura knew that Daimon would be fine even if he was subjected to barbaric training methods and Daimon of course agreed to it as well, since he wanted to lit up his life spark, Dana on the other hand is a mage, she still trained harder than other mages, thanks to the reinforced physique of a magic beast descendant, but nowhere near her limits.
Seeing its subordinates being obliterated by the enemy, the Lord ranked wildcat blood specter growled, its claws enlarged as it charged at Daimon frontwards, to then flash to the side, wanting to confuse his target, to then pounce at him from below.
But the wildcat chose the wrong opponent to rely solely in its agility, midway through its charge at Daimon’s neck, the eyes of the wildcat contracted like needles, as a silver light cladded hand blocked the way of its claws.
"Grrrrrr!", the moment those sharp claws met Daimon’s bare palm, they faded on the spot forcing a pained growl out of the wildcat’s mouth.
"Now", with a single word, Daimon gave the little tiger girl’s the greenlight to attack, by this time Dana had already gathered some lightning around her body, the image of a tiger made out of yellow lightning appeared behind of her, to then smack its right paw at the wildcard, crushing it the next second.
Crackling sounds were produced as some arcs of electricity danced here and there, due to the tiger’s paw making contact with the ground, before Dana retracted her ability back into her body.
With the battle ending, the red strands of the star ranked blood specters appeared right away, to then be absorbed by Daimon’s body, to Daimon’s disappointment, the red strand of the Lord ranked wildcat followed not too long after, which made him think his theory about the black water was a failure, only for a black strand to materialize the next second.
’That was less than a fourth part of the time that the strands of the previous Lord ranked blood specters took to form’, he thought as he saw the black strand burst in red flames, while the red strand flew towards Dana who closed her eyes for a second, when she opened them again, there were sparkles in them.
Before Daimon had a chance to ask, that lightning tiger appeared behind of her to then open its mouth and shoot a current of electricity towards Dana’s legs, before returning to her body.
The little tiger girl pressed her right foot against the ground a bit, dim almost unnoticeable arcs of electricity covered her legs all the way to her knees, and then when Dana tried to take a step, a familiar sight appeared in front of Daimon’s eyes, as in the little tiger girl covered a dozen of meters in a single step, and fell to the ground because she couldn’t control her movement properly.
Feeling the accusatory gaze of the little tiger girl who was dusting off her clothes, because she realized that he somewhat had an idea that the previous was going to happen, Daimon cleared his throat as he said.
"Looks like absorbing a "mutated" red strand from a race that has some similarity to yours, does give an extra benefit".
"Mm, though I can’t increase my speed with that energy, my agility did increase quite a bit... I think that all the red strands from wildcat blood specters that I had killed so far, were integrated into that Lord ranked one I just absorbed", said Dana with a little pout.
"That’s even better, it could be that after obtaining a mutated one, the normal ones will be assimilated into it inside your body, which means I just need to help once per each blood specter race", concluded Daimon.
It was an amazing discovery, now the little tiger girl should be able to improve her agility by hunting wildcats by herself, the question is why did the black strands caused mutations on the red ones when both were pulled out of the blood specter and more importantly why was Daimon’s silver light able to make them manifest and why did he obtain that same benefit without doing nothing.
After all, when his agility took that huge jump, he hadn’t let alone killed a blood specter, but even met one yet.
’Well, I guess that’s for the better, otherwise I would have needed to kill bat type blood specters to obtain the extra benefit’, jokingly thought Daimon to then say.
"Adapt to the change and then hunt a few more wildcats in the vicinity, it will be useful for the journey ahead of us, also the tell me how much did your agility increase in a rough calculation once I return", said Daimon to the little tiger girl who answered with a question.
"Mm, and what are you going to do in the meantime?", she asked.
"I’ll go try to bait whatever is inside that lake to come out, so don’t approach the shore of the lake, whatever that thing is, it’s at the peak of the Lord rank", said Daimon, to which the little tiger girl nodded in response.
"Okay...", Dana hesitated for a second but she still said what was in her mind.
"Please be careful", with those words, the little tiger girl rushed towards a pack of wildcats to get used to the increased agility.
’She is a bit of a worrywart for her age, don’t you think so?’, said Evangeline, which made Daimon nod.
’Well, she probably didn’t have any chance to really interact with anyone besides Gabriel and Leena back at the territory of the Jolbaris, so in a sense Arianna, that other girl she met at the underwater temple and me are her first "friends", I guess’, he said.
Unlike Daimon who had the respect, admiration or fear of the vast majority of the members of both the Revy and Argent families, who were around his age, meaning that one way or another he had nothing to worry about in that aspect, Dana was probably under surveil by everyone, since Leena had no allies within the Jolbaris family, that’s why she wanted Dana to enter the academy and more specifically Daimon’s elite class, so that she could be away from all that.
But enough of that dubject for now, Daimon once again saw a strong reaction on the lake when that black strand was burned by the red sun, so far it hasn’t failed to happen even once, so it was safe to assume that when a black strand was lost, the thing in the lake would drag another blood specter to its death.
"Is it just throwing a tantrum, or does it serve a specific purpose?", wondered Daimon as he approached the shore of the lake, even at just a few dozens of meters of distance the water looked as dark as it did from afar.
Surprisingly the groups of blood specters still ignored Daimon, at least until he approached them past a certain point, like he was doing with a group composed of those bird-like ones.
"Screee!", letting out a menacing chirping sound, the Lord ranked blood specter which had just taken its turn drinking from the lake, ordered its subordinates to attack Daimon, the bird blood specters flew in different directions, surrounding Daimon the next second.
This group was stronger than any Daimon had faced before, while the Lord rank leading them was still an early stage one, its four subordinates were all peak eighth star rank blood specters.
Not like that made much of a difference for Daimon who jumped high into the air, in order to dodge the four bird blood specters which charged at him in the four directions, though those birds could fly, they were unable to goo too high, the only blood specters which Daimon saw at a height that would be hard to reach for him, were the winged ones that had reached the Arch rank.
Besides birds, Daimon also saw a few insect types and even a winged snake the past night, anyway thanks to the movement martial art combined with the increased agility, the roles were inverted and the birds that were used to look at their enemies from above, found themselves being forced to look upwards.
Unfortunately for them, Daimon had already flashed away from his previous position, descending from the sky to punch one of the four eight ranked blood specters, killing it on the spot.
"Crack!", Daimon’s fist landed on the ground making a few small cracks appear on it, that was due to the lacking offensive he still had to deal with, however the increased agility allowed him to twirl his body, in order to use the remaining impulse, he had gained, to kick another bird, getting rid of it as well.
And with that, half of the Lord ranked subordinates had been dealt with, and that was Daimon’s goal.
"Screee!", the Lord rank bird let out a loud chirp as it joined in the fray, only to see the enemy that had just killed two of its subordinates putting distance between them, which of course made the Lord ranked blood specter see red.
Changing the point of view back to Daimon’s, after provoking the Lord ranked blood specter by killing its subordinates, he rushed towards an area of the lake which would have been occupied by one of the many groups that he and the little tiger girl had gotten rid of, but was now being approached by another group who wanted to make use of that empty spot which had appeared.
While being pursued by the remaining members of that group of blood specters who thought he was fleeing from them, Daimon made sure to keep enough distance between himself and that other group of blood specters, so that they wouldn’t join the fight, but they would still be within his range for what was about to happen.
With a smirk behind his mask, once he had reached the vicinity of the lake’s shore, Daimon turned around, which took the blood specters by surprise, unfortunately it was too late for them to stop their charge.
With silver light cladding his right fist, Daimon directly punched the Lord ranked blood specter on the face, killing it on the spot, before he flashed from his current position to appear in the middle of the remaining two bird blood specters, punching them at the same time.
The very second the red strands appeared, which included the one from the Lord ranked blood specter, Daimon rushed towards the other group which was couple of dozens of meters at his right.
Since earlier, the rewards from the Lord ranks who also produced a black strand stopped taking too long to appear, something Daimon related to the increase in the quantity of that silver light which he could gather on his right hand, so by the time the black strand appeared, Daimon had already reached that group, which consisted in dingo looking blood specters.
’Come on, bite the bait’, thought Daimon as he dodged the bite of one of the star ranked dingoes, the black strand had just exploded in flames, but he didn’t know whether the thing in the lake was going to drag one of the dingoes or not.
He betted on a higher chance of it happening, since the black strand had appeared not too far from this group, but the thing in the lake could simply drag some random blood specter at other parts of the shore.
Luckily the bait worked and the black water nearby the dingoes trembled as something emerged at an insane speed, to grab onto the leg of the Lord ranked dingo, who couldn’t react before it was dragged into the pitch-black lake.
Interestingly enough, having lost their leader, the star ranked dingoes fled in different directions, but Daimon didn’t pay them any attention, he wasn’t interested in them after all.
’So that’s why it was even harder to see what it was, it’s not a tentacle belonging to a living being as I originally thought, but a damn chain’, he thought.
Earlier he was unable to discern what was what dragged the blood specters into the lake, but since the amount of splashed water wasn’t that large, it couldn’t be anything with a big frame, like the head of a fish type blood specter, Daimon had guessed it was maybe a tentacle, and that the thing in the lake was a giant squid of some sort.
But it turned out to not be the case, it was a black metal chain, of a width he recognized, as in it was the exact same one, he saw wrapped around the guys used at pawns for when it was Sarah’s turn to fight against her respective enemy queen piece.
’So, there is at least one nethereal down there, now the question is how the hell are they using the chains that are supposed to be sealing them, as weapons... well, perhaps those three guys did something to the Blood Prison realm in order to help their subordinates who weren’t killed but sealed, escape’, thought Daimon.
There was another problem in sight, it’s not like Daimon is afraid of darkness, and he is sure there aren’t blood specters in the lake, because if that were to be the case, the chains wouldn’t be dragging those that approach to drink the black water, into it.
But fighting against an enemy while not being able to see a thing, and with his movement restrained by the water, was not exactly a good idea, not to mention that the energy radiated by those chains was at the peak of the Lord rank, which means that without the silver light, he wouldn’t be able to cause damage to it as of current.
’Damn vampire lineage that doesn’t focus in battle, it would have been way easier if I had mom’s traits...’, thought Daimon and as if offended by it, that silver light gathered around his right hand to then actually leave his hand and fall into the water of the lake.
"Huh?", confused by the sudden development, Daimon saw the surface of the lake all over the shore near him, get agitated out of nowhere, but it wasn’t on the scale which Daimon has seen before, for a good reason, this time it wasn’t just a chain what came out of the pitch-black water, but a whole dozen of them.
And that wasn’t all, accompanied by those dozens of chains which angrily emerged from the black lake, there were also a couple of black strands which immediately exploded in red flames, and to Daimon’s surprise, a random spot of the water in the black lake actually cleared up.
In response, the black chains which after close observation Daimon realized, had a slightly different design than the ones he had seen before, as in they had spikes at their sides and were rusty here and there, as if they had been corroded, suddenly went crazy, hitting everything within their range.
Which was basically water and the soil near the shore of the lake, though a few did aim to Daimon who was the only living being near of them.
"Well, that does help I guess", mumbled Daimon as he flashed through the rain of chains that tried to crush him to death, all this while he gathered more of the silver light around his right hand.
The moment Daimon started gathering the silver light, the other chains which were aimlessly attacking in every direction, all turned towards him, which increased the pressure on Daimon, however, while he was lacking in terms of offense as of current, his movement abilities were enough to mock the chains while he charged his attack.
Once he had gathered around three times the amount of silver light that he would normally use, Daimon could instinctively tell that he was now able to throw it, so he did, but instead of aiming at the shore of the lake, he shot the stream of silver light at one of the spots where the water had cleared up earlier.
"Hsssssss!", the moment that silver light made contact with the black water, sizzling sounds echoed through the area, as a total of three black strands left the lake, to then explode in flames, while at the same time an area of around five to six meters of the lake cleared up.
And while it wasn’t enough to see what lied at the bottom of the lake, it did allow Daimon to confirm something, there was only one of it, because no other chains emerged from the water, though the ones that were already outside, further increased their fierceness.