Chapter 348: 348

Within the space of the cube, Michelle couldn’t dodge anymore.

She was completely helpless against the creature.

Not once had it slowed down or given her a chance to breathe.

It just kept striking.

Unable to move, Michelle couldn’t avoid the upcoming attack.

The creature lunged at her, its claws bared.

It was fast.

Before Michelle could even react, she felt a clawed limb force its way through her chest.

It tore through her ribcage and ripped a hole into her lungs.

The limb didn’t stop there and tore out through her back.

Michelle had a tunnel through her chest.

In both her past and current life, Michelle had never killed someone by tearing open their lungs.

And when she landed a shot on their chest, she was usually so far she couldn’t even see whether they died right away or slowly.

But medically, she had a guess about the kind of death that would be.

Quickly, Michelle’s breathing turned into short, sharp gasps.

Air was rapidly leaving her lungs and filling the area around her lungs, causing pressure in her chest that even pressed on her heart.

Also, the creature’s limb had torn open quite a few veins, so blood was spilling everywhere.

Few things were going wrong at once.

Because of the pressure at Michelle’s heart and the torn veins, her blood circulation was collapsing.

Thanks to the hole in her lungs, no matter how much air she gasped in, she didn’t have enough oxygen.

Additionally, as her lungs shrunk because they were no longer inflated by air like balloons, the muscles around them could no longer pull or press on them to start breathing.

Even Michelle’s sharp gasps were quickly disappearing.

And last, due to the massive blood loss, Michelle’s body was just a tiny step away from going into a shock.

All those four things could kill an individual.

And quite quickly.

And because the creature left its limb in Michelle’s chest, in the wound, Michelle’s healing abilities couldn’t get to work.

But maybe, that was better.

The probability of the healing to be able to save her was minimal.

It would just prolong the dying.

Michelle’s gaze blurred quickly, and she lost consciousness.

When that happened was exactly when outside in the training grounds Alexander felt the Shadow Pact flickering the most.

And just a moment later, the Shadow Pact collapsed, signaling Michelle’s death.

But then it reappeared like she was alive.

That was exactly what happened.

Under the creature’s hand, Michelle’s life slipped.

But all of that was happening within the cube’s space.

And the cube was owned by the academy.

For the academy to have allowed Lucas to use the cube on his students and disciples, they must have checked it was safe, at least in a way that no one would die in there.

And, the cube was safe in that way.

The trials there did kill the students, but right after they died, the space did something similar to a revival.

Within itself, the cube could bend time and space.

So, while the time continued normally in the outside world, within the space, a single spot could have its time reversed a bit.

That would bring the dead student back to life.

And, after bringing them back to life, the space would also change the threat a bit.

The cube wasn’t meant to send the students into infinite loops of dying, so each time a student was brought back to life, the threat they had to face was moved over, or forced to take different moves.

In that way, the students didn’t even know that the time of their bodies had been changed.

They just thought they had been healed to the state before they got fatally hit.

But there was nothing wrong with that.

The students didn’t have to understand the mechanics of the space to go through body tempering in it.

As one of those students, Michelle, after losing consciousness, lost track of time, and nearly instantly felt that she was on her feet, her consciousness returning.

In reality, she had been unconscious for a while before her body collapsed and her life faded so the space could revive her.

Whatever was the case, Michelle understood that the space must have played a role in the fact that she was alive.

Quickly looking around and at herself, Michelle realized two things.

First, except the tunnel through her chest, all her wounds were still present.

And second, the creature that killed her was surprisingly far, standing still.

But Michelle could feel its gaze locked on her.

Since the creature was motionless, Michelle realized it was her chance to learn to balance on the web beneath her feet.

If she didn’t, she would just get dominated by that creature again without a chance to retaliate.

First thing Michelle tried to do was squat down.

She guessed that if she shifted her center of gravity, her reaction to the dips of the web could be different.

She just needed to find out whether it would be beneficial or counterproductive.

When Michelle completely squatted down, she fell over, right onto the web, but she had still found something out.

Squatting down wasn’t the solution she was looking for, but letting her body slightly lower could work.

Because while she was bending to squat, she felt more stability.

After getting up, Michelle decided to test it.

She loosened her shoulders and bent her back ever so slightly.

At the same time, she bent her knees a bit too.

Improvement was instant.

Michelle felt like the web was connected to her foot.

But there was one big problem with the stance she took on.

It looked nothing like how humans held their bodies.

But Michelle had the feeling she could solve it.

Even before, she realized she needed to imitate monster movement and loosen and relax her joints.

Back then, she didn’t get to do it because the creature attacked her.

Also, Michelle knew loosening and relaxing her joints would be difficult because she was somehow used to human movements, even though her body was defying it.

But in the stance Michelle had newly taken on, most of her joints were in a relaxed position.

Michelle just had to remember that sensation and joint alignment to recreate it once she stood upright.

That could give her human posture when, in reality, she would move with the fluidity of a monster.

But a concealed fluidity.

One that even someone like Lucas wouldn’t notice if he wasn’t paying special attention.

Though Michelle already thought of a way to stabilize herself on the web, she didn’t have the chance to test it.

The creature finally moved.

It lunged towards Michelle at high speed, its claws bared to shred.

Seeing that, Michelle had an idea, but she discarded it instantly.

The idea was that maybe, if she let the creature kill her again, she would once again have a while when the creature would be motionless.

It was quite logical, but Michelle still discarded it.

First of, she didn’t want to rely on dying.

And second, she couldn’t be sure she would get healed, or revived, or anything like that again.

Just because it happened once didn’t mean it would happen every time.

So, Michelle didn’t want to be struck down by the creature.

So, as it lunged at her, she quickly dodged to the side.

As she did that another thought struck Michelle.

It was quite obvious but she had completely overlooked it.

After she woke up, got revived, she could move even though her wounds, except the fatal one, were still all over her body.

But before she got the fatal wound, she could barely move.

A strange thing to happen.

But maybe it was logical.

Since the space didn’t want to throw the students into an infinite death loop, it had to make sure they would be able to move once they were revived.

Michelle didn’t have time to think about it further.

The creature was approaching quickly.

When it got just in reach of her, Michelle squatted down to dodge its claws.

With her joints relaxed much more than before, her stability was better.

But she still had trouble keeping herself from falling.

Still, it was a big improvement, not falling into the cutting threads all the time.

But the creature didn’t leave Michelle a chance to stay relaxed in the squat.

Having missed, it attacked again.

And since Michelle was down below it, it decided to kick, something it hadn’t done once when Michelle was fighting it for the first time.

The creature’s legs were fast.

Michelle was surprised by it and couldn’t react in time, ending up with a bruise on her stomach.

The force of the kick made her lose her fragile balance and roll to her back, into the web.

Having already been cut all over, Michelle was convinced she would remember the pain for a long time.

The nasty feeling of thin threads cutting deep into her flesh, stopping just at her bones.

With a groan, Michelle rolled to the side and got up, trying to keep her joints relaxed.

With the new pain in her body it was quite difficult.

Also, the fact that she had to constantly move to dodge the monster was only making things worse.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep