Chapter 202: 202

Leaving one of the cities near the snowy mountains, a man got on his horse and rode toward the Sloan family residence. For the last few days, he had been unable to contact anyone, so he decided to go check it.

He was still quite far when he saw a bright red hue between the hills. It couldn’t be the sunrise. Nor the sunset. It was noon at the moment.

So that left only one possibility behind.

The man rode faster and faster until he pulled his horse to a stop when the residence came into sight.

It was quite the spectacle to watch, but to the man, it was a tragedy.

Brilliant flames, a mix of red and black, had engulfed the residence, licking the buildings like tongues.

In shock, the man nearly fell off his horse. His brain couldn’t process it. How did it happen? The fire clearly wasn’t natural, so who was it that started it? Who was it that was able to ruin the Sloan family, when they were one of the two most powerful families in the lower realm?

While the man was trying to process what was going on, Michelle, Ivona, Anastasia, and Kieran were in the city with the tower tavern, where Michelle had freed the twelve thousand souls from the Soul Seeking Pendants.

Being in the city for the second time, she still didn’t bother to find out its name, but Anastasia asked the tavern lady about it and got an answer. Riptide City.

The name came from the fact that beasts and monsters tended to go crazy in the jungle nearby at least once every three years, rushing at the city in tides. That was also why the city had such tight security and high walls—to protect from the tides.

As for why the creatures went crazy, it was guessed that it was because the barrier of the Heavenly Law was in the jungle, which affected everything that lived there.

In the tavern, Michelle and the rest all got to their rooms and went to cultivate. The Sloan family had been dealt with. At the moment, they had no more goals. They just needed to go to the upper realm in the future.

As for how the Sloan family was dealt with, it was quite simple.

Michelle and Ivona tortured the Sloan family head for two whole days before he gave in and told them what was going on. They were aware of the movements of the mysterious sect under the black god’s command that created Blue Forest City, and suspected they were preparing something big, so they started raising their power secretly just in case.

They sent the artifacts into the Land of Exile because the sect had noticed their movements, and they feared the sect would take the artifacts from them.

After getting such an answer, there was just one thing Michelle and Ivona were a bit puzzled about: why did the family head refuse to tell them something so simple for such a long time?

But he refused to tell them no matter what, even after they tortured him until the end of the day.

By then, the girls were already covered in blood from head to toe. But neither of them minded. There was still one last part of the plan to complete.

Though it wasn’t really necessary, Michelle liked doing things like that. And she was sure Ivona, Anastasia, and Kieran would all like it too.

The last part was to completely shatter the family head’s mind—not by torture, but by giving him false hope.

For the next few days, Michelle kept giving him concoctions that somehow acted like weak antidotes, giving him back some of his senses. She also gave them to the rest of the people in the residence. She told them it would raise their strength once the poison was purged from their bodies.

The family head wasn’t stupid. He started questioning why Michelle was giving it to them.

And her answer was quite surprising: “I’m bored, so I’ve decided to treat you!”

That angered the family head. She was the one behind their poisoning. She was the one who caused them to be so miserable. And she said she decided to treat them out of boredom?

She was playing with their lives like toys.

Still, the family head didn’t reject it. He was in no position to do so. If Michelle stopped the treatment, everyone in the residence would die from her poison. Her treatment was their only hope for survival.

What he didn’t know was that he was just falling deeper into Michelle’s trap.

Indeed, what she gave him and the rest did work as an antidote for the poison, but its own effects were even more terrible.

It would rapidly increase the amount of spirit energy one had in their body, until they couldn’t bear it anymore—and they would explode, creating a blast that left behind ashes that could quickly catch fire.

And the best part was that the more powerful a person originally was, the faster they would explode.

Just four days after Michelle started the so-called treatment, the Sloan family head himself had his body torn apart by an explosion coming from his dantian. In the next few days, all the experts followed him to the afterlife. And then everyone else.

No one could escape the mansion because even though Michelle was curing them of the first poison, she systematically fed them new poisons to keep them immobile.

When everyone had exploded, she left the residence with everyone, flying on Tenether’s back high up into the air. From there, Kieran threw down a fireball, which exploded into a brilliant fire across the whole residence.

Michelle followed along and threw her own ball of fire. The black fire.

That was why, when the man came to the residence, he saw both red and black flames all over the mansion. Some were from Kieran, and the others from Michelle—both devouring everything in their path.

In her room in the tavern, Michelle cultivated diligently, but something kept bothering her at the back of her mind. She felt like she was forgetting something.

Unable to concentrate any longer, Michelle opened her eyes and opened the window, breathing in the fresh air. She was on the highest floor of the tavern, so the scents from the city couldn’t reach her. And the city was close to the jungle, so the scent of the rainforest filled her nose. A soothing feeling.

“Just what am I forgetting…?” she asked herself, her purple eyes staring down at the city.

A shop caught her eye. “Scarred Weaponry…” she read it out loud, finally realizing what it was that she was forgetting.

The scarred man she had first met when she had come to the tavern. Something about him seemed off and she had wanted to talk more to him. But she didn’t get the chance. With everything that was going on, she left without even having a proper talk with him.

Deciding it wouldn’t hurt to go check if he was in the tavern, Michelle walked out of her room and went to the ground floor. She nodded at the tavern lady with a smile before glancing around. And in a corner, she saw him, drinking ale alone.

Walking over, Michelle pulled the chair opposite him and sat down. “Uncle, do you come here every day?” she asked, resting her head on her palms, her elbows on the table.

The scarred man glanced at the young boy in front of him and raised a brow. “Why do you want to know?” His voice was quite cold and unbothered.

“Just curious…” Michelle hummed with a careless smile.

Outside the tavern, Noctis—who was watching everything from the shadows—nearly spat out blood in shock. The monstrous young lady who nearly crippled him with a single needle was acting like a mischievous child in front of a completely random person.

Well, random for her.

Even the random person was quite shocking. Why did His Lord assign him to watch Michelle when another shadow guard was around? One much more powerful and experienced?

The man was sitting sideways toward the window, so his scar couldn’t be seen from the outside. That was why Noctis didn’t recognize him right away.

But when the man moved a bit, he saw a corner of the scar and nearly fainted.

“His skills are wasted away here…” Noctis muttered. But he still kept his gaze on Michelle. Even if another shadow guard was present, he was tasked with protecting her, so he couldn’t just leave or turn his attention elsewhere.

The scarred man noticed Noctis’s presence in the garden by the tavern, making him suppress raising a brow. So the young boy in front of him was that special?

But he didn’t let his surprise show on his face. “What will you do if you know how often I come here?” he asked Michelle.

She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she smiled carelessly. “Uncle, you just seem powerful and skilled, so I wanted to get to know you.”

“Why is that? There are many powerful people out there.” The scarred man remained calm.

Michelle tilted her head a bit. “But uncle, your presence has something similar to the tavern lady.”

The scarred man raised a brow. “And what is that similarity?” he asked.

Michelle shook her head. “I didn’t focus on it too much, so I don’t know.”

“Then what do you know?” The scarred man was starting to feel confused.

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