Looking at the speechless hero, Shiro raised an eyebrow and waved her hands in front of him.

  "You ok?" She asked.

  "Ah yes right! Who are you!?" He snapped out of it and quickly jumped back.

  "Well I’m Shiro." She chuckled and shrugged her shoulders.

  "No you’re not her. You don’t feel like Shiro. Did you take over her body?" Aekari frowned.

  {Ah my queen, how mean. You broke his heart haha.} Nimue laughed seeing the hero’s reaction.

  ’Well I suppose it was unavoidable.’ Shiro chuckled.

  "I never took over her body. This is the real me, I needed to find my way to the centre of this base and fighting all of those church guards isn’t exactly what I want to do." She smiled at the hero before pushing him out of the rift.

  Leaving the rift as well, Shiro immediately dashed into action.

  Creating a nanotech shotgun in her left hand, she wielded Ataraxia in her right.

  "Tsk, pests!" The scientist frowned before activating a barrier around the mech.

  Pushing a button, he opened the bottom of the base to release the mech so that he could have a bigger area to work with.

  However, Shiro only smiled at the barrier.

  Activating all of her enhancement skills along with Mystic Empowerment, her strength increases tremendously. The element she had chosen was shadow since it had a corrosive effect which would be highly effective with the armour plating.

  *BOOM!!!

  Firing her shotgun that was enhanced with Celestial Path, she shattered the barrier before swinging her sword.

  Asura Sword Path + Sword Domain!

  *BANG!!!!

  "Mn?!" Widening her eyes, Shiro was rather surprised at the fact that the armour was made from mana absorbent materials which dampened the effects of her strike.

  Without it, she was left with only using her brute force to attack which proved to be quite ineffective.

  "Tch." Clicking her tongue, she used Rift Walker to quickly make some distance between her and the mech.

  However, before she left, the shoulder hatches opened up to reveal several rows of missiles.

  "Oh for f*cks sake." She muttered while making two sets of Genesis hand cannons.

  Firing them at the missiles, she hoped that she could destroy them before the scientist fired the weapon.

  Unfortunately, her bullets were forced aside by a rotating wind barrier.

  "Useless! I’ve already guessed that you’ll arrive here hence why I made some preparations. This mech is the culmination of materials that counter your mana cancelling bullets and nanotech. While I don’t know how you got your hands on the final product, I can guarantee that I’ll explore your body to find out." The scientist laughed.

  Looking at the fact that her bullet was deflected, Shiro frowned.

  "Oi, hero, are you going to stay there and gawk the whole time?" Shiro called out with a frown before pulling him into the rift once more so that he wouldn’t die from the blast. After all, it might be a little troublesome to fight this mech alone since the scientist claimed that it was resistant against her weapons.

  "Ah." Shaking his head, the hero readied his weapon.

  "I’ll help you defeat this guy then we’ll have a talk." He frowned.

  "Sure whatever." Shiro rolled her eyes.

  Dashing out of the base, she exited the rift and had her nanobots create a suit of armour.

  "Upgrading base foundations. Generating generation 3 modules."

  "Hyperion Rail Cannons active and loaded. Dynamic Tracking online."

  "Core functions online. HyperDrive Online."

  "Generation 3 Zephyr Spirit ready for battle."

  Wearing a full suit of crystal white armour, Shiro narrowed her eyes and nose-dived so that she could make some range between her and the mech.

  Meanwhile, the hero was grabbing on the edge to stop himself from falling off.

  {My queen, how can the hero help if he can’t even fly?} Nimue asked while looking at the hero.

  ’Who knows.’ Shiro shrugged while looking down at the sights of her rail cannon.

  Pulling the trigger, four beams of concentrated energy shot towards the mech in the distance.

  *BOOM!!!!!!!

  Exploding into a giant ball of fire, Shiro didn’t stop there.

  Having all of the cannons fire non-stop, she flicked her hand and created a kinetic orbital striker.

  Grabbing the handles, she gritted her teeth and aimed the hulking piece of weaponry at the mech.

  *BANG!!!!!!

  Firing out a giant pillar of nanobots, she enhanced it with Celestial Path and Shadow element.

  However, before the pillar could even strike the mech, a pair of mechanised hands reached out and grabbed it.

  "Heh, I f*cking knew it." Shiro grinned as she clutched her fists.

  Thrusters ejected out of the side of the pillar and started to increase its rotational speed.

  *BOOM!

  Forcing the mech to crash against the side of the lab, Shiro sacrificed Ataraxia once more to gain some MP back.

  Furrowing her brows, she noticed the lack of damage on the mech’s body.

  "Tch, the thing is literally a hulking piece of metal. Low attack and speed but my god is the defence annoying."

  {Well it is designed to stop your attacks after all. If we can penetrate the shell, I doubt the internal components would be the same.} Nimue suggested.

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  ’True. But the kinetic striker is probably one of my stronger armour penetrating weapons right now. I’m not too sure about the calamity dragon arrow since that barrier needs Celestial Path. Not to mention the base armour too. It absorbs mana so unless I brute force it, it won’t break.’ Shiro analysed with a frown.

  ’While I did have the nanobots try to get something from the main console but he blew it up so that’s a bust.’


  {Is there a way for you to overcome that mana absorption?}

  ’Not at the moment no.’ Shiro shook her head.

  Most of the time, one would defeat the mana absorption through flooding it with more mana than it can handle but that wasn’t something she could do right now.

  If she was able to fix her mana links and use most of her berserk skills, she might be able to overcome that difference but as it stands, she was helpless against it.

  {Wait a minute……} Nimue paused in a spark of realisation.

  ’Mn?’


  {My queen think about it. Since this trial had mostly been about upgrading your skill set, what if the end requirement is for you to get the final piece? It may be a situation where you can’t beat the boss but rather survive against it. This giant hunk of metal will need a power source. Since it is still the first generation, the efficiency is most likely complete crap. All we need to do is outlast it and then collect the information from the scientist.}

  ’Hmm…… true.’ Shiro nodded. She would prefer to defeat the mech if she could but that wasn’t likely at this moment.

  However, despite the fact that she would love to drag this out, her mana isn’t exactly agreeing with her situation since it was being drained at a quick rate due to her armour.

  Disassembling the third generation Zephyr Spirit, she used her passive flight skill to look at the mech with caution.

  "Hahaha, what’s this? Not attacking anymore? Realising that you can’t beat this mech? I bet you must want to make me drain the power right? Unfortunately for you, this is fitted with the best batteries and mana coils that we can produce right now. Even as I am speaking, I’m regenerating the lost power." The scientist gloated.

  {Well sh*t.}

  ’Well sh*t.’


  Both Shiro and Nimue had the same thought since this meant that she’ll have to constantly attack it in order to force him to expend more energy.

  *KYYYY!!!!!

  The screech of a bird could be heard as Shiro looked towards the source. The holy paladins along with the guards were riding on top of griffins while readying their bows and magic.

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  As for the hero, one of the guards lent him one of the griffins.

  Currently, he was gathering mana into his sword for a strong long ranged attack.

  ’Welp seems like I got support.’ Shiro thought with a smile.

  However, that meant that she’ll only have a small time frame to gather the information before she’ll be surrounded and questioned.

  Who knows, she may even be bombarded by control skills to reduce her movement.

  ’Well let’s just give it a try and hope for the best eh?’ Shiro chuckled.

  {Indeed.}