Chapter 87: 87

Standing under the huge trees, Ivona heard the sound of lizard legs hitting the ground and the sound of something freezing in the distance, so she took a fighting stance.

And soon, she saw the cause of the sounds. A mid-sized monster was rushing in her direction, but it didn’t notice her; its head tilted up as it stared at Michelle, who was running over the ice bridges with a playful smile on her lips as she shouted: “Iv!” She shortened the way she called Ivona to save her breath and time. “If you want its attention, you have to attack it,” she said. “Try using this as a chance to sneak up on it,” she added as she jumped off her ice bridge and landed on a branch a bit lower, sitting down on it.

Ivona tilted her head to look at Michelle for a moment before turning her head to look at the monster that was about to ram its head into the tree on which Michelle was sitting. The monster was much bigger than Ivona thought it would be, as she had only seen it from a distance before, since she was up in the trees.

The monster was the size of a big wolf, and with its ugliness, it looked not only disgusting, but also quite intimidating.

But since Ivona had already decided to fight it, she took a deep breath before condensing some spirit energy in her hands, letting it explode on her tiger body. At the same time, she pulled a whip out of her spatial ring, making Michelle frown a bit. A whip was an unsuitable weapon for a person with Ivona’s mindset and lifestyle. But Michelle didn’t interfere, as she wanted to see Ivona’s performance. Because sometimes, when a person is in a compromising situation, most of their potential is pulled out, noticed by the discerning eyes following the person’s every movement.

When the condensed spirit energy exploded against the monster’s ugly body, it instantly turned its attention from Michelle to Ivona, its eyes burning with rage.

Swinging her hand, Ivona sent the whip at the monster, letting it land on its tiger-like body. The friction the whip caused tore bits of the monster’s fur off, leaving behind a red line, which clearly angered the monster even more as it charged at Ivona even faster.

The whip crackled in the air as Ivona sent it straight at the monster’s face, forming another red mark. This completely enraged the monster, and it opened its jaws, biting down hard on the whip, tugging on it hard.

But this was exactly what Ivona wanted. She infused the whip with spirit energy so it wouldn’t rip, and the next time the monster pulled, she lunged forward, using the momentum of the pull to get to the monster before it could react.

As she flew at the monster, she let go of the whip and took a sword out of her spatial ring. Gripping it tightly, she stabbed the blade deep into the monster’s body, the blade going through the monster’s neck to its chest. To make sure to inflict as much damage as possible, she coated it in spirit energy and condensed it, letting it explode inside the monster’s body.

Blood splashed all over as Ivona steadied herself and pulled the sword back. Her face went pale when she saw the gruesome corpse of the monster, but she gritted her teeth and walked over to its head, using her sword to dig into the gem on the monster’s forehead.

Then, she stumbled back a bit, holding the bloodstained gem in her hand. “Michelle!” she turned to shout at Michelle, who was sitting on the tree branch. “I did it!” she exclaimed happily, though her face was pale. She had never seen so much blood at once, so she was naturally shocked.

Looking at Ivona, Michelle jumped off the tree and landed on the ground. Truthfully, she didn’t expect Ivona to cut out the gem in the monster’s forehead. She thought that after killing the monster, Ivona would be shocked, but she was able to remember that finding the gems on monsters’ foreheads was quite valuable, which showed that Ivona’s mindset was clear and strong. The fact that, after killing something so big for the first time, she was able to keep her sanity was proof that Ivona had a steady and secure mind, which was very crucial and useful in life-threatening situations.

For example, if two people with the same power and resources appeared in the same life-threatening situation, the one who could keep calm and rational could find a way to save their life, while the one who panicked would most probably die or only escape after taking some damage. And Ivona was the kind of person who, when her life was on the line, could keep a clear mind and display the full extent of her abilities.

That made Michelle smile a bit as she walked over to her and took the bloodied gem from her hand. “Rest for now a bit,” she led Ivona to sit by a tree. “I’ll get rid of the corpse,” she added.

Ivona leaned her back against the tree and closed her eyes, not wanting to look at the monster’s corpse any longer. She wasn’t used to such gruesome sights, and it was making her sick to her stomach.

But suddenly, she heard the sound of something burning, and the sharp smell of burning meat hit her nose. Her eyes snapped open, and she saw Michelle controlling a blue-white flame to burn the corpse to ashes.

Even from the distance she was at, she could feel a chill coming towards her from Michelle and the blue-white flame, and her instincts instantly warned her of danger. Still, she remained in place, watching the flame burn away the monster’s flesh before moving on to the bones.

But the flame didn’t do much damage to the bones, as the flame was still too weak. And that made Michelle arch a brow. It seemed that the fire she inherited from Cold Flame was still too weak because she, as his contracted master, was too weak to handle it.

And that also meant that the contract she had with him was restraining him from using the full extent of his powers, as a contracted beast and its master always have similar powers. So not only was Cold Flame restrained by her weakness, but also Nyxaroth, Snow, and Mare were, too, since they all had special bloodlines; they all should have naturally been more powerful. While they were still in the Land of Exile, it didn’t matter much, but if they left and met more powerful people, or enemies, it could be troublesome if the four were weakened.

Sighing, Michelle stopped trying to burn the monster’s bones and turned her attention back to Ivona. “How are you feeling?” she asked with a tilt of her head as she walked over.

Ivona stared at her for a while before staring down at her hands, covered in the monster’s sticky blood. “I’m fine now,” she said. “I was just shocked by the amount of blood…”

“You’ve never killed a monster like this before, so it’s a natural reaction,” Michelle said as she sat down next to her. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it once you kill more of them.”

Hearing that, Ivona didn’t want to believe it. “Can someone really get used to something so gruesome and disgusting?” she asked with a frown.

“Of course!” Michelle leaned against the tree as she stared off into the distance. “I got used to it too, and there used to be a time when I screamed at the mention of blood…” she smiled a bit as she remembered her past life. Back then, she was about eighteen when her close friend and sparring partner in the assassination organization was killed, and she couldn’t see blood for a few months.

Back then she was already quite a well-known assassin, so when she stopped her killings for some time, people started guessing that she had died, or had stopped her career, but then, she reappeared, her eyes even colder and her moves even swifter than before as she killed.

After accepting the death of her friend, she turned into a cold killing machine who took on mission after mission, never getting a good night’s sleep, as nearly every evening she left her apartment to go kill by order of the organization. And she was the one who told them they could freely give her missions every day, and that she would accept them.

But she was only able to live like that for a little over a year before she stopped, and once again started taking missions only occasionally; her concentration returning to living undercover as a freshman student of medicine.

The organization wasn’t really happy that she lessened the frequency of her mission acceptance, but they didn’t complain, since from the start, they knew that her killing streak wouldn’t last forever. They thought it would last a month at most, and the fact that she kept it going for over a year was a huge shock to them, but it also brought them great benefits.

In all the years Michelle worked for the assassination organization, she didn’t need to be reprimanded by her supervisors and never received a complaint from a client for poorly executing the work. She was a perfect assassin, and the organization didn’t want to anger her, since if she wanted to, she could bring them fair trouble.

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