Chapter 81: 81

A few days after Ivona moved to the Archduchy, the day of the Sloan family’s execution came. Some of them were protesting and crying, begging to be set free, but the rest, including Garric and Malrik Sloan, were silent, knowing they had no way out of it.

As promised before, Michelle took Ivona with her and came to the Imperial Palace to go to the execution grounds with Kieran Ashford. She used the time before the execution to introduce Ivona and Kieran to each other, since both of them would be coming with her to the lower realm.

Soon, the execution started, and Michelle watched the family get hanged one by one. Not many people were around, since officials couldn’t care less about a small family like the Sloan family, and the common folk didn’t care about the execution of corrupt officials.

After the whole Sloan family died from hanging, the executioner took the bodies down and severed their heads.

Michelle, Ivona and Kieran slowly walked out of the execution grounds, no longer caring about what was happening. They went to talk to the little Emperor for a while before leaving the palace. When they were leaving, the severed heads of the Sloan family were already hanging above the palace gate for display.

“Are you happy now?” Michelle glanced at Kieran as she summoned Cold Flame from the contract space. He gracefully flapped his wings as he grew in size, so three people could sit on his back.

Kieran looked at Cold Flame in awe as he shook his head. “I didn’t want to take revenge to be happy. If I did, I would be foolish. How could taking revenge make someone happy?”

Jumping up, Michelle landed on Cold Flame’s back and beckoned the two to follow her. “Since your revenge is completed, will you start cultivating now?” she asked as the two sat behind her, and Cold Flame spread his large white wings with gentle blue streaks.

“Yes!” Kieran nodded. “I want to get out of here as soon as possible,” he added.

That made Michelle lift a brow. “Is that your way to move on?” she asked curiously. For her, moving on from things was quite easy if she wanted to, though she knew that others needed some time to move on from certain things; she never really knew how they did it. But the only reason she didn’t know was because she never took the time to find out. She was always either too lazy or too busy to do so.

“You could say so…” Kieran sighed a bit. “I just want to forget everything…”

Hearing that, Ivona spoke up: “Forgetting isn’t always a good option. Even though bitter, those memories shaped you into who you are. If you didn’t have them, you could have ended up being just another naive Young Lord, arrogant because you can cultivate.”

“I know that much,” Kieran smiled a bit. “I just sometimes feel like forgetting. But I can’t forget. Some things can never be forgotten.”

When Cold Flame landed in the Archduchy, Ivona went to her room to cultivate, and Michelle showed Kieran around before he went to cultivate too. Then, Michelle went to the fountain in the garden to try to reshape and sort out the space inside her spatial bracelet. Just like before, she closed her eyes and sent a wisp of her consciousness into the bracelet, blending it into one of the twists. Then, she coated it with her soul and spirit energy and spread the two energies around the space.

When the two energies harmonized with the space, she started moving them, and the space moved along. Maybe it was because she was doing it for the second time, she was able to straighten out a bit more of the space than before, so she finally made enough space in the bracelet to store the eggs she put into the Archduke’s spatial box.

Though feeling tired from straining her soul energy, she stood up and went to the Archduke. He gave her the spatial box, and she took the eggs back into her bracelet.

After putting away the eggs, Michelle went back to the fountain. She cultivated for a short while to recover her spirit energy and some of her soul energy before sending a wisp of her consciousness into the bracelet again.

Once again, she straightened a part of the many twists, thus expanding the space where she kept the eggs.

She repeated the process of recovering her soul and spirit energy and straightening the space until she had so much usable space in the bracelet that she couldn’t see the corners when her wisp of consciousness was in the middle of the usable space.

After a long time, Michelle finally stood up and stretched her body lazily. She knew she had been by the fountain for a few days already, but she didn’t know how many exactly, and she didn’t really care.

With her body stiff from sitting for so long and also feeling quite hungry, she strolled into the kitchen and ate a quick snack before contacting her beasts using the contract. She told them she would go to the forest by the Imperial Capital to fight some monsters, since she wanted to move her body for a while before continuing to work on the space in the bracelet.

The servants and the Archduke were already used to Michelle coming and going as she liked, so no one was surprised when she jumped over the fence and used her Shadow Spirit Steps to disappear.

Michelle stayed in the forest for over a week, and when she came back to the mansion, Ivona told her that she could no longer cultivate. Kieran was still in his room, and Michelle could feel the fire element spirit energy moving inside, so she knew he was still cultivating relentlessly.

Since Ivona and Michelle would be bored if they stayed in the mansion, Michelle decided that the two of them would go to the mountain range nearest to the barrier between the Land of Exile and the lower realm, since there, monsters and beasts so strong roamed that it would be a challenge for the two.

Originally, Michelle was planning to try to alter the space in her spatial bracelet so she could use it as an incubator for the eggs, but that could be done anytime, so she decided to train her combat skills against beasts stronger than her until she went to the lower realm.

On their first day in the mountain range, nothing much happened as the two girls only met weaker beasts, so they just knocked them out, not even bothering to kill them, as they strolled towards the inner parts of the mountains.

The higher and deeper they went, the thicker the forest became until it was hard for them to walk through. In places like that, only small but swift beasts lived, so they decided to camp there. In the end, not all powerful monsters and beasts had to be big. Some were small and discreet, which made them even harder to kill.

And, only shortly after they settled in a small cave, the two felt a presence outside. “Was this cave already occupied by a beast?” Ivona asked Michelle.

Michelle just smiled a bit and shook her head. “No. Not a beast… It was occupied by a group of small monsters,” she said as she formed an ice dagger in her hand.

“Ugh-” Ivona frowned. “I hope it’s not bugs…” she said in disgust as she condensed balls of light element spirit energy in her hands.

“Doesn’t seem that way…” Michelle mumbled as she closed her eyes, using solely her hearing and sense of smell to operate in the cave. Being a former assassin, locating small enemies in the dark was her specialty.

The group of small monsters was approaching slowly, clearly aware of her and Ivona’s presence. Living in a cave, it was either completely blind and relied on other senses, like Michelle at the moment, or it had thermal or night vision. Or it could be a combination.

Beasts with thermal and night vision had poor eyesight during the day, so they either slept in dark places or used their other senses to operate. Since the little monsters were returning to the cave as the evening shadow was falling, they were daylight creatures.

Listening to the approaching group, Michelle’s smile widened a bit. “Ivona… You don’t like bugs… But what about small furry animals?” she asked as she opened her eyes and retracted her dagger. She sensed fear from the approaching monsters.

Though it was rare, it wasn’t unheard of for small monsters to be peaceful and scared of big creatures. But there also existed monsters which pretended to be peaceful and scared only to ambush their prey when it let its guard down.

Hearing Michelle’s words, Ivona lifted a brow. “What do you mean?” she asked with a frown.

Michelle completely retracted her spirit energy back into her dantian and smiled. “Hide your spirit energy to seem like you’re harmless, but don’t let your guard down. These bastards are tricksters…” she said as she closed her eyes again and leaned against the cave wall.

Ivona quickly listened to her and retracted all her spirit energy, but kept her guard up.

Then, Michelle heard the group of small monsters speed up their steps.

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