Chapter 797: Good vs Evil (part 1)

In case you believe that Aisha forgot that she needed Karla and the gate to not be completely erased, to use her for blood reading, let’s take a peek at what happened after, Freya, her partial magic avatars and Aisha herself, released their attacks on their respective targets.

"Booooom!", first and formal, Karla’s "realm" collapsed on the spot and Aisha’s partial battle domain which integrated her three domains, covered the area.

"Clang!!!", then, while still not only frozen in place, but even unable to mobilize their energies to defend themselves, both Karla and the gate were protected by the "sacred area" that was covering them.

’Calm down Karla, I’m going to make you a proper user in a second, kill them on the spot!’, inwardly exclaimed the gate as it prepared to use all its savings and even its state as a high-grade gate to pay for a temporal "upgrade" for Karla.

’Fucking bitches, I got scared there for a sec...’, Karla whose heart nearly popped out of her chest, felt a sensation of relief before an impending sense of dread invaded her as she saw Aisha disdainfully smile at her.

The two swords and three crossbows they were using, first gained a faint silvery glow, it was of a different tone when compared to those two’s metal energies, for a good reason, that was Daimon’s energy.

But what made Karla actually cry out of fear was the black and purple solid layer that suddenly covered their weapons which were created through Aisha’s battle domain, followed by a metal red and silver flame lighting up around Freya’s magic avatars.

"Crack!", the "sacred area" which was the manifestation of the system’s influence in the outside world, crumbled apart on the spot, and those "new" energies left the weapons and magic avatars to consume the white-yellow "sacred area", leaving only the actual attacks to slash down and pierce the gate and Karla.

’N-No way, two types of origin...’, was the last thing that the gate thought before Aisha and Freya’s magic avatar slashed and blasted a hole on the gate’s "head".

’Freya!!!’, Karla had basically lost it at this point, she only screamed Freya’s name as the valkyrie girl alongside her two sisters who were here in spirit thanks to the majestic memory’s magic art, cut and shot her to death.

"Thud!", those two’s now lifeless bodies, fell from the sky landing on the ground and while Aisha and Freya took a moment to catch up their breath, since the alliance banner used a whole lot of energy, a crack in space appeared in front of them.

"Crack!", normally cracks in space are colored of the same tone as the "space" where they appear, in case of the blood prison realm they are red colored, however this one was white-yellow colored.

And despite the "sacred" color that the crack presented, familiarly looking ethereal twisted black spiked chains emerged from them, as in they looked exactly the same as the ones that Aisha saw in the cores, hearts and brains of Karla and the gate earlier.

And the reason is simple, that was the system claiming what "belongs" to it, in other words, Karla and the gate.

"Humph!", however, the system didn’t expect for a certain blurred figure to suddenly appear next to Aisha and Freya, with a snap of her fingers and a soft snort, Eve erased both the chains and the space crack in a single go.

There wasn’t even a explosion or anything, both just disappeared as if they had never come to this place to begin with.

’It’s good to see that you two get along and all, but were you planning on destroying this "stage" or what, you were supposed to kill those two only after I arrived to instantly keep their corpses in the inventory’, said Eve in a voice that only Aisha and Freya could hear, to then add.

’I can still understand Aisha, but weren’t you a "pacifist", where is that cool and calm attitude from before miss valkyrie?’, to which Freya shrugged.

"Sister Aisha taught me that "war" can be used for good, so I’m not holding back anymore".

"I heard you played a little "prank" on sister Freya, so I was only helping her get back at you", jokingly added Aisha which made Eve’s smile stiffen.

’You two, ah, forget it, still I can’t believe you managed to draw out Daimon’s origin on your own, you are both monstrously compatible with him, but let’s leave the celebration for later, prepare yourselves, an annoying guy has appeared, so just for this time your dear sister Eve is going to lend you a hand~’, said Eve as she snapped her fingers, which made a certain something manifest around Aisha.

"T-That is...", let’s leave it at here for those two, right at Freya’s surprised reaction as she saw the object that manifested around Aisha.

To understand why Eve took a bit longer to come pay a visit to those two’s battlefield, we must go back in time, a few minutes before the moment when Karla escaped the isolation of Aisha’s domains, which was when she manifested her "realm", to be more accurate.

...

"Heavenly Roaring Burst", Daimon pointed the tricolored energy crossbow on his left hand at Ereth and released a dozen of bolts which instantly crossed the distance, while producing thunderous roars as they advanced towards the hero.

"Royal Black Majestic Sea, Rupture Step", Ereth answered by having dark grey blue mana explode around his legs.

"Booom!", continuous explosions echoed through the battlefield as Ereth maneuvered around the roaring bolts dodging them, Daimon’s energy manipulation capacities had further grown in a really short period of time, since he could now release multiple shots from a single crossbow, which by the way was bringing bad memories to Ereth.

’This masked bastard, is he a marksman hero type candidate or what, no, his close and middle range capacities are too high for that, or is it because of all those damn energies he was given by the blood prison realm...’, Ereth was returned to the real world by Daimon snapping his fingers.

"Infernal Lacerating Net", with following Daimon’s fingers making contact, black energy threads shinning in green, copper and bright red energies suddenly became visible all over the area through Ereth had made his way around the roaring bolts, to then tense and contract clearly aiming to trap Ereth in it.

"Royal Black Majestic Sea, Tsunami Breaking Thrust", seeing the threads enclosing around him from every direction, Ereth gathered mana on his trident which was a promise level weapon, and then pierced the thing frontwards.

"Booooom!", a huge stream of dark grey blue mana blasted a hole into the infernal net, through which Ereth escaped.

"You really are quite the "slippery fish", as expected of a hero with a water related concept", mockingly said Daimon, which made Ereth feel his blood pressure increase, but he instead snorted as he retorted.

"You on the other hand surely are a stupid piece of trash, to think you as a hero candidate would use the word "infernal" for your techniques".

Naturally, and as much as Ereth was indeed provoked by Daimon’s overall attitude and words, that cockroach of a hero is not someone that would do something as useless as just exchanging words with an enemy for the sake of it, there was of course a purpose behind of it.

"I wonder who would be considered trash by an unbiased judge, someone who simply used the word "infernal" for his techniques openly, like me, or someone who is trying to attack and control other people’s minds with "Domination" while hiding behind the mask of a "good" person, like you?", said Daimon who had a green energy ethereal mask overlap with his normal mask.

Invisible to others, there were dark grey blue chains coming from Ereth’s back which were trying to approach Daimon’s neck, every time they exchanged words, but the moment they did, the chains clashed with a dark red energy barrier and were then bounced back by bright white energy, invaded by green energy vegetation, blasted by bright yellow lightning, confused by a black haze energy, melted by copper colored flames, or ripped to pieces by bright red energy.

Those were Badr, Tessa, Dana, Arianna and the other’s energies, as for those chains, that was the manifestation of the mind-altering technique "Dominion", apparently Ereth didn’t have "Charm", which is understandable, either Alicia, her sister or Freya would have outright realized if they felt unnaturally attracted towards him.

Unlike Adam who was a fool, Ereth didn’t show his cards so easily, he played the role of a decent person quite well, good enough to go unnoticed by Alicia’s sister and Freya, so instead of relying in his mind altering ability, he gained their trust normally.

Not only because he wasn’t a fool, but also because he didn’t have "Charm", but "Dominion" instead, which doesn’t increase likeability, nor does it create a vulnerable emotional state like "Breach", out of the currently mentioned four mind altering abilities known to heroes, "Dominion" is the most straightforward one.

And it’s used to directly "guide" others, you have seen it many times before for sure, heroes gather large amounts of people around them, especially strong "simple minded" ones, well, that’s "Dominion", it’s charisma and the capacity to directly order others around without them finding it strange or offensive.

In case you have forgotten, Ereth commanded a huge army, which disappeared after his death according to Joanna, that was created with the help of "Dominion", also despite being the most straightforward, that doesn’t mean is not a disgusting ability, because "Dominion" creates admiration from others, not in an easy way to detect as "Charm" would, well, at least that’s the case if the one using it is not a weakling and well, Ereth was the strongest out of the four users that participated in the war of back then.

’I expected Sera, Laila and that old nethereal’s energies to be able to defend at mysterious level without my interference, the same for Tessa, but Arianna and the other ones were a bit of a surprise’, thought Daimon as he peeked into the "mysterious world" with the help of the green mask.

Don’t get it wrong, all the energies of his allies have the capacity to interfere into the mysterious and mind layers, but some are supposed to be innately much more involved in such aspects, to the point that they would protect Daimon without him having to do anything.

The first one that comes to mind for that would be Sera’s energy of course, her lineage is meant to resist mind altering techniques and even if she was purposedly given an incomplete one, that fierce girl on her own made it so that with half of it she could resist all the known mind altering techniques of a hero, through sheer will, so, her energy protecting Daimon’s mind on its own was expected.

Something similar applies to Laila, her darkness works at mind and mysterious levels, given that she can use those extremely realistic illusions, so that black haze energy appearing to guard Daimon was understandable, Badr’s energy is meant to protect and while Daimon obtained the amplifier for the technique instead, apparently the energy defended his mind.

Tessa’s nature energy made that tree transform into the wood thorn knight, and she had a wide variety of techniques which include the mask, so it being innately related to mysterious and mind aspects was also expected.

But then you have those like Femi or Arianna whose energies focus in reinforcement, or elemental power like in Dana’s case, they can be used in mind and mysterious ways for sure, but they would need a technique given that such a thing is not their main focus, at least that should have been the case, but nope, every single one of them was innately protecting Daimon’s mind.

The same applied to his own energy since it was doing so by transforming into the ones of his allies, without Daimon actively making it happen, the only one that wasn’t participating actively was Lyn’s energy.

’Even at mysterious level she is so cheeky, or perhaps since Lyn’s energy follows "rhythm" and both my energy and my core are "lazy", it won’t act by itself unless I make it move or unless it is absolutely needed’, thought Daimon, to then say.

"Still, I must give it to you, you are better as a scammer than that swindler user guy, after all if your "Dominion" worked, you could even mislead other users so that they fall from their system’s grace which would weaken them".

You have already seen what happens when a user gets too distant from the concept he is supposed to bear, it happened to Adam and to the user of that rogue administrator woman called Gwen, in other words to Dorian, they completely lost the qualifications to be considered even the lowest kind of "hero" and "tyrant" respectively, which basically allowed their administrators to completely disregard them, well, Gwen went a step ahead and directly caused Dorian’s death.

Ereth as probably the first ever enemy among system users that Daimon has faced, who didn’t completely depend on his system to achieve everything, knew that weakening the connection between those that did and their concepts was a sure win strategy.

’Damn Freya, she must have told this masked bastard till the last thing about what happened back then, and he also had a grudge against Arlion so that snake tyrant guy must have been within his scope before that, damn bastards causing trouble even after death!’, cursed Ereth.

Now imagine how his face distorted when Daimon casually added.

"Or perhaps you prefer to use it so that others become "closer" to you, to then kill them for a power boost, like you did with your parents, that’s not really "heroic" if you ask me though".

Ereth’s eyes contracted like needles as he heard the previous, in part because no one besides Karla should know about that, and second because he saw invisible black haze daggers come out from space to try and stab his back from different angles.

"Royal Black Majestic Sea, Fluid Blessing!", for a change, Ereth casted his spell in a rush, making an ethereal dark grey blue sea appear behind of him, just in time to block the invisible black haze daggers just in time.

"You dare to use "Blasphemy" as a hero candidate and in front of a hero no less!", shouted Ereth, trying to use "Dominion" but failing because Arianna and the others energies protected Daimon, also, Ereth couldn’t see it because of the mask, but there was a black haze being radiated by Daimon’s tongue, currently.

"What you can use mysterious abilities but I can’t, or are you perhaps angry just because it’s similar to something a devil type user would use, but you see that was not a curse, it’s just a darkness energy technique called "Heavenly Truth", and the best part of it, is that if what I said is "true", you can’t defend against it completely, regardless of realm".

"Cough!", Ereth who had deployed a mysterious aspect spell for defense, suddenly felt a little sting, he looked at his shoulder where a long needle shaped black haze dagger had pierced his body, which made him cough a bit of blood, in case you wonder "Blasphemy" is the curse version of the mind altering techniques that heroes have, devil system users also have their own things ongoing, Marcus should have been stronger and you would have seen a couple of interesting things about devil type users, if Lezabel had felt even remotely interested in teaching him, not that it would have changed his ending though.

That’s not important now, the important part is that Daimon had gotten Ereth, by making use of some of the intel that Eve has been passing to him, courtesy of Aisha using blood reading on Karla, that was also an advanced technique which used the capacity of Laila to change her powers into those of a hero with the "the villain is the hero" cliché as its base by the way, the difference is that Daimon couldn’t reverse her darkness into light, like Laila could.

In exchange, with his own version of it, Daimon could use positive oriented darkness which is as rare as what Laila can do, that’s why even though it was a darkness energy powered technique, it had the word "heavenly" in its name.

"Masked Bastard!!!", Ereth saw red on the spot, not only was his backstory somehow being thrown right at his face by the enemy, but Daimon even added salt to the wound by using a technique with a similar concept as the way he used "Dominion".

"Booooom!", Ereth finally couldn’t remain calm, Daimon kept provoking him time after time and what’s more, he had managed to actually hurt him, because while he didn’t bleed much, he could feel his innards being damaged, even after he removed the black haze needle dagger, there was minimal amounts of continuous damage being given to him with every second that passed, it wasn’t dangerous but it was annoying as hell, like having a mosquito buzzing on your ear all the time, and so, he directly used his domain.

Which resulted in a large amount of dark grey mana gathering and expanding with him as the center, to form a completely "still" sea of the same color which floated in between the abyss below the battlefield and the sky above it, you could say that it was at "ground" level.

"Royal Black Majestic Sea Domain", the name was the same as what Ereth has been using for his spells so far, so Daimon wasn’t really surprised by that, what did catch his attention is that his domain covered quite the large area, despite the suppression of the blood prison realm, it was of around sixty kilometers of size, which means that it equaled Karla’s battle domain, while remaining a single path trait as it was made only of mana, well more accurately it was mana related energies, since there was nether mixed into it.

A dark grey blue mana crown appeared above Ereth’s head, and then the effect of Daimon’s "heavenly truth" which was causing minimal but continuous damage to the hero, was nullified.

"A king’s dignity can’t be affected by "mere" words", said Ereth, unlike in Karla’s case, his domain was a "royal" one from the very beginning, Ereth’s achievements at integrating the concepts used by nethereals into his powers was much more advanced after all and the emotion he used is "Dignity".

Which isn’t even a negative type of emotion at its core, unlike how it should be the case for nethereals in most cases with very few exceptions.

’Mmm, it’s not at the level of Jasmine, who has positive nether, neither is he using "virtue" like Scarlet and the others, that’s closer to what Badr’s father achieved, he modified "Pride" to turn it into "Dignity" and eliminate the negative side effects’.

As if to mock him, quite an eye catching "object" appeared above Daimon’s head in response to Ereth’s crown, in his case it was a black halo with a white border though.

"Archangel form... no, your concept can’t be a low ranked light hero one considering how annoying you are, besides that’s not a halo", said Ereth as he grew wary of the black and white energy ring that had appeared above Daimon’s head.

To which Daimon smirked behind his mask, small crystals appeared around the energy ring, orbiting it, as Daimon snaped his fingers to then say.

"Shatter", with a single word, the previously still dark grey mana sea started trembling from its base, as if it was about to crumble on the spot.

"Calm Mind", Ereth countered by beckoning with his hand as if giving a "royal decree", which made mana pour out of his soles and pacify his trembling domain, while cancelling the effect of Daimon’s technique.

That being said and as calm as Ereth looked on the outside, he couldn’t help but shout on the inside.

’What the hell is that thing, he nearly destroyed my domain just with a single word, is that ring the manifestation of a battle domain... no, it seems to be a type of energy that can somehow gather "strength" from all the others, to exert a different kind of power, it’s like the mix of a rule and energy which is why it felt like a battle domain’, thought the hero.