Chapter 190: 190

After starting cultivating, Michelle was fairly surprised by the speed at which her body was able to pull in spirit energy. It was definitely because of the deficiency within her dantian; otherwise, it would have been much slower.

If normally the spirit energy flowed into her body like the stream from a tap, then at the moment, it was like a river flooding her veins.

It didn’t take long, only about half a day, for the suction to slow down. The deficiency was mostly gone, and the speed went down a notch.

Michelle cultivated for another half a day, but the result was basically insignificant compared to the first half of the day.

In the evening, she got up and looked around. The gaping emptiness of the city was creeping her out.

So she decided to go check a place she knew: the Red Velvet House.

When she arrived there, the emptiness and silence were as deafening as everywhere else. The city had turned into a ghost town within the blink of an eye. Michelle couldn’t understand it.

Glancing at Tenether on her shoulder, she narrowed her eyes. “How did they know you would show up?” she asked, even though she wasn’t expecting an answer. She didn’t know whether it couldn’t or just didn’t want to, but the bird didn’t speak with her.

“Let’s just leave…” she sighed. The city had no more answers for her.

Upon hearing that, Tenether perked up and flew in front of her. There, it transformed into a huge black bird, in shape similar to a crow.

Michelle stared at it for a moment before getting on its back. Nyxaroth, who was still following behind, quickly hopped on too, and Tenether flapped its wings to fly up.

But Michelle patted its neck, signaling to wait.

So the bird folded its wings and waited.

Michelle looked around, searching for a shadow between the buildings.

Landing on a rooftop, Noctis understood that Michelle was waiting for him. If she wanted to take him along on her bird, she definitely had questions to ask him. So he kicked into the tile beneath him to propel himself towards the huge crow.

When Noctis landed next to her, Michelle patted Tenether on its neck again, and with wind rising beneath them, the bird carried them into the sky.

“My Lady, what do you want to know?” Noctis asked, though he had a guess about what Michelle would ask.

Michelle glanced at him and then turned her gaze towards Tenether’s head. “You know it?” she coated it as a question, but it was more of a statement.

Noctis saw no point in denying it. “Yes,” he nodded.

“Tell me what you know.” Michelle was calm as she lazily laid down on the feather bed beneath her.

Noctis took a moment to gather his thoughts before opening his mouth. “It’s a one-of-a-kind shape-shifting monster, capable of using soul energy. Centuries ago, it wrecked the whole heavenly realm, so the black god sealed it in the lower realm. A while ago, news spread that the monster got free.”

He continued: “But peace remained, so everyone thought it to be a baseless rumor. And now, for some reason, its seal broke, so it was able to get out after you provoked it. With the seal, it wouldn’t even have been able to exert the pressure over the city.”

Michelle nodded a bit. “The city was strange…” she commented. “Is it linked to the seal?”

“That’s highly probable,” Noctis nodded. “It appeared right after the black god sealed the monster. And it didn’t appear like most cities, progressively growing. A mass of people suddenly came and built the city. Later, it was discovered the city was a branch of a sect.”

While Tenether kept flying above cities, fields, and forests, Michelle listened to Noctis explaining.

To put it simply, the sect was most probably under the black god’s control, and its influence was in the whole lower realm, with the net being the densest in mountain ranges and around the borders of the lower realm.

And since the city, Blue Forest City, was under the sect’s control, they were aware of the monster’s existence and could find out when the seal on it broke. So within a few hours, they deserted the city.

But before that, they took measures to make sure that when the monster appeared, it couldn’t harm the area around the city.

That was why the city was built in circular areas. On the borders between each area were spirit stones which could be activated into arrays that contained the pressure.

After Noctis finished speaking, Michelle had two guesses as to why even the members of the information guild left the city.

Either they noticed the sudden departure of everyone and decided to follow along to investigate further, or a kind person warned them. But the second scenario was less likely, because if that were the case, they would have probably gone to find Michelle and warn her of the upcoming danger.

Tenether landed in a city after some time, and Michelle snapped out of her thoughts. Instantly, Noctis disappeared into the shadows, and Nyxaroth turned into a wisp of black mist and seeped into Michelle’s body.

Michelle then jumped off Tenether’s back and waited for it to transform into a smaller creature. It once again chose a cat.

Glancing around, Michelle raised a brow. The city she was in was much bigger than Blue Forest City, so people there had already met some experts from higher realms and knew it was possible to ride on beasts. But they were still quite shaken.

And when Tenether transformed, they were even more shaken. So as Michelle stepped into the city, people evaded her like the plague.

But she didn’t care. She just went straight into the city, feeling her contract with Mare for directions.

After a while, she found a strange group of three.

A girl with a big light-blue bird resting on her head and a snake wrapped around her waist, torso, and neck.

Just like Michelle was being avoided by the city’s people, this group was in a similar situation.

“Michelle!” Cold Flame chirped happily when he saw his contract master. He wanted to fly over, but his claws were tangled in Ivona’s hair.

With a chuckle, Michelle walked over and helped Cold Flame pull his claws out. While she did that, Mare uncoiled herself from Ivona and wrapped herself around Michelle’s arms.

“So, what caused the pressure?” Ivona asked, her eyes curiously plastered on the black cat. Cold Flame and Mare had already mentioned to her that they felt Michelle form a contract with a strange creature. She didn’t expect it to be the little black cat they had seen in the Ostrich family.

“This brat was originally sealed under there, but the seal broke, so its power burst out,” Michelle explained it simply, but the three could understand that the situation must have been dangerous. Especially since it had taken her days to get out of there.

For a while, Michelle talked with Ivona after sending Tenether, Mare, and Cold Flame into their contract space, so they wouldn’t draw so much attention.

After Ivona checked the document Michelle gave her about the Sloan family, they decided to go to Kieran and Anastasia. They had about enough information on them, so they could proceed with their plans.

Well, plans… Their plans were rapidly evolving with time. And it still only contained preventing the Sloan family from making more Soul Seeking Pendants.

So Michelle once again summoned Tenether. It transformed into a big crow again and flew them in the direction of Snow’s contract. Noctis was nowhere to be seen, but Michelle knew he was somewhere around.

The flight wasn’t long, and since the city wasn’t that big, Michelle had Tenether land outside. After sending it into the contract space, the two girls walked through the city gate.

Somewhere within the city, Snow sensed Michelle’s presence, so she told Kieran and Anastasia. The three of them then went towards the city gate to go meet her.

When the four friends were once again together, they talked for a while, exchanged information, and decided that the next day they would head to the Sloan family’s main house. Evening was already coming, so they went to an inn to rest for the night.

The night was peaceful. The city went to sleep, along with most of the group. Only Michelle remained awake on her bed, even though her eyes were closed. And if someone entered the room, she most probably wouldn’t react. Her consciousness was somewhere else.

In her spirit domain.

Standing in the huge empty hall, she looked around lazily. It was no longer completely empty. Here and there, books with her skills were lying on the ground haphazardly.

But still, the hall was mostly empty.

Summoning her spirit energy, Michelle called for the big sickle and grasped it tightly.

“Why are you here again?” a creepy raspy voice echoed through the hall.

Michelle glanced at the blade of the sickle, seeing the reflection of the black mist there. “Nyx, how powerful is Tenether?” she asked.

“If you completely relied on it, no one would be able to rival you in the whole of the middle realm,” Nyxaroth answered lazily.

He knew his contracted master wouldn’t do something so stupid. If she completely relied on someone much more powerful than her, she wouldn’t be able to improve her strength.

Michelle lifted a brow. “Isn’t Tenether a monster which wrecked the whole heavenly realm?” she was fairly confused. “Did it lose its power?”

“Basically…” Nyxaroth would have nodded if he were in his human form.

“How?” Michelle tilted her head a bit.

“After it formed a contract with you, I felt something in its Life Stone. That was probably one of the reasons it decided to give you its contract. The Life Stone had been damaged long ago, so the monster was slowly losing its power,” Nyxaroth explained.

He continued: “When the gem melted into your blood, the loss of power got stabilized. That was probably also why its power didn’t get copied to you.”

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