"Seems like this is the corruption huh?" Shiro said while stepping off the carriage.

  "Mn, seems like it." Kuromi nodded her head as she had a serious expression on her face.

  "From where we are, there’s still roughly another day till we arrive in the capital. If the so called corruption has spread this far and the monsters are already attacking, I don’t exactly want to imagine what it’s like in the capital city." Kuromi said while shaking her head.

  "Mn, do you want to slow down our pace a little? If we rush in, we could be surrounded by monsters." Shiro suggested.

  Nodding her head, Kuromi agreed with Shiro’s decision and informed Phillip of their choice.

  "Understood young miss." He replied.

  Getting back into the carriage, Kuromi wondered if they should bring a form of protection.

  ’If I had some equipment, I could have spent a bit of time to analyse what had happened to that person. Unfortunately, I don’t, so I have to make do for now. If anything, getting some masks might be helpful. There’s also the problem of perhaps inhaling the parasite during combat……’ Kuromi thought to herself with a frown.

  "Are you ok?" Shiro asked, seeing Kuromi’s frown.

  "Mn? Yeah I am. Just wondering about how we should go about the fight. I’m not keen on the whole parasite in the body thing we just saw. We can fight in our masks but there is still a chance that we could be infected by the parasite." Kuromi replied as Shiro nodded her head.

  "I see…… you’re worried about that. Hmm…… I’ve had to deal with quite a few diseases in Aria so I got a few counter measures. Of course, that’s with my Nanomancer class which I can’t access right now. If anything, the best thing we can probably do right now is to burn the entire battlefield at the start in order to get rid of the parasites. We can also freeze the entire place so that the difference in temperature causes some damage." Shiro suggested.

  "That could work. But I’m not too sure about how much energy we’ll have left once we do that. If we start the fight with less than half, then you know it’s going to be a failed attempt." Kuromi frowned.

  "True. I mean, there are a few fire and ice users in the shadow guards. Perhaps we can get them to do it for us?"

  "We could but at the same time, I want them to still have a way to protect themselves. HOWEVER, and this is a big however, we are short on time and I don’t think we’ll see them again after this trial." Kuromi sighed as she wasn’t one to enjoy seeing others sacrifice themselves for her.

  ". . ." Staying silent, Shiro looked down on her hands since she wasn’t too comfortable with this idea.

  Before she could respond, they felt the carriage stop.

  "First young miss, second young miss, there seems to be a fight not too far from us. It’s between a man and a few monsters that are quite large in size." Phillip called out.

  "Let’s check it out." Shiro suggested as she grabbed a mask for safety purposes.

  Climbing onto the roof, she looked out into the distance and saw an armoured man fighting against three mutated beasts.

  The beasts were these horrifying, grotesque monsters that had skin peeling off the surface and armour embedded into their body. Any resemblance of their previous form was lost as different animal parts could also be seen protruding from their backs and heads.

  As for the man, he had short black hair, and black eyes. His complexion was rather pale as blood seeped down the corner of his lips.

  Despite the lack of damage on his armour, Shiro could tell that this man was not in a good shape.

  Seeing the new arrivals from the corner of his peripherals, hope seemed to ignite in his eyes.

  "Help! Can you help me please!" He shouted out while dodging one of the monster’s punches.

  "Should we?" Shiro asked since she could guess that this was the person with the Celestial Armour.

  "Hmm…… maybe we should watch for a bit and see what the monsters do." Kuromi replied since it was a good chance to get some information. They needed to get the armour from the person anyway, it doesn’t matter if he’s dead or alive

  "Please help! I know you’re collecting the Celestial weapons right!? I’ll give you mine if you help!" He called out once more in hopes of getting their support.

  "Kind of feel like we’re mercenaries being offered a contract." Shiro smiled.

  "Indeed. In that case then let’s go. We’ll finish this quickly but make sure you conserve your energy. Since the Celestial Weapons take a bunch of energy, we can test to see if fire and ice will work on them." Kuromi suggested as Shiro nodded her head.

  Activating her Celestial Raiment, she tuned it to her Underworld Fire Attunement. Snapping her fingers, a flickering orb of fire appeared on her fingertips as she sent it hurling towards the monster.

  *BOOM!!!!

  Exploding into a ball of flames that pushed the man back by a few steps, Shiro saw that there were a few burns on the surface but nothing too major.

  "Big sis! It looks like they have a resistance to fire." Shiro called out as Kuromi nodded.

  "In that case let me give ice a try." Kuromi replied.

  Couching down slightly, she dashed towards the beasts as cold mist flowed out of her palms.

  Pivoting on her right leg, she swiped her arm around her as a swarm of ice sharps appeared and stabbed into the beasts.

  Activating her spell, the shards exploded themselves, freezing the monster from the inside.

  Once the monsters were immobilised, she reinforced her body with Celestial Energy and slammed her palm against the frozen body of the beast.

  *CRACK!!!

  Large cracks could be seen spreading out on the surface as black blood oozed from the gaps.

  Quickly backing off so that the blood doesn’t get on her, Kuromi glanced towards Shiro and saw that she had already changed her element to ice.

  "Welp, seems like ice is the way to go." Shiro grinned as cold mist swirled around her.

  Stomping down, three large magic circles appeared under the monsters as ice erupted out and skewered their bodies, suspending them in the air.

  Clenching her hand into a fist, spikes exploded out from the monsters bodies as they were split into pieces which scattered around.

  "Damn…… attack really is your forte huh?" Kuromi raised her eyebrows since she was able to kill all three monsters in a short period of time.

  "Yup. In a fight, going direct is the best way." Shiro grinned before jumping off the carriage.

  Walking towards the man, she was about to ask him for the armour when he threw down a flash bang of sorts.

  Quickly shielding her eyes, she could sense that he was trying to run away as she attached an orb to his body.

  *sigh

  "I didn’t want to kill him but here we are." Shiro muttered as he had disappeared from her view once the flash of light died down.

  Shaking her head, she snapped her fingers as the man appeared in front of her once more due to the orb she had placed on him.

  Widening his eyes, dread filled his mind.

  Before he could even beg for mercy, Shiro jammed her hand into his mouth.

  Sending fire down his throat, she started to cook him alive before ripping off his head and throwing it aside.

  With the user dead, the armour retracted itself into a marking that tattooed itself on his collarbone.

  Placing her finger on the collarbone, Shiro could feel a burning sensation much like what had happened with the gauntlets and walked back to the carriage.

  "Do you want to destroy the body completely or just leave it here?" Kuromi asked.

  "Let’s just leave it here. We need to get to the capital before this gets worse. After all, in due time, it could be lethal to even breathe near this place." Shiro replied as Kuromi nodded her head.

  Giving everyone a mask before entering the carriage, they started to make their way to the capital.

  One their way there, they were ambushed by a few more monsters that were easily dealt with. For the Shadow Guards, it pained them a little to see the grand capital be reduced to this lifeless area that could only be described as hell.

  Capital of the dead.