Chapter 168: 168

“What to do now…?” Michelle was leaning on a wall in the tavern, a slight frown on her brows. She was considering whether to first take care of the knights outside or the rest of the pendants.

The first option was more tempting because she didn’t have to think too much about it, but if she wanted to take care of the pendants, she would first need to find a way to do it.

Naturally, if Michelle wanted to take care of the knights first, she would need to scout the situation and then think up a plan. She was no longer in the Land of Exile where she was at the threshold of the power reachable there.

In the lower realm, she was just a small brat with cultivation below the Spirit rank. Even young children who had just started cultivating were more powerful than her.

So to take on the city guards, she needed to know the situation first.

And for that, it was best to ask Noctis. Michelle was certain he already had a good view of how many knights were around and where they were stationed.

Just like she guessed, when she asked into the air, Noctis appeared in front of her and started speaking. “Two knights are stationed by every window and door, which makes up to twenty knights. Then, there are three houses where twenty knights are hiding in each. And then there are twenty knights disguised as civilians walking around the tavern.”

Michelle nodded a bit. So she was up against a hundred knights and she didn’t know their intentions. Did they want to capture her? Kill her? Or just observe her? And was all that just because of the way she entered the city?

“How powerful are they?” she asked.

Noctis shrugged. In his eyes, anyone in the lower realm was considered an ant. But when he compared the powers of the knights with Michelle, the situation was completely different. “In a place like this, even the city lord is barely a Spirit Master. The knights range from Spirit Apprentices to Spirit Knights.”

Hearing Noctis speak about the city lord, Michelle raised a brow. “The city lord is present?” She was clearly surprised.

“Probably,” Noctis nodded. “In one of the houses is a Spirit Master. It’s either an expert from a different city or the city lord. And I highly doubt the first case. Why would an expert like that help with capturing someone like you? In their eyes, you are a cultivation cripple.”

“But why would the city lord involve himself directly for someone like me?” Michelle frowned. The more she thought about it, the more suspicious it seemed.

“Well, now you can be certain they don’t want to kill you,” Noctis was completely nonchalant about it.

Michelle couldn’t help but agree. There was no way the city lord would personally come if he merely wanted her dead. That meant he wanted something from her. And the only way Michelle made herself visible to the city guards was by showing off her Shadow Spirit Steps.

After thinking about it for a while, Michelle decided to step out of the tavern. She was still using the disguise mask to look like Michael Grayson, but she was certain the guards would take her away. As Michael Grayson, she still had silver hair and purple eyes, even though she had different features and was slightly taller. If they weren’t stupid, they would at least think she was a sibling of the girl they were searching for.

Once outside the tavern, Michelle walked into the street, and soon, a pair of two young men stopped her. They looked like ordinary street hooligans, but a few details entered Michelle’s eyes. Their hands had callouses and their footsteps were silent and steady. And some more things that showed they had undergone martial-arts training.

But she couldn’t come to any conclusion because of that. She was in the world of cultivation, so anyone could train in martial arts. It was quite unusual for someone to not train.

Still, Michelle was nearly certain that the two men belonged to the twenty guards who blended into the crowd.

“How can I help you?” she smiled lazily, her purple eyes narrowing a bit.

“Brat, do you have an older sister?” one of the two asked, his face stern.

But Michelle wasn’t intimidated. “Why do you want to know?” she asked with her smile fading, making her look like an arrogant young lord from an influential family.

“Brat, just tell us!” The man summoned a bit of his spirit energy and used it to put pressure on Michelle.

Not really a good idea. It didn’t have any effect on Michelle. She could barely notice it. She was someone used to the passive pressure Alexander Terce was emitting when he was calm, not even using his powers, so the active pressure of the man in front of her felt feather-light.

“I have no reason to tell you! Who are you to ask me about my family?!” Michelle retorted.

The two men were shocked that Michelle didn’t react to the pressure. They could feel some spirit energy from her, but it was so weak and sparse that they considered her to be a cripple, so they couldn’t understand why she wasn’t scared witless by the pressure.

“Brat, who are you?” the second man opened his mouth for the first time since they stopped Michelle. He looked more powerful than the first man.

As the second man spoke, Michelle felt a boulder of pressure crash against her, but she was still fine. “That’s none of your business!” she spat back at the man, a frown on her face. She looked like a spoiled brat who had never met with a setback.

When Michelle didn’t react even to the pressure from the second man, he raised a brow. He was nearly certain that the brat in front of him had something to do with the girl they were searching for. And at the moment, it seemed like the brat was also worth taking along.

Having decided, the man nodded at the other one and they acted.

In an instant, Michelle felt a punch to her gut, sending her flying through the street. Before her back crashed into a wall, she summoned some soul energy behind her to protect herself. She did it secretly so the men wouldn’t notice.

The two men expected Michelle to faint, but though she fell down, she got back up, putting her hand over her stomach. “Damn, that hurt…” she muttered as she glared at the two men, her purple eyes narrowed coldly.

Seeing that Michelle was still conscious, the weaker of the two men rushed at her and punched her in the side of her face, forcing her to turn her head to the side. But still, she was awake, her eyes turning colder with each punch she received.

The more powerful man watched on from a distance, a frown on his face. He could see that his partner was too focused on knocking out the brat to notice the change in the brat’s eyes.

Even with his face bruised, the young boy’s eyes stayed clear, not showing any signs of fainting soon. And those eyes were just too unsettling. “Enough!” the man shouted at his partner, and he stilled his hands after landing the last punch on Michelle’s face. “Leave the boy be! Take him as he is!”

Hearing the order, the weaker man frowned a bit, wanting to argue, but when he glanced at Michelle and noticed her eyes, he froze. He finally understood. The boy wouldn’t faint so easily.

In the next moment, Michelle was lifted off the ground and slung over the man’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

The two men were expecting resistance, but Michelle didn’t move. She just kept her gaze on the more powerful man, making him break out in a cold sweat.

Very quickly, Michelle was carried into a house and then upstairs, into a room where a middle-aged man was sitting.

The man that carried Michelle rudely threw her on the ground and she didn’t even bother to get up, just lying there lazily as she stared at the middle-aged man.

“Who is this?” the man asked the two men.

The more powerful one spoke up: “He’s probably related to the girl. And he himself seems quite talented. He could be of help too.”

“If he could be of help, why did you beat him so much?” the middle-aged man was clearly unhappy.

“We wanted to knock him out, but he is more resilient than we thought. He wouldn’t faint even after being knocked in the head a good few times.”

“You may leave now!” With the man’s order, the two men instantly turned around and went back to the street, blending in with the other people.

In the house, Michelle kept her eyes on the middle-aged man. She had a good guess about his identity. “What do you want?” she asked as she finally got up. Her face was black and blue, but she didn’t seem to feel the pain.

“Why did you stay on the ground if you were completely fine?” the man didn’t answer.

“This seems fine to you?” Michelle raised a brow with a smile forming on her lips. “Then we have very different views of the word fine.”

The middle-aged man frowned a bit and put some pressure on Michelle. Unlike before, she didn’t feel fine, but she was still able to easily bear it.

“Boy, how old are you?” the middle-aged man asked after retracting the pressure. He was impressed that Michelle could withstand it.

“Sixteen,” Michelle answered. She was already in the world for quite some time, and though she didn’t bother to remember when Michelle Grace had a birthday, she was guessing it had already passed. Also, she was considering the day she woke up in the Archduchy as her new birthday, and that day had already passed once. Since Michelle Grayson was fifteen when she woke up in her body, she was supposed to be sixteen already.

“You look too young for that,” the middle-aged man commented.

Michelle just smiled and didn’t say anything. With the bruises all over her face, the smile looked twisted and creepy.

The man was clearly repulsed by Michelle’s smile but he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he asked what he was curious about. “Do you know a girl with silver hair and purple eyes about your age?”

Michelle tilted her head to the side. “Why are you looking for her?” she asked, her smile widening. That made her look like a psycho.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep