CHAPTER 683: HOW TO DEAL WITH ENEMIES FROM ALL SIDES (PART 7)

"Boooom!", complete havoc was the result of the tiger head shaped sphere of lightning created by Dana, exploding to then release all the energy it contained, everything in the vicinity was destroyed due to the shockwave which produced a thunder, before a shower of arcs of electricity finished the job of destroying the area, it was an incredibly strong attack type technique, which even took Lyn and Arianna by surprise.

"Did that little girl just use an attack on par with the combined technique we pulled of earlier, all on her own?", said the sky-blue haired girl with a confused voice.

"Yeah, she did", directly answered Arianna, to then turn to see the yellow light stream that landed next to her the next second, out of which a girl with tiger ears and tail, came out.

There was a maybe not so shocking but still noticeable difference on Dana when compared to before, well there were two of them, but first and formal and what made her brightly smile in Daimon’s direction, is that her previous completely white hair now had a couple of black stripes across it.

And second, the intensity of her energy now equaled that of Lyn or Arianna, the peak of the Lord realm, of course that opens the question of how come she just executed an attack that was as strong as the offensive techniques of those two combined, just by herself and to answer that we must go back in time for a couple of minutes.

Back to around the moment when Claire blasted away the right leg of the giant red wolf, while also sending it flying and making Arianna bleed in the process, far from them in the small designated area where Daimon "allowed" the clouds that were pouring black rain, to remain, thus keeping the Arch ranked black blood specters from being taken away by the seals in the Blood Prison realm, Badr who just tackled the wolf black blood specter, making it fly into the distance, saw the blinding stream of yellow light which has been drawing the attention of the tiger black blood specter, suddenly return to his side.

"Is there a problem, do you want me to take over so that you can rest a moment, missy?", asked the scar-filled tall nethereal with a kind voice that completely didn’t match his scary appearance, to the little tiger girl that came out of the stream of bright yellow energy, to which Dana shook her head in response.

"No thanks, it’s just that... I’m not doing much damage to that tiger blood specter", mumbled the little tiger girl, which made Badr look in the tiger black blood specter’s direction.

The thing had its right eye closed because Dana had taken the chance to blind it with the lightning claw technique she used for the giant snake earlier, well, she aimed for both but the tiger was faster than the snake, so even with Badr pulling the tiger’s "aggro", she only managed to wound one of its eyes and after that the tiger actively protected its remaining good eye.

Still, thanks to that during the whole time that Dana has been here, she had inflicted some noticeable wounds on the giant tiger black blood specter mostly on its weak areas like the back of its legs, the tail, ears and the neck.

Of course there was no blood coming out of them, since we are talking a blood specter, but they were still open and the tiger was obviously pained due to them, especially because Dana’s attacks had some of the effect of the silver light that Daimon casted on her, imbued into them.

"I think you have done it really well in the time you have been fighting it, though", couldn’t help but say Badr, and he was right at the ratio at which Dana was wearing the tiger blood specter out, she would be able to win against it at its given time of course.

"Mm, if I use this "slow-burn" tactic, with the help of mister to block the tiger from going on a rampage, I’ll eventually defeat it, but... I want to go help sister Arianna and sister Lyn", she said.

"I see, well, for a quick victory your damage output is certainly a bit lacking, if my calculations aren’t wrong, even with your strongest attack, used with all your remaining energy, you still wouldn’t be able to do more than taking a limb in a single go", said the nethereal after a moment of contemplation, to then add.

"But that is only if you have to deal with the outer defense of the tiger", Badr didn’t need to say more for the little tiger girl to understand what she had to do, and as if supporting the idea, the silvery glow that was covering her body, protecting her from the black rain, tripled its width and doubled its shine.

Which made Dana look in a certain direction where a masked silver haired youth, was waving his hand at her.

Seeing the little tiger girl’s eyes sparkle with fighting spirit, the nethereal nodded to his insides as he said.

"Just focus in gathering your energy and be ready to go all out, leave the rest to me", by the time he spoke, the tiger and the wolf black blood specters that had recovered were about to pounce at them.

The nethereal exhaled to then point his left palm frontwards, dark red nether exploded out of his body, just in time for the tiger and the wolf who had jumped in order to attack them to descend only for them to be stopped midair by a giant flat rectangular ethereal gate which became visible only for a second, due to the wolf and the tiger clashing against it.

"Gate of binding", Badr whose previous completely extended arm had bent backwards when the black blood specters clashed against the nether gate he had created, then pushed his palm frontwards, towards the wolf.

As a result, the gate which was blinking as if going from existence to non-existence with every second it passed, shrank and then dragged the wolf black blood specter far into the distance, smacking it against the ground the next second.

Surprisingly the wolf didn’t howl due to pain, in fact besides a "thud" produced due to the wolf being pressed down by the gate against the ground, not much of an impact was produced.

However, now wasn’t the time to ponder about the technique that Badr had used, the little tiger girl who had just opened her eyes, had small arcs of electricity coming out of her tiger ears and tail, as a sign that she had surpassed the maximum amount of energy she could manipulate in a single go and it had started to leak out.

But that was fine, because while the previous took long to explain, the moment the wolf black blood specter was suppressed, Badr had already grabbed the back of the neck of Dana’s shirt with his right hand.

"Charge!", with a loud shout, the ground below Badr exploded due to the sudden release of energy, as a result Badr and Dana whom he dragged alongside him, flew at an incredibly high speed towards the tiger who had jumped backwards, retreating after it saw the wolf being sent flying back a second ago.

"Good luck", with a couple of words of encouragement, the arm with which Badr was holding the backside of the neck of Dana’s shirt, tensed before he used all that strength to throw the little tiger girl at... the mouth of the tiger black blood specter.

"Roaar...!", the tiger who was in the middle of menacingly roar at Badr, was interrupted midway when a small "projectile" entered its mouth, that being said, the blood specters didn’t really have a need to breath, they are agglomerations of energy after all, so after the initial shock, the tiger turned around to then charge towards Badr who had landed on top of the nether gate which was suppressing the wolf, to then sit with his legs crossed on top of it.

Or at least that’s what the tiger tried, because not having even taken a few steps towards his enemy, bright yellow electricity started coming out of the black blood tiger specter, then its previously black eyes, illuminated in a bright yellow light with a slight silverish tone added to it before a though smaller, much fiercer looking when compared to the specter tiger, tiger condensed out of yellow lightning, tore its way from inside the specter tiger, ripping it to shreds in the process, thus killing it on the spot.

"Roaaaar!", a victorious roar was released by the lightning tiger before it turned into small bright yellow particles, revealing a Dana who was of course unscathed, though basically all the silver light that Daimon had bestowed to her was now gone.

But she didn’t pay any attention to the black rain that threatened with making its way past the remains of the silver light that was still protecting her as of current, because all her attention was in the adult arm sized red strand that appeared after the many black stands of energy vanished into thin air.

Dana extended her right hand at the large red strand which immediately flew towards her, to then be absorbed into her body, then her previous fall which was happening at normal speed, slowed down allowing her to graciously land without making too much of an effort.

"Crack!", that being said, the moment her small body made contact with the ground, cracks were forced to appear all over the area, also yellow arcs of electricity were radiated by her body, keeping the black rain from reaching her.

Naturally the little tiger girl felt the qualitative change that she had just gone through and couldn’t contain her enthusiasm, she wanted to roar to the sky out of happiness, however the sound of fingers snapping and a warm layer of silver light enveloping her, accompanied by a calm voice which reached her ears, returned Dana to the real world.

"Don’t lose control over it, that’s the excess of energy result of the change you just went through, it will be a waste to just release it without any purpose, right?", said Daimon, which made the little tiger girl smile on his direction.

...

And that’s what led us to the current situation, basically, with Daimon helping her control the sudden overload of wild fighting instincts that would have made Dana waste a one-time chance to release an attack that surpassed her maximum current power, Dana waited for a chance to join in the battle against Claire.

Luckily, the enemy seemed to have fallen for the most basic de-stabilizing tactic, used by Lyn and Arianna, which basically consisted in insulting her, and that created the perfect opportunity.

You know the rest of the story, she released all the excess of energy in a single attack against Claire and was now standing next to Arianna.

"Thanks, and sorry for the waiting", said the little tiger girl to Arianna who patted Dana’s head in response.

"It was worth it, look at your hair, you finally have a stripe pattern", said Arianna with a smile, to which the little tiger girl happily nodded.

"Mm~".

"I hate to interrupt, but if I understand it correctly that means you weren’t going all out, while I was risking my life clashing head on with that crazy... woman?", said Lyn barely managing to not curse, to which Arianna softly snorted in response.

"Humph, I don’t want to listen to your complains, don’t think that I don’t know you were holding back as well, my master is a battle maniac like you, so I can tell", said the werewolf girl, which made Lyn clear her throat.

"Ahem, outside of combining our techniques, I do have one attack that surpasses my other techniques, but it’s a one-time thing in my current state and I’ll need some rest after it, so it’s not like I was purposedly hiding it", she said.

"Same here, I needed Dana to carry me for a few hours the last time, anyway with an extra peak Lord rank here, I don’t think there is a need to resort to "that", so it ended up being the correct move", added Arianna.

All this under Daimon’s amused gaze, they were basically finding excuses for the fact that they simply wanted to let the little tiger girl, actively participate in the fight, though they weren’t lying when it came to their last resorts, for a second there after Claire came out alive of their combined technique, though with notorious wounds on her, the air around those two took a dangerous turn, while they leisurely spoke to the other under Claire’s eyes.

’I guess they both were about to use their strongest techniques on Claire, but Dana stole their thunder’, he jokingly thought.

Speaking of Claire, she who was struck by a whole bunch of Dana’s lightning, came out of the still electrified area which was full of dust, a moment after the explosion ended, her previously normal clothes were now worn out, making her look as if she had come out of a proper seal, unlike before.

But she didn’t really care much about that, what made her eyes get bloodshot is that complete patches of her hair had been burnt, leaving bald spots on her head, not to mention that there was a small crack on the horn that protruded from her forehead.

"You fucking brat, how dare you!!!", with blistering rage burning in her eyes, Claire stomped her right foot on the ground and all the leftover black corroded chains which she had set up to work as traps, emerged from the ground, a total of four of them, all which were cladded in a way more intense nether when compared to before and gave off a familiar sensation, for Daimon at least, the reason was immediately revealed when Claire spoke the next second.

"Royal Reinforcement, Wave Splitting Crossbow!", the black-green nether around the black corroded chains, solidified to form two adult human sized nether crossbows, and two normal sized ones, the four of them floated behind Claire, two at each side to be more accurate.

"That’s not a technique obtained to be used within the Blood Prison realm, at all", said Arianna, to which Lyn casually added.

"Not that it’s unexpected, she has been cheating from the very beginning, after all she is not using only the energy related to her lineage, but nether even though she isn’t a nethereal".

Be it because unlike mana or battle aura which can be used by basically all races, nether is an energy which nethereals are capable of using since they are born, though in different degrees depending on their clans, talent and the like, or maybe because the Lords have been messing with the restrictions of the Blood Prison realm, the energy that nethereals are granted in this place is nether.

However, besides them, all the other participants in the "challenge" that takes place here, only get to use the energy that they are granted here, which is intrinsically related to their respective lineage and more specifically to the areas where they lack, which both increase the difficulty of the challenge but also benefits participants the most, it all depends on how you see it.

That’s why even Daimon who could ignore the restrictions, just like Ereth and Marcus with the means of a system user or Arlion with the help of Dian, who were basically confirmed to have been doing, considering the methods and external tools their subordinates were seen using, he chose not to do so, well, there is also the fact that his black sea emblem asked him not to, probably for the same reason, the thing wanted him to take advantage of the challenge and more accurately this was the challenge linked to it, considering how there was a buffet of black chains and black strands of energy for it to consume.

Anyway, the point is that Claire stopped being a proper participant of the challenge a long time ago, since she broke the rules and thus, she had stopped being able to receiving the benefits, in exchange she awakened nether and was able to use it with a bit of help from the Lords at its point back then.

The ironic part about all this, is that had she not relied on the Lords, and considering that her race lacked in terms of physical aspect powers, that’s precisely what she would have obtained if she stuck to the challenge, in other words because of her own poor choices, she lost an opportunity to gain what she desired the most and also obtain an extra benefit in the form of nether that could have focused in another aspect, it was such a waste of potential.

"Still, that’s royal nether, how is she able to use it when she hasn’t even reached the level of nether battle aura?", mumbled Lyn, once she was curious about something, she had to get to bottom of it, a characteristic that she shared with Annete and Mellie, luckily for her Daimon gave her a hand.

"She allowed her nether to corrode her own lineage, previously her energies were divided perfectly in half, now it’s more like a seventy-thirty distribution, that’s also why the horn on her forehead cracked, well that and a certain someone’s lightning attacking it, by using it as a lightning rod", he said from afar, making Dana softly laugh.

"I see, so basically she’s gone mad, that’s akin to drink poison to quench one’s thirst after all", disdainfully said Lyn.

She has seen what the corrosion caused by nether does to members of other races, even if it was her own nether the one causing it, it wasn’t worth it to infect her lineage to gain just a temporary power up, because once the corrosion advances she’ll lose her original lineage and all the powers that were tied to it, ultimately becoming a nethereal and not even a noble level one at that.

"It’s fine, I have a wide area of lineages I can obtain within sight, Dian might not be the ideal partner, but luckily the White family has an incredible plethora of rituals and curses which can come in handy", said Claire who had regained her cool after using the royal reinforcement technique she had obtained from a separate deal with one of the Lords, in secret from the other two.

That being said, she suddenly felt her heart sink while all the hairs on her body stood on their ends, it only lasted for a fraction of a second but she could clearly feel the origin of it, which was the masked silver haired youth.

’What the hell was that!’, screamed Claire in her mind.

The answer is simple, she had reminded Daimon of what Arlion did to Daphne and her mother with Dian’s help, not to mention that the curse used on the female members of Marlene’s race, was given to the male king by Dian as well.

’If that masked bastard joins them, I will lose, not to mention that the scarred tall guy from earlier is still in the picture, I have to at least kill one and gravely wound another one of those three, in that case...’, thought Claire, her body flashed away the next second, now that she was completely going against the restrictions of the challenge, she even used a movement technique that worked with nether, instead of the abilities she had thanks to her lineage energy.

And that allowed her to flash all the way to where those three were standing, the four crossbows pointed at her target, namely the little tiger girl, not only because she had burned a part of her beautiful hair, but also because she thought of Dana as the weakest link.

Unfortunately, she underestimated the protective "older sisters" that were standing next to her, Claire’s line of sight was blocked by a bright red wall, which expanded in every direction as the giant red wolf manifested around Dana, just in time for the arrows in those nether crossbows which used the corroded black chains as their core, to be shot.

The four nether bolts passed through the giant red wolf, piercing its body from side to side, however contrary to what one would expect, the previous didn’t make Claire happy in the slightest, because she could tell that the bolts didn’t hit anything.

And then, the next second Lyn whose arms had eight sky-blue energy rings wrapped around them, appeared in front of her.

"Damn it!", using her hands to point at Lyn, the crossbows gathered nether to then shot another round of bolts, just in time for Lyn to punch with both of her fists at the same time.

"Booooom!", a thunder-like explosion, followed by an energy cloud engulfing the vicinity was the result of the previous clash, this time the collision of energies didn’t remain long though, it was dispelled by Claire herself a second later, revealing only the giant red wolf which though looked thinner, was still in one piece.