—Whoosh…

*Boom!

The blurry sight of two female figures flying past the rocky plains was soon accompanied by the resounding sound of a sonic boom indicating that the girls’ flight speed had broken through the sound barrier. Indeed, they were currently flying at a speed several times the speed of sound, and yet, their journey to the Darkin mountain range would still take them more than six hours.

Worst of all, flying wasn’t exactly the safest mode of transportation in the wild and dangerous demon continent as evident by the giant Thunderbird that was currently chasing after them. The bird resembled a giant bald eagle with ice blue feathers and cracks of electricity dancing on its massive body.

The bird measured about 30 meters in length and its talons were as sharp as blades. Flapping its massive wings, it let out a thunderous high-pitched call as it chased the pair with supersonic speed.

Rain was giggling to herself which naturally made Liz roll her eyes. They could not easily defeat this monster even if they were individually stronger than it so her current amusement made no sense.

Rain flew close to Liz as she turned around mid-flight and cast a spell without any pause or break in her fluid motion. “Lightning Ricochet.” A bolt of powerful lightning bounced of a magic circle that had appeared in the air after the bird had avoided the initial attack and struck the monster from behind.

However, the monster had completely shrugged off the attack like it was nothing and continued chasing after them with an even greater speed. Almost as though it had been propelled by her attack.

“Wow, Lightning immunity Huh? I totally want that.”

Rain said chuckling as she turned back around and continued fleeing.

“This is not a joke you know. We wouldn’t even be in this mess if you hadn’t gone and attacked the monster that was already chasing after a different prey. Why do you always have to stir up trouble?”

Their voice was soft, not containing the panic and fear most would feel in this situation. Besides, they spoke calmly without raising the volume of their voice but their words were still geared clearly by each other and were not hindered by the pressure of the loud wind that blew at them.

They could easily speak to each other as though they were situated in a quiet room. This was not achieved utilizing any spell or skills. It was something that anyone that could use Flight magic could do. A mana link.

By extending a mana thread to anyone within range of you, one would be able to eliminate any interference from the outside world and speak to the other party as though they were next to you. Their bodies were also protected by a layer of mana and thus their hair and skin were untouched by the freezing wind.

“Hehe… I read once that Thunderbirds make very beautiful shoes that provide Lightning resistance so I was tempted. Just a little more Lightning resistance and I’ll get the immunity, cool right?”

“Where are you even finding these books.”

While Liz wanted to facepalm herself after hearing that. She had to admit that the idea of an elemental immunity was indeed very tempting as they were hard to get normally. After all, one could not learn something like that. They would only build up their resistance by surviving attacks from an element or manually infusing the elemental runes into one’s mana body.

There was no need to say that the latter was even more dangerous than expanding the mana body a little. There was currently no living soul that could read all three levels of advanced magic runes and without that knowledge, the process would be suicidal.

Thus, getting an elemental immunity from a single advanced class monster was a steal, and even more importantly, a new pair of shoes with the beautiful sky blue color of the Thunderbird would go lovely with the outfit Nadine had picked out for her. Currently, she wore a simple white dress that was mostly covered by the hooded dark blue coat she had on.

Rain wore black trousers with a pair of high-heeled leather boots and a white long-sleeved crop top, and although her cold resistance was less than hers, she did not wear any winter coat over her outfit. A small square box was strapped behind her— attached to the belt of her pants— and reaching behind her, she pulled out two daggers from seemingly nowhere.

One of those was her new dagger, ‘Verlion’ and the others were one part of a set called ‘Sky Break’. With the other part of the set missing or destroyed, she would be unable to use any of the skills the weapon possessed but her dagger had enough firepower to make up for it, literally.

The dagger she wielded in her right hand suddenly caught ablaze in a dangerously green flame. She turned around mid-fight once more and swung the blazing blade as the flames jumped off the dagger and in a large ball, flew at the incoming bird.

•Poisonous Flames•

The large ball of poison flames flew at the Thunderbird and it could sense the danger even from afar. It let out a loud cry as it twisted its massive body and tried to dodge it. However, Rain smiled as she snapped her fingers as the ball of green flames exploded in a radius of 15 feet.

The monster was stunned and lost its momentum but the Attack had still not done much damage so it quickly shook it off and continued its chase. The Lightning that danced around its body moved to its wings and cracked loudly as though it would destroy the space itself as the Thunderbird immediately flapped its wings at the girls and countless lightning bolts shot out towards them without giving them much room to dodge.

“Wow, that looks dangerous.”

Rain said chuckling as she cast another lightning spell to cancel out the monster attacks. “Max magic – Chao Lightning.” With a loud and resounding BOOM! Both attacks disappeared to nothingness as It would seem they were evenly matched as neither side Could land a decisive blow on the other. However, they would soon get to the Darkin mountain range and those skies contained the occasional Silver Wyvern that lived in the mountains with the mountain golems.

If even a single one of those monsters joins up with the Thunderbird, they would actually be in trouble. Liz sighed as she suddenly stopped mid-air, causing Rain to be surprised as she almost tripped on the air. The Thunderbird was no exception as it continued its flight and was about to slam into Liz.

“Wall of Ice.”

A higher tired spell than the usual Ice wall as this 4th Tier spell could be used in the air. A massive wall of ice formed by rapidly freezing the water in the air and the Thunderbird helplessly slammed into it. Liz then touched the necklace around her neck as the grey clouds got thicker and darker within seconds and countless wild tornadoes began to erupt in a massive area all around her creating a raging storm.

•Lightning Storm•

Naturally, the storm of tornadoes was accompanied by massive bolts of lightning that danced on the clouds and struck the ground randomly and without limit. If they were not currently in the sky above a rocky plain but a first, the storm would’ve no doubt destroyed the entire terrain and caused a huge forest fire.

However, these seem enough overpowered Lightning would be completely ineffective against this monster that had Lightning Immunity so Liz quickly cast another spell to go with the Lightning storm.

“Heavy Ice Hail.”

They were the same size as daggers but hundreds of ice spikes came down from the black clouds and rained down upon the helpless Thunderbird that was yet to recover from the concussion it had after slamming headfirst into the hard ice wall.

In less than ten seconds the monster was torn to shreds by a combination of violent tornadoes and the hail of ice. Rain whistled as she kicked her foot in the air and said.

“Brutal, what did that ever do to you. I even wanted to capture it.”

“You’re not a tamer, how do you plan on capturing it?”

“That’s easy, just beat it down until it surrenders.”

“Sometimes I think you’re dumb on purpose just to mess with me.”

“Hahaha… Don’t be so serious. I was just kidding. I’m aware we don’t have time to fool around. As long as I get my shoes I’m good. Besides, we need to head back as soon as possible so I’ll be able to welcome Lord Ty in an apron as the book said.”

“Right… That again.”

Liz didn’t bother to argue or engage her friend anymore as she disappeared from her sight and a loud sound was heard a moment later. Rain chuckled and took off as well. They arrived at the Darkin mountain range an hour later after defeating one more Thunderbird and touched down at the west side where they had agreed to meet up with Azar.

It didn’t take them long to see the half-giant by the base of a mountain as he stood there bare-chested waving at them with a big smile on his face.

Rain cheerfully waved back at him as they walked over to the former chief of the Red ogre settlement. Rain then raised both arms and Azar did the same. Liz was wondering what was happening when they gave each other a high five and before she knew it, there was a series of complicated handshakes between them as they smile and ended it in a fist bump and a knowing nod that seems to scream. ‘Yeah!’

‘When did this happen.’

Granted, Liz and Erin had spent a few days away from Rain as they were busy with their work in the castle but was a few days really enough for these two to become such close friends that they had even learned a secret handshake to go with it.

While she was a little jealous she was left out of the fun— pursing her lips a little — she decided not to be bitter about it and decided to move on from the issue, not bothering to ask them anything about the secret handshake and get straight down to business.

“So, how’s your preparation going.”

“Oh pardon my distraction. We have found a suitable spot to build our base. It’s just behind this place and the path there is narrow, impossible for any of the monsters here to pass through.”

“That was fast.”

“It’s all thanks to Kazko and Rekaz amazing senses as evolved trolls.”

“Oh, neet. Where are those trouble makers?”

“Back at the tent.”

‘Troublemakers? Talk about the pot and the kettle.’ Liz mused internally as she moved the conversation along.

“Can you take us there?”

“With pleasure.”

Azar then turned around and lead the girls toward the side of the mountain. His massive Ham-Ax strapped on his back as he didn’t seem to mind the extreme cold at all.

After walking through an extremely narrow ridge before coming to an opening that was surrounded by steep mountains. The place currently contained two large tents already set up at the end of the opening, a magic carriage parked at the other end, and one six-eyed bull tied to a tree in the middle.

There was an absurd amount of logs— no not logs exactly, they were essentially just tree trunks that had been stripped of their branches and roots making them look like large logs stacked by one side of the opening.

The only trees that grew on this mountain range were large pine trees and it would seem the trolls were hard at work uprooting the ones around to be used as materials for the cabin they were tasked to build.

“We’ve set up a second tent just for the both of you. Hope it’s to your liking.”

Azar said with a smile as he escorted the girls inside the opening while pointing towards one of the tents.