Chapter 559 Puppet
Landing on the floor softly, Shiro looked around the top floor and saw a man sitting on an office chair while looking at her with a bland expression.
"Seems like you've been waiting for me. Were you not bothered about your men being killed on the roof?" Shiro asked with a smile.
However, even after waiting for a few moments, the man did not respond.
Furrowing her brows, she scanned his body and realised that this was a literal husk. A human puppet that had no organs.
"The hell." She frowned.
Just as she was about to investigate the body for anything that might be useful, it started to twitch as mana filled its insides.
"Rather crude hobby you have there." Shiro clicked her tongue and made some distance between her and the puppet.
"Who are you." A cold voice asked as the puppet's eyes turned towards her.
"Not important. Though I might tell you who I am if you tell me who you are first." Shiro narrowed her eyes.
"Hmm… I can't sense the other five so it seems like they've been killed. Well no matter, they're only prototypes anyways." The controller of the puppet ignored her.
Standing up, the puppet attempted to walk when ice chains erupted out from every corner and restrained its movements.
"I did just ask you a question. Mind answering first?" Shiro warned.
Tilting his head, the puppet glanced towards Shiro once more.
"Perhaps you're the cause of all this? Interesting… You're a little different from your description but Young Miss Asakura, why must you interfere with my matters? Each to their own and I would appreciate it if you left this go."
"You know who I am? In that case it makes things easier. The answer to your question is an obvious no. Soul Fragments are a poor choice of materials to use for a weapon. Out of all the metals that you could have chosen, you decided to use souls. Why?" Shiro asked.
"You don't need to know. Since you insist on interfering with this, then I can only warn you to watch your back." The controller replied nonchalantly.
Suddenly, the mana inside the puppet started to go out of control as Shiro understood that it was about to blow up. However, she wasn't worried.
Dashing towards the puppet, she crouched down before slamming her palm against its chest.
*BANG!
Sending the body flying, she opened the rift just behind it so that the explosion wouldn't harm the room. After all, she still needed to look for Helion's research.
Closing the rift before the puppet could explode, Shiro had a serious expression on her face.
'Who was the controller? He knew me but I don't know him.' She thought to herself before shaking her head.
Regardless of who the person was, she was going to kill them if they're going to be her enemy.
Walking up to the desk, she started to search in the draws for anything that could be of use.
Finding quite a few notebooks filled with recipes on weapons, Shiro furrowed her brows since this wasn't what she wanted.
Pressing her hands against the walls, she scanned the entire room and found a few hidden compartments. However, her back couldn't help but chill when she saw the sheer amount of Soul Fragment weapons being hidden in these compartments.
Even though she was fine with killing people so long as they make themselves her enemy, seeing this many weapons made from souls still disturbed her slightly.
'Tch, what a freak.' Shiro thought with a click of her tongue.
Punching a hole into the compartments, she could find a few notebooks besides the weapons. This time, they were about research on the soul weapon.
Casually flipping through the pages, she glanced at one of the lines.
[The most effective way in making the Soul Fragment weapons are placing the subject under intense torture. With this, they will feel a surge in negative emotions which in turn would empower the finalised projects.]
Looking at the swords stacked up on the side, she knew that the amount of people killed to make this is by no means small.
{The b*stard is like the Light God. Both should just f*cking die.} Nimue frowned as Shiro agreed with her opinion.
Reaching out for the swords, she started to store them away one by one since it would be bad if these weapons were to be released out into the world.
Unfortunately, since these weapons weren't made personally by the controller of the puppet, she wouldn't be able to track him down.
'I should probably make note of this and report it to Keiko so that she could bring it up at the next national assembly. Though with Thiria making the status of Queens known throughout the world, I can imagine that the next assembly is going to be quite overwhelming.'
Shaking her head, she started to search the other compartment. Finding more Soul Weapons and research notepads, Shiro stored them away and prepared to leave.
'Actually, I should probably take the other five weapons I saw earlier as well.'
Jumping up to the roof, she crouched down next to the weapons and threw them into her inventory.
Glancing down at the panicking guards, Shiro wondered if there were anyone else with the Soul Fragment weapons in this city. If there was, she might as well deal with them now.
{Since you're out here, you might as well take care of them no?} Nimue chuckled since she didn't want Shiro to go back just yet. After all, it was rare for Shiro to enjoy herself freely like this.
'True. In that case then I got a great idea.' Shiro smiled.
Jumping up into the air, she flew past the clouds and pushed out her palms.
Similar to what happened with Wrath of Stars, a giant tier 5 magic formation started to stretch across the city as Shiro brought out a few of the Soul Fragment weapons.
Making them float in the centre of the formation, she started to modify the formation a little so that rather than attack the people that own a similar weapon, it would only show her where they are. After all, if she sent down arrows that exploded upon contact, she could accidently drag in innocent civilians.
Soon, she could see pillars of red light shooting up into the sky.
'Bingo.' She grinned as the formation was just a giant mini map. When it discovers anything that matched the description that she had inputted, a pillar of light would appear around its location.
'So about 15 more people with this weapon huh?' Shiro narrowed her eyes.
{Seems like it. 15 more people for you to kill. Are you able to handle them?} Nimue asked curiously since she was currently suffering from the backlash of using Athera.
Backlash: You suffer from 60% Muscle Fatigue and a temporary decrease in all of your stats. (-30%)
"Yes. If anything, I'd say that this makes it fair for the people I'm about to hunt. 60% Muscle Fatigue ain't too bad and as for the 30% decrease in stats, let's just say that the stats I obtained from the recent hunts with Athera make up for the difference." Shiro grinned.
After all, whenever she kills a target that is connected with her tether, she obtains a portion of their highest stat. After the last fight, she managed to get a small increase to all of her stats except for INT since they didn't have a mage with them.
Taking a deep breath, she flicked her wrist and summoned Athera into her hands.
"The night is still young, I have plenty of time to deal with them. Who knows, I might even torture them a bit. You know the saying, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth? Let's just say I'm about to add another verse. Torture for torture." Shiro narrowed her eyes and flickered from her spot.
###
Looking up at the sky, Nan Tian had a smile on his face.
"Seems like she's thoroughly enjoying herself. That's good." He muttered.
"Aren't you worried? She's going to be up against level 200+'s." Helion asked curiously.
"Nope. It's the same with you isn't it? We both know that she can handle herself in a fight so I'm not too worried. Plus, knowing what she's like, she'd probably be annoyed if I denied her of her fun." Nan Tian chuckled.
"True. I'll tell you what though, after researching Soul Fragments, I think I discovered quite an interesting detail about everyone who has a connection with the system."
"Oh? What's that?" Nan Tian raised his eyebrows.
"Our souls are 'owned' by the system."