Chapter 533 - Vicera

"To make the competition fair, both of you will receive the same information about the last known location of the monster ok?" Nan Tian suggested with a smile as Shiro nodded her head.

"Sure. Though I doubt it'll do me any good since you know the effects I have on monsters." Shiro chuckled.

Smiling at her statement, Nan Tian knew that the monster would probably try to stay as far away from Shiro as possible.

However, seeing her confident gaze, he knew that she had her own plans so he didn't worry about it.

Confused as to what they were talking about, Huan Er only ignored it while Cai Xiu shared the information. From the intel that she had gathered, the last known location of the monster was towards the north of this city. There, it was seen attacking a few adventurers when they stopped it from approaching another village.

Showing the two a brief clip of the monster attack, Cai Xiu waited patiently.

Looking at the image of the monster, Shiro couldn't help but raise her eyebrows after seeing its appearance. Its size was huge as it resembled a giant lizard man. Only mixed with nightmare fuel.

With protruding teeth coming from parts of his body, this monster also had an additional set of arms coming from his back. Instead of hands at the end of these arms, there were lobster claws instead with sharp spines on the sides.

In addition to this, she could also see a split from his jaw to his stomach which could be opened to reveal more teeth and spiked tentacles that seemed to latch onto its prey.

"The hell is this thing even called?" Shiro asked as she furrowed her brows from disgust.

"According to the adventurers that came into contact with it, it was apparently called the Vicera. There aren't any records about it so we can assume that it's a mutated monster." Cai Xiu replied as Shiro nodded.

"Got it, It's probably quite easy to spot this thing since it's huge." Shiro chuckled.

"Not quite. There are reports that it can go invisible and disguise the sounds that it emits to make it seem much further than expected. What may sound like 5 miles away may just be a few meters from you. Naturally, it uses this to escape any attempts at its life." Cai Xiu warned since this had caught quite a few people off guard when they tried to hunt this monster down.

"If that's everything, are the both of you ready?" Nan Tian said with a smile.

"Yup." Both Shiro and Huan Er nodded at the same time.

"Then the competition begins now."

Just as he said this, Huan Er dashed towards the north of the city as quickly as she could. On the other hand, Shiro was just strolling at a leisurely pace.

Since her aura could scare off the monster, she wasn't in a rush to find it. Letting Attie back into her mana realm, Shiro flew into the air and started to climb higher.

Once she was satisfied by how high she was, she created a sniper. Making sure that the scope was designed to detect anything that was in stealth along with detecting fluctuations of mana, Shiro waited patiently.

{Not gonna lie, this seems a little unfair no?} Nimue raised her eyebrows.

'Not quite. I mean, the monster would just run away from me so I'm merely observing from a distance until I see it appear. Once I do, I'll shoot a bullet crafted from my Astral Rift attunement. Remember how I told you that I could create a portal with this technique I made in the trial when I was with Kuromi? I'm going to use that to close the gap.' Shiro replied with a smile.

{So basically you're going to sit back and wait for other people to do the hard work for you? And once they find the monster, you're just gonna swoop in and take it?}

'You make it sound so bad when you put it like that.' Shiro chuckled.

{That's because it is. *Hais* Forget it, I'll just pray that you don't drive this Huan Er chick crazy.} Nimue rolled her eyes.

'Oh don't worry about it~ It'll be fine~' Shiro grinned.

Focusing her attention back on the task at hand, Shiro managed to spot Huan Er in the outskirts of the forest.

Waving her hand, a few mana wires came out of her fingertips as they latched onto a few birds in the sky.

Understanding that Huan Er was using birds to scout out the situation, Shiro ignored her and looked for the monster through her scope.

Unfortunately, it seems like luck was not on her side since the monster refused to reveal itself. There were no signs of stealth being used nor were there any traces of the monster. It was almost as if it had just decided to give up on hunting today.

Furrowing her brows, Shiro decided to create a drone that can search for her without alerting the monster. Not only that, but it could also search the underground just in case the monster escapes to a cavern or something.

Sending out the drones, Shiro made herself a bed in the air and yawned slightly.

"Man… I wanted some exercise but this is just annoying. The monster won't even show itself." Shiro pouted slightly in annoyance.

"I would be too if you were coming after my life." Nan Tian chuckled while flying next to her. Due to their current altitude, they were quite hard to spot from the ground.

"UWAH! Damn! Where the hell did you come from?" Shiro asked as she was slightly surprised by his arrival.

"From the ground?" He raised his eyebrows.

"No sh*t sherlock. Let me change my question then, why did you come up here? I thought you weren't allowed to interfere?" Shiro asked once more.

"I'm not interfering. I'm just talking to you. So I'm guessing from your tone that this monster is avoiding you?" He asked as Shiro shuffled over slightly so he could sit down on the bed.

"Yeah. My race and class is quite annoying when anything I want to kill just automatically avoids me like a plague." Shiro replied.

"Well in some cases, this might be good."

"True, but unfortunately, this aint one of them." Shiro shrugged.

"Do you still think you'll be able to win when the monster appears?" He asked curiously.

"Oh definitely. It's like whack a mole. Once this idiot appears, I'll be able to get him straight away." Shiro chuckled while patting her sniper.

"But I thought you wanted to test out your blade? Why a sniper?"

"It's transport. I shoot out a bullet that allows me to teleport into close range and surprise the monster." Shiro grinned. Since the monster could sense her presence, it would run away the moment it sensed her. Therefore, this was the perfect tool to close the gap.

"I see… Honestly, if I was an enemy and I knew that the sniper did, I'd be more afraid of you than the bullet. At least I might survive with the bullet." Nan Tian chuckled.

"Are you underestimating the power of my guns?" Shiro raised her eyebrow while glancing towards him.

"Not really. It's just that you're much scarier than a bullet." Nan Tian replied with a shrug.

Just as Shiro was about to reply, her drones reported back that it had discovered the monster lurking underground. Right now, it's size had grown exponentially and it was slowly making its way towards the sea in order to escape.

"Seems like you found your target." Nan Tian smiled as Shiro nodded her head.

"In that case then I won't bother you any longer." Nan Tian chuckled and stood up.

"Oh right, are you sure it's ok for me to take this monster? Wouldn't the sect want Huan Er to control it?" Shiro asked.

"Don't worry about it. With your contributions in the last battle, most of the elders don't care if a monster or two was taken out by you."

"Wait, 'most'? Does that mean there are a few who aren't so happy with my help?" Shiro raised her eyebrow.

"I won't beat around the bush. Yes, there are. But I'm dealing with them right now since they were just annoyed about the fact that I used a tier 7 artefact without consulting with them." Nan Tian smiled before flickering away from his spot.

Furrowing her brows, Shiro wondered if she should pay them a visit as well after she dealt with the Shadow Temple. After all, he did use a precious item in order to help her out.

'Hmm… I'll ask him about them later. For now though, I got an annoying monster to deal with.'