Chapter 106: 106

In the morning, Michelle, Ivona, Kieran, and Anastasia all went into the dungeon. That was the first time Anastasia was there, so she wasn’t really used to the nasty smell, but she was able to bear it and proceeded with everyone else to the last cell, where Ferdinand was. Since Michelle had last seen him, he had changed. He was curled up in her corner, his eyes wide, and his hands around his knees, mumbling something all the time.

“Hey!” Kieran kicked one of the cell bars to get Ferdinand’s attention.

Hearing Kieran’s voice and the kick against the bars, Ferdinand turned to look at the group, his face clearly showing panic and despair. “Please get me out of here! I’ll tell you all I know! Just get me out of here!” he shouted as he grabbed the bars. “I won’t lie again! I’ll be truthful! I promise!” he continued.

Seeing how Ferdinand was acting, Kieran and Ivona looked at each other. Michelle did tell them that she had manipulated Ferdinand quite a bit, but they didn’t expect him to be in that state. They thought he would just answer their questions more easily, not that he would straight-up admit that he had lied to them before, without them even questioning him about it. That just showed how much control Michelle was able to exert over someone’s mind.

Unlike Kieran and Ivona, Anastasia wasn’t told that Michelle went to traumatize Ferdinand, so she was shocked when she saw his expression, filled with despair, and the way he was acting.

Noticing Kieran and Ivona glance at each other, she understood they knew something but weren’t expecting it to be to that extent. So the only one who could have done it, and the only one who was calm, was Michelle. “You did that?” Anastasia asked, whispering, as she leaned closer to Michelle.

And Michelle nodded. “Yes!” she smiled. “But the results are better than I expected,” she added in a whisper.

Meanwhile, Kieran and Ivona started interrogating Ferdinand. “What did you lie about?” Kieran asked.

But Ferdinand just kept wailing: “Please! Get me out of here! I don’t want to stay here!”

Slowly, annoyance grew in Ivona’s heart, and Ferdinand’s refusal to answer made her snap. She put her hand between the bars and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, pulling him closer, so that he was pressed against the cold metal bars. “If you don’t answer the questions, I’ll make sure you stay here forever and that someone comes to torture you every day!” she hissed coldly before letting go of him and wiping her hands in disgust.

“So?” Kieran lifted a brow, with a tilt of his head. “Do tell me what you lied to us about!” he said with a cold glint in his eyes. It was clear that if Ferdinand didn’t listen, Kieran wouldn’t stop Ivona from carrying out her threat. He could also help her with it.

Understanding that his life was on the line, Ferndiand gulped, his throat dry with fear and despair, before he started explaining what he had lied about. In the end, what he said was the same as what David Elether had told them in the auction house. The Ostrich family only wanted the Soul Seeking Pendants and nothing else, so they sold everything else, except things deemed usable in the upper realm, to the black market.

“What do you need the Soul Seeking Pendants for?” Kieran continued asking even after Ferdinand told them everything they knew from David.

“Well… The pendants can control thousands of people, so we can use them to create an army of cultivators,” Ferdinand spoke, his voice trembling with despair. All he wished for was to get out of the dungeon, so he answered right away.

“Do you know what the pendants are originally meant for?” Kieran didn’t stop asking.

“For controlling people, or?” Ferdinand didn’t know anything about that.

Seeing that, Kieran frowned a bit. “And do the others from your family know?” he asked.

“They should know the same things I do, but lately, the cultivators sent from the upper realm have been acting strangely, as if they found out something new,” Ferdinand spoke with some uncertainty in his voice.

With a simple nod, Kieran turned to look at Michelle and the rest, his expression clearly showing a question about what to do with Ferdinand after he had already answered all they were curious about.

Not even bothered enough to speak, Michelle motioned with her chin toward the dungeon entrance, making her thoughts clear.

Outside the cave, Kieran frowned a bit. “Do you think the cultivators he mentioned found out that the Soul Seeking Pendants are with us, or that they are used for sacrificial rituals?” he asked seriously, clearly not liking either idea.

“The first case would be better…” Ivona spoke with a sigh. “That way, they would be at least a bit cautious, since they would think we have a whole army of cultivators from the lower realm at our disposal.”

Standing at the sidelines, Anastasia still didn’t fully know what was going on. Her memories hadn’t returned yet, and some suspicions were starting to arise in her mind.

For example, she knew that Michelle and the rest weren’t trying to investigate the black market because of the “assassination attempt” on her, and she also realized that she was, most probably, not a target of the black market. She had two big reasons why she thought so.

Firstly, Michelle was clearly friends with David, who owned part of the black market, so if she wanted to, and the story was true, she could easily find out why the black market was after her.

And second, from the start, in the black market, they were investigating the Ostrich family and the artifacts they were selling, which had nothing to do with the “assassination attempt”.

It was quite easy to notice, but since Kieran and the rest never hid anything from Anastasia, she didn’t think much of it, as she felt good with them, and she was enjoying herself. But by just thinking about all the events once, she noticed all the loopholes, which even seemed to have been on purpose. It was like they wanted her to find out that they knew more about her, that they most probably knew about her past she didn’t remember. And maybe they were even involved in the past.

While Kieran and Ivona discussed any further plans, and Anastasia observed them with a frown slowly creasing her eyebrows, Michelle stared at her from the side, something resembling excitement dancing in her purple eyes.

She knew she had to wait more, but deep inside, she already wanted to give Anastasia back her memories and see how she would act after realizing that, because of Michelle, she ended up in prison for a while. And, naturally, she wanted to see the full extent of her potential and abilities, the darkness of them which could only be seen if Anastasia had all her memories.

After discussing things with Kieran, Ivona turned to look at Michelle and Anastasia, and saw the glint in Michelle’s eyes, making her tilt her head in confusion a bit. She somehow understood that Michelle wanted to give Anastasia back her memories, but she didn’t think it was the right time for it. She thought the right time would come after a long time, definitely when they would already be in the lower realm, or higher.

“Michelle, how about we leave Ferdinand alive and question him about all he knows about the Ostrich family and their connections in the upper, or any other, realm?” Ivona asked as she decided to distract Michelle for a while.

Hearing that, Michelle nodded a bit. “Sounds good, but give him a while to calm down. Right now, he’s in despair because we left him alone in there, so communication with him would be like talking to a rock,” she said with a lazy smile. “You can try, but nothing will happen.”

“Now that I think about it…?” Ivona narrowed her eyes a bit. “Will we leave him there? Won’t he just drown in his despair?” she asked. “What if he kills himself so he no longer has to go through any more torture? What would we do then?”

“Don’t worry about that…” Michelle smiled with a shake of her head. “A bastard like that values his life over anything, and he had too strong a will to just give up so easily. He’ll try something first before completely falling apart.”

“How can you be so sure? If you push someone close to the edge, it’s not that hard to push them off. What if he suddenly becomes aggressive?” Ivona still wasn’t convinced.

But Michelle just chuckled. “He’s smart, and knows that if he died now, right away, we would divide his things between us, so he refuses to die.”

Nodding a bit, Ivona pinched her nose bridge. “Since you say so…” she sighed. “But make sure you protect him if something happens at night,” she added, her frown slowly, very slowly easing, and her expression relaxing.

Cloaking herself in her dark element spirit’s energy, Michelle went back into the dungeon to observe Ferdinand, in case he tried something, while Ivona went back to the training grounds to spar with the knights again. Anastasia wanted to go rest, but Kieran stopped her to talk to her. He was curious about the gray raven feathers on her arms.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep