Supreme Monarch

"You'll pay for this."

Those soft-spoken yet icy words somehow made Izabel's skill crawl as she unconsciously took a step back even though she should have the absolute advantage right now.

The temperature inside the barrier suddenly began to drop as Izabel continuously hesitated to attack without realizing why. The icy pressure that had suddenly exploded out of the blonde demoness had completely surprised her and she could barely believe what was happening.

Skills and spells were supposed to be disrupted here and the girl was purely a mage, unlike the dark elf who was apparently a mage assassin. So there should be no reason why she would be able to instill this much pressure on someone at her level.

There weren't many things that would be able to work in here and the only thing Izabel could think of that could bypass the Spatial Suppression Barrier was a Demon Noble's innate ability. However, something was royally wrong here. Why on Neron would a demoness on her level who was also capable of using the family's innate ability be allowed to wander around in the Darknar region.

Izabel could not figure that out in so little time and just as she had thought to counter with her own Innate ability, even though that would go against their plans. Something that was almost equally surprising happened.

"Liz, no don't. I haven't lost yet."

"I can't believe it," Izabel exclaimed in surprise as she saw the dark elf struggle to Stand even with the disintegration energy still slowly killing her from within. Her wounds seem to have stopped bleeding for some reason as she slowly got off the ground.

Liz on the other hand was elated when she saw her friend stand. The temperature in the Barrier rapidly returned to normal as she tried to support her friend up.

"Are you okay?"

"I -I'll be fine. Just focus on getting us out of here."

"But your wounds."

"No worries, I promise I'll be fine right. Don't you trust me?" Rain said that as she waved her daggers at Liz before standing back up, seemingly ready to get back into the fight. Liz seemed to realize something as she nodded and stood up. The temperature in the barrier slowly returned to normal.

She then took several steps back and the artifact around her neck glowed dimly. Wild and cold winds circulated the barrier and the clouds steadily grew thicker and darker by the seconds and it looked like she was planning something. Izabel looked up for a moment thinking she was going to use her Lightning Storm attack again but as that didn't come, she frowned.

"Oh You have, got to be kidding me."

Saying that in an extremely annoyed tone, she kicked off the ground and charged at the immobile Liz. Naturally, Rain moved to intercept her but Izabel had already figured her out. With the use of foresight, she would be able to predict her attacks so there was no point in attacking her directly even in her current state.

Stretching out her right hand, another chaos mallet formed in her hand and instead of attacking with it like before, she immediately threw it at Rain. Rain sensed her intentions and immediately sent a poisonous fireball at the incoming mallet as they collided mid-flight and exploded in a 15-meter radius.

While Rain was sent tumbling back by the shockwave, Izabel used that opportunity to dash past her towards Liz who seemed to be busy preparing an attack.

However, Rain had already predicted that the moment Izabel had chosen to attack Liz instead of her. She twisted her body in the air and was somehow able to land on her feet as she quickly turned and sent another green fireball her way.

Sensing the attack from behind her, Izabel clicked her tongue. If this was a normal fireball, she would've just taken the attack without receiving any damage as she was a high-ranking member of the Brimstone family and thus had absurdly high resistance to fire-based attacks. 

However, the green fireball was layered with very powerful and toxic poisonous magic and poisoned attacks were a different story. Personally, her case was even worst off than her peers as her sister would've still been able to handle this much without it getting in her way but she was especially weak to any type of poisonous attacks. She knew the attack was dangerous. After all, she had also fought against several lesser basilisks herself and had almost gotten killed because she underestimated them.

Izabel swiftly swirled her body mid-motion as she managed to avoid the attack from behind and was able to maintain her momentum as she continues dashing towards Liz. Rain even with her heavy injury rapidly chased after her but with the effect of her Thunder God's Descent gone, her body was even more sluggish and heavier than ever before, making her vastly slower than Izabel who was still covered in chaos aura.

However, Liz didn't seem concerned about the rapidly approaching enemy that was Izabel, who was closing in on her with her mallet already raised as a sudden gust of wind blew in and threw both Iz and Rain back, further away from her while she continued to gather the clouds and lightning in a large area directly above them.

Rain, already expecting Liz's reaction was able to regain her balance a lot easier than Izabel as she dashed at her. Her mind seemingly focused on that one task as Izabel avoided the green flame-coated blade she was swinging at her quite easily.

Izabel was getting irritated by the fact that this fight had gone on longer than she wanted it to when she suddenly noticed something. The countless wounds on Rain's body were rapidly beginning to heal and her slower and sluggish motions were steadily getting more fluid and faster, albeit still slower than hers.

'What is this, a healing spell? How?'

Seeing the perplexed expression on Izabel's face, Rain smiled and took advantage of her lapse in concentration as she immediately used another secret technique. It was important to note that secret techniques were not something that could be easily learned and most demons, even demon lords would go their entire lives without learning a single one of them.

This wasn't just due to their insane rarity but the pure difficulty the learning process entails. The fact that Rain could use a powerful secret technique like the Thunder God's Descent was already impressive enough to make Izabel who could not use a single one jealous but she had also used the Phantom Kill technique and now a different one.

This was something that even the crazy and madly talented Citrus couldn't do. The mark of a true combat genius. The only other person that was as talented as she was in this aspect was Albert, who was a specialist Magic swordsman that could barely use magic.

[Phatom Steps.]

Wanting to compensate for her current weakness in this barrier, Rain used a movement technique as she moved to attack Izabel in an easy-to-block way. Izabel was wondering what that was about before promptly sensing the threat of death looming over her. Reacting quickly she opted not to block Rain's attack but to dodge it instead. And while that may have saved her life. She was sorely mistaken if she thought she had cleanly predicted Rain's movements.

The blade came at her from an unprecedented angle and she could not avoid it but thanks to her earlier actions, it had only caused a shallow wound on her abdomen.

"You little bitch!"

•Soul Eater•

Noticing Rain about to strike again after already causing her damage, Izabel's wrath ran rampant as she immediately used a skill in an attempt to hold her in place as she pressed down on the cut on her abdomen. Normally this was not enough to slow her down and even her natural resistance should have stopped the attack but the blade that struck her had been coated in green poisonous flames that had managed to cut through her defenses.

'This is bad. Damn it! Where the hell is that bitch when you need her.'

Izabel was getting more annoyed the longer this went. If she wasn't trying to keep her family's identity from any prying eyes that may have been able to get through her anti-divination magic, she would've just used her innate ability and been done with this nonsense.

She fought desperately against her instincts not to lose her cool and just go wild as she tried to calmly observe and handle the situation. However, just as she was dealing with this problem, another one arose.

The cracking of lightning grew increasingly louder as Thunder claps could be heard from the distant clouds that loomed over them with an oppressive pressure that made her want to run.

Izabel raised her head to see what the noise was about and her eyes widened. The simplest way to describe this was that they could be pregnant, and something told Iz that it wouldn't be giving birth to some adorable-looking baby.

Meanwhile, Rain was able to avoid Izabel's Soul Eaters thanks to the strong wind that blew her away again. She was sweating a lot even though most of her wounds were already healed and the disintegration energy within her was now almost gone thanks to the primary ability of the weapon Lord Ty had Bungo make her.

She stood up with difficulty as it seemed the use of the incomplete Thunder God's Descent combined with two other secret techniques had taken a toll on her. At this point even if she wanted to, she could no longer put up a decent fight against an opponent like Izabel especially since the barrier they were in was still suppressing them.

Rain then traced Izabel's gaze as she saw the thick pregnant cloud and went pale. She surely didn't know what this skill was or what it would do but the sky felt like it was about to fall and that was most certainly not good.

"CloudBurst."

Before any of them had been able to brace themselves, Liz spoke a single phrase that told them everything they needed to know and both girls' expressions went pale.

'Hey, isn't this bad. Did she forget where we are? Don't fucking cause a natural disaster like it's nothing.'

With an oddly perfect synchronization, both Izabel and Rain thought the same thing, and as though on cue, the sky literally fell.

If one wanted a simple explanation of what had happened they could trace it back to the single-phrase Liz had said earlier, Cloudburst. A cloudburst in normal terms was an extreme amount of precipitation in a very short period of time, sometimes accompanied by hail and thunder, which is capable of creating flood conditions. 

However, that was a natural occurring could burst and this, this was something else, something much, much worse.

Izabel could only look up in dismay as she wondered how this was possible. For a magic item to be capable of causing a natural disaster meant it was a magic artifact but that was not the issue. The problem lies in the fact that the effect of this natural disaster had been greatly intensified, spanning an incomprehensibly large area making it almost impossible to avoid.

Not to mention, this was the Darkin mountain range and such a wide range did not only affect them but everything else inside the mountains.

"I'm beginning to hate my job."