Chapter 226: 226

Until the next day, Michelle stayed in the room with Mavreth, not moving an inch. The next day, she got up, knowing she had to continue her fighting. By then her hair and eyes were already back to normal.

But even as she walked down the stairs, she held her hand over her stomach, feeling a terrible ache. Mavreth was really ruthless with that attack. Michelle couldn’t imagine how torturous it would have been if he had decided to slowly kill her.

The people in the arena saw Michelle’s sour expression and her posture, and most doubted she would get up on the platform. But once the ongoing fight there came to an end, Michelle got on the platform.

After that, just like she had promised, Michelle kept fighting in the arena for a whole month. Each fight was different and dangerous, many times leaving Michelle with wounds all over her body. Since her opponents were all much more powerful than her, she always ended up having the array resurrect her once during the fight.

And that stirred a dangerous trail of thought within Michelle’s head. Was the array really resurrecting her from death after she received a fatal strike? It felt too good to be true.

What if, in reality, the array wasn’t able to resurrect people? What if the fights worked completely differently? Maybe, after entering the arena, the fighters’ bodies became something like illusions, except they could feel the pain. And once their illusion died, they would really get transported there. And, of course, for that theory to work, the attacks had to be somehow real.

But Michelle had no way of confirming it, so she just kept fighting. And during the mandatory one-hour rest between fights, she would study the Nonexistent Hymn skill book.

The casting method was complex and hard to understand, but Michelle was able to comprehend it after about two weeks.

In the next fight, without giving her opponent a chance to strike, she tried to activate the skill.

Humming filled the arena, sending shivers down everyone’s spines. Then, it turned into eerie singing. And in between the words in the void language, a name could be heard. “Josephine Lax.”

Soon after, Michelle’s opponent was lying on the ground, her body completely black.

The arena went quiet.

For some reason, the array beneath the platform didn’t activate. Josephine was dead.

Just when everyone thought it was irreversible, the barrier around the platform turned blood-red. The blackness on Josephine’s body then disappeared and she was picked up by a red light and put back on her feet.

It turned out the array was active from the start, but because of the blackness on Josephine’s body, the red light couldn’t be seen.

After that, Michelle didn’t use the Nonexistent Hymn again. When she had used it on Josephine, she was completely drained of her soul energy and could barely survive the rest of the fight. Luckily, it seemed Josephine was quite traumatized by the Nonexistent Hymn, so she wasn’t completely focused and Michelle could defeat her.

But Michelle came to the conclusion that even though the Nonexistent Hymn was an overkill skill, it was impossible for her to use often. Maybe it was because Josephine was a Monarch ranker, but the strain on Michelle’s body to use it on a single person was just too much.

When the month came to an end, Mavreth escorted Michelle to the gate. “From now on, that guy will be on your tail,” he said lazily. It was clear who he was talking about.

After his interaction with Michelle, Lavreth was even more determined than before that she had to die.

“You think he will strike soon?” Michelle asked. Over the past month, she had been with Mavreth quite a bit, and though it was impossible to say they were on friendly terms, they were already quite familiar with each other. At least familiar enough for Mavreth to not strike Michelle with his spirit energy when she called him old.

Over the month, she did it many times, and the first few times, the consequences were horrid. She always ended up with a strike to her gut, leaving her curled up in a ball for a long time. And though she was already fine, she still had a nasty bruise over her belly from all the strikes. Whenever she stretched her body a bit, she would always feel it.

“Nah!” Mavreth shook his head. “In the middle and upper realm, you are safe. He will only act for real when you go into the heavenly realm.”

Michelle raised a brow at that statement. Why would Lavreth leave her alone in the two lower realms? But from Mavreth’s expression, she knew it was pointless to ask. He wouldn’t answer her. So she turned and walked out of the gate. It was time to return to her friends.

But there was one small, tiny problem. Michelle had no clue as to where they were. She didn’t leave any of her contracted beasts with them, so she had no way of sensing their location.

There were two ways of finding them she could think of, and both were quite random.

Kieran and the rest knew the date when Michelle would leave the sect, so there was a chance they would come to the gate in the next few days.

And if not, Michelle would just have to walk into the middle realm. Usually, nearby the barrier of the Heavenly Law was a city. The group was probably in one like that to pass the time the month Michelle was away.

Naturally, there was the possibility they found a completely different way of passing time, and Michelle would have trouble finding them. Or they went back to the lower realm.

Whatever was the case, Michelle decided to camp near the sect for the next few days. She had nothing to lose. If the group didn’t appear, she would then go look for them.

Since no one was around, Michelle decided to use the time to train using her soul energy to create the black fire.

But she didn’t really have that much time to do it, because by noon, a ball of soul energy flew at her, sizzling on her arm.

“Ouch…” Michelle turned to look at the group approaching her. Anastasia was already forming another ball of soul energy.

Kieran quickly grabbed her hand to stop her, and Ivona came over to Michelle while she stood up. “Why are you moving so weirdly?” Ivona asked.

It was clear that Michelle was hurt. That made Ivona curious. Who had the power to hurt Michelle so much that even her superior healing abilities couldn’t heal it?

Only two people came to mind: Lavreth and Mavreth.

Michelle let out an annoyed grunt. “The old man doesn’t like being reminded that he’s old,” she hissed, feeling the bruise on her belly stretch as she moved.

Seeing that Michelle was fairly hurt, Anastasia retracted her soul energy. It wasn’t satisfying to kick someone who was already down.

“So, what did you do this past month?” Kieran dragged Anastasia over.

Michelle shrugged. “Gained one more skill and kept constantly fighting Monarch rankers.”

Before she could say anything more, a ball of soul energy hit her abdomen, exactly where she had the bruise from Mavreth. “What was that for, Anastasia…?” Michelle bent over a bit to hold her stomach.

Anastasia smiled. “Since you can take on Monarch rankers, a single attack from me shouldn’t harm you. And I didn’t use my full strength.”

Michelle could only smile helplessly. “Where’s Pete?” she decided to change the topic.

“We met that Alexander guy, and Pete went with him,” Ivona explained quickly.

That made Michelle raise a brow. She turned around and observed the surroundings for a while before picking up two rocks.

Supporting them with her soul energy, she threw them towards two trees.

They flew by the tree trunks and hit something invisible.

“My Lady, how are you always able to spot us?” Noctis was a bit familiar with Michelle, so he dared to ask her questions.

On the other hand, Unlucien was just staring at Michelle, wondering how she discovered him.

It could still be understandable that she found Noctis. He wasn’t the best at hiding, and Michelle was already familiar with him and his aura.

But Unlucien was proud of his concealment skills. And Michelle wasn’t even familiar with him. So how did she spot him?

Michelle shrugged at Noctis’ question. “Maybe I just have better senses than most people.”

Neither Noctis nor Unlucien believed that. She was just a Divine Junior. Even if she had heightened senses, the best she could have would be the senses of a Monarch Junior, and that would be with straining herself. So how could she sense them, monsters of the Emperor rank?

In reality, even Michelle didn’t know the answer. And she wasn’t that curious about it. She just knew that when it came to people’s presence, no one could hide from her. Whether it was in her past or current life.

Since they were already discovered, Noctis and Unlucien came over to Michelle. “Why did you expose us? Don’t you usually leave us be since you know Alexander sent us?” Noctis asked.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep