Distancing herself from Syradil, Shiro narrowed her eyes towards the twin peaks. Sending out a few drones, she noticed that the corrosive aura was still there. Even though the range of it had decreased, it was still blocking people from reaching the relic.

'Hmm… it should completely disappear in around 15 minutes or so…' Shiro thought to herself as she sat down on a branch.

She could sense that fights were intensifying and a few of the Queens have already been forced to retreat from this area. However, while they did retreat, Shiro guessed that they still stuck around since they wouldn't give up on a rainbow relic with just a small defeat.

There is still the chance to steal it at the end.

Funnily enough, Shiro could sense the Ice Queen's mana within one of the battles. The last time they had met, she had warned her about the Dragon Empress.

'I'll meet her later. For now I'm more curious about the group of humans that I sensed.' Shiro thought to herself.

Glancing towards their direction, she started to make her way over. It was best that they left the area if they're good natured people since there's a high chance of being killed.

###

"What should we do now? It seems like they're all fighting one another. I'm not sure we'll even be able to find your wife within this crowd." I asked as Edvimar looked at the explosions happening in the distance.

Staying silent, he had a frown on his face.

"Mn… It's going to be tough. But I'm certain that she's near here or at least close enough so that they could participate in this fight. Honestly, it's a little dangerous so you lot can leave now. You've already helped me enough by escorting me to this area." He smiled, glancing back at us.

"Who do you think we are? We're not going to let you run into a death trap like that alone when you've helped us so much. Or at least I'm not since I can't speak for everyone here." Gordon smiled as he patted Edvimar on the shoulder.

"I'm just tagging along since it's hard to find truth worthy people like you guys especially in a time like this." Cadmi giggled softly while eating some rations that she had prepared.

[Same with us.] Lyle wrote out at the same time as Eric nodded his head.

"Well you saw their response. Do you think we'll let you go alone?" I shrugged my shoulders as Edvimar chuckled.

"What do you think Nitha?" I glanced up at Nitha who copied my actions, causing Cadmi to laugh.

"Alright. Don't worry, we'll just be observing for now. Once I see my wife, I have my own way of sending her a message so we don't need to get too close." Edvimar nodded.

"Since we're here, are you able to tell us a bit more about this watchman that you had mentioned before?" I asked since the only thing we knew was that the watchman was someone that collected souls.

Hearing my question, Edvimar paused as he contemplated for a moment.

Taking a deep breath, he nodded.

"Sure, sit down since it might take a bit of explaining." Edvimar said as he looked for a spot to sit down.

"The watchman is a guardian of sorts. He is responsible for the souls of those that belong to the system, ones that are outside of the authority bestowed to even the god of the underworld, Hades. You can also think of the watchman as someone that keeps an eye on the souls of the Queens." Edvimar started as we all sat around and listened carefully.

According to him, his wife didn't know about the existence of the watchman but was able to escape his grasp due to the spells that she had put in place which were directly linked to the dungeons. With the spot that was reserved for his wife being empty, Edvimar was forced to take her place.

The watchman's realm was one that existed in a different flow of time compared to the real world so the moment he realised that Edvimar was not his wife, years had already passed in the real world.

Infuriated, the watchman took the time to search the world while Edvimar tried his best to escape since he knew that if his wife was caught, she'll suffer for the crime of escaping the watchman's grasp.

Upon locating his wife, the watchman had to go through a process of obtaining the rights to materialise in the real world so that he could 'collect' her soul. During this, Edvimar had managed to separate himself from the system, freeing him from the shackles that bound him to the watchman's realm.

Escape was tough and he was forced to fight the watchman on several occasions which resulted in the wounds that he had now.

"Wait so you don't have access to the system anymore?" I asked, surprised that you could even distance yourself from the system.

"Mn, all the power I have left is my own." Edvimar nodded.

We stayed silent and tried to digest all of the information. All of the information that he had provided to us was quite astonishing as most of it revolved around the system.

As we stayed silent, I noticed that Eric reached towards his mouth and sighed.

Ripping out his stitches, he stuck out his tongue and revealed a magic circle.

"Sorry." He said much to our shock since we had presumed that he was mute.

Suddenly, a portal opened behind him as a black haired weapon exited out with a smile.

Lyle froze up in shock as Edvimar immediately dragged everyone back while looking at Eric and this woman with a frown.

"The information that you have provided about the system and the watchman was quite insightful. Why don't you come to my city and have a nice long talk with me?" The woman asked as Edvimar narrowed his eyes.

[Thiria LVL 650 Beast Queen]

"I'll be fine thanks. But what did you do with Eric?" Edvimar asked as his aura flared up.

NItha was shivering in fear as she hid behind me, afraid of the Queen.

"Oh so his name was Eric. That's nice to know. I didn't do much except inject a bit of beast blood into him. All of his actions are under my control. I sent quite a few of these 'scouts' around the world to gather information for me but I must say, I didn't expect little Eric to give me such precious information. I might actually honour our little promise of keeping his brother safe." Thiria said while reaching towards Eric's neck.

Before any of us could say anything, Thiria drew a thin line along his neck.

*KRCK

Exploding into a mass of bones and flesh, we watched in horror as Eric's body was transformed in front of us.

"Now then, I didn't want to stop you from meeting your wife but I'm afraid you're a trove of knowledge that I can't give up." Thiria said coldly as portals started to open around them.

Gritting his teeth, Edvimar slammed his hands together and formed a tier 6 magic circle.

"LEAVE!" He shouted out to the rest of us as emerald energy flowed around him, transforming into several illusionary figures that wielded swords.

"You're not leaving without my permission." Thiria scoffed as beasts appeared from the portals.

Gritting my teeth, I glanced back at Nitha and realised that she probably can't do much against this Queen due to her title.

'What to do…' I thought to myself.

However, with our exit sealed off, there wasn't much else we could do but fight.

"Gordon!" I shouted out.

"I know!"

Activating our berserk skills, we didn't hesitate and charged into battle with Edvimar.

Grabbing a sword from my inventory, I slashed towards the closest beast.

'It's shallow.' I thought. My blade wasn't able to cut deep before it was clamped down by the muscle of the beast.

Letting go of my sword without hesitation, jumped back and allowed Gordon to follow up.

"HAA!!!" Shouting out in anger, he slammed his foot against the back of the blade, forcing it to cut through the arm of the beast.

Seeing this, Thiria only snapped her finger and the arm was regenerated.

"There's no point fighting back. Just roll over and die." Thiria said with disinterest as her gaze was locked on Edvimar. She was surrounding him with beasts to make sure that he couldn't help the rest of the party.

"To think I'd meet you here. Life is quite the narrow road isn't it?" A voice rang out as Thiria narrowed her eyes at the figure in the sky.

"Young Quee-"

"It's Empress, not Queen. Don't rope me into the same category as you." The girl cut her off as I couldn't help but glance up at the sky.

Floating in the sky, a white haired girl glanced down at us and smiled.

Snapping her fingers, several blades surrounded us and killed the beasts in an instant.

"Last time we met it was in a dungeon. But to be fair, it was more of a vision of you rather than you personally. So let me introduce myself, formerly known as Nytri Vespira, now known as Shiro, I'm a friend of Isilia and I'm sure she'll be thrilled to see her husband alive." The girl smiled towards Edvimar.

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