Chapter 192: 192

For a long time, Michelle wandered the mountains, moving like a shadow over the snow. Because of her Shadow Spirit Steps, she didn’t even leave footprints behind.

“What strange mountains…” she muttered as she stopped on another peak. As if the mountain range was making fun of her, more, taller peaks appeared in her line of sight. The whole time she walked, they were blocked by the peak she had just reached.

Before she could complain more, a soft meow entered her ears.

“Tenether?” She lifted the cat from her shoulder and brought it in front of her. “What’s wrong?” she asked with a tilt of her head. She felt quite expectant of what was to come. Was the monster finally willing to communicate with her?

Tenether’s pair of black eyes locked on Michelle’s purple ones for a long while, its face showing clear intelligence.

Unable to guess what Tenether wanted, Michelle just silently stared back at it, waiting for what it would do.

And then, the little black cat moved. Jumping up, it climbed to the top of her head and showed its claws.

The next moment, a sweet scent filled the air as Michelle felt a sharp sting on her head.

Another meow left Tenether’s small mouth before it made more scratches all over the top of Michelle’s head.

At first, Michelle didn’t react out of surprise, but when Tenether started making the second scratch, she could have reacted, easily pulling it off. Still, she held herself back. Tenether was contracted to her, so she could feel it meant no harm to her.

When the sweet scent got sickeningly intense, Michelle decided to stop Tenether. If it continued, monsters and beasts could appear.

But just then, a cloud of black mist suddenly formed around her head, rapidly getting thicker and thicker until it completely blocked her vision.

And then, she felt the mist seeping into the scratches on her head. Tenether’s soul energy—void—was seeping into her head.

“What’s that for?” Michelle asked, but only a soft meow came to her in response.

A sigh left Michelle’s lips, understanding that she wouldn’t get to know anything more from Tenether. So she just let it finish what it was doing.

But just a few seconds later, Michelle started doubting her decision. Under the effect of the void entering her head, she started feeling light-headed and nearly fell into the snow.

Her control of her body got worse, and she even had to deactivate the Shadow Spirit Steps to keep herself on her feet. That created two footprints in the middle of nowhere. It looked like someone had landed there from the sky.

Even that didn’t remain as it was for long, because Michelle couldn’t keep herself up and ended up falling in the snow. The blood seeping out of the scratches on her head stained the snow red. But even if someone was there, they couldn’t see it because of the mist of void around her head.

Along with Michelle, Tenether landed in the snow, but it didn’t mind in the least. It got back on its feet and walked over the snow back to Michelle’s head, to continue sending void into her.

At some point, Michelle could no longer focus on what was happening and fainted. All she could somehow still feel was the comforting feeling of the cold snow all around her.

Tenether remained calm even after Michelle fainted and just curled up next to her head, waiting for the process to initiate itself.

Soon, a not-so-usual phenomenon took place on one of the usually calm peaks of the snow mountains, where only the winds made sounds.

All clouds above the peaks were white, slightly grayish, but above the peak where Michelle was, a new cloud started forming. And it was extremely dark. A storm cloud among ordinary clouds.

At first, ordinary snow started falling from the cloud, and everything seemed somehow normal. But if one looked closer, they would notice that with every single snowflake that fell out of the cloud, the cloud moved a bit lower. And at the same time, the pace of the snowing was increasing.

Within half an hour, the cloud was just a few meters above Michelle, and snow was falling on her so rapidly that after a while, she was completely covered.

The only reminder of the fact that she was there was the small snake that tried to avoid the snow as much as possible, climbing out from under it when it covered its scaled body. Mare’s body wasn’t made for surviving in snowstorms, so she was trembling all over.

“Damn cat!” she took on her human form as she cursed at Tenether. If she could, she would return into her contract space. But as Michelle was unconscious, she could only dream of it.

Curses of all kinds started echoing above the mountain range, leaving the mouth of a seemingly harmless young girl.

But if one looked closer, one would notice scales on the back of the girl’s neck and fangs in her mouth. In her fit of rage, she didn’t completely conceal her bestial traits.

While Mare was trembling in the cold, cursing out all gods she had ever heard about, Michelle was unconscious under the snow, a cocoon of snow and ice formed around her and Tenether. The snow was a bit dark. It was made out of void.

If Michelle knew that Tenether could form snow from void, she would be shocked. Elemental manipulation was something only Spirit Masters could do, and that had its own limitations.

The only explanation available was that what Tenether formed wasn’t a storm but something similar to it to create the best environment for Michelle to go through the process it initiated within her body with its void.

As for the process, it didn’t make that much change in Michelle’s body, but it did affect her soul quite a bit, so the cocoon was needed to protect her from any disturbance from the outside.

Because work done on one’s soul was much more dangerous and difficult than work on the body, a small fluctuation from the outside could ruin it, bringing great harm to the soul.

After some time, the strange dark cloud above the peak disappeared, and all that remained behind was the strange grayish snow atop the peak, and Mare, no longer cursing. She just trembled in the cold.

Michelle was still in the cocoon under the snow, black mist dancing around her. She was starting to show signs of waking up, a frown forming between her brows.

Just a few moments later, the pair of purple eyes opened, only to see snow and ice all around her. And the little black cat next to her.

“Tenether, what did you do?” Michelle asked, not really expecting an answer, as she started digging herself out of the snow.

A while later, she finally got to the surface and peeked her head out. When she woke up, she felt someone’s presence above, but it was already gone.

It wasn’t hard to guess who the presence belonged to. Since Mare hated the cold, the moment she felt Michelle wake up, she went to hide from it in the contract space.

When Michelle got up, Tenether just nimbly jumped out and meowed softly.

At first, Michelle didn’t think anything about it, but when she heard something similar to human speech in her head, she frowned and glanced at the cat. She wasn’t focused on the speech when it appeared, so she couldn’t really make it out from her own thoughts.

“Tenether, did you say something?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

Another soft meow echoed around the mountain peaks, sounding harmless, innocent, and, well… completely out of place.

Anyone who heard it would have waved their hand and ignored it, thinking a cultivator left their pet behind and it had started crying. But to Michelle, the soft meow was a shocking wave that hit her suddenly.

She heard Tenether’s voice in her head.

Tenether used the meow to transmit its thoughts to Michelle’s mind. “Master, I don’t like this place!” It sounded like a child, a small boy. And the attitude was similar.

“What do you dislike?” Michelle picked Tenether up and put him back on her shoulder, preparing to proceed on her journey.

A funny scene unfolded in the cold mountains. A girl walked over the snow with a black cat on her shoulder, talking into the thin air. And the black cat responded with soft meows.

“It smells bad,” Tenether curled his nose as he responded.

“What smells bad?” Michelle asked.

“Everything!”

A chuckle left Michelle’s lips. The oh-so-feared monster was acting like a child on her shoulder. If someone from the higher realms could hear it, they would go crazy.

Michelle couldn’t tell if Tenether was naturally childish or if it was because of the damage done to its Life Stone, but she wasn’t planning to probe into it. At least, at the moment.

In the first place, she doubted she would find any information in the lower realm, and she didn’t want to rely on Noctis so often.

And secondly, the history of her contracted creatures was something she wouldn’t investigate too much. If they wanted to, they could tell her about it. If they didn’t, then she could easily live without knowing.

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