Chapter 367: 367

Sitting on the bed, Michelle watched the black cat next to her closely as it stared up at her warily.

And on the other side of the bed was Alexander, leaning against the headrest, his eyes half‑closed.

He was aware of every movement in the room, every breath taken, but since Michelle didn’t want it, he wouldn’t intervene.

While staring up at Michelle, Tenether let out a wisp of both soul and spirit energy to sense who Michelle really was.

If he wanted, he could just bolt out of the room, but he had to find out why Michelle was with him when he got out of the Starving Cub state.

She could know something vital, or maybe there was something else going on he wouldn’t know if he just bolted out.

Sensing the soul and spirit energy, Michelle tilted her head a bit.

“Instead of doing something inefficient like this, how about I instead let you read my memories?” she asked with a careless smile.

When her words fell, Tenether nearly instantly retracted his energies.

He wasn’t expecting her to be able to sense that so easily.

And he was also surprised that she would suggest memory reading.

He had only ever met a few people who willingly had someone read their memories, and it was always in dire situations.

Just like Tenether was surprised, Alexander’s eyes narrowed sharply.

He didn’t like the idea of a monster reading Michelle’s memories when it was still clearly antagonistic towards her.

All memory manipulation and memory‑reading skills required the caster to send their energy deep into the consciousness of the one whose memories they wanted to read.

And there, it took just a single flicker of energy, and the person would be reduced to nothing but a barely conscious shell.

There was no way to guarantee that Tenether wouldn’t do that, and Michelle had to know that.

So why did she suggest memory reading?

He couldn’t wrap his head around it, and Tenether was also clearly suspicious of Michelle’s motives.

Michelle didn’t pay attention to Alexander, so she didn’t notice the narrowing of his eyes.

But she noticed the obvious suspicions Tenether was displaying.

“There’s no way for me to harm you if you are the one using the skill. So why the wariness?” she asked with a careless smile.

Tenether let out a hiss.

So it seemed that even after getting back his consciousness, he couldn’t speak.

That was quite strange considering his power.

He was more powerful than both Noctis and Unlucien.

Monsters of that power were usually speaking fluently.

But that didn’t mean Michelle couldn’t understand Tenether.

Even when in the Starving Cub state, he couldn’t speak, and thus he altered Michelle’s soul to be able to decipher his hisses and meows, or any sounds he made depending on what creature.

So Michelle heard what he wanted to say:

“A scheming woman like you could easily manipulate her own memories to make me see what you want so I come to trust you!”

Tenether had no idea that Michelle could understand him, so he just kept hissing angrily.

But that was just incoherent noise without any logical meaning.

It was just meant to show his dissatisfaction.

Because of that, Tenether was fairly surprised when Michelle responded to what he said in his mind.

“You can be sure I didn’t manipulate the memories if you go through all of them. It would be impossible for me to manipulate such an amount.”

Tenether hissed something at Michelle a few more times, and when he realized she could indeed understand him, he was shocked.

Monsters could alter someone’s soul to understand them only if they were in a contract.

Monsters being contracted to someone was rare, but not unheard of.

And Tenether had never considered he would ever end up in a contract with someone, especially so with a woman as suspicious as Michelle.

In one way, it made him more wary of Michelle: what did she do to his childish self for him to form a contract with her?

But at the same time, it made him drop a part of his guard down.

It was unheard of for contract masters to attack their contract monsters, so he didn’t have that to worry about.

But that also meant he wouldn’t be able to attack Michelle if she angered him.

Tenether didn’t like that restriction, even though he knew that, with Alexander around, he would never be able to lay a hand on Michelle.

And not knowing anything about Michelle or Alexander, Tenether couldn’t even be confident about breaking the contract.

So, suddenly, the thought of going through Michelle’s memories was quite tempting.

He could see who he was up against, and maybe even who Alexander was.

With something between a meow and a hiss, Tenether agreed, making Michelle raise a brow.

After seeing how suspicious Tenether was of her, she didn’t expect him to agree to anything she suggested.

But his agreement only satisfied her.

At least she wouldn’t have to bother convincing him.

She would just have to make sure he didn’t try to attack her consciousness.

Seeing Tenether getting close to Michelle, clearly to scan her memories, Alexander felt the corner of his mouth twitch.

If that cat tried anything, he would turn it into a blood soup in an instant.

Just beneath his skin, his shadow essence bubbled, ready to lunge forth.

Closing her eyes so Tenether could scan her memories, Michelle felt a stir in her soul energy.

Serith was signing something for her to read.

It was a question:

“You want me to make sure he doesn’t do anything suspicious?”

Michelle manipulated the soul energy into a yes sign.

Serith’s presence in her soul was the reason she dared to let Tenether scan her consciousness.

She herself wouldn’t be able to interfere, but Serith, with control over her soul energy, would be able to — and with the precision of a brain surgeon.

Tenether jumped to Michelle’s shoulder before getting on top of her head.

Once there, he started inserting a mix of his spirit and soul energy into her head to begin the scanning.

To his surprise, it was quite hard to insert the energies into Michelle’s consciousness, showing that her soul was extremely dense or concentrated exactly on the spot through which he wanted to push.

Such level of concentration was mortally impossible, so that left Tenether with only the first option.

And it got confirmed the moment his energies sank into Michelle’s soul and consciousness.

It was completely black there.

That could only happen if one’s soul was so dense there was no spare space for light.

Most of the soul space was like that until Tenether spotted a place that was acting differently.

Like it was a completely different soul.

Tenether didn’t know that, but that was Serith there.

Still, Tenether didn’t concentrate on that spot.

It had nothing to do with him or his goal.

He had to concentrate on the memory center of the soul.

In such a dense soul, finding it could be difficult.

Well, difficult…

If a monster of Tenether’s power deemed something difficult, it usually didn’t take longer than twenty seconds to finish it.

He was considered an ancient calamity for something.

There was a solid reason Mavreth had to seal him down in the lower realm.

So, just a few moments later, Tenether was looking through Michelle’s memories, and they were flashing in her mind, forcing her to remember all that had happened both in her past life and since she became Michelle Grace.

For an old monster like Tenether, the amount of memories Michelle had accumulated in both her lives wasn’t that much, and he had gone through it twice in mere three minutes.

Then, he jumped off Michelle’s head and landed on her lap.

“You might have been a good master to my disabled self, but that doesn’t mean I will accept the contract. Either find a way to break it yourself, or I will do it in a while.” he finally spoke calmly.

He was no longer wary of Michelle, but his view of her was still different from how he would view someone else if they managed to contract him.

In the memories, he had seen just what kind of immortal creature Michelle was.

Not a human, not a beast, not a monster.

He didn’t want to be associated with that.

Michelle gave a slight nod, having expected that.

After the memory scanning, she was feeling a tad bit tired, so her reaction was very subtle.

Unlike when she scanned or manipulated someone’s memory, which she made sure was painless, monsters didn’t really care about that, and it hurt like hell when Tenether did the scanning.

And the worst thing about it was that Michelle only started properly feeling it once he retracted his energies.

Because only then did the pain signals reach her brain in full power.

Until then, they were being blocked by the energies.

Tenether knew there would be no talking with Michelle because of the scanning, so he jumped off the bed and curled up there to rest.

He could wait the while until Michelle got back to her senses.

The moment Tenether landed on the ground, Alexander summoned his shadow essence and shot it towards him.

The black mass hit the kitten and pushed it under the bed so it wouldn’t be in Alexander’s sight.

He really didn’t like the creature.

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