Chapter 347: 347

Seeing the creature move towards her, Michelle tried to take on a fighting stance.

But the web beneath her reacted to that and pulled her down.

Holding back a curse, Michelle knew she had to get up before the creature got to her.

But it was moving quickly.

Before Michelle could lift herself up halfway, the creature got so close she could see it in its full grace.

And Michelle had to admit, it wasn’t a nice thing to look at.

That was a living torture device.

The creature was standing on two long slender feet connecting to a slim, but short torso, from which two pairs of long arms, if it could be called that, were growing out. One pair was ending in claws, the other in fingers curled into fists.

And, above the torso was a tiny head on a neck way too big for it.

Standing straight, the creature was just slightly taller than Michelle if she managed to stand up straight, but it looked far from human.

Even the way it moved was twisted.

The movement was so fluid that the dips of the web beneath it went completely unnoticed.

The creature was basically moving in an exactly opposite way to the web, if something like that existed.

Michelle didn’t get the chance to admire the creature’s movements.

It was rushing at her at full speed.

If she didn’t do something, it would maim her.

Jumping to her feet while holding back a curse, Michelle knew there was no way for her to think whether she wanted to balance on the web using human movement or monster movement.

For human movement, she would have to constantly put effort into keeping her joints tight, and standing against that creature, she would have no way to do that.

So, at least until she figured out the creature’s movement and attack patterns, she would have to rely on monster movement.

But it wasn’t like getting into that would be easy.

Michelle knew she had to relax the joints she had been constantly trying to at least a bit lock up and stiffen.

To keep up her movement patterns somewhat human.

But she got so used to it, that she didn’t exactly know how to relax and unlock the joints.

Before Michelle could even process the thoughts, the creature was already right in front of her, raising its limbs above her.

Michelle had no way to react. No way out.

If she moved even the tiny bit, she was sure the web would pull her down.

And then, the creature would strike her when she was down.

But if she didn’t move, the creature would still strike her.

The creature didn’t hold back the least bit and landed a tight punch on Michelle’s side, forcing her down.

Also, the force of the punch made her roll on the web, causing tears and cuts from the threads.

The best that Michelle could do was protect her neck and eyes from being torn.

Her left eye was already lacking the eyelid, so the glass Eye of Nihil was extremely prominent.

Michelle couldn’t let that happen to her right eye, too.

Because that eye wasn’t made of glass and would get torn out along with the eyelid. Or at least a part of it would.

The creature rained punches on Michelle, forcing her to roll around on the web.

She was already feeling dizzy because of blood loss, so when the creature joined the torture, Michelle felt her gaze get extremely blurry.

She could barely see anything.

Quite fast, Michelle felt strength leaving her body.

Even with a body reinforced by Life Stones, she stood no chance against the creature up above her.

But the creature continued.

Getting above Michelle, it raised its limbs again, but this time, not the ones with fingers curled into fists.

It showed its claws.

Michelle knew that if she let that hit her, she would have zero chance of survival.

She had to move.

But what was she to do when her body didn’t listen?

As the creature struck down, Michelle used all her will to force her body to roll to the side, dodging the strike of death.

But she knew it would be impossible to dodge another one like that.

And even if she succeeded again and again, at some point, she would get struck.

While Michelle was in the cube’s space, Alexander was outside, hidden in shadows, a frown on his face.

He could feel through the Shadow Pact that something was going on.

It was flickering as if it was about to break.

And a Shadow Pact would only break if one party died.

Of course, considering that Michelle didn’t break it herself.

And in those cases, the pact wouldn’t flicker before breaking. It would just straight up disappear.

So, Alexander knew something was going on in the cube’s space.

And the fact that he couldn’t find out what it was or go there himself nearly drove him crazy.

All he could do was hope the pact wouldn’t suddenly disappear.

But maybe the Devil himself had decided to mess with Alexander and ruin his day, because after flickering for a long time, the Shadow Pact suddenly went silent.

Alexander couldn’t feel it no matter how hard he tried to sense it.

Feeling that, Alexander just turned his gaze towards the training grounds where the cube was lying on the ground.

He really felt like shattering it.

Noctis and Unlucien were nearby, and they instantly felt the shift in the air.

Their Lord’s power was pulsing through the surroundings, making the shadows all around ominous and darker.

The two looked at each other, not even daring to glance Alexander’s way.

There had only ever been one time they felt something like that from him.

It was when he lost his mind and went on a killing spree because of the Void Plague.

After a few seconds of not hearing anything breaking, Noctis and Unlucien slowly turned towards Alexander.

And the moment their eyes fell on him, both could feel their stomach drop.

Alexander had his gaze fixed on the cube in the distance, his face expressionless, while shadow essence surged around him uncontrollably.

It was clear he wanted to destroy everything.

Staring at the cube, Alexander fell into a trance.

He wanted to shatter the cube, but at the same time couldn’t bring himself to move.

So, no destruction happened.

The academy grounds remained peaceful.

At least on the surface and for a while.

Just as Alexander was about to break out of the trance and go into a frenzy, he felt a thin wisp of shadow essence making him frown.

Jumping into the training grounds, he picked up the black cube and lifted it to his eyes.

He could barely see anything, but he could feel a subtle pulse of shadow essence familiar to him.

Summoning his own shadow essence, he wrapped it around the cube, maybe in an attempt to feel the familiar shadow essence better.

Holding his breath, he waited for something to happen.

Maybe a flicker in the shadow essence, or a reaction in the broken pact.

And, something did happen.

It was extremely weak, but Alexander could feel the Shadow Pact reappear.

His eyes gleamed, but darkened when the pact went silent again.

It felt like the cube was messing with him.

For a while, Alexander kept the cube in his hand, feeling the pact fall apart and reappear repeatedly in fast intervals.

But those intervals kept slowing.

The time when the Shadow Pact was gone remained the same, but the time it stayed around, though weak, kept increasing.

Every time the Shadow Pact went silent, Alexander held his breath, staring at the cube to see if it would reappear.

He couldn’t even start guessing what was going on in the cube’s space, but he refused to believe that Michelle would die in there.

He no longer wanted to break the cube.

Or at least at the moment.

He would do it once Michelle came out and he confirmed she was safe.

As he was thinking about that, Alexander felt a presence approaching.

Lucas was coming back.

With his frown deepening, Alexander disappeared into the shadows.

After entering the training grounds, Lucas searched with his gaze for the cube.

When he didn’t see it anywhere, he was a bit surprised.

“Did she take it with her to her room to use it?” he asked into what seemed like emptiness.

“But why would she? This place is the safest for body tempering.”

Lucas was greatly confused.

He had no way of knowing that Alexander was watching him from the shadows, genuinely feeling like lashing out.

Lucas was the one who sent Michelle into the space, so if something happened to her, Alexander would kill him.

Lucas would be the first person Alexander would go after.

And the second would be Vincent Ostrich.

He was the one who asked Michelle to pretend to be Ana Ostrich.

If he didn’t ask her, she would have joined the sect differently, and wouldn’t get involved with someone like Lucas.

Probably.

There was no way to be sure with the kind of person Michelle was.

Who knew whether she wouldn’t end up in the space even faster if she got into the academy on her own…

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