Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System

"Booom!", the giant tornado descended with such force that it sent countless pieces of debris flying in every direction, some where actually caught by the fierce currents of winds created by it and slashed until they turned into thin dust that was dispersed the next second.

The tornado lasted quite a bit, since James poured a whole ten percent of his mana reserves into it, once it finally ended the scene which the pirate expected to see, in other words Jade having created her next barrier with another element, didn't appear.

In fact, while the light barrier was indeed destroyed during the time the tornado was ongoing, considering that the near area which used to be covered by the light barrier was devastated by it, Jade was not only completely unscathed, but she hadn't moved even a centimeter from her previous position.

'What is going on, there is no barrier but she didn't suffer any wound, did the light barrier heal her?', wondered James to then shake his head.

'No, the previous barriers had no other properties besides protection', he concluded, otherwise there would have been traces of water, wind or light mana left behind on Jade's body but that wasn't the case.

The problem is that the other option he could think off, would be his giant tornado not being strong enough to land a scratch on the enemy, and if that was the case, then he would be in deep trouble.

Unfortunately for James, his relaxing time was over, Jade who had remained pretty much stating since the beginning of the fight, flashed from her current position, a few times before appearing not too far from where the pirate was.

"Damn it", realizing that Jade had finally made use of the fast teleportation ability of a knight piece, James cursed as he started running once again, not without waving his hand on her direction.

"Water Edge", after using a whole tenth part of his reserves just for his strongest wind attack spell to not do anything to the enemy, James didn't want to waste mana pointlessly, so instead of trying to push through he used a simple star ranked water spell to test the waters.

'According to Sheilla, once those colorful haired women used those glyph things they completely overwhelmed their opponents… including that Bryan bastard whom the king seemed to be interested in', thought James.

Amusingly enough, Marcus had the time to take a "peek" at Bryan before leaving, he was interested in the shooting narwhal former prince, since he had managed to obtain both the White's lineage and nether with his own methods, of course James didn't know that, but Marcus did tell him to try and bring him to their side.

Unfortunately, there was no way in hell Bryan who's nether was lust based would accept to become the kind of "subordinate" Marcus wanted, so having felt the weird vibes from Marcus, he of course rejected James's offer, what's important is that James considered Bryan to be at his same level.

In case you wonder why he didn't fall prey to panic knowing that once another member of the same race as Jade, used her glyph, she was able to easily destroy Bryan, that's because unlike Amber or Scarlet whose victories were the most one-sided ones, not only Jade isn't a knight but she is clearly not an attack type mage.

And while the previous might be true and the reason as to why he kept his cool even after seeing his strongest wind spell fail, he had forgotten that he didn't know what type of mage Jade is.

With a "swoosh", Jade casually flashed to the side, completely dodging the water edge without stopping moving forward even for a second.

"It's not that easy when the target isn't static, right?", mockingly said Jade, making James snort.

"If your speed was so great, then why put up barriers to protect from my spells instead of using spells to respond to my attacks!", he exclaimed in response as he casted a wide area spell this time.

"Violent Rain!" a single stream of water was shot from his left hand, to then explode midway to turn into a large net of bullet-like drops of water.

"Boom!", the countless water bullets turned the ground in a large area into a sieve, but to James's anger, Jade came out unscathed, she actually flew through the rain of water bullets and… dodged every single one of them with elegant dance-like moves.

At the resting area, Risha sister's eyes sparkled upon seeing the fluid and elegant movements used by Jade, though only the Fire Crane branch to which Leslie belongs, uses "Phoenix Dance" directly as that fighting technique they found in the records of their family was fire affinity oriented, Ivy and Liliana's families also train on it.

The difference being that Liliana's family did manage to create their own fighting technique based on it, or more accurately Liliana's mother did, but for the Night Sparrow family it was until Ivy's generation that a fighting technique was extrapolated from Phoenix Dance for them, or more accurately it was until Ivy created it.

The point is that the three sisters were properly instructed in dancing and they couldn't help but admit that Jade had talent for it.

Back at the fight, Jade gazed at James as if she was looking to an idiot to then say.

"That's an easy to solve mystery, I allowed you to attack me", naturally such a directly condescending answer made James be at a loss for words for a second, here he was taking every possible precaution to win and yet his opponent… had the leisure to allow him to attack her.

"And why the hell would you do that?", asked the pirate just for Jade to gaze in Daimon's direction with a smile on her pretty face as she said.

"Because you are just targets to allow us to show off our progress to a certain someone~".

James was beyond words at this point, he felt utterly humiliated and with a proper reason, he was told to the face that he was but a mere piece of utility in a "show of talents" that the enemies were putting for the masked guy.

The pirate's pupils contracted like needles, as if he was hit by bolt out of the blue, an idea surged in his mind.

'Could it be that the masked guy is… like the king', he thought, in his mind it would make sense that his teammates lost if the masked guy was a "special" existence like his king.

Though, unlike Daimon, Marcus couldn't even make allusion to him being a system user due to restrictions, he of course made sure to engrave the idea that he was a superior kind of existence in the brain of his subordinates while also stating that only the most loyal and talented followers would get to know his real status and reap the benefits that came with it.

It's worth mentioning that neither Garak nor James was "close" enough to Marcus to receive the best of the benefits he could offer, in fact no one was, because in his own words "There was a limited number of slots for that", Bryan was supposed to be the first one if James convinced him, but that's beside the point.

"I see, that explains everything, it's understandable that the others were defeated so easily", mumbled the pirate to then put on a condescending voice as he added.

"I must say that the result is rather disappointing though, knowing the king, the price to obtain the "maximum benefits" must be completely selling oneself and yet the result is just at this level, luckily, I decided otherwise".

The second he blinked, Jade had appeared a few meters away from him, and contrary to what her green hair and pretty face would suggest, she had an incredibly fierce aura around her right now.

"What, did I offend you, what a… shame!", darkness mana gathered on James's hands taking the shape of a spear in a second.

"Black Javelin", with a swift accurate movement, James thrusted the darkness mana javelin at Jade's neck.

'And here I was struggling to think on a way to make you close the distance, just like the cocky bastards favored by the king, once using that power one becomes reckless', thought James.

He had realized that long distance spells wouldn't do the trick and he had no problem with that, within his repertory he had short range spells that focused all their power in a single point, they were perfect to deal with defense type mages, the problem is that after putting distance between himself and Jade, it would be too predictable what he was planning to do by approach her now.

So, he tried to provoke her, after remembering how his king once mentioned that it is normal to feel "invigorated" when using the power, he offers to those that accomplish things and very much to his happiness it worked, but then the grin that was just barely forming on his face, froze as he saw the Javelin turning into black mana particles the moment it reached Jade.

"What!", the pirate pushed the rest of the Javelin trying to pierce Jade with it, but the result was the same, every part of the javelin that reached Jade's body crumbled into harmless particles of mana.

"Wind Blade!", a fierce gale condensed on James's free hand, which he then slashed at Jade hoping to see a different result, but the wind blade turned into a soft breeze upon making contact with Jade.

"Water Harpoon!", without waiting even a second, the pirate changed to a water close range spell only for the same scene to repeat again, the once sharp water mana harpoon turned into a harmless mist of water and mana instead of piercing a hole in Jade's chest as it was supposed to.

"What is happe… gaaah!", James's shout was interrupted by Jade punching him on the face, forcing blood out of his mouth and nose, up close one could see a thin layer of green jade covering her hand where light green mana had gathered.

While James was forced to bent due to the pain he was feeling, Jade elegantly floated backwards to then say.

"You still have something up your sleeve right, given that you are a mage unlike that beast guy from earlier, that tattoo of yours must have a different last resort, hurry up and use it".

It was quite rare to see the usually easygoing Jade, acting with such fierceness, apparently, she was indeed angered by what James said a moment ago, and she wasn't the only one, Scarlet and the others who were observing the fight at the resting area, all had sharp lights shinning in their eyes.

Feeling the contempt coming from the enemy, James saw red, the horned tattoo on his forehead exploded in an ominous red mist, to then change from a horned figure to a strange looking gate with chains all over it.

'That is…', Daimon who saw the change in the energy which was coming out of the tattoo, heard the angel girl's voice coming from the feather necklace and he frowned.

'That does still feel like Marcus's power but, much wilder, perhaps this tattoo comes directly from the source', thought Daimon, making sure that Ariel listened to his supposition, to which the feather necklace shook for a split of a second.

Though the angel girl didn't directly confirm, that was enough for Daimon to realize his theory was in the correct path, and this was important because it meant that Marcus's administrator was already showing her hand, meaning that she wanted to obtain/achieve something within the last stage of the Global Raid.

"Red Altar!", with a loud roar-like shout, red mist seeped out of the ground nearby James and gathered around him, covering his body, unlike what happened with Garak, there were no other physical changes, but the overall aura around James did change, he exuded a dreading sensation which was hard to describe, at least for those that weren't present at Gwen's secret laboratory.

"So, unlike that Garak guy who used his blood and life as a price, you get a free pass by gathering the "suffering" in the surroundings, what a disgusting ability", said Jade to which James snorted.

"It's the perfect ability for any large-scale battlefield, also…", James's words stopped midway, his red mist figure flashed and the next second, he had appeared in front of Jade, his right fist shot like a cannon.

"Booom!", a thunder-like explosion echoed through the battlefield as James's red mist covered fist clashed against Jade's green cladded one, the sky was half illuminated in red and half in green.

The result was that Jade got pushed backwards, though there were no wounds on her hand as it was protected by that green jade layer, happy with the result of the initial clash, James finished his sentence from earlier.

"Unlike Garak, my tattoo not only gives me access to this special "mana" but also increases my physical abilities and more importantly, it doesn't have the flaw of killing its owner, but let's not waste time", he said as he pointed his palms at Jade.

"Red Wave!", that same red mist from earlier came from all over the area and gathered in front of James to then be shot in the form of a highly concentrated red mist stream, it was similar to the ultimate spell used by Garak, but this red mist used by James was at least two times stronger.

As a proof of the previous, the barrier which was barely grazed by that red mist cracked on the spot, meaning that it had surpassed what a Mage Lord should be able to do by quite a bit.

To James's displease, instead of trying to dodge, Jade took a step ahead bringing him a bad premonition, which was confirmed the next second when a few familiar words came out of her mouth.

"Elemental Dance, Fourth Step…", and here Jade took a second to smile in Daimon's direction to then say.

"Darkness", a black ethereal veil materialized in front of Jade, clashing with the red mist wave and nearly making James's eyes pop out of their sockets.

'Light and darkness affinity in the person, impossible!', he inwardly screamed, the pirate wasn't the only one taken by surprise, the three nethereal sisters had some sort of reaction.

"Is she like us…", mumbled Jasmine, to which Reyne who had a much more developed sense thanks to her recent advance in her Ivory lineage by awakening nether earlier, shook her head.

"I don't think so, as much as I hate to say it, we would need to ask Sarah just to be sure", said the Nelapsi girl, she thought of asking Joanna but she remained silent since earlier for some reason.

High in the sky, the crazy girl narrowed her pretty eyes for a second before turning carefree once again as she thought.

'The competition had become quite fierce, mm, I will have to give Jas a little push… after my turn of course~'.

Feeling the predatory gaze from Sarah who has holding onto him, Daimon couldn't help but sigh, this unpredictable crazy girl was surely a handful.

Daimon focused on the fight once again, the previous confirmed what he had already theorized.

'She wasn't messing with that pirate, her "glyph" doesn't affect her affinity one bit, she is still an advanced earth affinity mage and while she does spend mana whenever taking a step and mentioning an element, the barrier is neither created nor maintained by her… I have seen something similar before', he thought.

Sizzling sounds were the result of the clash between the darkness veil that protected Jade and the red mist stream used by James, at the end the red mist stream did go through the darkness veil, but it had basically lost all of its power and Jade simply "shooed" it away as if she was squatting a fly.

"What did you do?", asked the pirate, while secretly trying to gain time for his next attack, what he didn't know is that Jade not only knew it but she didn't care.

"Nothing much, no matter how specialized that energy you use might be, as a part of the negative spectrum, its base is still darkness and since that power isn't yours, of course your mastery on it is trash".

James felt his blood boil due to Jades's words, but he swallowed his anger while he concentrated all his mana to use his last resort, still he didn't forget to retort.

"Heh, you say that but aren't you the same, this power which isn't mana you are using came from that masked bastard…', James suddenly felt his chest tighten, he by instinct tried to cast the spell he was preparing just to be horrified at the fact that he… couldn't.

"Well, in a sense these powers we have were indeed obtained thanks to him, but… how dare you compare that disgusting tattoo with my glyph", mumbled Jade as she slowly started flying towards the pirate, her glyph shinning on her right ankle.

"Tsunami Break!", since for some reason he couldn't cast his red mist spell, he used the mana he had gathered to launch the three strongest spells of his three affinities in a sequence, since his instincts told him that he needed to gain distance.

The problem is that the giant instant tsunami he expected to see… didn't appear, James's pupils contracted like needles.

"Giant Tornado!", the pirate raised his hands, he sent a huge amount of mana upwards aiming at the area in front of him, wanting to cut Jade's path, he felt a sensation of relief at the sight of his mana being integrated into the wind which was the last step before the activation of the spell, but then his smile froze upon seeing that let alone a giant tornado, not even a breeze was created.

"Black Scythe!", this time James aimed at a close combat spell, imagine his face when he saw the darkness mana which he summoned, turn into countless black energy particles that dispersed into the air.

"Banishment", James looked in Jades's direction just to see her pointing at her with her pretty right index finger.

"What cheap trick is this!", James roared, his body exploded in that red mist, he flashed appearing in front of Jade and punched at her chest with all his might.

"Crack!".

"Aghhhh!".

The sound of broken bones and flesh, followed by a loud pained scream echoed through the whole battlefield, James retreated in horror upon while wailing, his right hand with which he attacked Jade, had turned into a bloody mess.

But then his path of retreat was blocked by a Jade, who spoke in a voice that only the pirate could hear.

"Let me tell you a little secret, none of us has received the type of power that tattoo of yours represents", she said, which nearly made James suffer a heart attack.