After sleeping for a short while, s.h.i.+ro felt incredibly refreshed as she yawned and rubbed her eyes.

Looking around her, she saw that it was around late afternoon. The sun was going to set soon and they were about to set up a camp.

"Well that was quite satisfying. Let's see… Big Sis, any progress?" s.h.i.+ro asked as she leaned over the edge of the roof and looked into the carriage.

Seeing s.h.i.+ro pop her head out from above the carriage, Kuromi only chuckled and poked her forehead.

"Yes I have. For my lil sis who's been sleeping soundlessly above the carriage, I have finalised the spell for you. Well… I say finalised but it's still a prototype of sorts. However, it's much better than the spell that we have. I'll need to do something from my end though."

"Oh? And what's that?" s.h.i.+ro tilted her head curiously.

"Hmm… it's a bit embarra.s.sing to say so come in here and I'll tell you." Kuromi said while glancing at the shadow guards.

Nodding her head, s.h.i.+ro flipped herself into the carriage.

"So what do you need to do?" s.h.i.+ro asked.

"I need you to take your dress off and expose your back to me. I'll be flus.h.i.+ng my energy through your body in order to create the 'gateways'." Kuromi said as s.h.i.+ro paused for a moment and nodded her head.

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"Sure that's fine. But like… do I need to take off the entire dress or can I just like… pull it down a little." s.h.i.+ro asked with a slight blush since taking off her dress would make her feel like an exhibitionist and that was not what she wanted to be.

"Oh of course but your ENTIRE back needs to be exposed." Kuromi replied as s.h.i.+ro nodded.

Looking around, she flicked her wrist and encased the entire inner area with a shadow so that no one could see what was happening inside.

Pulling down the top of her dress, she kept it around her waist as she exposed her n.a.k.e.d back to Kuromi.

"Huh… now that I look at it, my physical body is quite alluring huh? Despite not seeing anything too revealing this is quite provoking." Kuromi raised her eyebrows as s.h.i.+ro's smile twitched.

"Erm, big sis? Can you do what you need to do before I put my dress back on?" s.h.i.+ro asked.

"Sure sure. Right then…" Kuromi chuckled as she pressed her hands against s.h.i.+ro's back.

Closing her eyes, she started to funnel her energy through s.h.i.+ro's body. Since they each had one half of the soul strand, this process was quite easy since it was akin to moving energy around in your own body.

Furrowing her brows, s.h.i.+ro felt a little strange from the changes but said nothing and allowed Kuromi to finish.

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After a short while, s.h.i.+ro could feel Kuromi remove her hand from her back and sighed out in relief.

"Alright, it should be done now. Get dressed and give your energy a try." Kuromi smiled as s.h.i.+ro nodded her head.

Once she was fully dressed, she deactivated the shadow and immediately noticed the change to her energy.

"Wait… isn't this like mana links?" s.h.i.+ro asked as she widened her eyes.

"Yup. I used mana links as a reference when designing the gateways. Paired with the spell that our 'father' had left us, I managed to make it so that the energy doesn't go through our soul strand but instead a separate path." Kuromi said with a grin.

"Of course, your reservoir has not changed so you are still restricted in terms of the total amount of energy you have but you should find out that you can fight for longer without too much worry."

"I see… what, you did it to yourself?" s.h.i.+ro asked as Kuromi shook her head.

"It's a two person job lil sis. Unless you want me to explain the entire process to you, I'm fine with how I am right now. I don't need to fight as much as you do." Kuromi smiled.

"Well I still want you to protect yourself if something happens so this is beneficial to you. Plus, you can a.s.sist me when we fight the corruption." s.h.i.+ro suggested.

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Hearing her suggestion, Kuromi thought for a bit before nodding her head.

"Alright, in that case then this is what I did…"

Listening to Kuromi's explanation of the process, s.h.i.+ro found that it was relatively simple and it was just a matter of finding out the process first.

Activating her shadows once more, she watched as Kuromi took off her dress and pushed her hair aside.

Just as she was about to help Kuromi create a few gateways, s.h.i.+ro had an idea as she had a grin on her face.

Activating her ice element, s.h.i.+ro pressed her palms against Kuromi's unguarded back.

"HYA!" Crying out in shock, Kuromi almost jumped off her chair since she did not expect two cold palms to come into contact with her back.

"Ahahaha! Big sis, I didn't know that you could make a cute sound like 'hya'." s.h.i.+ro laughed as Kuromi blushed.

"Anyways, I'll be serious now." She said after calming down.

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Placing her hands on Kuromi's back properly this time, s.h.i.+ro started to construct the gates.

After a short while, she finished adding the gates and let Kuromi get dressed.

"Right then, now that's sorted, I think we're going to be setting up a camp soon. The sun is setting and we need to start preparing some dinner." Kuromi said while glancing out of the carriage.

"Oh before that, where do you think the last person with the weapon is? The Empress did say that she'll make it easier for us to find him. Something along the lines of taking a break on the road so that it's easier for us to 'borrow' his armour."

"She did say that but we haven't seen or sensed anyone that could fit the bill right now so I guess we can only wait to see what happens." Kuromi shrugged before getting off the carriage.

Going around the back, she brought out a few utensils so that she could cook.

s.h.i.+ro only smiled as she followed behind her.

The night pa.s.sed safely as they made sure to get a few guards on night duty in case of ambush.

Waking up early in the morning, they resumed their journey to the capital.

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However, in the distance, they could see ominous dark skies that were tainted in red. The sun could no longer be seen anymore due to the numerous clouds.

"Hmm… wait isn't that just peachy." s.h.i.+ro said as Kuromi nodded her head with a frown.

"If this is the result of one person/monster, I'd say they're probably more powerful than you in the outside world since they can affect the surroundings with their presence alone. You're not at full fighting capability either since a lot of your weapons and skills are unusable right now."

"Well I guess it's better than hearing about literal Ragnarok happening in our world." s.h.i.+ro joked but Kuromi could tell that she was quite serious.

Before she could reply, they saw a few flying figures swooping towards them.

"Careful! Ambus.h.!.+" s.h.i.+ro called out as she flicked her hand and sent out five bolts of lightning.

During this, the Celestial Jewel glowed softly, reducing the energy needed to send these bolts out.

*KRs.h.!.+

"Eh?" Seeing the lightning strike against the figures and splitting them in half, s.h.i.+ro was rather surprised at their effectiveness.

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"Was… that meant to happen?" She asked in slight confusion since that was meant to be a warning shot.

". . ." Kuromi didn't say anything other than going up to where the corpses of the figures had fallen so that she could examine it.

Once she was at the spot, she couldn't help but frown in disgust.

The corpse was this weird mish mash of beast parts that seemed to be strung together haphazardly. As for its condition, it was already decaying quite a bit so Kuromi knew that the host had been dead for quite a while, hence why it was so easy for s.h.i.+ro to 'kill' it with a warning shot.

From the centre of the corpse, she could see a parasite of sorts that was mutating more of the body parts as b.e.s.t.i.a.l claws seemed to form from the separated flesh.

Immediately freezing the corpse and shattering it into dusk, Kuromi made sure that she didn't inhale anything in case the parasite infected her.

Looking around, she could see that the ground was drained of life as there were no signs of fresh greenery. Only decay and emptiness could be seen.