Chapter 351: 351

Outside the Ostrich Academy, Michelle was lying on the ground, panting in exhaustion while Alexander stood above her, shadow essence coiling around him.

“At this rate, you will never defeat me,” he had his usual smile on as he squatted down, running his finger along Michelle’s cheek.

Michelle reluctantly got up.

After getting out of the cube’s space, she agreed with Alexander that she would only return to the academy after getting her control over shadow essence back.

And to make sure she indeed got it back, she had to defeat Alexander when he suppressed his rank to hers.

That meant Alexander was only able to use Liquid Shadow and Living Shadow.

No other advanced skills.

But that didn’t mean he was easy to defeat.

Especially since Michelle also had to constantly push her shadow essence to a limit to get her control back.

She really hated the fact that when going to higher realms, she had to retrain because of the Heavenly Law’s suppression in the lower realms.

Just from her potential, Michelle could be sure that she had the control of the same rank Alexander was at, but because of the Heavenly Law’s suppressing, until she got to the heavenly realm, she wouldn’t be able to use that rank.

Her control would be constantly suppressed and she would have to fight it.

And each time she crossed higher through the barrier of the Heavenly Law, the partial lifting of the suppression wouldn’t have an immediate positive effect.

Quite the opposite actually.

Though long term, Michelle would be able to use higher ranked skills, but after crossing, her rank would drop and she would have to train to get back to it.

And after getting to the upper realm, Michelle didn’t yet have the time to train enough to get back to her rank.

She had only trained enough to be able to use her shadow essence in her shadows to create presence for herself.

And that wasn’t all that much.

So, to reach her former rank, the training she had to go through was brutal.

If she wanted to pass it in reasonable time and return to the academy before she was deemed dead, she would really have to torture herself with the training.

So, though her shadow dantian was pulsing painfully, begging to have at least a bit of shadow essence, Michelle didn’t cultivate even a tiny bit to give it some.

She jumped to her feet and lunged at Alexander.

The best way to train control over shadow essence was by taking hold of someone else’s shadow essence, but at Michelle’s rank, that was only possible if her shadow dantian was gaping empty.

In its desperation, the dantian would pull on anything to pull in.

And in that moment, Michelle would have to take hold of the shadow essence.

Actually, she was already able to do it a few times.

The last few hours, she had been fighting Alexander with his own shadow essence.

And achieving something like that was an ultimate proof that she had far surpassed the control she had when she was in the middle realm.

Back there, the Heavenly Law didn’t allow her to have that much control.

But Alexander still didn’t allow Michelle to go back to the academy.

They had agreed that only her defeating him would be deemed as a proof of her control.

So she couldn’t go back.

That was why, even after a few days, Michelle was still fighting him.

Feeling the insistent pull of her shadow dantian on the shadow essence, Michelle knew she had to hurry up defeating Alexander.

With every moment, she could feel the pull getting closer to slipping out of control, and if that happened, she wouldn’t be able to fight Alexander for a while.

In other words, it would make things more difficult for her.

Taking a hold of a part of Alexander’s shadow essence, Michelle forced it to take on the shape of a sickle.

She wondered if it was still the weapon she was the most proficient with.

Her body had changed quite a bit since the last time she had used it.

Gripping it tightly, Michelle swung it at Alexander while shaping something new in her mouth.

Having to focus on the shadow essence control, she couldn’t use a single hand to wield the sickle.

Both her hands were preoccupied with the sickle, so the new object had to be formed in a different place.

And her teeth were something she could use to hold an object so she wouldn’t lose it.

Swinging the sickle, Michelle quickly realized that she was somehow clumsy with it.

It did have potential to stay her weapon of proficiency, but that would need some getting used to.

So, Michelle quickly reformed the Liquid Shadow sickle into a Living Shadow weapon, an autonomous bow.

She had already used that against Alexander once: when she fought with him in the air above the campsite of the Ostrich family children on the way to the academy.

He knew how it worked, so Michelle knew it wouldn’t take him down, but she just needed it to stop him from getting to her while she formed the thing in her mouth.

And it did work.

Having to suppress his control, Alexander couldn’t just ignore the bow and had to actively dodge.

On its own, that wasn’t all that much, but he was unable to advance towards Michelle.

She was improving quickly.

Just a while more and she would be at the threshold of control the Heavenly Law allowed in the upper realm.

Alexander wanted to see what would happen once she reached that.

She was out of the Heavenly Law’s realm of control, so would she be able to continue increasing her control, or would that suppression still apply to her?

While Alexander was being held back by the autonomous bow, Michelle felt the thing in her mouth get finished.

Quickly, she opened her mouth and let it slide out on her palm.

“Nice…” she smiled a bit, seeing how it came out.

Just like she wanted.

It looked like an ordinary black pebble but it was much more.

And the fact that it was made out of Alexander’s shadow essence only added to its lethality.

Gripping it tight in her hand, Michelle rushed past the bow and ran at Alexander, her eyes narrowed.

That pebble would let her end the fight.

Alexander naturally wouldn’t let Michelle win easily.

He quickly reached out to grab and restrain her, but after coming out of the cube’s space, she was able to exploit the flexibility of her joints.

With a simple squat, Michelle landed on all four and lunged from the ground towards Alexander.

Having been rolling on the cutting web and needing to jump up from it in matters of milliseconds, Michelle was able to move to and from squats with inhuman speed and precision.

Just a moment later, she was by Alexander’s side, aiming for his neck with the black pebble in her hand.

Alexander quickly ducked while dodging another of the bow’s arrows.

Michelle expected that.

She had timed the strike in sync with the bow so Alexander would only have one way to dodge.

She would exploit that direction.

Crushing the pebble between her hands, it exploded into a cloud of shadow essence that coiled around Alexander and took hold of the other shadow essence around it.

The thick cloud of shadow essence next started reforming into a specific shape, one that Michelle had gotten sick of over the last period.

Just a split second later, Alexander found himself in a net made out of nearly translucent threads.

They were black, but their thinness caused the translucence.

Creating that, Michelle was inspired by the web in the cube’s space.

The net was still a distance from Alexander.

It was like a big bubble around him.

Also, Michelle was in the net.

So it seemed, the net only shrunk the space where Michelle and Alexander could move around.

Because if Michelle wanted to wrap it around Alexander, she would also be trapping herself.

Or so Alexander thought.

Michelle didn’t tell him that in the cube’s space, she had been constantly ripped into by a net like the one she had created, so he didn’t know what she wanted to do.

Michelle was greatly inspired by the cube’s net, a smile on her face.

Using shadow essence, she elevated the net sphere above the ground, so Alexander didn’t have normal footing.

Only the net.

She herself was able to move just fine on it, but Alexander had a bit of trouble staying stable.

And in that state, he had to dodge arrows and fight back against Michelle.

Naturally, he wouldn’t let himself lose just yet, and summoned more of his shadow essence forth, ready to strike back.

Since Michelle had a plan, he would have her use it to its full potential.

Even at the same control rank as Michelle, Alexander wasn’t someone to be messed with.

He could use the same skills as her in completely different ways or exploit the loopholes he saw in her skills.

That was why, even while suppressed, he had a massive advantage.

He was more used to shadow essence.

He had more experience with it.

And, the biggest advantage, he could see through shadow essence nearly instantly.

That was why, to make the match somehow even, he reacted a bit slower.

Just a split second, but slower.

Because in a fight against someone like Michelle, who relied on precision and speed, a split second could be the difference between life and death, win and loss.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep