Chapter 125: 125

After having gathered all the soulless cultivators in Garric Sloan’s mansion, Michelle sat in a corner and started taking out the twelve Soul Seeking Pendants, each containing a thousand souls, that she had yet to break. She was going to free the souls so they would return to the bodies where they belonged. After that, she would have to coordinate the people who came back to their senses so they would return to the lower realm since they were originally from there.

When she took out the pendants, she stared at them for a moment before a thought struck her. She glanced at her spatial bracelet before looking at the soulless cultivators. If she returned their souls to them in the Land of Exile, they would be even more confused than if she did it in the lower realm, but bringing twelve thousand people through the barrier was basically impossible.

Not because they couldn’t pass through the barrier of Heavenly Law when they were in the lower realm, since they were all in the Spirit rank, but because their number would attract unnecessary attention if she brought them all out at once. Even if she used her spatial bracelet, she would have to make multiple trips, as fitting twelve thousand people inside was impossible.

With a sigh, Michelle put the Soul Seeking Pendants into her spatial ring and then stared at the cultivators in front of her. She didn’t know how many times she would have to go back and forth, but to prevent any pointless trouble, she decided to take the cultivators to the lower realm before freeing their souls. However, she needed to find a place in the lower realm where she could leave twelve thousand people. So it seemed that it was better to catch up with Kieran, Ivona, and Anastasia first, so they could go to the lower realm together before doing anything more.

So, Michelle bid farewell to the Archduke and went to the mountain range where her friends were already fighting monsters.

The next day, Michelle reached the barrier, but Kieran and the others were nowhere to be seen, so she contacted Snow, who was with them, to ask their location. But for a long while, Snow didn’t answer, so Michelle decided to use the contract to sense where Snow was and followed the directions. Within the next fifteen minutes, she heard the sound of fighting, and it was quite intense. So it seemed her friends had met a formidable opponent. But for something like that to happen when they were still in the Land of Exile was fairly surprising.

Stopping some distance from the fight, Michelle climbed a tree and looked down at the scene, her eyes widening. Kieran and Ivona were nearly unconscious, lying weakly on the ground, and Snow was by their side, in the shape of a small white fox, curled up and unmoving, probably unconscious too. Mare was in a similar state, coiled into a small bundle next to Snow. The only one on her feet was Anastasia, trying to fight off a huge plant with a body of thorny vines coiled together into a sphere and long, sharp vines like tentacles spreading out from the body, attacking Anastasia relentlessly.

Seeing that from above, Michelle frowned a bit. The movements of the plant weren’t so fast that Anastasia wouldn’t be able to take care of it with her usual skill, so why was she clearly struggling? And the state Kieran and the rest were in just showed that the plant beast was much more dangerous than it seemed.

Very quickly, Michelle felt a strange, spicy scent fill the air, making her frown. “So… it’s poisonous…” she muttered as she jumped off the tree and landed behind Anastasia. “Let’s take care of this thing quickly!” she said as her eyes flashed coldly.

Hearing Michelle behind her, Anastasia nodded and smiled a bit. She was already tired, but she knew that Michelle was someone she could rely on. “Just don’t use your spirit energy, or you will end up like Kieran and Ivona!” she said as she dodged a vine flying at her.

Michelle’s eyes flashed red, a mad smile spreading across her lips. She was excited to fight. She felt the spicy scent entering her body, seeping into her veins and spreading to her dantian to immobilize her spirit energy. She could feel that if she used her spirit energy, it would get stuck, and she wouldn’t even be able to properly move. So she could only use soul energy to fight the beast.

Glancing back at Kieran and Ivona, she finally realized why they were half-unconscious. They had probably tried to use their spirit energy against the beast, which activated the poison they had breathed in and mostly immobilized them. Also, from their state, Michelle could tell that the poison didn’t stop just at immobilizing them.

“Let’s kill it quickly!” Michelle said as she nodded at Anastasia. It was clear that Anastasia was tired and most probably somehow affected by the poison, too, so it wasn’t a good idea to fight the plant for too long.

Taking the right side, Michelle jumped to one side of the plant while Anastasia went for the other, both preparing their weapons. Michelle summoned her sickle while Anastasia put more soul energy into her clawed gloves.

The plant reacted quickly and whipped sharp vines at both girls, but the two dodged and blocked; Michelle having it a bit easier since she wasn’t affected by the poison yet, and she didn’t even have the time to get tired. So it was easier for Michelle to get closer to the plant’s thorned body and slash at it with her sickle.

But the plant wasn’t the kind of beast she was familiar with, so she didn’t know it had a trick up its sleeve. When she was just at the distance where she could reach the plant’s body, a thick vine tore out of the ground and whipped hard into her abdomen, sending her flying up.

Summoning her Binding Chains, Michelle used them to hang off a tree branch so she wouldn’t fall to her death. She climbed onto the branch and then quickly jumped back to the ground, her eyes turning completely red. She was still excited to fight, but it was mixed with the annoyance of being whipped so high into the air.

Resummoning her sickle, Michelle lunged at the plant, her lips twisted into a bloodthirsty smirk, her eyes gleaming with madness. She was going to kill the plant no matter what it took.

She formed chains of her soul energy beneath her so she could feel if the plant was trying to use another vine from under the ground and dodge it in time. Then, she gripped her sickle tightly and slashed forward, forming a gust of wind around her.

Anastasia instantly understood she should get out of the way and ran to Kieran and the rest’s side, forming a shield of her soul energy in front of them so nothing would happen to them if Michelle did something crazy.

And just as Anastasia had guessed, Michelle did something crazy. Swinging the sickle all around her, she summoned more and more black chains to whip around her, blocking the vines slashing at her. That caused the vines to recoil all around, quite a few hitting the shield Anastasia formed.

With her chains dancing around her, Michelle rushed at the plant’s body, swinging her sickle at it. Very quickly, she was able to stab the sickle into the plant, but the vines didn’t stop moving. That made Michelle frown, so she pulled the sickle out as she quickly jumped back.

And her worries came true. In an instant, light-green liquid started spraying out of the stab wound, corroding the plant life everywhere it touched. So Michelle quickly formed a shield in front of herself so the liquid wouldn’t touch her.

As she did so, she felt something move behind her and tried to move to the side. But it was too late already. Like Michelle, the plant was angry. It moved much faster, and one of its thick, thorny vines struck her across the back, making her eyes gleam an even darker shade of red.

Summoning her shifting weapon and changing it into a sword, Michelle swung it behind herself and cut off the vine that had hit her.

Since her blood was drawn, she had to quickly end the fight, so the scent of her Spirit Soul Blood wouldn’t attract monsters and beasts, as Kieran, Ivona, Mare, and Snow were poisoned and couldn’t fight back if frenzied creatures came.

So, after cutting off the plant’s vine, Michelle took her sickle again and started recklessly slashing at the plant’s body, keeping a moving shield in front of herself to block out the spraying corrosive liquid.

Very quickly, the plant’s vines slowed down when moving until they came to a complete stop. But Michelle didn’t put her guard down, knowing the plant could have just been trying to fool her so it could strike a fatal blow at her.

And indeed, when Michelle pretended to relax a bit, all the vines flew at her at once.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep