Looking up at the giant crystal, Shiro felt her entire body freeze over. As if she was being stared down by a deadly predator that could kill her in an instant.

  She hadn’t felt like this since the time she watched her village get destroyed and she was kidnapped by the scientists.

  She felt weak in front of this crystal.

  "Shiro!"

  Suddenly, Nan Tian’s voice broke her trance as she quickly held her head.

  "Huh? What happened?" She muttered in confusion while glancing to her side.

  "A mass fear skill. To think that crystal was able to inflict a high level fear skill that even affected me." Nan Tian replied with a frown.

  Currently, a necklace could be seen faintly shimmering on his neck.

  [Hero’s Courage – Orange]

  A necklace worn by a foreign hero. Throughout his entire life, he was fearless against all adversities. When worn, you are less likely to be feared.

  Active skill: Inspire.

  All allies around you gain a 90% resistance to fear for 1 minute.

  Cooldown: 5 minutes.

  "Fear skill huh?" Shiro narrowed her eyes and took a moment to calm herself.

  Glancing through her database, she noticed a lack of fear resistance which annoyed her since the ones she did have are rather mediocre. However, they were better than nothing.

  Snapping her fingers, a ring was created with all of the fear resistance skills.

  With her mind now clear of the fear skill, she could see her surroundings with better clarity.

  Taking a second look at the crystal, she could see two glowing modes of light that seemed to resemble a pair of eyes. These motes would dance around ever so slightly as if the owner of these ’eyes’ were surveying the location.

  Glancing towards the black cloud made up of demons in the distance, the motes seemed to pause for a moment before looking around once more.

  Once they landed on Shiro, Yin and Nan Tian, the motes kept their ’gaze’ on the three of them before disappearing.

  "The hell……" Shiro muttered.

  Despite having the ring and Nan Tian’s help in dispersing the fear skill, her mind still told her to run.

  "We should probably back off." Nan Tian suggested as Shiro nodded.

  "It’s a damn lizard." Yin muttered with a glare.

  "Lizard? You mean the owner of those eyes is a dragon?" Shiro raised her eyebrows.

  "Mn. I can feel it in my blood. It’s a damn lizard and it’s a powerful one at that." Yin nodded her head.

  "Don’t worry though, I’m not gonna fight it." She shrugged and turned around.

  Glancing towards Nan Tian, Shiro nodded and prepared to leave. However, before they could take another step, a cloaked figure appeared in front of them.

  Instantly recognising it to be the man who caused all of this, Nan Tian attacked without hesitation.

  "Don’t kill the messenger." The man chuckled and snapped his fingers. Suddenly, a dark barrier appeared around him and deflected the sword.

  Surprised by his defence, Nan Tian was about to attack again as Shiro followed up with Athera in her hand.

  Twisting her body, she stepped to the side of Nan Tian and attacked in sync.

  Shaking his head, the man dropped the barrier and faded into mist, causing their attacks to miss.

  Reappearing a little further away from his initial spot, the man shrugged.

  "Quite hostile huh? Regardless, you can watch my queen’s descent for yourself." He grinned.

  Snapping his fingers, the outer layer of the crystal shattered apart as the shards shot towards the black cloud of demons.

  Shredding through the demons like they were paper, they could see faint trails of blood flowing towards the crystal.

  Within a few seconds, the horde of demons were gone and the crystal fell into an eerie silence.

  "We’re getting out of here." Shiro frowned and summoned Estrella.

  Dragging both Yin and Nan Tian into the portal, they started to run with all their might.

  While this was happening, the appearance of the crystal caused a crowd to gather not too far from the anchor site. The guild staff brought out scanning equipment and wanted to see what the crystal contained but nothing was discovered.

  Slowly, the crystal seemed to lose its solidity and started to melt in a strange fashion. Condensing into the form of a young girl with a long black dress, she tilted her head and glanced towards all the adventurers with a bland expression.

  Her black hair fluttered in the wind while her purple eyes seemed to pierce into their soul.

  "Feast." Her cold voice rang out.

  *URAHHH!!!

  Suddenly, a portal opened up above the adventurer’s and a giant dragon head descended with a piercing cry.

  Opening its maw, it consumed a large chunk of the wasteland and hundreds of adventurers before retreating back to its portal.

  Silence reigned the wasteland as the adventurers didn’t know how to react. Shocked at the display, it took them a moment until the first cry of panic could be heard.

  With that cry, a domino effect of sorts occurred, and the adventurers started to run away. Some wanted to stay and fight however the woman would only summon more portals with the dragon heads and consume the ones that wanted to fight.

  ###

  Watching the scene through a drone that she had left behind, Shiro’s expression was serious.

  "What kind of queen is she? Dragon? Darkness?" She muttered.

  Nan Tian didn’t say anything since his gaze was fixated on the man that was near the woman. Despite all his talks about killing Shiro to make him fall, he had not attempted that yet which is strange to him.

  ’Does he have something else up his sleeve?’ He thought to himself.

  As they watched, the scene soon changed. The woman was now holding the drone in her hands.

  "Are you watching? Young queen?" Her cold voice asked.

  Widening her eyes, Shiro didn’t expect her drone to be discovered so quickly.

  "Thank you for taking care of the anchor. If you hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have been able to secure another domain this early before the new age. I’ll let you go for now since you’ve done me this favour. This domain will now be under the rule of Thiria, Queen of the Beasts." Thiria said as she threw the drone up into the air.

  *BANG!!!

  Seeing the screen go dark, Shiro knew that her drone was gone.

  Clicking her tongue, she pondered for a moment before stepping out of the dimension.

  She wanted to see what Thiria wanted to do with this place before she left.

  Gesturing for Estrella to let them out of the dimension, Shiro turned towards where the anchor was.

  Looking up, she could see a giant magic formation where no end could be seen. It was as if the formation stretched on forever as Thiria was floating in the middle of the formation.

  Pushing her hands out, a foreign energy exploded out from her as the skies started to change. From the blood red colour that the people of this city were familiar with, it shifted to an ominous black.

  Strangely enough, despite the dark skies, lighting was not a problem as the sun could still be seen which was quite abnormal.

  [You have stepped into the Domain of Queen Thiria. As an enemy queen, you will experience the following effects.]-

  20% to all stats-

  20% effectiveness to all Queen related spells-

  20% System Assistance

  Reading the notification, Shiro narrowed her eyes.

  ’So domains are useful battlegrounds for the new age. If you have more domains, your powers are split but at the same time, to counter this, the enemy queen will get a debuff……’ She thought to herself before turning to Yin and Nan Tian.

  "Since the enemy queen has revealed herself and is not afraid of us, I’m not exactly keen on sticking around. We’ll get the remaining two artefact pieces in this city before leaving. I’ll go notify Lucius and warn him about the queen since we know that she has a connection to Black Monarchy." Shiro said as Nan Tian nodded his head.

  "Before that, I want to tell you something."

  "Mn? What is it?" Shiro asked.

  "I just got a system notification asking me if I want to join the Queen Thiria’s Royal court. There are more options other than this, but it seems like people who aren’t associated with any Queen’s will get this option." Nan Tian said with a serious expression.

  "Hm…… That’s a bit of a bother because it means that humans will be split up into different factions." Shiro frowned. Shaking her head, she decided to set it aside for now.

  Her main priority was to recover the artefacts.

  ’After I get the artefacts, I might have to see if I can find the Queen of Ice to ask her some questions.’ Shiro thought to herself since she might need to set up her own domain to make sure that her loved ones are safe.