Supreme Monarch

The next morning—

Bam! BANG!

The door to the largest room in one of the less luxurious hotels in west borough was suddenly swung open and a slender figure wearing a black hooded cloak briskly walk right into the room in a flighty manner.

Completely disregarding the two men in suits that stood by either side of the door and were supposed to be keeping guard. Although they had been startled by her sudden presence and had almost tried to stop her, their hands quickly doze upon realizing who it was.

"I'm back~ did you miss me?"

"Oh sister, you're back, welcome back."

Lifting her head from the mountain of papers on the desk before her, the young girl in the room turned her head to the side and greeted the new visitor that had rudely barged in on her and n interrupted her work with an awkward and hesitant smile on her face.

If this had been anyone else, they would've received a blow to the face but she could not lose her temper at the woman in front of her. Especially not in their current location as they had illegally entered the city without informing the city's lord of their arrival even though they would be treated as guests and a private villa was already set aside for members of their family.

However , doing that would be bad as they would immediately be assigned maids and guards to spy on them as well as secret operatives to investigate their reasons for coming.

"How sad~ you don't even look happy to see your older sister."

" That's not the case, I've just been too busy is all. By the way, didn't you say you had some friends that would be willing to work secretly for us? Where are they?"

"Oh didn't worry about them, I just had to sneak them out of the city. It's a little difficult sneaking that many people you know~ you can at least show some appreciation."

"Oh sorry, I didn't mean to sound—"

"Hehe… I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I can't even be mad at my adorable Lil sis."

Saying that she jumped at Izabel, constantly rubbing her cheeks against hers as though she was a stuffed animal. Pushing her away after only a second of that, Izabel spoke again.

"Get off me!"

"Aww~ you're so cute when you're mad."

"Please stop saying such things, especially in front of my men."

Glancing at the side, she could see her three bodyguards struggling to keep a straight expression. Her eyes narrowed into a glare and they promptly straighten themselves and averted their eyes.

"Oh don't be shy, let's give them a show~"

"If you come to bear me again I'll kill you."

"Aww, do you mean? Such a cranky boss." Puffing her cheeks, Citrus pouted adorably. A scene that would fool most into thinkings she was just a helpless girl.

"Just shut up. I only brought you along so you would help me, if you're not gonna do that then leave."

"Fine fine~ no need to cry."

"I'm not— *sigh, sure then, whatever you say. I don't even know why I still engage you."

"How boring~"

"Whatever. So why exactly are we here again? Shouldn't we be watching the castle with the rest of the team. According to their report, there have been a lot of movements from the ones inside the castle but our main target hasn't shown up yet. They also can't move to follow them without getting noticed."

"Why huh? Beats me."

"Please don't joke with me."

"Hehe… I mean~ we don't exactly want the other families to use this as an excuse to attack us, do we? The non-aggression pact amongst the Great Five over the last few centuries is very fragile you know. That's why we need to be very, very cautious in this operation dear Lil sister of mine~"

Izabel's eyes twitched at that statement. While she was aware that despite how her sister looked and behaved, she was one of the most cautious and calculating people out there, it still irked her to hear the words come out of her mouth.

"Using the people from this city as our scapegoats should allow us to move more easily. And as for the man you're referring to. I know just how to draw him out~ fufufu… I haven't had this much fun in years."

Looking at her older sister take a seat on the couch while giggling to herself with a disgusting smile on her face. Izabel couldn't help but regret involving her in this. However, if it had been just her, she wasn't sure she could do anything to redeem herself for her previous failure.

And if she were to fail again, the bastard knows as Marquis Aamon would get away with embarrassing her in the presence of the demon lord. Not only that, she might even be bundled up as a gift for a common behemoth.

'I can't let that happen.'

••••••••••

••••••••••

At the same time—

Standing by the side at one end of the training hall in the magic institute. Tyler fully focused his attention on the fight between the vice guild leader and Nadine.

Having not experimented with his innate ability at all due to the lack of information on this world and the lack of a test subject. This would be the first time Tyler would be using the ability with his new and improved albeit damaged mana body.

Back in the human continent, his ability had the effect of forcefully increasing the maximum potential of his target by one full tier for a duration of 60 seconds. While this might seem like a very short time and would be useless in most cases. His ability didn't just increase the magic potential of the target.

In fact, the term 'Potential Break' might have been a bit misleading as the ability barely did anything significant to the target's magic potential. Well, the reason for that was because of the incredibly short duration of his ability and because the effects were only temporary so the magic potential increase was useless.

Instead, the ability would break the limits of the target's current magic capacity and abilities. Forcefully increasing the strength of all the target's spells and skills by one tier for a duration of 30 seconds.

Meaning, if the person the ability was used on was a tier 3 mage with a magic potential of Tier 4. The skill won't just increase their potential to tier 5 but their current abilities as well. All their spells and skills that had been fully mastered or at 100% proficiency would also be temporarily forced into the next tier.

This would not affect the skills and spells that had not been completely mastered though. Thinking of this, Tyler couldn't help but wonder why this all sounded familiar. It was like he was at the crux of figuring out something but could not quite put his finger on it.

Without the time to dwell on it, Tyler returned his attention to the duel. Due to the limit of 30 seconds, he would need to pay better attention to the fight in order to accurately judge the perfect time to use his ability.

This was something he had gotten a lot better at over the years as he had always needed to do similar things when he had been an adventurer in the human continent.

Boom!

Nadine charged in at the berserk Kal with her bo-staff in hand. However, Kal, in his current state was several levels ahead of her physically and could easily match her pace with little effort. He avoided her heavy swing and kicked at her.

Although she had set up several defensive measures including a magic barrier, his strength was still beyond what she had expected as her body flew back several paves and slammed into the marble floor.

Kal didn't seem to want his berserk skill to go to waste so he immediately lunged at her, his two-handed long sword now coated in his energy. Nadine's defensive magic had negated the majority of the pain so she was able to easily recover and avoided his strike.

Still, Kal pressed on with giving her any room or time to create distance between themselves launching a barrage of attacks at her that she was barely able to either deflect or avoid, intending to take full advantage of his overwhelming physical abilities.

"Shockwave"

A spell was used but to no effect as Kal just shattered it without even trying. He swung his blade at her with great speeds and Nadine would occasionally parry it with her bo staff and avoid the ones she could.

While he sped and strength was superior, hers. She was still a beastkin and her instincts were leaps and bounds beyond his especially in his berserk state so she would be able to somewhat keep up with him.

Sensing his berserk skill at an end, Kal's aura intensified as he activated an attack skill.

•Rage Storm Barrage•

Swinging his blade several times in quick succession, a barrage of blazing red aura gusted at her in a wave that could not be avoided. The energy tore through the magically reinforced marbled flooring as it approached her and Nadine knew that all her defenses would not work against this attack.

Left with no other options, she countered with a skill of her own.

•Misty Vortex•

Her foot twisted and she immediately began to spin while stretching out her staff, creating a whirling mass of misty air that resembled a whirlpool or whirlwind. The vortex drew in the gusting barrage of blazing red auras and incorporated the energy to fuel itself.

Sensing that Nadine threw her staff at Kal and the vortex quickly moved with the weapon. With the addition of the red aura, the energy within it was massive and Kal was unable to block it normally.

"Hahaha… impressive." Saying that he used the last of his berserk energy and slash at the mass of air before him.

•Dominion Slash•

With a wave of pure white energy, the massive vortex was split in half as it disperse into nothingness. However, the white streak of energy did not stop there and continued as it tore the ground towards Nadine at supersonic speeds.

"Tsk"

Clicking her tongue, she readied herself to parry the Attack but quickly realized that her weapon had been split in half with the vortex. With little time left she narrowly avoided the attack but was left unbalanced.

Before she could even try to regain her stance, Kal had already appeared before her and was just about to swing his blade at the defenseless girl. Although his berserk skill was over, his physical abilities still surpassed hers and she could no longer avoid or defend herself.

Seeing this, Tyler who had wanted to hold out for a while longer had no choice but to use his ability right now f he didn't want her to lose, or worse, get injured. While he didn't have to touch his target to use his ability on them, there was still a range limit and the further the target was from him, the less effective his ability was and the shorted the duration of the skill.

Right now, however, Nadine was within a 100-meter radius so it was fine. Opening his eyes, Tyler targeted Nadine and tried to activate his ability.

However—

'what's this?'

Trying to activate his ability again, Tyler's heart almost sank at a second failure.

'Did I lose it? Oh no.' His mind raced as he tried to focus his Consciousness inward. Sensing all the abilities and spells engraved on his mana body. It should be impossible to lose an innate ability as it was the ability born with the soul so unless one's soul was destroyed, one should be able to lose the ability.

So why could he not activate his? Searching himself for some time he finally arrived at the answer. He could clearly still sense the presence of the ability in his very existence and now knew why his previous two attempts had failed.

The reason was quite simple. One could not active an ability that was already active.

Yes, his ability had been on since the moment he had awakened on this continent.