Chapter 124: 124

Holding one of the eyeballs in her hand, with the ice glove still on, Michelle narrowed her eyes. She formed a speck of her ice fire between her fingers and let it envelop the eyeball. She wanted to figure out why the boxes and eyeballs weren’t harmed when she let her ice flame engulf them all at once, so she thought about burning the eyeballs and boxes separately. Because what if either the eyeballs or the boxes were the reason why the other thing couldn’t burn?

And to her pleasant surprise, when the ice fire touched the eyeball, it froze within a matter of seconds. The liquid on the surface of the eyeball was a bit different from the liquid within, so their thermal expansion coefficients were slightly different. The liquid on the surface ended up being smaller when frozen compared to the liquid within, so cracks started appearing all over the eyeball. Small, jagged lines spread outward like a fractured mirror, distorting the once-smooth sphere until it looked ready to shatter completely.

Seeing that, Michelle lifted a brow. Since her fire could destroy the eyeballs, the boxes were most likely the reason she failed to do so before. So she emptied one and picked it up, enveloping it in her flames. But just as she had guessed, the box remained untouched. Not a single scorch mark appeared, and even the faint etchings on its surface stayed completely intact.

Michelle started carefully examining the box, sending wisps of her consciousness into it to check even its inside, but she didn’t find anything for a long time. With how small the box was, it was surprising that finding a clue was so difficult, but it was also understandable—there were numerous ways to investigate the box, and trying them all out was time-consuming. Her fingers traced every groove, every subtle indentation, yet nothing gave away its secrets.

She tried to damage it with her spirit and soul energy, both alone and combined. She tried sending the energies into it to probe it. She even tried brute force. But nothing brought results—she was merely ruling out possibilities. In the end, she was only left with physically examining the whole box once again, but no matter how she turned it over and how much she grazed her fingers over it, she didn’t find anything strange.

When Michelle couldn’t discover anything for quite some time, she felt her contract with Cold Flame stir. Then, she received a message from him, asking if she was okay, because she had been in the pathway for a long time, and Ivona, Anastasia, and Kieran were getting worried.

Hearing that, Michelle stored the boxes with eyeballs in her spatial ring to study later and started walking toward the exit. The cat no longer stopped her, so it probably didn’t know about any more hidden places in the pathway. But it still followed Michelle. From the first time it caught a whiff of her scent, it had instantly taken a liking to her. In the cat’s simple mind, someone with such a nice scent had to be a good person—not like the smelly, bad people who had locked it up behind the wall when it had done nothing wrong. Its tail flicked contentedly as it padded behind her, staying close enough that its fur occasionally brushed against her leg.

Michelle summoned her dark element spirit energy to form a black mist around her head again, so she wouldn’t have to look at all the jars of organs as she walked to the exit. There, she used her Shadow Spirit Steps to jump out of the holes, letting the black mist disappear as she landed next to Cold Flame and the rest. The rush of fresh air hit her at once, carrying with it the lingering scent of smoke and damp stone from the ruined mansion around them.

“What did you find there…?” Ivona asked, sitting on the ground among the ruins of the Ostrich family’s mansion, recalling what she had seen when she wanted to follow Michelle into the pathway. Then, as she shifted her gaze to Michelle, she noticed that her eyes were completely black. “You absorbed more void?” she asked in surprise.

At Ivona’s question, Kieran, Cold Flame, and Anastasia also noticed Michelle’s black eyes and grew curious. The deep blackness within them seemed endless, like staring into the abyss itself.

“Ah, yes…” Michelle nodded slightly, rubbing her eyes so they could adjust to the light in the outside world. “How long was I down there?” she asked.

“You went in yesterday morning, so about a day and a half,” Kieran answered. “Anyway, how did you end up absorbing more void? And are you fine now?”

Michelle explained to the group what she had found in the pathway, and they were all disgusted. Ivona had already described what she had seen at the entrance, but none of them had imagined that the passage filled with dissected organs would be so long. The very thought of it sent a chill down Ivona’s spine, making her shift uncomfortably where she sat.

Michelle’s discovery of the black cat was also surprising. Like Michelle, Kieran and the others wondered why the Ostrich family had created something so grotesque just to hide a small cat from the world. It could shapeshift and seemed intelligent, but that was the only thing remarkable about it—perhaps aside from being a monster.

“What do we do now?” Anastasia asked after taking in the information about the pathway. “Do you want to go back down there?” she added. “Or are we just going to destroy it?”

“Let’s destroy it…” Michelle said after a moment. “It’s a disgusting place, and while investigating further might give us more insight into the Ostrich family, it isn’t worth it. And… I won’t let a place like this exist under my watch.”

The group then discussed how to destroy the pathway until Michelle remembered how she had buried Rivenaar in the cave. Back then, she had used logs and ice because her proficiency with the ice element was much higher than with the dark element, which she had only just gained that day. But now, her proficiency with the dark element was excellent, making it perfect for blowing up a long underground pathway. She narrowed her purple eyes as she prepared to erase the place from existence.

Michelle jumped through the entrance hole again and started spreading black mist all around her, letting it expand until she felt it reach the room behind the void obsidian she had broken with Nyxaroth’s help. It took over an hour, but she didn’t mind.

Then, she jumped out of the hole and connected her hands to the mist inside the pathway with a thin black string of dark element spirit energy.

Finally, she closed her eyes and reached for the spirit energy deep in the pathway. Under her control, it condensed and began exploding. Like a domino effect, all the other spirit energy followed suit.

Michelle then summoned her soul energy and formed a huge shield in front of her, blocking the explosion as it reached the pathway’s entrance so it wouldn’t blow her group away. She knew she wouldn’t get hurt—it was her own spirit energy—but she couldn’t say the same for the rest.

Soon, the explosion pushed against her shield. Only then did she let it revert into chains, which retracted into her body. Then, she looked back at her friends and tilted her head slightly. “We’re done here, aren’t we?” she asked with a lazy smile.

“Does that mean we’re going to start preparing to go to the lower realm?” Ivona asked, jumping to her feet.

“Yes, we can! You all can head to the barrier already to spar with monsters. I still have some things to take care of, but I’ll catch up within two weeks at most,” Michelle said as she summoned Snow and Mare. “Take Snow and Mare with you while I keep Cold Flame and Nyxaroth with me,” she added.

“What do you need to take care of?” Anastasia asked, raising a brow as Michelle got on Cold Flame’s back. To everyone’s surprise, the small black cat jumped up and landed in front of her—despite the significant height it had to leap.

“I still have some unfinished business at the Archduchy,” Michelle replied vaguely. “So, good luck with your training!” she waved before Cold Flame flapped his wings and took off.

Kieran, Ivona, and Anastasia could only watch helplessly as Cold Flame disappeared into the distance, carrying Michelle toward the Archduchy.

Once there, Michelle went to the annex where she used to cultivate, knowing she could concentrate better there. She thought over all the things she had forgotten or hadn’t had time to do.

When she had a list, she frowned. Though most weren’t big or important—except for one, well, two—it was still quite a lot.

So she systematically handled them one by one, leaving the two big ones for last. One was visiting the Sloan family’s two mansions to check the underground prison where the soulless slaves—whom the Sloan family had intended to use as sacrifices with the Soul Seeking Pendants—were kept. When she confirmed they were all still there, she moved those from Malrik’s mansion to Garrick’s, so they would all be in one place.

Then, she moved on to the second thing she had to do before leaving the Land of Exile.

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