Chapter 322: 322

Alexander saw Michelle turning her gaze away, his eyes narrowing.

The next moment, Michelle felt Alexander’s presence behind her turn more menacing.

As Asher was about to speak to Marcus and Antony, he froze and looked back. He saw that Michelle, staging as Ana, had stiffened, clearly feeling the shift in atmosphere.

Marcus and Antony also stopped arguing.

Even Antony, not an expert in detection when compared to everyone else, felt the shift in atmosphere. And Marcus was completely on guard, looking around.

Involuntarily, his gaze landed on Michelle. “Do you know the source of the presence?” he asked.

Michelle turned around, looking over the courtyard wall. There, her gaze locked onto Alexander.

He stared back at her, his expression darker than Michelle had ever seen.

She knew that as the Dark Lord, Alexander was a cold-hearted and cruel person who built the Dark Palace on corpses. But she had never been confronted with that side of him.

She wasn’t scared of that side of him. She, too, was capable of equal monstrosities. But she was surprised to see Alexander like that.

For some reason, she had always had the feeling that although he wasn’t concealing that side of himself, he wasn’t really planning on showing it to her.

Or was it that he had just never had the chance?

Staring back at Alexander, Michelle got lost in thought, unable to tear her gaze away from him.

Standing beside Michelle, Marcus followed her line of sight, his gaze landing on Alexander and the two shadow guards standing behind him.

No one had really seen the Dark Lord in the upper realm, but shadow guards were known far and wide, whether human or monster.

And from their respectful stance near Alexander, it wasn’t hard to guess who he was.

Seeing the Life Stones on Noctis’ and Unlucien’s foreheads, and the way they were clothed, Marcus felt his blood run cold.

Then he looked at Michelle.

Just who was the little girl to so blatantly stare at the Dark Lord?

Having a Shadow Pact with Michelle, Alexander could feel what a mess she was in. From his point of view, feeling things through the pact, it looked like Michelle was completely entranced and fascinated.

By his grim expression?

Alexander started to calm down, Michelle’s full attention on him placating him. His expression relaxed back to normal.

He would have never guessed that his outburst of possessiveness would actually bring her attention to him.

As Alexander’s expression returned to normal, Michelle snapped out of the trance, lifting her hands to rub her eyes.

She hadn’t even realized it before, but her heart was beating rapidly, making her ribcage feel too small to contain it.

Seeing that Alexander’s expression had returned to normal, Marcus was confused. Wasn’t he clearly unhappy just a moment ago? “Sir Dark Lord, may we help you in some way?” he asked after considering it for a while.

Alexander’s attention snapped from Michelle to Marcus, his eyes narrowing. He didn’t like being disturbed.

He was very much tempted to summon his shadow essence and make it strangle Marcus.

And since Alexander wasn’t one to restrain himself, he did exactly what he desired.

The shadow beneath him stretched and shot toward Marcus.

Once it touched Marcus, the shadow essence turned into something like liquid shadow, tightening around him in the shape of a rope.

Michelle looked at Marcus briefly before turning to Alexander. She pulled her shadow essence back from her shadow so those around couldn’t see her, naturally except for Alexander, Noctis, and Unlucien, and activated her Shadow Spirit Steps.

The next moment, she was beside Alexander, her hand clenched into a fist. “Stop it…” Her voice resonated throughout the entire courtyard, as if it were coming from the walls themselves. Only Alexander could hear it normally.

Alexander looked at Michelle. “Why should I?” He wore his usual smile, but Michelle could tell he was unhappy. He didn’t like that she was protecting Marcus.

But since he was already unhappy, why not make him outright angry?

Just a while ago, he had gotten angry because she accepted Marcus as her Master, becoming his disciple. He got that angry even though she never said it herself. The words had never left her mouth.

So what if she really said it?

Michelle decided to test it as an answer to Alexander’s question. “Because he’s my Master.”

Alexander’s eyes flashed. For a moment, he froze on the spot. At the same time, the coils around Marcus stopped tightening, remaining in place.

Michelle knew that the next moment, Alexander would control his shadow essence to kill Marcus. So she had to strike before that.

Summoning her own shadow essence, she coated her hand in it and had it tighten into a hard block. Then she struck a punch at Alexander’s face.

As her hand connected with Alexander’s face, she reshaped the shadow essence. It clung to his face and wrapped around his head like a mask.

Quickly, it spread all around his head and started tightening.

A part of the shadow essence tightened just below Alexander’s chin, wrapping around his neck. If it tightened the wrong way, Michelle could easily break his hyoid bone.

It was a small bone in the neck, right under the tongue, not connected to other bones. It was shaped like the letter U and sat very close to the trachea, so if it broke, there was a high chance it would close up on it or even pierce it. In some cases, that could be deadly.

Michelle had only ever seen someone with that bone broken in her past life, so she was quite curious about how people from a cultivation world would deal with it.

Still, since she wasn’t sure whether they could save themselves if it turned fatal, she decided not to test it on Alexander. It would be a pity if he died.

With his head completely wrapped in Michelle’s shadow essence, Alexander couldn’t see a thing. His head was also throbbing from the pressure.

Of course, if he wanted to, he could easily break out of it, but he was quite curious about what she wanted to do.

He even forgot about his anger.

Watching from the side, Noctis and Unlucien knew not to interfere.

To an outsider, it would have looked like a daring brat was messing with the Dark Lord, maybe even endangering his life. But the two of them knew that Alexander was letting Michelle do as she liked.

If he wanted to, he could easily overpower Michelle with less than half of his power.

She was indeed proficient with shadow essence, but she was still weaker than Alexander at the moment. Also, she had no experience clashing against someone who used shadow essence, so Alexander could use techniques on her that she had never seen.

But that was just their guess. Who knew? Michelle always showed herself to have a twisted mind, so if she really ended up opposing Alexander, maybe she would be able to take him down.

Standing next to Alexander, keeping the shadow essence constantly tightening around his head, Michelle took a bottle out of her space.

When she opened it, a sweet medicinal scent filled the air.

Alexander couldn’t smell it with his head covered, but Noctis and Unlucien could immediately tell what it was.

One of Michelle’s many poisons, made into a paste. It worked upon contact with skin.

Not caring that she would get poisoned as well, Michelle poured the paste onto her palms and started rubbing it onto Alexander’s neck. “You know, I made this one just for you!” From her voice alone, Alexander could tell she was smiling. She was clearly happy that she could finally put her poison to use.

After she was done rubbing the poison all over Alexander’s neck, Michelle retracted the shadow essence around his head and jumped back into the courtyard. “Enjoy it as a gift from me!”

Alexander touched his neck, not feeling anything yet. He had no plans to wash the paste off, especially since it was a gift.

With Alexander calm again, Michelle put her shadow essence back into her shadow so the people in the courtyard could see her again.

Seeing her reappear, Asher stared at her like she was some kind of monster. “Junior Sister, who is that man?” he asked. “And why do you know him?”

Michelle smiled. “He wants to recruit me into his organization,” she lied without batting an eyelid. “Because of my concealment abilities.”

Hearing Michelle’s words, Asher was only stunned. He didn’t know Alexander’s identity, so he was able to remain calm.

But to Marcus and Antony, Michelle’s words were a devastating blow.

They didn’t exactly believe her, but from her interaction with him, even though they hadn’t seen her the whole time, they understood that something was going on.

Whether she would or wouldn’t join the Dark Palace later in her life, it was clear that she already had a place in the heavenly realm.

Compared to that, being Philip Grace’s daughter was nothing.

Being able to freely mess with the Dark Lord meant that she was far beyond just a potential recruit.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep