Seeing Furmis stay silent during this, Shiro could only shake her head in pity.
"Well I suppose I'll see you again in the future." Shiro smiled and swiped her hand down.
Glowing with an ominous light, a blizzard suddenly encased the entire Celestial Garden. Anything the snow flakes touched would be turned to ice and shattered into dust.
Seeing this, Furmis tried her best to resist the blizzard. Slamming her hands down, fire erupted out from the ground around her.
However, all this accomplished was to delay the inevitable.
Snapping her fingers, the snowflakes were soon enchanted with Celestial Path and cancelled out any spell that they came into contact with. Pushing the fire back, Furmis' body was rendered immobile as ice spread throughout her body.
Understanding that the first anchor was the most important, panic filled Furmis' mind. If her avatar died now and Shiro destroyed the anchor, there was a good chance that she wouldn't be able to properly integrate into this world when the new age arrives. And should that happen, she'll be lost in the void.
"I'll tell you everything! Spare me please!" She tried to shout out but her voice was quiet.
"Oh? Now you want to talk? Interesting." Shiro narrowed her eyes.
Waving her hand, she dismissed the Celestial Garden and landed in front of the frozen Furmis.
Snapping her fingers, Celestial Path enchanted ice chains wrapped around her and stopped her from using any spells.
"Tell me everything you know." Shiro demanded as she grabbed Furmis' chin.
"On the condition that you don't harm the anchor."
"I don't think you understand the current situation. You can tell me what I know and I may be merciful. Likewise, you can try to bargain and I'll just kill you. The anchor seems pretty important to you. I wonder what would happen if I destroyed it like you said." Shiro 'smiled' as Furmis felt a chill down her spine.
Understanding that regardless of what she did, death was the result, Furmis wanted to end things her way.
Even though she couldn't use her mana outside of her body, she could still try to self-destruct.
Naturally, Shiro understood this and shook her head.
"Seems like you're not going to come quietly. I do have to warn you though, I won't let you die that easily." Shiro chuckled as nanobots started to flow into Furmis' body. Draining the mana from inside her body, the nanobots started to eat away at her bones so that she couldn't move.
Controlling the nanobots so that Furmis' screams couldn't be heard, Shiro released the chains as her body collapsed on the floor.
"Lil' Tian, take Attie and Yin. I don't want them to see the next scene. Torture is bad for children after all." Shiro glanced back as she summoned Attie from her mana realm.
"Ok, don't get too excited though. There will probably be people coming soon." Nan Tian reminded while trying to pick Attie up.
However, Attie only dodged Nan Tian's hands and waddled over to Yin.
Shrugging her shoulders with a smug grin, Yin walked away with Attie in hand.
Shaking his head, Nan Tian followed.
Now that Shiro was alone with Furmis, she could start extracting information through torture.
"Let's make sure that you don't die randomly now shall we?" Shiro smiled and created a small collar from her nanobots.
Making the skill chip which included the Life Fire, Shiro dragged Furmis' body away into the corner and dug out a cave of which she could start to make her tools.
With her torture room complete, Shiro slowly approached the collapsed Fire Queen and strapped her onto the operation table.
"This could have been so much easier." She whispered into Furmis' ears as the first blade dug deep into her spine.
###
Walking out of the room with a satisfied smile, Shiro had received all the information that she had wanted.
"To think that the queens are actually chosen that way… quite interesting." She muttered with a smile.
According to Furmis, each world will produce a single 'queen' or rather, the qualifications to become a queen. Naturally, each of these worlds must be one that has experienced the age of demons and gods.
Meaning, her qualification came from the fact that Aria had experienced the age later down the line. This qualification then followed her to the current world, allowing her to become the queen.
Once you become a queen, you are bound to a separate dimension to build up your forces until the age of demons and gods. Once the age arrives, you will try your best to occupy a part of the world or else you'll be erased. Naturally, in this dimension, the queens are able to invade each other in order to absorb a portion of their forces or eliminate the rivals.
However, you are not automatically granted access to the new world affected by the age of demons and gods just because you are a queen. No, you must place down anchors to solidify your 'presence' in that world. Without anchors, you are automatically expelled. Depending on how many anchors a queen has, their influence grows.
If a queen has only 1 anchor, their influence could at most, affect a single city. If they have twenty, a country. At the same time, placing more anchors is risky since they are maintained through sharing a portion of your power. If you have 50 anchors, it also means that a good portion of your strength is missing, making any fights that you have with other queens risky.
Should the first anchor be destroyed, you'll lose all qualification to join the age of demons and gods so people need to be careful of where they place this anchor. Naturally, you can't just place it in the middle of nowhere. The anchor requires the mana of 'players' of the system to firmly secure itself. If the anchor doesn't get the necessary amount of mana, it'll disappear and the queen will be disqualified.
Hence why it was a must for the first anchor to be placed near a city. It was the queen's job to ensure that the anchor is well protected so that people can't tamper with it.
The only information the queens are given when trying to place anchors is the mana density of the surrounding area along with a rough guess of how many people are nearby.
Shiro did ask about whether or not there were 'kings' but Furmis denied the possibility. She had already experienced the age of demons and gods several times and there were no presences such as 'kings' with the same authority as queens.
However, her biggest reward for the torture session was understanding the reason for why the age of demons and gods even exist.
It was to test the world and see if it could handle the power of multiple worlds fusing into one as well as the presences of those that have attained divinity.
Should the inhabitants be low levelled, the world would crumble at the descent of these divine entities. On the other hand, should the inhabitants be high enough level and the world passes the first test, a giant competition of sorts would happen between the queens, the gods and the demons.
They will need to try to occupy as much of the world as they could and should they succeed, they will receive the highest form of reward. Unfortunately, Furmis didn't know what it was since no one had achieved that. The world could not handle the extended period of fighting between higher beings and eventually, self-destruct.
Meaning, there were several things for Shiro to consider if she wanted to survive the age of demons and gods but the main goal was for her to dominate the entire world and put it under her rule. If not, the world will be doomed.
In addition to this, she remembered what the Celestial Empress had told her in the trial. With her world being one of the last 'gardens' to experience this extinction level event and it could potentially be the last.
Looking at the anchor in front of her, Shiro narrowed her eyes and pressed her palm against the surface.
"The more queens I eliminate now, the better it would be for the future since the stress caused onto this world will be eliminated." She muttered and sent a shockwave through the crystal, shattering it into pieces.
*RUMBLE!!!!
With the destruction of the anchor, the walls around them started to collapse as Shiro quickly looked for the others.
Finding them just outside of the room, she grabbed them into her rift and dashed out of the site.