Chapter 188: Caught Up

Tyler frowned as he stared at the unconscious figure of Rain inside the ice prism. She seemed to have been slightly wounded but was most like unconscious due to some other unknown effect that didn't seem to be an effect from the barrier she was in. Rather it seemed as though the ice prism was maintaining a steady temperature inside of it which was keeping her stable making shattering it a complicated process.

Tyler placed his hand on the seemingly fragile ice walls and knocked on the surface a few times. It sounded quite solid despit its appearance and although he didn't think it would be too difficult for him to break, he knew that wasn't the right thing to do.

He had never seen this type of barrier before but he was strangely aware that it was created by Liz. Or more accurately her alter ego, Snow. From what she had told him, Snow would only appear when her life was in extreme danger and since she was able to use her innate ability, she was stronger than Liz herself.

However, no matter how far Tyler expanded his perception range— which had current surpassed 50 kilometer radius— he could not sense Snow anywhere but could still feel her connection. Which should mean she was still the one in control of Liz's body.

Tyler frowned, he remembered Rain saying something like it was dangerous for Liz to remain as Snow as it might get harder and harder to switch back so the fact that it had already been a while since he originally felt her appear made him worry.

Tyler didn't bother trying to break the prism, instead he picked up a large rock and swapped it with the unconscious Rain and then she was laid gently on the snow. There had been no resistance from the unconscious Rain so swapping positions was fairly easy.

As he laid her down on the snow, he immediately casting a series of Light Heal on her until he felt her conditions were stable. Still, even after so many heals, he could still feel her connection slowly deteriorate from within.

His healing spell didn't seem like it could fix the whatever it was that was affecting her condition so Tyler used magic vision combined with magic sense on her body and soon noticed an intruding aura that was slowly breaking down and destabilizing her body from the inside as it was trying to make its way to her mana body and eventually her very soul.

Perhaps this was also why Liz or rather Snow had placed her in the ice prism. It probably had the effect of slowing down that aura. There was apparently nothing Tyler could do about the aura himself as he had tried forcing his mana inside her to push or pull out the strange aura but it had taken root inside of her and could not be forced out without harming Rain.

With nothing else to do, Tyler then decided to use his skill, •Universal Barrier• to isolate that aura and then freeze the space inside the miniature Universal barrier. Of course, doing such a thing in the insides of someone was very difficult and dangerous but he had no choice if he wanted her to live.

The process had taken him a while or more precisely, more than 3 hours because it required near perfect mana control to pull off. Luckily for him, he had been practicing his mana control for a while now.

With the Universal Barrier isolating the energy, he used •Frozen space• on the interior of the barrier and thus was able to temporarily keep her stable as he used Light heal on her once more. At some point he was forced to create another Universal Barrier around them as stray monsters kept distracting him which was another reason why the process had taken this long.

Normally, since what he had done on her was like an operation, he should let her rest some more but he needed to find out what had happen to Liz as a lot could have gone wrong in 3 hours. He then gently tried to wake her up. After her condition was stabilized, it seemed she had drifted into a state of sleep as she groaned groggily and turned in the snow as though saying she wanted to sleep a while longer not minding the coldness of the snow.

That attitude, albeit a tad bothersome, seems to have elevated Tyler's heart a little but still chose to pinch her cheeks until she could no longer take it and was forced to open her eyes.

Seeing Tyler crouched next to her in an endless world of snow and ice. She may have confused reality for the world of dreams as she spoke gently to him with a somewhat Lewd expression on her face.

"Darling? You're in my dreams again. Please hold me longer this time."

She reached forth and grabbed Tyler's one good arm, placing his hand on her chest as she tried to embrace him. 

Seeing this, Tyler sighed ruefully as he pulled his hand away and immediately flicked her on the forehead in a resounding *PA sound. That seems to have woken her up completely as she grumbled and rubbed her eyes, looking around in confusion.

"Huh, Lord Ty? When did you get here I wanted to be prepare— Huh? Where am I? What happened."

"Relax, you got infected by a strange aura in a fight. But you'll be fine for now."

"Infected? Fight? Aww my head it's a bit fuzzy. What was I doing?"

"Apparently, you were being a vanguard for some reason. Aren't you an assassin? You really should stop charging straight at you opponents you know." Tyler gently criticized Rain's tactics as he smiled faintly. 

"Hehe... I was just trying to protect Liz. Wait, where's Liz? We were ambushed by a demon duke ranked demoness and... its a bit fuzzy." The mention of Liz's name had jogged her memories to some extent.

However, Tyler didn't rush her through the process and urged her to slow down and think carefully so as not to miss anything as he occasionally cast the Placate spell on her. She was in the midst of speaking when she suddenly noticed something and flared up.

"Lord Ty your arm! What happened to your arm! Who dare hurt my beloved Lord! I'll—"

"Calm down calm down, it's fine, besides they're already dead so don't worry about it. We need to focus on Liz right now."

While Tyler was a tad pleased someone was worried about him, they didn't have the time to worry about such things right now. Rain seem to calm down after hearing Tyler's words so she realized the gravity of the situation with Liz and force herself to focus on one thing at time.

She then narrated the entirety of their encounters and although the end was a bit unclear as she had been infected and on the verge of collapse. Tyler had still pieced together the pieces to the puzzle quite easily.

The young girl that ambushed them with the aid of a barrier had left soon after the mountain golems had appeared but she probably hadn't retreated and had set up another ambush as she could predict Liz would recklessly head back to the castle because her friend was dieing.

However, how they were able to capture Liz who was currently Sbow was still a puzzling thought in his mind. He remembered the feeling he felt when he had first met her and the only reason he had been able to survive that encounter was because of her lack of resistance to negative type spells at the time.

And even though he was currently stronger than her, he didn't think it was by much judging by the sturdiness of the barrier that had be set up around Rain. He had a feeling it would be harder to break out of the prism than break in.

The only possible way he could think of for them to capture Snow was for the young girl to have ambushed the second time with the help of another individual with strength of similar or higher level than hers. Even then it would've been a brawl of it wasn't for the unconscious Rain she had needed to protect.

He frown slightly as he was questioning why they would need to capture her. From what Rain said, it didn't seem to be members of her family that came, so it was one of the other Great Five.

There was also a few reasons he could think off on why she was captured and tye first was they had judged her to be from another Great Five and wanted to use her as a tool against whatever family she was from or maybes, they were trying to get to him through her.

The last and worst of all was they wanted to study and experiment on her to gain the innate ability of another Great, pushing them one step closer to taking over the continent as the new demon king.

Tyler hadn't seen any of the other families innate abilities aside for when he had caught a glimpse of Liz or rather Snow, the time she had used it to easily defeat a near demigod monster with ease. He could only conclude that if they were all as broken as that, then a single family with two of such ability will not only be a threat to the world but himself as the one residing in the demons king castle.

He absolutely could not let that happen. Moreover, Liz had already been subjected to enough experiments as a child and thus, this could become very traumatizing for her. It could even break her, sending her into a vegetative state. 

That single thought had sparked a volcano of rage inside of Tyler as he could no longer just stand here and do nothing.

He turned to Rain who was still sitted on the snow as it seemed she was having a hard time standing up.

"Rain, I'll need you to head back to the castle on your own for now."

"Huh... no I'm fine, I need to go find Liz. Who knows what hell they'll put her through." She said that as she tried her hardest to stand but failed repeatedly.

Tyler saw her genuine worry and anguish on her friend's behalf and could only smile gently as he spoke: "Don't worry about it. I'll handle the rest so just leave it to me." 

"That's... I can't trouble you when your arm is like that, besides, I want to help, I can still fight."

Even with his barrier protecting her, the strange aura had done a lot more damage than Tyler had thought as he could not simply take away that effect with a simple healing spell.

"Its fine don't worry about it. You're not in any state to fight at the moment so you'll just get in my way. Or do you not truth me to handle this?"

Those words were like multiple daggers to the already demoralized Rain who had let her friend down yet again by getting herself hurt even though she was supposed to be her bodyguard. Moreover, she had also wanted to be useful to her beloved and yet, she had put her self in a state that would only serve to hinder him and she couldn't even argue about that.

Not to mention he hadn't even given her any opportunity to for her to speak out as he had asked a question she could not answer. He had already saved her life once and now he had done it again. If he said he would recue Liz there was no doubt in her mind that he couldn't do it.

After all, this was the man that had defeated her with ease. The man she had fallen madly in love with and thus could not see herself refuting him. She whole heartedly trust him but her commitment to Liz made her hesitate on answering as she had wanted to be the one to personally save her friend.

"As I said, leave everything to me and return. I'll get Liz back in an instant. After all, you're both my precious subordinates. Whatever family had dared to hurt you has not only insulted me but have incurred my wrath and are now considered my enemies. Their fates have already been written."