Travelling through the spirit world, the journey itself was safe as there were no hostile monsters that would try to kill them on sight. Hell, even if there was, it would be dumb to try attack their group with the fire power they had.
While it would be faster to just look for a teleport shrine near the country, Shiro saw that Attie was interested in the spirit world so she spent a bit more time in this realm and played around with him while Nan Tian watched with a smile.
He did want to interact with Attie a bit but he always stuck his tongue out at Nan Tian which caused Shiro to laugh.
Eventually, they took a few teleport shrines and made their way to Erti.
Upon arriving at the country borders Shiro was surprised to see how desolate it looked. It was as if the entire country was going through a famine right now. There was not a single stalk of fresh grass as everything was decayed.
“This shouldn’t be happening.” Estrella frowned as Shiro raised her eyebrow.
“I can see that. Do you think it’s caused by a monster?”
“I doubt that.” Estrella shook her head.
Entering into the spirit world, the group could see a large black and green aura in the far distance. Looking at the ground, they could see tree roots made from the same energy.
Just as she stepped past the border, Shiro heard a system notification.
[You have stepped into the Domain of Queen Limra. As an enemy queen, you will experience the following effects while in this domain.]
-20% to all stats
-20% effectiveness to all Queen related spells
-20% system assistance.
“Seems like the place was reduced to this after a queen took over it. It’s by someone called Queen Limra. Any clues?” Shiro asked as she glanced over at Nimue and Estrella.
“Doesn’t ring a bell.” They both replied as Shiro nodded her head.
Shall we continue or turn back? If the president was still in this country, he’s probably the queen’s underling now which makes him our enemy. Even if we do run into him and he ‘helps’ us, I wouldn’t trust it.” Shiro said as Estrella nodded her head with a frown.
“Mn we should leave. But before we do, we should perhaps scout out the city a little and see their anchor. Maybe we can destroy it and remove a competitor early.” Estrella suggested as both Shiro and Nan Tian were very strong.
“Hmm… there is a risk of whether or not there are multiple Tier 6 guardians. If there is, I’m not keen on fighting them even with Lil’ Tian’s help.” Shiro shook her head.
“Mn, there is the chance that they can slip past me while one of them keeps me occupied.” Nan Tian nodded in agreement.
“There you have it. We should leave for now and come back in the future. When the age of demons and gods arrive, I can probably take over this country depending on what happens.”
“Don’t you also need to make an anchor of your own?” Nan Tian asked.
“Mn I do. But I need to get some resources along with the shard of the garden.” Shiro said while holding the map of the Garden Shard that she had obtained before from the system.
“And a good place too. Are you going to place the anchor in your floating city?” Nan Tian asked.
“Maybe. But that’s a bit risk- Wait a minute.” Shiro paused and looked into the sky.
“Do you think I can send my anchor into space?” Shiro asked as Nan Tian tilted his head and paused in shock.
“After the world changed, no one could get back into space, no? Thanks to the monsters and a few restrictions. What if I made my anchor and sent it to space?” Shiro asked.
“Didn’t the anchors need to connect with one another, if you sent one to space wouldn’t it be a bit too far?” Nimue raised her eyebrow.
“Mn… true. Damn, I was hoping I could just make a space station or something and rain destruction down on the world. Well I suppose I can still do that but just not with the anchor next to me now.” Shiro sighed.
“Perhaps you can have all of your anchors above the clouds in the form of floating islands. But just make sure you camouflage them well so when enemy queens get a notification they look around in wonder.” Iziuel suggested with a chuckle.
“While the thought of powerful queens looking around in confusion is hilarious and I do want to try it, it is a bit risky so I’ll decline for now. Maybe when I become very strong.” Shiro laughed.
Shrugging her shoulders, Iziuel nodded her head.
“Actually, Astral Horizon’s is an option.” Nimue said as Shiro remembered the mana rich zone that her teacher had brought her last time they trained together. Thinking about it, Shiro nodded her head.
“Yes but I need to figure out its exact location first. Otherwise it’ll be kind of hard to find out where we are.” Shiro replied.
“We can do that when we have more time. But for now, let’s just get out of here and make our way to where the island that Estrella pointed out before.” She followed up as the group nodded.
The location that Estella had pointed out initially was the Island country known as Guria. After a bit of research on the net while they were travelling, Shiro learned that Guria was mostly a relaxation spot for people. There were hardly any monsters and the ones that were around were low level. The island had three levels.
Heaven, Earth and the Underdark. The underdark was below ground and despite its rather suspicious name, it was a place where people could party and clear a few dungeons for fun as it is rather low levelled. Earth was the resorts on the ground such as beaches while Heaven was the skyscr.a.p.ers that connected to one another.
This was where the rich and the powerful stayed as everything was expensive. Naturally, Shiro didn’t really care but the fact that this could be where the spirits migrated to was rather… interesting.
“Any particular reason for this spot?” Shiro asked while pointing to Guria.
“Some of the spirits were already working here in secret since they were disguised. They found a few spots that were perfect for hiding so they might move a few people here. Plus, the island is huge and the resort only makes up for 20% of the island. The rest can be freely explored but a few formations can change this.” Estrella replied.
“And if the humans discover you?”
“We should be fine. The formations have been active for centuries and it has worked pretty well so far. Unless an extremely strong person appears, I doubt they’ll be discovered.
“You do realise that is what humans call a flag or jinxing it right?” Shiro’s smile twitched for a moment since she was now worrying about whether or not they were in danger.
“It’ll be fine. If you’re worried, I can contact some of the people the sect has stationed there to keep an eye out.” Nan Tian smiled.
“Sh*t, you even have people there???” Shiro asked as he nodded.
“We have eyes all over the world. I feel like you have underestimated that. Though I suppose it’s no longer all over the world since the queens are now establishing their followers.” Nan Tian sighed as Shiro shrugged.
“Mn but it’s still surprising. Anyways, if you can contact them it’ll be rather helpful. If one of them could teleport us there, it’ll be even better.” Shiro smiled.
Pulling out his phone, Nan Tian contacted the spies.
While this was happening, Shiro quickly searched up the net for any more information regarding the queens. After all, she was in the trial for quite a long time on top of almost two months of recovery.
The opinions of people were somewhat split in terms of their thoughts about the queens however, many could understand that something large was happening with the ‘queens’ appearing out of nowhere. There was now a large market for powerful weapons since independent adventurers were now gearing up for war in case a fight breaks out.
Seeing the power of the queens, some of them even wondered if the heroes could stand up to them.
As for the heroes, they said nothing as of yet since they haven’t fought one.
But Shiro knew that if they did, they would die.
No questions asked.
