Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System
Chapter 397 Rushing To The Throne Room (Part 1)

Daimon smiled at Femi's surprised expression, this is the first time he puts the small amount of battle aura solidification he can use, to work in an external way, normally he only applies it as another layer of protection below his skin.

Since he can't do much with it currently anyway, besides increasing the already innately high defense of his body, but he got this idea based on the fact that a Knight Lord is said to never lose its weapon.

Naturally that's just an exaggeration, battle aura solidification is the trait gained by Archknights, but just like Mage Lords gain their Manifestation Phenomenon, Knight Lords also get an ability that comes with their level, which is called Will Manipulation.

In short terms, a Knight Lord can infuse battle aura in objects to control them to a certain extent, it's like adding strings to a puppet, the myth regarding the fact that a Knight Lord never losing a weapon, is because they use that ability to attach their weapons to themselves, or retrieve them in a certain range.

Strangely Daimon couldn't do that, instead he learned a bit of battle aura solidification out of nowhere some time ago, probably because his vitality is too high, which strengthens his battle aura overall.

So right now, he was covering the girls with his battle aura alongside with his body, to keep them in place even when he was moving at such a high speed.

Daimon looked ahead and he smirked, the whole place was full of traps, and he knew why, because he heard Aisha's voice on his mind a few seconds ago.

'I arrived at the throne room darling, I'll be keeping the seat warm for you~', she said, before she cut communications.

The plan changed, originally Aisha was supposed to reunite with him after replaceing the throne room, but she apparently had her reasons to stay there and wait for Daimon's arrival, which probably had to be with the fact that the Minister could maybe change the display of the maze.

But as long as Aisha was there, Daimon would always replace his way to there, so even if the Minister tries to play that trick it would be useless, Daimon will replace a way to get there no matter what, and the Minister will just make the other participants also lose their time.

And since Aisha was already there, if she sat on the throne room, the countdown will start and as the sole team who has a member in the throne room, Daimon will still win, the Minister was in check, the only thing he could do was wait that the other captains and maybe some of their teammates arrived at the throne room to suppress Aisha.

While Daimon was free of cares, since his queen has reached the other side of the board, the other captains were rushing to the throne room, at some point the four of them converged and immediately attacked each other in a try to get past the rest to take the advantage.

But in the narrow space of the corridor, the four captains were unable to excel their whole battle prowess, and they just stalled each other, without anyone being able to advance, so they ultimately reached a mutual understanding, since Daimon wasn't with them which meant he could get past them without them noticing, so right now the four of them were running next to each other alone, with the exception of the crowned prince whose strategist, in other words Corey was running behind of them.

"Lance, how come that slim scholar of yours haven't caught up to you, did he perhaps runaway with the tail between his legs hahaha!", Ezequiel who was running next to Lance said in a try to make Lance lose focus and fall behind after falling in a trap.

The young spear didn't let his divert from the front, but he still answered.

"Are you in a position to worry about others, that guy said he'll eliminate you first, so if he were to replace your subordinates including that strategist you value so much, what do you think will be the result".

Without waiting for Ezequiel to answer, Lance accelerated a bit, leaving Ezequiel who was fuming, a couple of meters behind.

Besides those two aiming at each other throats like always, the crowned prince was the most relaxed one, he had his strategist with him and he had the most, high ranked subordinates in his team besides the neo nobles, the best equipment he as a prince and the young master of the Malleus family could buy.

So even if some were defeated, they should stall the enemies quite some time, not to mention that he should have the most surviving teammates arriving at the throne room.

As for Walford, his previous good humor was long gone, the Minister had a way to sent him short coded messages, so he has received information of what was happening, his vice-captain got done in by Jasmine and Cassy, so now he only could hope that the twin princes made their way to the throne room.

There were still some high ranked participants left though a couple of vice-captains, like the one of the crowned prince's team which is an early-stage Knight Lord ranked from the Malleus family, Ezequiel's vice-captain which an early-stage Mage Lord as well, and lastly though the real vice-captain of Lance's team was the glassed scholar who was already eliminated by Aisha, the neo nobles had another Lord ranked, which was the one acting as the vice-captain, a Mage Lord to be accurate.

'Shit, I haven't found any of the places where the positive effects of the lake are available, luckily grandfather has moved the especially negatively affected corridors out of the way, or I would have had to use that already', he inwardly swore.

The areas where the negative effects of the lake appeared, where simply because the array set up by the Arcarius, loosened up on purpose, and so the Minister could manipulate them to a certain extent, but the fourth effect which was the positive effects altogether, was completely random, as it came from the lake and bypassed the array, since it had no negative aspects.

The Minister didn't know it, but it was normal, since even in Neptune where Stellar ranks existed, they had no way to manipulate laws at will, contain them yes, but made them act at their will was out of question, if not the Arcarius family would have definitely raised even more, since the lakes were such a treasure.

…

While the four captains were rushing to the throne room, at the complete opposite direction, the twin princes were moving as a whole, using their innate ability to impulse themselves through the corridors, it was thanks to that they were almost at the same distance from the throne room than the captains.

They were also in Walford's team, so the Minister didn't send more traps their way, so they have had pretty smooth time so far, they then saw that they reached a dead end with just one door ahead of them.

Bryan who is the aggressive twin prince as well as Walford's strategist, took the initiative to open the door, and what awaited them was an earth-shaking battle, between two parties.

The scale of the battle made sense because the four people that were participating were all Lord ranked, at one side there was a water affinity knight teaming up with an earth affinity mage, on the other side there were two mages one who was launching wind and water spells and the other one was deflecting the attacks of the enemies and engaging in close combat against the water knight.

Naturally they were Mellie and Daphne, as for the other party they were the crowned prince and Ezequiel's vice-captains, Chris was also here but she wasn't participating actively and instead was in charge of the supporting them from the back.

"Pardon my offense young miss Delphini, my young master asked me to bring you to the throne room", said the water Knight Lord, as his battle aura exploded out of his body like a waterfall.

"Ocean Chariot!", the water battle aura changed to form a carriage led by a hammerhead shark, as the Knight charged towards Mellie, who softly snorted in response.

"I told you to get lost", Mellie used the bow of her fiddle whose string started vibrating to slash at the coming attack.

"Disruption Edge", Mellie's melodious voice echoed through the area, and then to the water Knight Lord's disbelief, his battle aura was cleanly split apart, and he was forced to dodge aside.

'What the hell was that', thought the Knight, he touched his face and saw the red liquid which was left on his hand, that slash not only dispelled his a attack, which is the legacy spell of his Malleus's family branch, but also ignored the protection of his battle aura and directly left a wound on his face, if he didn't react on time, his head would have separated from his body, in a normal battle, but here the formation would have activated and he would have been eliminated.

Mellie saw the result of her attack and though she felt proud of herself, she also slightly bit her lip.

'It's still not enough, sis can do it without a physical medium just by making the mana vibrate… I have to reach that level if I want to catch up to him', she thought.

Mellie saw the door of the room in which they were fighting opening and the twin princes entering through it and she jumped backwards, while also giving Daphne the signal they previously accorded to use when they had to regroup.

This room was practically the last obstacle prior to reaching the throne room, once they surpassed it, they just had to follow a straight corridor to reach the last stage, Mellie was able to get this far so fast, because during the past three rounds she has observed the platforms while memorizing their shape, details and any kind of unique thing to use as indications.

In other words, she made a mind map of the current maze, using everything she memorized of the three previous rounds, thanks to her innate ability, she used that to divide the maze in blocks, each corridor corresponded to one of the individual platforms, and she just followed the pattern she managed to see after memorizing the order of the platforms.

Worthy of being Annete's sister, Mellie's reasoning capacity and information processing was quite something, the Minister didn't bother to make the order of the platforms random, because in his mind there was no way for anyone below the late Mortal realm, in other words a high Arch rank, to see through the pattern of the maze, but Mellie did, and so she was able to even foresee which door led to the shortest route towards the throne room.

On the way she met Daphne and Chris and they reached this place together, but were intercepted by these two vice-captains, the crowned prince's vice-captain invited her to witness the victory of the crowned prince per the latter's request, but she naturally refused as for Ezequiel's vice-captain which is the guy that was accidentally eliminated in the first round, costing Ezequiel the victory in his eyes, he needed to get some merit, if he wanted his little brother to not be punished for not being able to fulfill the expectations of Ezequiel, and so a fierce battle between the four of them started.

And now there was a third party arriving, the twin princes looked at the scene unfolding in front of them and Bryan smiled as he gazed at Mellie.

"Sister Mellie, it seems you are having a tough time dealing with these two, how about you join us, we can destroy them easily, I only ask you to stay out of the battle for the throne room… it will break my heart, if we have to join the other side to eliminate your group after all", he said with a cunning smile on his face.

The other prince, Ryan sighed as he looked at the crazed expression of his brother, everyone knew that the crowned prince and also Bryan both were infatuated with the younger sister of the queen, they were the first two that tried to get the greenlight from the queen to date Mellie after all.

Unfortunately for them, not only Mellie even refused to discuss such a thing with them, they weren't even allowed to see her, nor enter any of the territories property of Annete, in other words they were harshly rejected.

Mellie didn't bother to answer them, she instead turned to see Daphne and Chris and they both nodded at her, then they changed their battle formation, Daphne went to the back while Chris joined Mellie at the front.

"I can last around five minutes against them, but my mana will be reduced in an eighty percent, please try to make them be as close as possible", mumbled Chris in a voice only Mellie could hear.

Mellie nodded and then Chris stomped her right foot on the ground.

"Millennial Stone Bastion!", amber colored mana exploded out of Chris's body, and a small stone castle covered the three of them, while Daphne was inside of the walls of the castle fully protected, Mellie and Chris appeared at the lateral watchtowers.

"I'll cover from above, don't worry and go all out", confidently said Chris.

Her family have been the right hands of the Valas's main branch since the beginning of the times, while the Valas focus on an extreme offensive, they completely focused on defense, since their attribute is earth, also for some reason the heir of both families was always a woman, so they were raised together as sisters and best friends through all the generations so far.

Mellie nodded and then she jumped downwards, safely landing on the ground in front of the four Lord ranked enemies in front of her, she grabbed her fiddle and prepared to pull the strings.

"Tsk, normally I will never team up with brother Terry's lackies, but I guess that impress sister Mellie I at least need to prove of being stronger than her, so what do you say Rudford, wanna join hands, I bet your master is waiting for your arrival?", said Bryan to the water Knight Lord, who frowned for a moment but ultimately nodded.

"I'll accept his highness proposal, but I still have to mention that my young master will be the one to win… everything", said the Knight as he gazed at Mellie.

The other twin prince Ryan, gave Mellie an apologetic gaze, Ezequiel's vice-captain also joined so it was a 3v1, no in fact it was going to be a 4v1 since he was going to join too.

"Excuse us miss Mellie, this is for the honor of our Keran family", said Ryan as he took out his nails, while Bryan took out his weapon whish was a curved sword.

Mellie softly snorted, as she said.

"I don't mind you fighting for your family or whatever, but I don't remember ever allowing any of you to call me by name!", a vertical yellow line appeared on Mellie's forehead and her strength jumped to the middle Mage Lord rank all of a sudden, taking the four enemies by surprise.

Tough Mellie explained how her innate ability worked to Daimon pretty easily, before that, only Annete knew about it, since the only ones who have that capacity in the Delphini family are them, the others have a different Analyzing Resonance which isn't battle oriented, others knew the queen could do it, since she is a public figure and has fought quite a bit over the years, but Mellie practically never left the mansion and territories of the queen, so she never had the need to fight, well if you don't take into account the hellish training the queen made her go through.

The first time she ventured outside of that "comfort zone" was when she travelled in the caravan, which is also when she met Daimon.