Chapter 94: 94

When Michelle returned to the Archduchy, the Archduke stared at her questioningly when he saw the swollen, bleeding wound on her head. “With your healing capabilities, what did you do to have such a wound?” he asked, clearly suppressing a smirk.

Seeing the clear amusement in her father’s eyes, Michelle rolled her eyes in annoyance, walking toward her room.So, Snow left Michelle’s spirit’s domain to speak? “When returning from the lower realm, Michelle forgot to coat herself in her soul energy and just charged into the barrier, which caused her to end up bloodied and angry,” she said mockingly.

“Pf-!” The Archduke couldn’t suppress a laugh when he heard that. And that made Michelle shoot a glare at both the Archduke and Snow. “Does it hurt?” the Archduke asked, suppressing a laugh.

“Take a guess!” Michelle said gruffly. Her forehead didn’t hurt that much, but it was highly annoying. Also, because she was wounded by a barrier of the Heavenly Law, the law or power which creates barriers between realms and special lands, the wound would take quite some time to heal, because wounds caused by the Heavenly Law could not be healed by any power or pill, and her Spirit Soul Blood also couldn’t affect the healing speed. The only positive thing was that the Heavenly Law couldn’t kill a person unless they directly attacked it, which was basically impossible, because even attacking the between-realm barriers to get through wasn’t considered attacking the Heavenly Law.

Going to rest in her room, Michelle touched the wound on her forehead and hissed a bit. Sighing, she called for a maid and asked for a clean piece of cloth, hot water, a clean needle and thread, and some bandages. As far as she knew, no one had ever tried to sew up wounds caused by the Heavenly Law, so she would be the first. It didn’t hurt to try, and if she failed, she would just have wasted some thread.

When the maid brought her the things and left, Michelle quickly disinfected the needle in the hot water before cooling it with her ice element spirit energy. Then, she checked the thread and, realizing that it wasn’t really usable because it left behind small lumps of thread, she put it aside and made some black thread with her dark element spirit energy.

Knowing that painkillers wouldn’t work on such a wound, Michelle still took some, but didn’t hope for much. Then, she put the clean cloth into her mouth, biting hard on it as she sat in front of a mirror, bringing the needle to her forehead. The moment the tip of the needle touched the swollen, bleeding wound, she regretted thinking that trying wouldn’t hurt. It hurt more than anything she had ever gone through, forcing her to retract her hand from her forehead. “Damn…” she muttered, her hand gripping the side of the mirror so tightly that it cracked.

Since just touching the wound caused her so much pain, she didn’t want to imagine what would happen if she stabbed a needle into it, so she put away the needle and just haphazardly tied the wound with a bandage so the blood wouldn’t get all over her face. She made sure she didn’t tie the bandage too tightly, so it wouldn’t press on the wound and cause her any more pain.

Lying in her bed, she cursed all gods in her mind because she despised the feeling of being helpless against wounds or sickness.

Before she could even finish cursing the Heavenly Law in her mind, someone knocked on her door. Not even thinking about who it could be, she just answered: “Enter!”

“You won’t even ask who it is?” Ivona asked, with a chuckle, as she opened the door. But the moment her eyes landed on the bandage on Michelle’s forehead, her smile froze. “What happened to you while you were gone?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “Is the lower realm so dangerous that even you got hurt?” She suddenly felt respect for the lower realm.

But Michelle shook her head. “I was just reckless and hit my head against the damn barrier…” she muttered in annoyance. “I only have it bandaged so I don’t have blood all over my face,” she explained. “Also, it will take a while to heal.”

“Barrier…” Ivona was clearly surprised. “You mean the barrier you said is between this place and the lower realm?” she questioned. “Didn’t you say we can pass through it without any problems after we reach the threshold of the Spirit rank? Why would you hit your head against it?”

“Oh, that…” Michelle sighed as she remembered it again. “I have a bit of a strange constitution, which makes it so that I have to coat myself in soul energy and let my spirit energy rage inside me if I want to pass through the barrier at my level, but I forgot to do that when I was coming back and just charged into it, which ended up with me having a bloody forehead.”

Hearing that, Ivona didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Since Michelle said that she made a mistake on her way back, she must have succeeded in passing through the barrier on her way into the lower realm, so how could she have forgotten that she needed to meet special conditions to pass? “So…” Ivona decided not to think anything more into it. Maybe there was a reason why Michelle was distracted. Or she was just careless. “It’s safe for me and Kieran to pass through, right?” she tilted her head in question.

Michelle just nodded. “Yes, of course, it’s safe,” she assured.

But Ivona couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “You don’t really sound convincing when you say that something is safe while having a bandage on your head.”

Rolling her eyes a bit, Michelle lay back down on the bed. “How is the plan going?” she asked. “Any leads to the artifacts?”

“Yes!” Ivona instantly turned serious. “Have you heard about the Ostrich family?”

That made Michelle arch a brow. “Ostrich?” she questioned. “Like the bird…?” she hummed.

“I don’t know a bird by the name Ostrich…” Ivona shook her head. “But anyways… We found out that shortly after the execution of the Sloan family was scheduled, servants of the Ostrich family have been frequenting the black market, especially the part under the control of the Dark Lord. After the execution, the frequency instantly increased.”

“How many artifacts disappeared?” Michelle asked, out of the blue.

“The number’s quite unclear, but we’re guessing a few thousand, which is basically impossible for a mere Viscount family, like the Sloan family was, to possess,” Ivona answered. “They must have been really corrupt…” she added.

“No!” Michelle shook her head. “The artifacts weren’t gained through corruption. The Sloan family had connections in the lower realm, and it seems the Ostrich family knew it if it is true that they are the ones after the artifacts. Tell Kieran that the opponent might be at the threshold of Spirit rank himself, and he probably has many experts by his side.”

“Are you saying that the Ostrich family has something to do with the lower realm? But they are a big family, living in the Empire for hundreds of years already.” Ivona felt confused. Highly confused.

“There’s still the possibility that the Ostrich family is just a decoy. Also. People in the lower realm and higher have much longer lifespans than we have here, so while the Ostrich family already has a few generations here, those who cast them down here still remember them, and they could have plans with them.” Michelle explained, her purple eyes narrowing into smiling crescents. At the moment, the opponent was smarter than the Sloan family, maybe even already predicting that she knew about the involvement of the Ostrich family.

Sighing, Ivona sat on the side of Michelle’s bed, running her hand through her hair. “I can’t keep up with all the information you have. If I knew as much as you do, it might have been easier for me,” she complained.

“You want to know all that I know?” Michelle lifted a brow before smiling as she sat up. “Come here then!”

“Don’t think about brainwashing me…” Ivona mumbled as she inched closer to Michelle.

Michelle placed her hand on top of Ivona’s head with a smile. “Don’t worry. The process is the same, but I promise that you will just receive some new information. Nothing will get lost, and your way of thinking won’t be affected.” With that, she coated a wisp of her consciousness in all her memories about the lower realm and the Sloan family before she sent it into Ivona’s brain.

“That felt strange…” Ivona said as Michelle retracted her hand from her head.

“Go through your memories!” Michelle shrugged as she lay back down, her stance lazy and relaxed.

Hearing that, Ivona felt confused, but she closed her eyes and tried to remember as much as she could from her past, but she didn’t even have to search for long before she found memories foreign to her. “What is this?!” she exclaimed in shock. “How did you put new memories into my head?!” she asked as her eyes snapped open, and she reached out to shake Michelle by her shoulders.

“It’s a skill I got from a monster…” Michelle said lazily as she closed her purple eyes. “I can teach you, but first, you need to be able to use a wisp of consciousness.”

Hearing that, Ivona frowned and stopped shaking Michelle. “No thanks… Using wisps of consciousness is basically impossible…” she muttered as she sat up straight.

“Do you not believe in yourself again?” Michelle frowned. “Why would you not be able to use it?” she glanced at Ivona.

Ivona shook her head with a sigh. “It’s not that I don’t believe in myself; I know my capabilities, but using wisps of consciousness is something only people sensitive to the flow of spirit energy can do, but when I use my spirit energy, I don’t focus on its flow. I use it as a solid object from which I can cut a bit and throw it.”

“Well…” Michelle nodded a bit. “That makes sense. But, anyway, if you ever want to learn the skill, just come to me. Even if you can’t master it, trying to master it won’t harm you, and knowing about it and understanding it gives you a layer of protection if someone tries to use it on you or if someone you know gets manipulated by it.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep