After leaving the library, Shiro started to make her way to the third floor of the main building. On this floor, she'd find Nan Tian's room where he was currently in seclusion.

She wanted to leave him a note about her departure since she didn't want to just leave without saying anything.

Upon entering the third floor, she could feel a wave of mana crash into her as she was forced to take a step back in order to stabilise herself.

Furrowing her brows, Shiro glanced up and realised it to be coming from Nan Tian's room.

Looking around the floor, she could see formations restricting the mana from being sensed elsewhere.

'No wonder I didn't sense it outside of this floor. It's been blocked.' Shiro thought to herself before sending Attie and Iziuel back into her mana realm. That way, they won't be affected by the aura.

{Well damn… I was unconscious once and this is what happens.} Nimue raised her eyebrow.

'He did achieve tier 6 elemental magic. If it wasn't like this, I'd be disappointed.' Shiro shrugged.

Taking a deep breath, she resisted the pressure before walking up to his door.

Flexing her fingers, she made a tablet containing her message and placed it next to the door. That way, when the door opens, the tablet would release a pulse of mana to inform Nan Tian of its existence.

With the tablet now placed at the side, Shiro wondered if there was anything else she needed to do.

"Hmm… I think that's everything." She muttered.

"Now then, I suppose the next place is New York since I need to check up on my sword now."

Smiling softly, she left the third floor and pulled out her phone.

Sending Helion a message, she started to make her way to the teleport Shrine with Yin.

###

Arriving back in New York, Shiro stretched her body and glanced out at the city. Now fully repaired, the city was similar to what it was before the Black Monarchy attack.

"Let's see… I've messaged Helion to meet me at the teleport shrine but I don't see him." Shiro said as she glanced around the area.

Thinking about it, Shiro decided to visit the café near the front of the teleport shrine. She had visited the place a few times since the atmosphere was nice but now that she could taste food again, she wondered how it would taste.

Walking out of the teleport shrine, she didn't bother disguising her level but changed her class. After all, they didn't need to know that she was a monster.

Walking through the streets, the shock and surprise of people who saw her level after inspecting her was apparent as Shiro couldn't help but chuckle at their reaction.

Navigating the path back to the café, her smile faltered slightly when she saw a restaurant in its place.

"Erm… excuse me?" She called out to a woman that was walking out of the restaurant.

"Yes?"

"Do you happen to know what happened to the café here? I left this city for a while and the café is now replaced by this restaurant." Shiro asked curiously.

"Ah the old café? It was shut down. I don't know the reason but the restaurant bought their spot since it was quite close to the teleport shrine." The woman replied as Shiro thanked her before letting her go about her day.

{Rather unlucky huh?} Nimue chuckled.

'Mn, I suppose there's nothing else to do about it. I'll send Helion another message and if he doesn't respond, I'll probably visit his workshop.'

Pulling out her phone, she sent Helion another message. This time, he responded.

[Helion: Ah sorry about that! I was in the last stages of research so I needed to concentrate on the sword. Where are you right now? I'll go find you since I got a new workshop.]

[Shiro: I'll just meet you at the front of the teleport shrine again.]

[Helion: Sure, see you soon.]

Putting her phone away, Shiro glanced back at the restaurant before sighing softly.

Walking back to the teleport shrine with Yin, they saw Helion waiting by the side.

"You were quite fast now weren't you?" Shiro raised her eyebrow.

"Haha, it's not too far from here so it didn't take too long. Also, I don't see Nan Tian with you, is he busy?" Helion asked curiously.

"A little. He's just getting used to his new powers. So how's the research on the sword? Are you able to let me interact with the soul fragments now?" Shiro asked as Helion nodded.

"Yes however, I'll be careful if I was you. Without the sword properly containing all of the soul fragments, they can be rather… aggressive." Helion warned.

"Oh? What do you mean by aggressive?"

"They'll either try to kill you or take over your body." Helion smiled tiredly.

"So how are you fine???" Shiro widened her eyes.

"Well since my Hephaestus' Chosen, I have passive skills that help me work with weapons and aggressive ones aren't too much of a problem with these skills." Helion laughed.

"Fair enough."

Making their way to Helion's new workshop, Shiro felt an ominous feeling slowly creep up in her heart as she furrowed her brows.

"You ok?" Helion asked curiously.

"Hmm… not sure. There's an ominous feeling that I can sense but I don't know the source." Shiro replied while looking around her to try to find the origin point of this feeling.

"You're feeling it already??? Damn your senses are sharp."

"You know what's the cause?"

"Yeah it's that sword. After experimenting with it, I noticed that it would give anyone that comes close an ominous feeling so I moved my workshop a little further away from the centre of the city. If I had to describe it, I suppose my workshop now feels like a haunted house thanks to this haha." Helion laughed.

As they continued their way towards the workshop, this feeling continued to grow. Soon, they stood before the warehouse just outside of the city.

". . .You call this close to the teleport shrine?" Shiro raised her eyebrows.

"Close if you run." Helion glanced to the side, avoiding her stare.

Shaking her head, Shiro took a deep breath and prepared to open the doors when Yin's hand landed on her shoulder.

"I'm not too keen on getting my face blasted with a wall of angry ghosts so I'll just be in the rift mum." Yin said as a portal had already opened up beside her.

"If you want, you can go into Estrella's dimension since you can still see what's going on." Shiro suggested since she could remember Nan Tian telling her about how Estrella allowed them to watch her fight with the gorgon.

"Hmm… sure why not." Yin nodded.

On cue, Estrella jumped out her dimension and prepared a portal for Yin.

"See you in a bit mum." Yin waved.

"See you later darling."

Watching Yin and Estrella disappear into the dimension, Shiro opened the door.

"!!!"

Widening her eyes, she was hit in the face with an aura of resentment and hatred.

Gritting her teeth, she released her own bloodl.u.s.t to counter this as snow started to fall around her, freezing a portion of the warehouse in an instant.

'Damn is this what Yin meant?' Shiro thought to herself since she was surprised at how dense the resentment was. Even though she could sense a little sample from the outside, being hit in the face with in was still uncomfortable.

Glancing over at Helion, she could see that he had a golden barrier around him, blocking out the resentment.

"Right now, this is the sword in a semi released state, meaning that most of the soul fragments that you can sense right now are weaker ones. The stronger ones will only appear once I unlock the sword completely. But when that happens, the window of opportunity for you to interact with them is small since their souls will scatter without anything holding them down. I suggest you either make do with the weaker souls or prepare for an all or nothing." Helion warned while walking over to Akram who was placed in the centre of the warehouse.

Furrowing her brows, Shiro looked at the faint traces of souls surging from the sword and wondered what she should do. The main soul that she wanted to interact with was the God Slayer himself. After all, what's the point of choosing the god's that he had slain when she could potentially get a skill to help her kill gods?

Furrowing her brows, she glanced into her inventory and at the coin that Li Jian had given her. While it was a powerful life saving tool, it was also one that reversed her fate.

So if her fate was for her to not obtain the god slayer's soul then a single use of this coin will change that.

"So what will you choose?" Helion asked with a smile.

His hand was on the blade of the sword, ready to unlock it fully if she gave him the signal.

"Unlock it fully please." Shiro said with seriousness in her eyes. 

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