Chapter 140: 140

Thinking about a way to permanently get rid of the vapor in the basement of the tavern, Michelle suddenly frowned and stood up, feeling something tugging at her soul. “I need to go!” she said without even looking at Alexander as she instantly went to the staircase.

With how Michelle was acting, Alexander was a fair bit surprised. She wasn’t the type of person to make rash decisions, so he decided to follow her. “What happened?” he asked, the playful smile still adorning his lips.

“Something is interfering with my contract with Mare…” Michelle said as she walked out of the tavern and summoned Cold Flame. He didn’t need to be told to take on his beast form, and Michelle quickly got on his back. And, being thick-skinned, Alexander followed her.

Since Michelle didn’t say anything about it, Cold Flame just flapped his wings and flew towards the jungle.

Michelle used the contract with Snow, and the weakening contract with Mare, to sense their positions and navigated Cold Flame there.

Cold Flame flew at top speed, so within ten or so minutes, they were above the valley and Cold Flame flew down into it, landing in front of the cave, next to Snow, Anastasia, Kieran, and Ivona. “Where’s Mare?” Michelle quickly asked.

Seeing that the usually calm Michelle had quite a worried expression, Snow just pointed to the cave.

Michelle quickly summoned Nyxaroth as she got off Cold Flame’s back. “All of you, stay here! I’ll be going there!” she said decisively before walking towards the cave.

No one really understood what was going on, but since Michelle had already left, they just stayed behind. The only one who followed Michelle was Alexander. To that, Michelle had nothing to say. She knew she had no way of getting rid of him, and since he was powerful, she knew he could take care of himself if something happened, so she didn’t bother to argue with him.

From the start, Michelle could feel a powerful aura coming from the cave, but knowing that Mare was inside, she went in. She knew it was dangerous, but if something really happened, she had many tricks up her sleeve that could save her life. Also, though the aura was powerful, it wasn’t violent. It emitted danger, but not violence. It was like it belonged to a sleeping beast. If you didn’t wake it up, it wouldn’t harm her.

Walking into the cave, Michelle didn’t use her Shadow Spirit Steps, because she didn’t know how the aura would react to it. She just quickly but cautiously moved forward.

Until she saw a big snake coiled around a boulder with spirit energy swirling around it chaotically, as if trying to destroy something.

Feeling the presence of someone, the snake opened its eyes, and when it saw Michelle, the chaotic spirit energy calmed down for a moment before lunging at Michelle, enveloping her.

With the spirit energy all around her, Michelle frowned. It was nearly the same as her own spirit energy, just with the addition of poison scattered within it.

The poison within the spirit energy started to stick to Michelle’s skin, making her deepen her frown. At the moment, she didn’t feel anything, but she knew that it was a poison belonging to the Venom Jade Serpent, the most poisonous snake in the whole four realms. Though the snake was still weak, its poison’s potency was at a peak, making even Alexander frown a bit.

The poison wasn’t directed at him, so he couldn’t be completely sure, but he could still tell that the concentration of the poison the weak Venom Jade Serpent in front of him had was able to rival the old monsters of the Serpent Clan in the heavenly realm.

Glancing at Michelle, Alexander started wondering if she would be alright, as she was clearly just a weakling who hadn’t even broken through into the spirit rank, so there was no chance she could survive a dose of the Jade Venom Serpent’s poison in its full potency.

But Michelle seemed completely calm. But knowing her, Alexander didn’t think she hadn’t noticed the poison. She must have noticed it, so why was she so calm?

Michelle ignored the poison sticking to her skin and just kept staring at the snake coiled around the boulder, wondering if it was Mare or another Venom Jade Serpent. She couldn’t tell because her contract with Mare was so weakened, she couldn’t even tell how far she was from her. So she just stared at the snake, looking for any familiar signs on its body.

The snake looked identical to Mare when she was in her full form, but its gaze was completely different from the gaze Mare used to look at Michelle, making her uncertain.

Before she could come to a conclusion, the poison which her skin absorbed started to kick in, and she felt her insides starting to heat up, slowly making her feel like something was chipping at her flesh from inside. And over time, it got worse. She couldn’t even tell if the poison was fooling her nervous system and faking the pain, or if it was really causing her internal bleeding, but she still ignored it. Just her expression turned into a grimace.

The snake kept staring back at Michelle, ignoring the presence of Alexander, which made Michelle think that it could really be Mare. And even if it wasn’t, it somehow had to be related to her.

So Michelle decided to risk it and walked towards the snake.

At first, the snake didn’t show any reaction, but when Michelle was just a step away from it, it started hissing at her, warning her not to get any closer.

But Michelle didn’t listen to the warning and took the last step. Also, she stretched out her hand and put it on the side of the snake, feeling its scales.

In an instant, the snake lunged at Michelle, wrapping around her body and squeezing tightly around her chest, clearly threatening to break her ribcage.

Still, Michelle wasn’t afraid. She let her spirit energy pulse out of her body and seep under the scales of the snake. And from under the scales, into its body.

Feeling foreign spirit energy force its way into its body, the snake hissed even more, baring its fangs at Michelle. But she just increased the pace at which she sent the spirit energy into the snake.

She refused to back down unless she confirmed if the snake was Mare or not. If it was Mare, she had to know why it attacked her. Well, and if not, Michelle would find out where Mare was.

The snake tightened its coil around Michelle even more, making her groan a bit as the sound of cracking bones echoed in the cave. Her expression twisted in pain as she felt a few of her ribs starting to break. But she wasn’t prepared to give up just because of the pain. She was already poisoned, so a few broken bones wouldn’t change her mind.

She continued sending her spirit energy into the snake’s body, letting it roam over its bloodstream and organs.

Even when the snake’s body was filled to the brim with her spirit energy, she still didn’t stop, which led to the spirit energy seeping into the snake’s soul.

And that was exactly what Michelle wanted. She wanted to explore the snake’s soul to see if it had a contract with someone.

Feeling the spirit energy probe its soul, the snake didn’t dare to move, because a single wrong movement could cause its soul to collapse into itself, turning it into a mindless doll.

No longer having tightening pressure on her ribcage, Michelle could concentrate better as she dwelled deep into the snake’s soul, until she found what she was looking for. The place where contracts gathered. And there, a single thin thread connected the snake’s soul to the outside world. It was barely noticeable, but Michelle still found it.

So, in an instant, she decided to check the contract mark. She wrapped her spirit energy around the thread of the contract so she could follow it deeper into the snake’s soul. Going along with it, she got to the depths of the part of the snake’s soul which had something to do with contracts, and there she felt the contract mark.

She couldn’t use her spirit energy to see into the snake’s soul—that could only be done with bodies, not souls—so she roamed her spirit energy over the mark numerous times, before pulling her spirit energy out of the snake.

Feeling that its soul was free, the snake instantly attacked Michelle again, tightening its coils not only around her chest but also around her limbs, completely immobilizing her. But it left her throat free. It didn’t seem to want to kill her.

Michelle realized that the snake didn’t want to kill her, so she was quite calm. The pain of the poison was still thrashing around her body, making her groan every now and then, and the snake’s coils were painfully tight, but she still had to confirm what the mark looked like, so she had to remain calm.

Summoning her spirit energy again, Michelle let it crawl over the ground and walls of the cave to the roof, so she could see it above her. There, she let it recreate the mark the spirit energy traced within the snake’s soul.

Soon, she was staring at a familiar mark she had seen quite a few times.

A snake coiled around a rose, with the thorns piercing deep into its flesh. But there was one thing different than how the mark usually looked. At the moment, a butterfly was sitting atop the rose, and the snake had its jaws wide open in hopes to swallow the butterfly, not caring about the thorns stabbing it.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep