Looking at the main quest that was updated on her system, Shiro furrowed her brows.

"Anyways, the person with the Celestial Armour should be on his way to the capital right as we speak. He'll take a break on the road and that's when you can steal his armour. True me, since I made things shorter but harder, you'll need all of the celestial weapons to deal with the main enemy. There's not much help I can give other than a single hint in hopes of you fixing the problem of split soul strands. 'Gateways.'." The Empress said with a serious face.

"Gateways?" Kuromi raised her eyebrows.

"Yes. You'll need to keep this in mind if you want to sort your strands out and make them efficient. That way, you can use all 5 of the weapons without draining all of your energy." The Empress nodded.

"Right then, that's about all I can tell you. I need to do my own thing and get some answers myself but first, one last question for you Shiro."

"Go on."

"As an Empress, shouldn't you have your underlings help you do things? I know you're getting Kuromi's help but one person compared to a nation's worth of help is a big difference." The Empress said as Shiro paused for a moment.

"Well… I don't like relying on other people too much. Unless you have my absolute trust, I won't count on them since the only one you know 100% of is yourself." Shiro replied with a soft smile.

"But being a ruler is a lonely throne if you keep that thought." The Empress frowned.

"I don't need a lot of subjects. I already have a few that I trust. Plus, is it also not the role of the ruler to take the burdens on themselves so that the people in their nation don't have to? It's a little cheesy but it's kind of like Atlas who supports the heaven on his shoulders. In a way, I feel most comfortable when I take the burdens by myself." Shiro shrugged.

"Of course, that's not to say that I'm entirely benevolent since I wouldn't risk EVERYTHING for people I don't know. But if it is within my grasp, I still want to try to help them out. In the end, regardless of what you do as a person, people wouldn't care too much other than talking about a few pleasantries. Unless you DIRECTLY help a person out, they wouldn't feel grateful at heart. It's like seeing a disaster on the other side of the world and a hero managing to solve it without casualties. Sure you may think 'oh that's nice' but you don't feel too deep of a connection. Hence why it's never worth it in my opinion. Why save others when you can't save yourself? It may be self-sacrifice but if you're alive, you can save more people." She chuckled as the Empress stood still for a moment.

". . .I suppose in one way or another, that's also correct. Just know that there is only so much you can do in the coming age if you take everyone on by yourself." The Empress said before disappearing from her spot.

"Well then, I suppose we have our next destination huh?" Shiro chuckled before looking over at Kuromi.

"Mn…" Kuromi nodded her head however she still had quite a few concerns. For now though, they had to focus on quickly completing this trial in order to class up.

Regrouping with the rest of the Shadow Guards, Shiro informed them about a problem in the capital. Explain how the next part of their journey would be dangerous, she warned them about a high chance of death and if they wanted to back out, they could since she could probably handle it if given some time.

"Second young miss, what are you talking about? Have you forgotten that you two and everyone else here is our reason to live. If we let you go alone then we wouldn't be very good guards now would we?" Phillip chuckled as Shiro only smiled.

"I did warn you about a high chance of death. Since y'all are that ballsy then you better live ok?" She grinned.

Leaving the battlefield without caring about the final outcome, they made their way towards the capital city.

Kuromi spent this entire time completely focused on drafting up a new spell so Shiro decided to sit on the roof of the carriage and look up at the sky to pass time.

Thinking back to everything that had happened with the system, Shiro couldn't help but feel as though she'd been given a special privilege of sorts. First was the fact that she could retrieve Lisandra from the light goddess and have Lisandra's information erased from everyone's memories despite the fact that they had also completed the quest. The second is her dual classing capabilities along with the fact that she had essentially reincarnated twice now including Kuromi's life.

Of course, there was also the chance that she could just be thinking about random things and this had already happened to other people.

'If I don't get stronger and level up, there's a good chance for the spirit race to be wiped out huh? If that happened, Nimue and Iziuel wouldn't be too happy about this. It would also be quite unfair for them to finally have a queen after centuries of slavery only for them to be wiped out in the next generation.' Shiro thought to herself as she sighed.

There was also the problem of having humans survive and how the party would react to that. With Kuromi's or rather, her family living in this world, it would be bad if they were killed as well.

"I think I need to try making the flying fortress/city again. Right now, I'm only level 100 so the best I can do is probably a flying shack or some sh*t. To make the fortress, I'll need to be around level 300 to 400… after my class up, I should be able to start making larger mechs to hunt now high level natural monsters on top of heavy weaponry to speed through dungeons for more EXP." She muttered before closing her eyes.

After staying in this world for quite a while, she started to miss seeing the faces of her party members.

'Before I came into this trial, Chen Yu and Madison were both level 101. Depending on the flow of time in this place, I might return to see their levels shoot up once more. I do wonder what the other's classes would be though. Lisandra is synced up to me so she'll class up when I complete this quest but what about Yin? Questions for later I suppose…'

As she continued to think about these questions, she soon fell into a light slumber.

###

Dismissing her avatar, the Empress arrived back in her own void of sorts and brought up the system.

"Requesting information on the current garden!" She called out.

[Access denied. As the Celestial Empress of a previous garden, you are not allowed to interfere with the progress of the current garden.]

"I just want to know what's happening out there! Shouldn't there still be a few decades left until the age of demons and gods?! Why is it so soon!" She called out once more.

[Access denied. Your privilege level is not high enough for you to know about that information.]

"Then what the hell can I know!"

[This is the last garden before reset.]

Seeing the message, the Empress' heart sunk in shock since this shouldn't be the case. Even if the current world fails the test of the next generation, this shouldn't be the last garden. There should still be a few others left.

"No… that's impossible. System! There should still be several gardens left after this right? Where did they go?"

[Negative. There are no more gardens as this is the only remaining garden.]

Taking a deep breath, the Empress gritted her teeth and decided to go beyond her privileges. Once she does this, her contract would be broken and she'll be erased but it no longer matters since this was the last garden. Once this fails, she'd be erased anyways so she might as well use her life to boost up the chances of success.

"You better not fail me Shiro." She said as she furiously tapped away at the system.

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