"What the hell is even happening out there!" A middle aged man shouted out in anger. In a span of a few minutes, tens of corpses could be seen all over the battlefield while the dragon and giant were still wrestling each other. Not only that, but the corpses also had blade wounds so it was clearly done by humans rather than the two behemoths.

  "We weren’t able to see much from the distance but it seems to be a shadow type celestial energy user. They were able to flicker around the battlefield without much hindrance." One of the guards reported.

  "If you know what element they use, then counter them for god sake!" The man shouted back as he slammed his hand down against the table.

  "Erm…… that’s the thing. All of our shadow users seemed to be killed near the beginning."

  ". . . What?"

  "We…… have no one to counter them. They basically have the battlefield on lockdown and we don’t have any shadow users of our own. Without a shadow user, we can’t stop her from teleporting."

  "How long do you think it’ll take for the capital to send over some level 4 practitioners?" The man sighed.

  "It would take at least a day with their speed."

  ". . ." Staying silent for a moment, the man looked towards the giant and dragon rampaging in the distance and gritted his teeth.

  "Bring out the Celestial Spear. We’re going to kill both the dragon and the giant."

  Widening his eyes, the guard couldn’t believe what his leader had just suggested. The Celestial Spear was an artifact gifted to them by one of the ’higher beings’. It was a spear that allowed mortals like them to harness a fraction of the beings’ power and use it against their enemies. However, after fending off danger for so many years, the spear only had enough energy for one more attack since they had no way to recharge it.

  "Just do it and call for a retreat. Make sure the spear kills at least one of the monsters or else it would be a waste." The man commanded.

  "Understood!"

  ###

  Twirling her dagger in her palm, Shiro looked around and saw that most of the guards had been dealt with.

  "Right then, I guess our next step is to take care of that giant and dragon then." Shiro asked while glancing towards the behemoths.

  "Not yet. The enemies might have more up their sleeves so we’re going to let them rampage a little longer. In the meantime, we’ll go get some high ground so that we can spy on the city and see how many guards they have left." Kuromi replied as Shiro nodded.

  Deactivating her armour, Shiro furrowed her brows when she glanced at the energy she had left.

  "Tch, it’s quite annoying isn’t it?" Shiro muttered.

  "What is?"

  "The fact that the energy won’t regenerate like mana." Shiro sighed while putting her daggers away.

  "Mn, I suppose it is more potent than mana so there are a few downsides. If there wasn’t, Celestial Energy would have long taken over mana in terms of popularity and usage." Kuromi shrugged.

  "True."

  Looking around the battlefield, Shiro searched around for any enchanted weapon that she could potentially put to good use.

  Collecting a few enchanted swords and bows, the two left the area and made their way towards one of the gathering points that Kuromi had mentioned earlier.

  Upon arrival, they saw that a few of the guards had already arrived with only a few of them missing.

  "Mn? There seems to be a few of us that haven’t come back yet. Let’s see…… Tomu, Rachel, Riche and Nui are missing." Kuromi frowned after counting the guards.

  "Did anyone see them on their way here? They might have gone to a different gathering point." She asked.

  "No we haven’t. I’ve checked point A, C, D, F and G but I wasn’t able to catch a glimpse of any of them." Prim replied as she had a worried look on her face.

  "Hmm…… alright. We’ll be postponing our operations for a little. I want everyone to spread out and look for the missing people. If you find any one of them, come back to this spot and wait for our return. And also, before that, Shiro got you all some presents. These are some of the enchanted equipment that she found so find one that suits you." Kuromi said as they nodded. After collecting a weapon that they could use, they dispersed in all directions.

  "Shiro, I want you to come with me."

  "Sure, where to?" Shiro asked curiously.

  "I’ll tell you that in a second. But first, how does your portal orb work and how much energy does it use?" Kuromi asked.

  "Ah you’re curious about that. Well basically it’s similar to how I use rift strider. However, instead of walking through the rift, I connect the shadows up into a long tunnel and force myself or an object through the portal in an instant. It doesn’t take much energy to create the orb and sustaining it after creation is quite cheap in terms of energy usage. However, once I try to force something through, the energy usage increases massively. Depending on how quick I want the object to be transported and how big it is, the energy it needs varies." Shiro explained.

  "Heh~ I see…… Alright, do you have enough energy to make two orbs, teleport us and potentially fight in a while?"

  "Hmm…… should be doable." Shiro nodded. As long as she conserves her energy in the fight, she could make 4 portals if needs be.

  "Great. In that case then can you leave an orb here so that we can retreat if things get a bit out of hand?" Kuromi asked with a smile.

  "Sure."

  Activating her shadow armour, Shiro snapped her finger and formed an orb just above her hand.

  Placing the orb onto the ground and hiding it with some shrubbery, Shiro deactivated her armour since it takes quite a bit of energy to sustain it. Thankfully however, the orb remained so that she could activate it whenever.

  "Alright, let’s go." Shiro smiled.

  Dashing through the forest, they made their way towards the city. On their way to the city, they dumped into a few guards who seemed to be quite focused on retreating.

  "Hmm…… let’s follow them. I’m sure they’re making their way to one of the leaders." Shiro suggested as Kuromi nodded since she had the same thought.

  Unfortunately for them, a giant pillar of light exploded out from the battlefield as it seemed to drain all the colours from their surroundings due to the intensity.

  "Gah! The hell!" Shiro cursed as she shielded her eyes.

  Jumping up on a tree, she looked towards the source and couldn’t help but widen her eyes in shock.

  ""The f*ck!?!?!"" Both Shiro and Kuromi said at the same time.

  Flying in the air, the dragon was now encased in armour with the giant riding on his back. He was also wearing a similar style of armour and his axe transformed into a sword.

  "Did he really just tame a goddamn dragon by stabbing it in the nose???" Shiro questioned in disbelief.

  "Well it f*cking looks like it." Kuromi nodded.

  Suddenly feeling both glares lock onto them, the girls paused for a moment.

  "Wait…… did they just team up to deal with us?" Kuromi asked as she tilted her head.

  ". . .What did you do to lure the giant?" Shiro asked.

  "Pretty much the same as you but in the crotch why?"

  "Because I think they’ve just realised who the real enemies are." Shiro said with a forced smile.

  ". . .Run?" Kuromi suggested.

  "Run." Shiro nodded.

  Quickly turning around, the duo ran as fast as they could before the giant and dragon could catch up to them.

  "HALT RIGHT THERE YOU FOUL BEINGS!" The giant shouted out as both girls looked back one more in shock.

  "F*ck! He gained some brain cells!"

  "Don’t talk! Just run!" Kuromi retorted as they charged towards where the guards were retreating to. That way, they can at least have the guards deal with this monstrosity that they had created.

  "I SAID HALT!" The giant shouted out once more as flaming spears appeared beside him. Pointing at the two with his sword, the spears shot towards them as the trees started to burn up from the heat.

  Gritting her teeth, Shiro turned around and activated her armour once more. The shadows flared around her as she created two portals and sent the spears flying back at him.

  "Eat sh*t!" She cursed out.

  However, since the spears were directly under his control, the giant merely had them slow down before pointing back towards Shiro.

  ". . . I would like to take this opportunity to humbly apologize about my actions."