Chapter 140: Glaring

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Trying to hold in her groan of pain, Raynare quickly turned and tried to flee. She needed to buy time for Naruto to get back into the fight. She couldn't last long against Ravel alone.

"It's useless," Ravel called out. Either predicting Raynare's plan or thinking along similar lines herself, Ravel sent a large blast of flames at the recovering Naruto.

With Naruto momentarily distracted, Ravel started pursuing Raynare.

Ravel couldn't deny Raynare was a good flier. In order to catch her, Ravel had to stop her.

Hands lighting up in flames, Ravel threw multiple attacks in front of Raynare.

Raynare was forced to come to a halt in order to not be caught up in the resulting explosions.

With her own momentum now stopped and Ravel heading towards her at top speed, Raynare knew she couldn't avoid a confrontation.Gritting her teeth, Raynare forced down her pain and lifted an arm. Concentrated as much power as she could into a single light spear, Raynare turned towards the approaching Ravel and shouted defiantly, "Don't underestimate me!"

Raynare thrust her spear towards the approaching Ravel. Surprisingly, Ravel didn't bother dodging.

She let the spear pierce through her chest. Raynare quickly found out why, as Ravel used it as an opportunity to close with Raynare.

Ravel placed her hands against Raynare's chest in that moment.

Raynare was then engulfed in an explosion.

"Raynare," Naruto called out in concern.

The smoke from the explosion covered the two, briefly obscuring Naruto's view. Only for a second though as he soon saw a figure plummet out of the smoke limply.

Naruto quickly identified it as a burnt and heavily damaged Raynare. Before Naruto could jump to catch her, he saw her disappear in light.

[Rias-sama's pawn, retired.]

Naruto clenched his fist in anger. Damn it. Raynare was one of their trump cards if things degenerated into a stamina battle against Riser.

Her light spears would be super effective at dealing Riser damage.

Ravel wasn't suppose to be here. The entire group had studied Riser's peerage, and Ravel had quickly been identified as a huge problem.

Defeating Riser would be difficult enough without having a second person with immortality interfering.

Thankfully, Ravel seemed to be in Riser's peerage in name only. She never fought during any of his Rating Games.

They had predicted she'd interfere if it appeared Riser was going to lose, but not like this. They figured she'd retreat to make a 'last stand' with Riser.

They certainly didn't expect her to go on the offensive like this. Raynare had been the one to pay the price of this unexpected action.

Naruto also couldn't deny this was partly his fault. Rias had been of the opinion that Raynare should promote to queen, as it was the strongest piece. Naruto had argued against it though.

Raynare's intense training meant she could promote to queen, but he still hadn't felt it the best option. Promotion was basically a sacrifice of stamina for power.

The more power, the greater the cost in stamina. Once a pawn gains enough stamina the cost becomes negligible, but Raynare isn't quite there yet.

After she promotes to queen, Raynare has one good battle in her. She might be able to do a second, but she'd clearly be tired by that point.

Since Raynare's greatest use would be in a stamina battle against Riser, Naruto had believed they should prioritize stamina over raw power.

Thus the bishop promotion. That had come to bite them in the ass though.

With Ravel's unexpected assault, the queen promotion would have been of greater use. Heightened speed for evasion, and greater defense for enduring attacks.

Those two aspects might very well have made a huge difference.

Naruto doubted Raynare could defeat Ravel even with a queen promotion, but she would have been able to stall Ravel long enough for Naruto to come to her aid.

Now they were out another fighter.

Naruto took a deep breath to calm his thoughts. He then looked up at the cloud of smoke and waited as the smoke slowly cleared.

No further announcement came, so Naruto wasn't surprised when the smoke pulled back to reveal Ravel. She was looking quite smug as she looked down at him.

Forcing himself to stay calm, Naruto examined his opponent intently.

Clearly a single light spear from someone of Raynare's level wasn't enough to overcome the regeneration of the Phenex Clan, but there had to be some effect.

The Phenex were still devils. Light was still extremely effective against them.

Ravel had a hole right in the center of her chest. Flames were licking at it, but the overall healing was going at a snail's pace.

Naruto had seen videos of Phenex members regenerate wounds in two or three seconds. Based on his estimations, this small hole would take over a minute.

Ravel didn't appear to be in too much pain as she looked down at him, but her skin looked to be paler than it was just a minute ago.

There were even beads of sweat forming on her temples.

It all proved Naruto's belief true. Ravel was effected by Raynare's attack.

It wasn't enough to eliminate her, not even close, but it was something. Raynare had created the first crack in Ravel's immortality.

It now fell to Naruto to tear that crack wide open. He wouldn't let Raynare's defeat be for nothing.

"Now that the only real threat to Onii-sama and I is beaten, I can deal with you," Ravel announced.

"Really? You are just going to write me off like that?" Naruto asked in a deadpan.

"Of course. You do appear competent, but your opponent is the 'immortal bird'. No matter how powerful or competent you are, it has nothing on the 'immortal bird'. The gap is too large for you to currently bridge," Ravel explained as if she was talking to a child.

"I don't really give a crap about your fucking 'immortal bird'," Naruto declared without a hint of the levity or playfulness he usually has.

Glaring at her, Naruto continued openly, "I like to think I'm a nice guy, but I absolutely hate seeing my comrades being defeated.

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