After resting up, Shiro didn’t waste any time in hunting down the soul fragments of the Ancient Terror. The first few pieces she found were actually embedded in the remaining Heroes except for Yan who was rather shocked at her mastery over souls despite not having obtained Tartarus’ divinity.
Seeing her call out the Ancient Terror, bind him then seal him away in her soul lantern was quite enlightening for him.
As for the sisters that were notified of the Heroes being corrupted by the Ancient Terror except for Yan, they were rather shocked at this revelation. Especially Astryn since she didn’t know when the Heroes had even come in contact with the Ancient Terror.
While Astryn and some of the other sisters were contemplating about where they had gone wrong in selecting Heroes for them to have actually been corrupted, Shiro set off to find more shards of the Ancient Terror.
As for Yan, Shiro told him that he can wait by the side but he said since he can also control souls it’ll be easier if he helped her.
With his assistance, dragging the soul out of the Ancient Terrors body had been quite easy.
Tracking the tethers all across the world, Shiro and Yan hunted down the Ancient Terror as the roles were reversed.
Thanks to Ouranos’ divinity, their journey through the Section of Sky was easy.
Despite hunting everyday, the tethers never seem to decrease. With every fragment taken, more seem to appear as the Ancient Terror refused to even say anything in the end.
Furrowing her brows, Shiro had an idea but she might need Yan’s help to accomplish this since her True Spirit Nature only lasted for less than two minutes. That wasn’t enough time to do what she wanted so she’d need Yan to set up the foundations.
Meeting up with Astryn, they sat around a table.
“So even after hunting for a month straight, we’re having some trouble chipping away at how many souls he has. But I have an idea.” Shiro said as Astryn raised her eyebrows.
“Oh? What idea would this be?”
“Before I say, I need to ask you about something. Can one transfer energy between people? Or maybe share energy so that they can use it to fuel their abilities.” Shiro asked as this was the key to her plan. If Yan could use her energy, then this was going to be perfect.
“I believe there are methods but people don’t usually do this. It’s because by the time the energy reaches the other person, a lot of it had been wasted trying to do this process so not many try this.” Astryn replied with a shake of her head.
“Oh that’s fine. I got plenty of energy to spare.” Shiro grinned as both Astryn and Yan looked at her with confusion but trusted her in the end. They’d been fighting against the Ancient Terror before and they knew Shiro would throw out abilities like they were candy.
Getting Astryn to explain the process to her, Shiro’s smile twitched as it was essentially throwing water at someone who’s on fire with a tiny spoon.
A lot of it would fall to the ground while a few droplets would land on the fire itself. No wonder no one used it as it was highly inefficient.
Thinking about something, Shiro decided to delay their plans for a few days.
“Give me a few days. I’m going to go experiment with his method a little. It’s way too inefficient.” Shiro shook her head. Even if she had a lot of energy, she was still essentially chipping away at it with a spoon. Not only was it inefficient, but it was also slow.
She needed something faster.
Confused at what she meant, the two only watched as she walked away and locked herself up in her room.
Remembering the time that Kuromi had experimented with the new energy in the trial so that they could fight, Shiro couldn’t help but chuckle thinking that she was doing the same as her big sis.
*Sigh…
Remembering Kuromi, Shiro glanced down at her hand and wondered when she’d be able to find her again. Now that she had obtained the power over souls as well as knowledge in controlling souls thanks to Hades’ Sigil that she had obtained back on earth.
All she knows is that she needs to find out where her soul is being stored. It could be in her own or in the system but she hadn’t had the chance to find out just yet. Once she does, she’ll need to find Kuromi a physical body of sorts. Of course, she’ll need to ask about what Kuromi wants to do first.
Shaking her head, she started to experiment with the ways that she could transfer the energy between people using the one that Astryn had told her as a reference.
After a short few hours, she was able to come up with one that is much faster but was still considered a prototype.
The main changes between the two was that the efficiency was much better and the speed of transfer had increased from a spoon to a bucket. But for what she wanted to do, a bucket was not enough. She’ll need to upgrade it to a high powered hose but since this was still a prototype it was ok.
Calling for Yan to meet her, she wanted to test this out a little.
“You wanted to see me?” Yan asked as he knocked on the door.
“Mn, I just want to test out my prototype. Come in.” Shiro nodded her head.
Opening the door, Yan could see Shiro sitting on a chair.
“Sit on the bed with your back towards me. I’m going to see if the transfer of energy works or not.”
Hearing this, Yan nodded and sat on the bed like she had instructed.
“Is there anything I should know?” He asked as he didn’t know the risks to this.
“Hmm… if you feel like you’re about to explode from the energy transfer tell me since it means you’re bloated.” Shiro smiled as Yan Widened his eyes in shock.
Before he could say anything, Shiro slapped her hand on his back as a magic circle appeared around them.
Feeling the sudden gush of energy, Yan had to grit his teeth since it was quite a new sensation.
However, it wasn’t a painful feeling. Instead, it was quite nice as the energy was cool and calming. Like a gentle stream, it wrapped around his body.
But not even two seconds later, he felt like the great ocean had just filled his body and that he was about to explode.
“Stop!”
Hearing this, Shiro quickly stopped the process.
“Hm… that wasn’t even a full bucket though.” Shiro frowned.
“Bucket?” Yan turned around with a forced smile since he was focused on not exploding right now.
“Mn, the original spell made it so that I was essentially giving you a spoon full of energy every time we transfer but I upgraded it to a bucket. However, a bucket is quite little too. I need a high powered hose or something. In your terms, I’d need to upgrade the bucket to a waterfall so that you get the energy you need.” Shiro explained as Yan widened his eyes.
“You want to give me more energy??? I’ll die!”
From what he knew, Shiro hadn’t even transferred the whole bucket and he already felt like he was about to die.
“I can see that. But it’s only a buck- ahhhhh I see the problem.” Shiro realised something and sighed.
“My energy is hundreds of, if not thousands of times bigger than normal people so it’s only natural a bucket of my energy is several people’s worth. If they tried this method of mine they’ll completely drain themselves. Hm ok, I think I get the problem now. Give me a few more hours, I should have this finalised. I need a constant stream of energy rather than a bucket so that you can utilise it fast enough for it not to kill you.”
Ushering Yan out of her room, Shiro returned to experimenting while Yan could only fear for his life but since she was doing this to get rid of the Ancient Terror, it was the least that he could do.
As expected, Shiro managed to finalise the spell after a few more hours of experimenting. From a bucket to a pipe, she would be able to adjust how much energy is flowing into Yan so that he can output the energy before it killed him. With this, she’d be able to take care of the fine tuning while they cast the spell.
As for the next step, it was to teach him what he must do for the plan she has in mind.
