Chapter 234: 234

When the light illuminated the army of black slimes all around, they stopped moving for a moment, giving Michelle a moment of hope.

But before she could even catch a breath, some of the slimes suddenly lunged at her. The speed they moved at was shocking. It was nearly impossible for Michelle to even see them.

A moment later, she was pinned to the ground by a bunch of sticky black slimes.

Summoning forth all her spirit energy, she let it explode on the surface of her body, blowing the slimes away from her.

Quickly jumping to her feet, she activated her Shadow Spirit Steps and tried to get through the slimes surrounding her.

It didn’t take more than a few seconds before she was pinned to the ground again. The slimes’ powers were completely overpowering her.

“Damn…” Michelle frowned in disgust as she felt more and more slimes crawling over her. Her body was completely covered. She could barely feel her limbs.

Knowing there was nothing more she could do, Michelle gave in to the slimes. But her expression was extremely sour. And she still kept her guard up. If the slimes did something dangerous, she could at least blast them away from her.

Originally, the slimes moved all over her body, but left her face alone. But after some time, one slime crawled over Michelle’s neck and reached her face.

When the jelly body blocked Michelle’s nostrils, her purple eyes flashed red. The next moment, she blasted away the slimes on her hand and grabbed the slime on her face, pumping it with her ice element spirit energy. Then, she condensed the spirit energy, letting the slime explode.

When air filled her lungs again, she wiped her face from the residue slime.

Somehow, the slimes understood that Michelle’s face was off-limits, and not a single one crawled there again. So Michelle could relax a bit.

Still, it felt disgusting to have slimes all over her. Especially since wherever they touched her, she felt her skin sting a bit.

With the slimes all over her and darkness all around, Michelle lost track of time. All she could do was stare at the empty skies above her, thinking about when the slimes would get off her.

And she was quite surprised when they suddenly all crawled away at once, leaving her alone.

It took Michelle a few seconds to come to her senses. When she did, the first thing she did was take off her disguise mask and change her clothes. If she could, she would take a good bath, but there was no water around.

After changing, she put the mask back on, once again becoming Michael Grayson.

“You should check if your dantian didn’t change,” Nyxaroth’s raspy voice came from within Michelle’s body.

Nodding a bit, she sat down on the ground and closed her eyes, probing deep inside.

When she opened her eyes again, her gaze was complicated.

“You don’t like the change?” Nyxaroth asked.

A frown formed on Michelle’s face. “Since I gained a new power, Ma—, master will teach me how to make poisons while ignoring the rank barrier…”

“But?”

Michelle’s frown deepened. “But I don’t feel like having the same power as that bastard Alexander,” she grumbled.

“So you’ve gained the ability to cultivate shadow essence?” If Nyxaroth had been in his human form, he would have laughed.

“Yeah…” Michelle stretched her hands. “I should try to cultivate…” she decided. Since she had gained it in the Fiend Dungeon, her guess was that the Fiend Dungeon was also a good place to cultivate it.

But before she could start cultivating, her soul energy moved. “Don’t!” It was Serith. “It will attract high-ranked monsters.”

Reading the signs, Michelle lifted a brow. She was tempted to go against Serith’s advice and attract the monsters.

She wanted to fight.

But she also knew that her powers were too low to compare to the monsters in the Fiend Dungeon. If she attracted too many of them, it would be a death sentence for her.

“Fine, then…” she stood up. “Instead I’ll continue the exploration of these ruins.” She was quite interested in the history of the city which ended up as part of a dungeon.

For it to become a dungeon, strong monsters had to start gathering there a long time ago. And she wanted to know why. What was it that attracted them?

So, while Michelle’s beasts were walking around the dungeon, fighting monsters, she explored the ruined houses, looking for clues about the city’s past.

But to no avail. All she found were hideouts of a few smaller but powerful monsters that she had to fight. Still, she managed to defeat them all, though a few with some difficulties.

There was just one problem Michelle didn’t notice.

During her exploration, she got into the area with the big buildings. And up until then, whenever she encountered a monster hiding in a house, it was around the size of the house. That meant, in the area of the big houses, the monsters would be huge.

Absorbed in her search, Michelle didn’t notice it and bolted into the house that seemed to be in the best condition. Well, best. More accurate would be to say it was in the least bad condition.

When Michelle entered the house, she finally noticed that something was wrong. Though from the outside it looked like the house had a few stories, once inside, she could see that all the floors had been torn down, leaving a gaping hole from the floor to the ceiling. And the ceiling had a hole too.

But since she was already there, Michelle decided to go in deeper. She walked into the house and started looking around.

Originally, she was planning to go to the upper floors, but the staircase was completely ruined, so she gave up on the idea. Instead, she decided to thoroughly look through the ground floor.

In the corner of the building, a strange pile caught her attention.

When she came closer, her blood ran cold. The monster inhabiting the building was highly probably intelligent.

The pile wasn’t made of ordinary stones. Those were Life Stones. Not a single one of them was damaged, showing that the one who extracted them from the monsters possessed surgical precision and knowledge about the monsters. Also, while carrying the Life Stone back to the building, they had to be careful so as not to damage them.

Picking up one Life Stone, Michelle ran her fingers over the smooth surface. The spirit energy within the Life Stone was extremely intense, showing that the monster it originally belonged to was extremely powerful. So the one who had killed it had to be even more powerful.

Michelle wasn’t a maniac, even though she acted like one sometimes, so she knew it was time for her to leave. If she stayed around when the monster returned, she would be dead. She stood no chance against it.

Maybe with the help of Serith she could survive, but she didn’t like relying on others. And, of course, if Nyxaroth, a Wailing Mist, stepped in, the monster would most probably stand no chance. Still, Michelle didn’t like the idea. If a monster came, she wanted to fight it herself. So, since she couldn’t fight the monster, she wouldn’t stay around.

Activating her Shadow Spirit Steps, she bolted out of the house, leaving the area of the big buildings. If she ever had the chance to return to the Fiend Dungeon while having the power to rival these creatures, she definitely would try it. But at the moment, she was nothing but a weakling compared to them.

When Michelle left the area of the big houses and entered a smaller house, she heard a flap of wings. Turning around, she saw a huge creature resembling a harpy descending into the house. And in its claws, it was holding a bunch of Life Stones.

As if the harpy felt Michelle’s gaze on her, it turned towards the direction of the house where she was hiding.

Michelle felt a shiver run down her spine as she hid behind a pillar. Her blood ran cold, knowing that if the harpy spotted her, her death bell would ring.

“It’s gone,” Nyxaroth’s voice appeared when the harpy flew away. It was going on another hunt.

Taking a deep breath to calm down, Michelle leaned against the pillar, feeling her heart pound in her chest.

In her past life, harpies were mythical creatures, but in her new life, it was clear they were destructive monsters.

After calming down, Michelle finally looked around the house and her expression soured. Because she was so tense, she didn’t even notice she had entered the lair of a sleeping monster.

That would have been fine in itself, but the harpy’s sharp gaze had woken it up. A fight was inevitable.

Cursing deep inside, Michelle felt that her sensing skills had gotten rusty. She was losing focus way too easily.

But that was no help in her situation. She had to fight.

Jumping to the side, she dodged the attack of the monster. It was angry because its needed rest was disturbed.

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