Chapter 586 Twin Guardians
As she stepped into the room, combat started immediately.
Punching the ground, the two giants pulled out two blood red spears.
"Everyone into position!" Lyrica shouted out as Madison grabbed her shield.
Charging towards the two, a golden aura erupted out of her body as an illusionary figure could be seen above her. Roughly the same size as the giants, the figure had the same gear as Madison. Raising up her shield, the figure twisted her body and slammed the face of the shield against the right guardian.
Forcing his body to crash against the second guardian, Madison activated taunting cry.
Suddenly, two pairs of bloodshot eyes glared at Madison. Activating an enhanced taunting skill used for the biggest bosses, Madison wanted to make sure that she could actually keep the aggro without Shiro accidently taking it away from her.
"Ok I've got it! You can attack now!" Madison shouted out.
Nodding their head, the party sprang into action.
Watching this happen, Shiro thought for a moment before understanding what she should do to avoid grabbing aggro while still helping out the party.
Snapping her fingers, all of the copies of Athera charged towards the bosses before stabbing deeply into the two boss' bodies. Aimed at each of the joints, the swords locked their body in place. Should they try to force themselves to move, the swords will attempt to rip their limbs from their sockets so unless they take the moment to pull out the blades, they were trapped.
Raising her eyebrow in surprise, Aarim didn't even need to use her gravity magic as Shiro had the bosses locked in place.
Shrugging her shoulders slightly, she smiled and aimed her palm towards the fight guardian.
Suddenly, a tier 5 magic circle wrapped around her hand as several dark orbs could be seen floating around the bosses.
"Collapse." Aarim commanded.
*BANG!!!
Just as she said the word collapse, the orbs exploded, ripping out a chunk of their flesh. Blood spewed on the ground as the bosses flinched from the pain. Unfortunately, the attack seemed to have done nothing.
Slowly, the muscle started to stitch themselves back together as if nothing had happened.
"Oh my, that's rather annoying isn't it?" Aarim raised her eyebrow.
"Indeed. But we just gotta do a Shiro to it." Helion shrugged as he dashed towards the boss with his elemental armour.
Summoning his flaming axe, he twisted his body and slammed the blade against the heel of the right guardian.
"Helion, there are two a few different meanings to doing a Shiro but the primary one is to stab the ass ok?" Aarim said as her smile twitched. She understood that her friend probably wanted to express that he wanted to hit it very hard but his phrasing could cause some misunderstandings.
"Did I just get permission to stab 'em?" Shiro's ears perked up as two tier 5 magic circles immediately appeared under the guardians.
"No! And why do you have it ready at all times!?" Aarim called out since she could cause the boss to evolve from the shame and rage.
"Tch." Clicking her tongue, then adjusted the magic circles so that they limited the bosses movements with chains rather than a spike.
With Aarim, Helion, Shiro and Lisandra focusing on the right guardian and the other's focused on the left, they were able to damage the guardians by 20% in no time.
Suddenly, a notification could be seen blinking on their system interface as they were inflicted with a debuff.
[Guardian's Contempt (1 stack)]
Current effects:
-2% to all stats
-5% to all damage dealt
-5% to all defences
After the debuff was applied, the bosses started to fade into mist as the party was split up.
Finding herself alone in a misty plain, Shiro raised her eyebrow before smiling.
"Let's see what kind of trauma or fear it wants to show me. Is it my death against Aekari? The party's death? My daughter's death?" Shiro asked soft chuckle.
However, as her vision cleared up, what she saw wasn't her death, nor was it her party's death and wasn't her daughter's death either.
It was her best friend's death.
Feeling the sickly sensation of piercing Isilia's heart with her bare hands, Shiro's smile faded away.
She could see Isila's hand grasped around her wrist, forcing it to go deeper while keeping an apologetic smile on her face.
"Sorry… this is the only way." Isilia muttered as she kneeled down on the spot.
Staying silent, Shiro watched as her friend's lifeless body crumbled to the ground as her blood stained her hand.
Looking down at her hand, Shiro narrowed her eyes before sitting down on a rock. She wasn't going to look for the guardian as him healing some health back wasn't a problem for her.
Out of all the trauma's it had to pick, it picked the worst one as Shiro was completely livid.
"I'm killing him in one go." She muttered.
*BOOM!!!
Suddenly, a furious aura exploded out of her body as Athera trembled from her killing intent. The blade seemed to hum in excitement from the sensation. Wrapping the silver blade in a matt black colour, blood runes slowly appeared in the centre.
"Might as well give True Sight a try." Shiro narrowed her eyes.
Sitting patiently on the rock, she created a ring with all the necessary skill that she needed.
Soon, the area around her started to fade away as she was transported back to the main room. Glancing at the boss's health, it seemed like she was the only one that didn't find the boss but that was fine.
Looking back at Shiro, the party halted their breaths since her killing intent was quite stifling right now.
Cracking her neck, Shiro disappeared from her spot and reappeared behind the guardian. Doing a quick calculation on all the two boss' movements, she reached the minimum requirement to use True Sight.
Activating her Asura Sword Path, Berserker Path, Sword Doman along with other sword skills that she had stacked up on her nanotech ring, Shiro slashed at the two bosses without hesitation.
Not only that, just to make sure that she could kill them before the barrier could make them immune, she activated her Celestial Language and Asteria's blessing.
"Asteria, bestow judgement on sinners who opened the pandora's box. I shall execute them and none can pray for pardon." She chanted in a language that none of the party members could understand.
Suddenly, a cruel crackle could be heard due the sound from the slash. It was as if a demon had just manifested behind Shiro and was relishing in her killing intent.
Black chains erupted out from the ground, locking the gate guardians in place while the illusionary form of a guillotine was formed around the two. The executioner's blade was naturally the now matt black Athera that was dipped in Shiro's killing intent.
*KRRRRRR!!!!!!!
Slashing against the two guardians, a black and red blade energy cleaved not their bodies as her True Sight Ignored their armour.
A shield tried to wrap them up but before it could block the blade, the guardians were already dead. Their bodies disintegrated into blood mist while the slash continued to travel down the ground, causing a bottomless ravine to open up in the room.
Looking at Shiro who had just killed the boss in one go, despite there being a mechanic to PREVENT THIS FROM HAPPENING, the party had to blink twice just to make sure that they were seeing things correctly.
Taking a deep breath, Shiro dismissed Athera and turned to the party.
Remembering a picture that she had seen on the web, Shiro coughed for a moment before opening her mouth.
"Sorry~ I went a bit overboard." She apologised while sticking out her tongue and bopping her head lightly.
"Sorry my ass!"
{Sorry my ass!}
Both Madison and Nimue retorted out at the same time since they could clearly see that Shiro was going for the kill.
"Ahaha, don't be like that. I just saw something that wasn't too pleasant despite being ready for it. I'll make it up to you in the next fight." Shiro laughed.
"Sigh* It's fine. Considering your killing intent, it really picked the worst memory huh?" Lyrica smiled softly since she understood that Shiro wouldn't do something like this unless the boss had truly pissed her off.
"Yup. Anyways, how do we get to the next boss?" Shiro asked curiously.
"We need a key that the boss drops but considering the fact that you reduced them to mist, can I presume that the key is gone?" Lyrica chuckled.
"It's probably down there…" Shiro trailed off as she looked at the bottomless ravine that had just opened up.
". . ."
"Estrella." Shiro called out.
"You called my empress?" Estrella bowed as she exited Shiro's mana realm.
"Are you able to get the key for me? It should be down there." Shiro asked as Estrella nodded.
"Right away."
Making a portal, Estrella disappeared from her spot.
"While she's doing that, I should make a bridge for you girls to come over." Shiro said with a smile.
"That's probably for the best."
While the party made their way over, Helion and Aarim looked at each other.
"Did she just ignore a raid mechanic?" Helion asked.
"It's Shiro." Aarim replied.
"But the system-"
"It's Shiro."
"But she's still using the system no?"
"But she's Shiro."
". . ."
"It's Shiro."
"I didn't say anything though?"
"You just need to know that it's Shiro." Aarim sighed.