Chapter 552 Mount Olympus
"Right, the reason I want us to go to Mount Olympus is because of the trial that we can undertake at the mountain. You see, each of the gods featured in the Greek myths has a trial that you can try to complete and once you do, you gain rewards that are relevant to that god. An example would be the Zeus' trial. Someone managed to complete it a few years ago and managed to receive a reward called Zeus' Insignia. That skill allows him to control thunder at will and his lightning attacks are extra effective. Plus, whenever he is hit by lightning, he could heal his health and mana at a rapid rate." Nan Tian explained as Shiro nodded her head.
"Hou… that is indeed quite impressive. If Yin manages to complete the Apollo trial then wouldn't her fire evolve once more?" Shiro narrowed her eyes.
"Indeed. Another reason to go there is that depending on how well you complete the trial, you gain levels equivalent to your performance. Therefore, it's a good place for me and the rest of your party since we need quite a few levels." Nan Tian chuckled.
"Hmm… Indeed. The girls will get quite a boost if they receive a reward from the trials." Shiro nodded.
"However, I still want to see my mum and dad soon. We'll go after meeting them once then." She decided as Nan Tian nodded his head.
"Though, I'm not too sure about how long it might take. To be honest, the sooner we do it the better. There are three missing pieces to this artefact and finding them might be a pain." She sighed.
"Perhaps you can leave it to your friend Lucius. After all, he did manage to find seven pieces." Nan Tian suggested as Shiro furrowed her brows.
As much as she wanted to leave it to Lucius, it would be bad to let him do all the work without getting anything out of it.
"Hmm… I would say I'd pay him but he's the master of a faction so I doubt I can offer him anything substantial in terms of material wealth. We'll see how it goes. If he is willing to find the other three then great, if not, we'll have to try finding it ourselves." Shiro shrugged.
"Well if it comes down to that, I can allocate some of my subordinates to help us look around. If he was able to find the artefact sites then I'm sure we can as well." Nan Tian smiled.
"Ah speaking of your sect, I still haven't seen the person who rescued you. The sect master. I need to give him my thanks after all." Shiro smiled.
"Well we can go to the sect headquarters whenever you want."
"Eh? Really? Isn't there like a 'higher up members' only type of thing?" Shiro asked.
"Nope. Because the master is fine with the lower level members going there and studying. Of course, if they have any malicious intent, they'll be dealt with quite easily. Why do you think that the location is not disclosed? The only ones that remain are those that respect the sect's rules." Nan tian smiled.
"I see… Could it be because of the people from the Victoria family?" Shiro asked since she knew that they had an army of contracted monsters. Even a Hydra was under their control so they should have a few trump cards up their sleeves.
"Partially. The high level monsters are certainly helpful but we have more than just the Victoria family who protects the sect. Families who specialise in formations, powerful attacks, detecting spies, infiltration and the such. At one point, we even had a double agent who was sent to spy on one of the families only for him to come back to the sect as a spy for that family haha." Nan tian laughed as Shiro could imagine the awkwardness of that situation.
"Is there a family for torture specialists? I'll be quite interested to see what kind of techniques they use. After all, it might make my job easier in the future."
"Yes we do. I feel like you would have quite a nice time hanging out with their eldest daughter. Her name is Fenri and let's just say she's quite sadistic and unlike you, she has no problems with M's." Nan Tian chuckled.
"Why do you think that we'll get along just because we're sadistic? Wouldn't that just be a conflict of interest?" Shiro tilted her head. It was like when two people are passionate about the same thing but have different views and conflict may arise due to this.
"Well I'm not sadistic so I wouldn't know." Nan Tian shrugged.
Making their way back to the city, Shiro guided them back to the first site so that they could ask Lucius about the remaining sites that have yet to be discovered.
"Don't worry about it. I have already got people to look around for the locations. I'm not too sure about how long it'll take though." Lucius replied with a smile. He didn't mind sparing some manpower for this since it was important.
"If you want, I can provide you with some extra hands to help look around for these sites." Nan Tian offered with a smile.
"That would be helpful. How many people are we talking about?" Lucius asked since extra help would be much appreciated.
"Probably twice your current numbers? Maybe more depending on what happens." Nan Tian replied as Lucius paused in surprise.
"You'll have to give me a moment though, I'll need to inform them about this first."
Excusing himself, Nan Tian left the room so that he could contact them about this new 'quest'.
Staying silent for a moment, Lucius looked towards Shiro.
"You got yourself quite the impressive friend huh?" He chuckled as Shiro only smiled.
"I suppose so."
"Speaking of impressive, I heard that you caused quite a commotion in the wasteland." Lucius narrowed his eyes.
"Collateral damage. If I didn't do what I did, a horde of juvenile Death Worms would have been set free." Shiro chuckled.
"A horde? I thought that they didn't come in hordes." Lucius asked with a serious expression.
"They don't or at least, they shouldn't. This is clearly abnormal and it may be the doing of the Black Monarchy."
"Those guys again? There are several reports of increased activity from the Black Monarchy recently." Lucius sighed.
"Do you know anything then?" Shiro asked curiously.
"Unfortunately no. They're quite hard to catch and any that the government has managed to catch kill themselves before anything happens. I swear, they're a bunch of crazy b*stards." Lucius massaged eyes.
"Well you might want to be careful in this city then. Lil' Tian is someone familiar with them and a higher up in the Black Monarchy is near this city. He is probably the main culprit behind the Death Worms." Shiro reminded.
"Thank you for your concerns. Also-"
*RUMBLE!!!!!
Before Lucius could finish his sentence, an earthquake shook the entire place as Shiro quickly adjusted herself so that she didn't fall over.
"What the f*ck?" She muttered with a frown since she could feel a sudden surge of demonic energy towards where the anchor used to be.
Rushing out of the room, she could see Nan Tian with a deep frown on his face.
"Seems like that man wasn't too pleased about you getting rid of the corpses." He said while showing her an image on his phone.
It was quite blurry but a giant magic circle could be seen just above the anchor site.
Narrowing her eyes, Shiro could faintly make out the silhouette of a cloaked figure adding more magic circles into the mix.
"What is he planning?" Shiro muttered.
"I'm not sure but I'm not willing to find out." Nan Tian shook his head.
"Well do you want to finish what we started then?" Shiro asked with a smile.
"Sure. But if things are becoming dangerous, we're leaving immediately. You shouldn't underestimate this man." Nan Tian reminded.
After all, Nan Tian knew that the man was someone who wanted to make him fall and Shiro was the catalyst. This could be bait but at the same time, letting him mess with an anchor site could spell a bigger danger to this world.
Nodding her head, Shiro dragged Nan Tian and Yin into her rift and brought them out of the site.
Flying through the air, the three of them could see a black cloud approaching from the distance. However, it was not a 'normal' cloud but rather one that was made up of thousands of densely packed demons.
Suddenly, a black crystal descended from the sky and slammed into the anchor site. Recognising it to be similar to the anchor that she had destroyed, Shiro had a bad feeling about its appearance since it was ten times as big as the previous anchor…