Chapter 86: 86

Walking around, she found stones aligned into a circle. Michelle thought about it for a while before stabbing an ice spear next to each stone. Then, she climbed a tree and looked at the ice spires from above, seeing that they looked as if they were assembled into a man-made formation, which was quite surprising because it was in the Sairin Forest Mountain Range, also called “Monster Mountain,” because it was well known for swarming with powerful monsters. That made it absurd for people to move around there, and the few brave ones who dared go there either returned traumatized or did not return at all. So who was it that created the formation?

Michelle stared at the formation for a while, and when she was about to come back down, she felt the presence of the monsters in the cave moving closer, so she stayed on one of her ice bridges and waited for the monsters to reappear.

When she arrived where Ivona was when the monsters were entering the cave, she was busy checking on Ivona, so she didn’t have the chance to take a good look at the monsters, but at the moment they were coming out, she could see their ugliness in its full glory.

The monsters were a mix of all kinds of animals. They had eight legs, like spiders, but the legs were in the shape of lizard legs. The tails of the monsters were those of horses. Bodies of tigers, heads of owls, but instead of beaks, they had mouths filled with rows and rows of sharp fangs, similar to sharks’ jaws.

“How can something so ugly exist?” Michelle frowned in disgust as she used the ice bridges to get back to Ivona. “These ugly shits came here after you lit the beam of light?” she asked, pointing toward the monsters on the ground. They were just starting to inspect the spears stabbed next to the flat stones of the formation. It was clear the monsters had some intelligence, as they stayed together all the time so other monsters, or Michelle, couldn’t ambush them.

Ivona stared at the monsters for a moment before adding, “They came quickly after I lit the beam,” she confirmed.

Hearing that, an impossible idea rose in Michelle’s mind. What if monsters could set up formations? But if that was the case, how come she had never heard of it? Was it something humans didn’t know about? Or did only the people in the Land of Exile not know? Or were the monsters deliberately hiding it?

Even in the memories she had received from the ancient monster Rivenaar, she didn’t find anything about monsters being able to create formations, so was that a skill only the ugly monster down beneath the trees possessed?

Looking at Ivona, Michelle smiled a bit. “Do you think you stand a chance against them?” she asked with a smirk.

Ivona shook her head slightly. “I’ve never fought against big monsters like that, so I would be killed by them in an instant,” she said with a slight frown. She felt like she was a hindrance to Michelle.

But Michelle didn’t feel the same. She could see the hidden potential in Ivona, and she was determined to bring it out. “If I separate one from the rest for you, would you be able to fight it?” she asked.

“I think I could,” Ivona nodded. “But only with one of the mid-sized. The bigger ones seem like too much for me now…”

That was an answer Michelle expected, and her smile widened a bit. She knew that with her innate abilities, Ivona would be able to defeat even the biggest monster from the group without much trouble, but since Ivona didn’t know about the full extent of her own capabilities, Michelle decided to go along with her, so she could work her way to the strongest in the group.

“Follow me!” Michelle said as she formed a few more ice bridges between the trees and used them to get lower in the area.

Ivona followed. Michelle led her down to the ground, a place a bit farther from the cave entrance so the monsters wouldn’t notice them.

“Wait here for a while! I’ll go check the strength of the monsters,” Michelle said before she charged forward, rushing at the monsters.

Ivona stayed between the trees while Michelle stopped a few steps away from the monsters, thinking of a way to separate a single monster from the rest. The monsters stayed in groups, and anytime one strayed away, two other monsters quickly moved after it.

This made Michelle frown. If she wanted to separate a single monster, she had to kill the ones accompanying it, and she had to do it silently so as not to alert the rest of the monsters. She wasn’t worried that she would be weaker than the monsters, but with their huge numbers, she would have trouble if all of them rushed at her.

She had initially considered the possibility of the monsters being peaceful, but she ruled it out when she saw how the monsters reacted when they saw her ice spears stabbed next to the flat stones of the formation. They instantly started looking around, baring their fangs, as if in threat to the one who put the spears there, to not try destroying the formation. And that increased Michelle’s suspicion that the ugly monsters were the ones who set up the formation.

Thinking about the formation, Michelle came up with a way to separate a few of the monsters from the rest. But it didn’t guarantee that one of the other monsters it attracted would be the size she wanted, and there was no way of knowing if the method she thought of would even work. Still… It wouldn’t hurt to try.

Michelle sneaked close to one of the ice spears, the one that had the fewest monsters around it, and formed a string from her ice element spirit energy in her hand, tying it into a lasso.

Waiting for a moment when the ugly monsters weren’t paying attention to the spear, Michelle threw the lasso toward the spear, but it landed on the flat stone. That worried her a bit, since it was a part of the formation, and she didn’t want the formations to react to her string and attract the monsters’ attention.

With a frown, she decided to take a risk and tugged at the string. The string moved towards her, so she started pulling it in a way that it moved to the spear. When the string touched the spear, she tugged on it forcefully upwards, making it jump a bit and tangle around the spear.

Feeling the string connect to the ice spear, Michelle smiled a bit and started walking away from the cave, the string stretching behind her from the spear.

When she was far enough, she infused the string with more spirit energy so the monsters would notice it. And soon, she heard the sound of the lizard legs hitting the ground as the monsters rushed to her. From the sound, she couldn’t make out how many of them were rushing at her, but when they were close enough she saw only five monsters, two big ones and three mid-sized ones.

Smirking, she summoned her weapon of proficiency, her scythe, from her spirit domain and swung it in front of her to get a better grip on it.

The monsters clearly didn’t consider the scythe a threat as they continued charging at Michelle. They couldn’t feel any spirit energy from her as she was actively concealing it, so they considered her easy prey.

Just as always when she fought, a maniacal smile spread across Michelle’s lips as she swung her scythe at the monsters, enveloping the blade in her dark element spirit energy, letting it flare out.

Suddenly feeling the aura of Michelle’s spirit energy, the monsters were shocked, realizing that the one they were against was not easy prey; but since they had already attacked, they couldn’t just stop, as that would give Michelle a good chance to attack them from behind. So they continued charging at Michelle, even though they now knew they wouldn’t be able to leave untouched.

Seeing the monsters continue charging at her, Michelle’s aura changed so much that anyone who knew her wouldn’t recognize her and would think she was someone who just looked similar to Michelle Grace. That was how big the difference was in Michelle between when she was normal and when she was fighting. When she fought, she was like a maniac thirsty for blood, while normally, she was just a scheming and mysterious Young Lady.

Very quickly, Michelle killed four of the monsters, leaving only one mid-sized one alive and untouched.

Seeing the other four monsters dead, the last monster knew it couldn’t run from Michelle’s sickle, so it recklessly charged at Michelle, but she, instead of attacking it, dodged to the side and used her ice spears to quickly climb a tree.

The enraged monster started hitting its head into the tree trunk, trying to get Michelle to fall down, but she just sneered and started forming ice bridges between the trees, baiting the monster to where Ivona was.

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