Chapter 299: 299

Feeling a kick on her side, Michelle twisted the sickle in her right hand and brought the blade behind the Soundless Beast. Then, she took up the dagger and stretched it toward it.

When she pulled on the sickle, to prevent being cut, the creature leaned forward, which pushed it closer to Michelle’s dagger.

It didn’t take even a second for Michelle to have the creature between her blades. With a single move, she could seriously hurt it.

But she knew she didn’t win. She couldn’t afford to let her guard down.

The three other Soundless Beasts were still above her. They just hesitated a bit when they saw one of them being restrained.

Michelle used that split second.

Launching herself forward, she momentarily threw her weapons back into her spirit domain. She wrapped her hands around the creature’s shoulders and got behind it.

Then, she once again summoned the sickle and dagger. She put the sickle in front of the creature, pressing the blade into its chest, and put the dagger against its back.

Then, she moved her gaze to the leader creature a bit further from her.

It didn’t really move while its minions attacked her, but the moment she got one between her blades, it showed some signs of distress.

And the other creatures also stopped moving.

Michelle was still considering that she could be getting fooled. That it was all a perfectly coordinated act.

But she was a bit more certain of her guess.

When she heard the screams of the creatures, the fact that it somehow resembled a baby’s cries greatly bothered her.

But it also made her think of something.

What if the Soundless Beasts weren’t minions of the leader creature but its children? And it was guiding them until they grew up and became like it was?

Then, it would have protective instincts, and its distress when Michelle harmed them would be understandable.

Staring at the leader creature, she pressed the sickle’s blade into the chest of the one she was holding until blood started trickling down its rough white skin.

The leader creature let out a low growl, its fanged mouth parting. It was a warning.

Michelle’s eyes narrowed a bit. She wanted to use her Eye of Nihil on the creature, but it wasn’t the right moment for that.

She knew that if she did so, she would end up getting lost in the reading, giving the creatures a loophole to attack her.

No matter how much she wanted to find out about the Soundless Beasts, Silent Bastards, or however else people called them, she couldn’t.

It was a strange feeling. Like having an itch she couldn’t scratch.

Michelle watched the leader creature, continuing to press her sickle into its chest. It was squirming a bit under her touch, but it didn’t make a single sound.

Compared to before, it was strange. Just a while ago, it was screeching when a bit of its skin got chipped away.

But when a blade was sinking into its chest, it remained silent.

Michelle had a guess about why that was happening.

The biggest difference between then and the moment now was that the leader creature was no longer in a cocoon.

So either the creature she was holding hostage was comforted by the sight of the leader creature, making it remain silent. That guess would support Michelle’s theory about the leader actually being a parent.

Or after the cocoon of void disappeared, the leader creature got full access to control over the four creatures, completely taking away their sense of self, so they no longer screeched in pain.

Whatever the case was, Michelle couldn’t get the answer until she concluded her plan, so she decided not to think about it too much.

Instead, she turned her full attention to the leader creature.

Its earlier growl was a warning. A warning not to hurt the creature any further.

So what if Michelle disregarded that?

Summoning her ice-element spirit energy, she held the creature down before having an ice spike form from the ice on the ground and stab through the creature’s leg.

The leader creature let out a loud roar, defying its name, Soundless Beast. The roar was loud, carrying far through the forest.

It was angry.

But it didn’t attack. It was intelligent enough to understand that if it came closer, Michelle would hurt the one she was holding down further.

Instead, the creature took a single step back.

Seeing that, Michelle pulled on her spirit energy and let the ice spike shrink ever so slightly.

The creature took a few more steps back, and the other three creatures followed suit.

Michelle completely pulled the ice spike from the creature’s leg, but she let it still touch its skin.

The leader creature understood what Michelle wanted.

If they left her alone, she would release the creature. She was already nearly certain it wasn’t a minion but the leader creature’s child. Probably a baby.

But she didn’t let it sting her consciousness.

Michelle knew she wasn’t a good person. She knew she was cruel and harsh toward those she didn’t like. And those who endangered her got even worse treatment.

She wouldn’t feel guilty for taking a beast’s child hostage.

She could bet that if she had a child she cared about and the leader creature, maybe more suitably called the parent creature, found out, it would use it the same way she used its child. Because that was the way things worked in the wild.

The parent creature knew that to save its child, it had to give up on getting its hands on the source of the sweet smell that had filled the forest just a while ago.

Turning around, it disappeared between the trees within a split second. The other three creatures followed closely behind.

With her sensing net still spread within the ground, Michelle could feel movement there too. Everything that had come to harm her was gone.

Michelle narrowed her eyes for a moment before retracting her sickle and dagger back into the spirit domain. The next moment, she kicked the creature she was holding hostage, pushing it away from her.

She could feel Alexander’s gaze on her from within the tree crowns. “Was it inhuman to hold an infant hostage?” she asked, seemingly into the air.

She didn’t get a response. Alexander remained momentarily silent.

Instead, the creature reacted.

Michelle didn’t even get the chance to move when the Soundless Beast turned to her, its fangs bared. The next moment, she felt a sharp pain where her neck connected to her shoulder.

Instantly, Michelle reacted.

She still had ice spread like a field under her.

With a bit of motion to her spirit energy, an ice spike rose from the ice, stabbing between Michelle and the creature, finally impaling into its stomach.

The creature’s mouth opened, the fangs retreating from Michelle’s shoulder.

With a kick, Michelle sent the creature away, the spike breaking away from the rest of the ice, staying impaled within the creature.

The creature stared at Michelle, a screech leaving its mouth. Once again, it resembled a baby’s cry.

Michelle didn’t like that.

But she no longer cared for the creature. Summoning some void, she sent it flying at the creature, forcing it to get away from her.

At the same time, she pulled on the bit of spirit energy connecting her to the spike in the creature, melting it away.

The creature let out another screech as it ran away from the ball of void rushing at it.

When the ice melted, the water soaked the wound, causing more pain.

All that happened within the span of less than a second. The creature was fast, so it disappeared from sight before Michelle could blink.

She wanted to touch her bitten shoulder to check the extent of the damage.

Instead, she got another strike.

It wasn’t from any of the Soundless Beasts.

It was the unknown beast or monster residing somewhere in the mountain, not liking Michelle’s presence. The sickeningly sweet scent of her blood was angering it.

So it let out a second roar, one that also carried infrasound, in waves much more powerful than the ones before.

Michelle lost her balance and nearly fell down.

But Alexander was somehow expecting such a roar the moment he saw the Soundless Beast bite Michelle, so before she could collapse, he appeared behind her to catch her.

“It isn’t inhuman…” he lazily answered her earlier question. “But even if it was, you are no longer a human. You have no reason to act like one.”

Michelle felt like cursing Alexander out.

Did he really need to answer that at the moment? And after ignoring the question at first?

Alexander clearly saw Michelle’s anger. The red in her eyes wasn’t fading even though her excitement was long gone. It was obvious his words had angered her.

But she wasn’t exactly in a position to fight back.

So it seemed the Soundless Creatures had something on their fangs that prevented wounds from healing. And if Michelle kept bleeding, the sickeningly sweet scent of her blood would continue annoying the creature in the mountains. If it roared again, she could really faint.

She was already barely conscious.

It wasn’t hard to guess what Michelle was thinking. Alexander could obviously understand it.

So he summoned his shadow essence and had it wrap around Michelle’s shoulder to create something resembling a bandage, blocking out the scent.

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