Reading his soul, Shiro couldn’t help but furrow her brows. She didn’t know how the trickster Queen did it, but she managed to find a way to the city. No clues could be found in the person’s memories except for the fact that she approached them in the form of a young girl that would change her appearance all the time.
Scanning through her own memories, she wanted to see if the appearance matched up to any of the documents but nothing came up.
‘How did she even evade my detection…’ Shiro thought to herself with a frown since this wasn’t exactly the best news.
Not only has a Queen infiltrated the city but she also didn’t know how she did it.
Trying to drag out more information from the soul, she was disappointed to find out that this was everything he knew.
“Seems like he was just being exploited for his revenge and anger. He had grudges against me for killing someone he was close with.” She muttered, dropped the corpses and dusted her hand.
Watching the soul get dragged away, she glanced towards Nan Tian.
“We’re tightening up security. Have all of the cameras check the identity of everyone they see. The moment anyone suspicious appears, I want you to send me a report on their movements during that day and send a few scouts to trail them. I’m not sure how well they’ll do considering the fact that our enemy is a Queen. So make sure you keep up to date with all the information the scouts relay. Information is key when it comes to dealing with someone like her.” Shiro ordered.
“Understood. I will report everything I see.” Nan Tian nodded.
“Good. Hais… such a tiring night. I need a good night’s rest after all of this.” Shiro yawned lightly.
Discussing some of their plans while making their way back to their room, Shiro wondered about what she should be doing tomorrow.
Thiria was still taking over zones but she wasn’t the main danger anymore. As much as she would like to go out and crush Thiria’s army, she needed to sort out the rat inside her city first. If she didn’t take care of this, it would become a nuisance.
While she might be out fighting, the city would be in danger. She trusts that the people here can kill Aisha considering their power but the problem would be casualties.
If she stays behind, she can guarantee that no one would be killed.
‘I need to track down all of these proxies that Aisha set in the city. She must have a way to be able to camouflage them if I can’t find it.’ Shiro thought with a frown.
Shaking her head, she rested for the night.
###
The first thing that she did the next morning was to set the order for everyone to defend the zones without venturing out for now. They’ll stay their ground until Aisha’s situation has been sorted. Since she didn’t want to raise any suspicion, she made things seem like they’re normal.
The soldiers were preparing for the next battle, only a few tier 6’s remain in the city and her own signature was camouflaged so that she can move around undetected.
“Do you need any help or are you going to do this alone?” Nan Tian asked as Shiro smiled.
“I can do this alone, don’t worry. I’m not fighting, just tracking for now. I want to track down all the proxies and destroy them before they do some annoying sh*t in my city.” Shiro smiled before teleporting away.
Understanding that she’ll be back every 10 minutes or so, Nan Tian chuckled and started his own tasks that were given to him by Shiro.
###
Stretching her body lightly, Shiro sat down on the top of the main tower. Looking down at the city and all of the sections that branched off the main platform, Shiro narrowed her eyes.
“Let’s see…” She muttered as tier 6 magic circles appeared around her.
Creating a control panel of sorts, she started to draw some runes down.
Most of the runes were used for tracking and it followed the signature that was shown yesterday when Aisha tried to kill her puppets.
Closing her eyes, faint golden tethers started to stretch through the city, but they were cut off before they could get far.
Seeing this, Shiro furrowed her brows.
“There’s no connection?” She muttered. It was as though that signal just ceased to exist. Except for that one moment where she interfered, this signal was no longer here.
Narrowing her eyes, Shiro tried a few more times but they all had the same result.
Leaning back for a moment, she had another idea.
Black mist wrapped around her body as she entered her True Spirit Nature. Adjusting some of the runes that she had, she decided to track her soul instead. Compared to mana that could be disguised at will, disguising the soul was much harder.
Opening her eyes, a soft green glow could be seen as a tether was struggling to form.
However, compared to the tether that tried to track the mana, this one was holding on strong.
Standing up, Shiro started to pursue where this tether was going.
###
Fiddling around with one of her dolls, Aisha wanted to prepare for the next assault when she felt a strange tug. A green aura started to appear on her dolls and slowly made their way towards her.
Widening her eyes, she realised what was happening.
“If you can’t find the mana, find the soul huh? This one is rather diverse in her proficiencies.” Aisha muttered with a forced smile.
With a snapping of fingers, the dolls started to break one after another and the green tether was cut off for now.
However, from their ashes, aura started to converge once more.
“Tch.” Clicking her tongue in annoyance, Aisha thought about what she needed to do.
Like a snake, the tether slowly moved towards her before lashing out.
She tried to dodge, but dodging was out of the question since it was connected to her soul. The moment the connection was formed, she felt a pair of cold eyes staring at her as a tier 6 magic circle appeared, creating an avatar.
“Well well well, this is certainly a surprise. It has been quite a few months since I last saw you. Last time you ruined the city I was about to take over and forced a tie even though I was weakened.” Aisha forced a smile as Shiro only narrowed her eyes at Aisha.
Without saying anything, she pulled her hand back and prepared to attack when Aisha jumped back and activated a tier 6 magic circle.
“I didn’t want to do this but as the Queen of Trickery, this should be easy for me. I can only say I’ll see you next time. Ciao!” Aisha grinned as she waved her hand. Suddenly, black runes appeared around her body as she turned to ash. The connection Shiro had with her soul was forcefully severed as there was now no way to track her.
“What the hell….” Shiro muttered with a frown since she didn’t think Aisha would detonate her soul like that. Doing so would mean she gives up on the chance of ever reincarnating. Furrowing her brows, Shiro looked at all the dolls that had contracts lined up by the side. All of them were now contractless but they were still around. Seeing that they’re retaining their powers despite the lack of a contract, Shiro narrowed her eyes.
‘She’s still alive but everything linked to her soul has been severed.’
Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Shiro sighed and dismissed her avatar. Unfortunately it seemed like catching the one known was the Queen of Trickery was not going to be easy.
###
Panting heavily, Aisha coughed up a mouthful of blood in her own room within her city. Laying on the bed, she was visibly worn out from her stunt.
“I didn’t think I would actually need this skill considering the side effects. But, other skills wouldn’t let me get her off my trail.” Aisha grinned as this was a skill that she had obtained when she became a tier 6.
[Faux Death]
A skill that ‘kills you’ and wipes out all tracking linked to you. It allows you to ‘respawn’ at a predesignated spot and while you retain your privileges as a Queen, it is decreased by 5%. This skill will even wipe out tracking used by the gods.
The cooldown of this skill was short for its effects but the cost is great. After 10 uses of this, she would only be at 50% of her privileges and once that happens, she was good as gone from this race.
‘I can’t afford to lose more of this by playing with fire.’ She thought to herself since she didn’t think Shiro would have so many ways of tracking her. Not only that, but the range of her tracking was also a little crazy. Thankfully, she was in a safe location away from her city otherwise things might get bad for her.
Shaking her head, she decided to set her eyes on other Queens for now.
