CHAPTER 211: 211

Sitting in front of a mirror, two figures stared at the scene unfolding in the forest.

"See? There’s no need to kill her," clad in all black, Mavreth spoke to the person next to him, looking the same as him but clad in white.

Lavreth, the white god, frowned. "She carries aura way too intense for someone of her power. That spells chaos."

Mavreth shook his head. "She isn’t the kind of person to stir up trouble on her own."

"But it’s clear that if someone strikes at her, she will retaliate drastically," Lavreth was staring at Michelle’s silhouette in the mirror with clear hostility in his eyes.

"Then just make sure people don’t provoke her!" Mavreth smirked, leaning against Lavreth. "That way she won’t have a reason to cause chaos."

Mavreth’s words made Lavreth shake his head. "No matter whose protection she would be under, she would always be targeted by others. She’s the kind of person who will always attract enemies."

With that, Mavreth stood up, ready to leave. But before stepping out of the room, he stopped and turned back to look at Lavreth. "Why did you tell and show me all this? You must have known I wouldn’t agree to leave her alone."

A twisted smirk appeared on Mavreth’s face, hidden under his black cloak. "Aren’t you curious about the full extent of her potential?"

Lavreth’s eyes narrowed. For a while, he remained silent, thinking about something. He had known Mavreth for a long time, so it wasn’t hard to guess what he was planning. "Fine, then!" he nodded. "I’ll stay for a while."

The two opposing figures then returned to watching the scene unfolding in the mirror.

Michelle had just summoned Nyxaroth, Cold Flame, Mare, and Snow, sending each to someone from the group to contact them. That way, she could communicate with everyone using the contract she had with the beasts.

Briefly, Michelle explained to everyone what she discovered about the bones she found, and then explained a way to distinguish whether the bones belonged to a human or an animal.

Unlike animals, humans’ spirit veins were usually located near their bones, or within them, so even long after their death, spirit energy lingered on the bones.

Quite the opposite, beasts, animals, and monsters had their spirit veins spread out evenly all around their bodies, except their bones, so they could launch attacks quicker and absorb surrounding spirit energy easier.

In that part, Michelle was quite similar to animals, because her veins worked as spirit veins too, so her cultivation and launching speed were affected by it as well.

The second way to discern human bones was by their shape, especially for the bones in limbs. Humans are creatures adapted to walking on two feet, while most animals had bones shaped to walk on four paws. Because of that, human limb bones were straighter than the bones of most animals.

Another way was the size of the bones. It was quite the obvious fact that a smaller animal would have smaller bones, and a bigger animal would have bigger bones.

And the last way was the weight of the bones compared to the size.

Human bones had consistency different from most animals, and their bones were usually lighter than the same-sized bones of some animals. But that wasn’t always true, so it wasn’t a good idea to rely on that.

In the end, the best way to discern who the bone belonged to was by sensing the spirit energy on it, and by checking its shape and size.

One by one, Kieran, Ivona, Anastasia, and Pete all found piles of bones, and under Michelle’s guidance, they sorted them just like Michelle did before. That way, Michelle found out that every single one of the group stumbled upon a single human skeleton amongst the numerous animal skeletons.

"Serith..." Michelle turned to the soul residing within her soul space, a Forgotten Kin. "Do you know something about arrays?" she asked.

In response, she felt her soul energy move around her body, forming signs. "A bit."

A slight smile appeared on Michelle’s lips. "If the human skeletons are the array cores, how many do you think there would be of them?" she asked.

Serith moved the soul energy in response again. "Either four or eight. Since you already found five, then four is impossible."

"Do we need to break them all?" Michelle asked.

"If the skeletons are really the cores, then no. If you break half of the complete amount, the array should shatter."

Reading the signs formed with her soul energy, Michelle was a bit relieved. "Is there a way to confirm whether the corpses could be the cores?"

Serith’s next answer wasn’t one that would make anyone happy. "No. You just have to guess what the core is."

"So it’s a risk I have to take..." Michelle stared at the human skeleton in front of her.

Then, she sent out an order to her beasts. All of them were to strike at the human skeletons. She, standing above the fifth skeleton, wouldn’t strike it down. She was in the middle of the forest, and something was telling her the skeleton in front of her wasn’t meant to be broken.

Mare, Snow, Cold Flame, and Nyxaroth all listened to Michelle.

Mare took on her full snake form and struck her tail at the skeleton in front of Ivona. Snow formed an ice spear above herself and destroyed the skeleton next to Anastasia. Cold Flame burned the skeleton by Kieran’s side with his ice fire. And Nyxaroth took on his solidified mist state and crashed into the skeleton behind Pete.

Instantly, results could be felt. The ground shook violently, and the trees surrounding them started losing their color. The forest turned bleakly gray, and all sound was replaced by the sound of shattering glass.

"It worked!" Michelle smiled, feeling the ground beneath her crack.

The next moment, a deep dark pit opened under the whole forest, swallowing the whole group. There was no time for them to react. Before they knew it, they were falling into the pitch-black darkness.

"Hu-" In the darkness, Michelle could see what was going on. Ivona exhaled a puff of black smoke that probably got into her mouth while she fell.

The rest of the group also got up, and they, too, exhaled or coughed up black smoke.

Even Michelle felt something stifling in her throat. When she coughed a bit, a tiny black cloud left her mouth.

"What’s this place?" Kieran got up quickly and lit up a ball of flame on the palm of his hand so everyone could see at least a bit.

A tiny frown appeared on Michelle’s brows when she saw the flame, her ice element spirit energy making her instinctively averse to fire. But she easily suppressed the feeling and glanced around. "This is probably the real Black God’s sect!" she concluded. "All that before were just distractions."

"For mere distractions, they held quite the potential danger," Anastasia looked around too, sensing something in the distance.

"True..." everyone had to agree. But they didn’t talk much, as they all noticed the presence too.

In the darkness where Kieran’s fire couldn’t shine its light, a person was standing, staring at them.

So Kieran increased the intensity of his flame.

When the light reached the person, Michelle raised a brow. Pete showed a similar reaction.

As for the rest, they were clueless about who the person was, but they were still on guard.

"Isn’t this the Black God’s sect? What is the White God doing here?" Pete stepped in front of the group, a frown on his face as he stared at Lavreth.

But Lavreth completely ignored him, his gaze locked on Michelle. "I was expecting you to come!" his voice was cold and hostile.

Suddenly, all Michelle’s cells warned of danger. Instantly, she jumped to the side, evading Lavreth’s attack. The place where she had been standing was destroyed, a white spike going up from the ground there.

"What do you want?" Michelle frowned, dodging another attack just like that. "If you wanted to, you could have killed me with a single strike, not giving me the opportunity to dodge!" As she spoke, she had to dodge three more attacks.

"I said I was expecting you!" Lavreth’s cold voice cut through the air like a knife. And with it, Michelle’s instincts calmed down. She didn’t sense an incoming attack.

Did that mean that Lavreth stopped, or did he just decide to conceal his attacks to make it impossible for her to dodge?

It was impossible for Michelle to know the truth until Lavreth did something, but both of the two options didn’t seem good.

If Lavreth stopped attacking, it meant he was planning something else.

And if he just concealed his attacks, it meant Michelle was just a moment away from dying.

For a split second, nothing happened, but then, a white spike tore out of the ground again, just as she felt her instincts flare up again.

There was no way to dodge it. The sharp spike tore through Michelle’s leg, immobilizing her in the spot.

"Ouch-" Michelle frowned, feeling like the blood in her leg was sizzling and boiling. The sharp spike was made of light element spirit energy, so it was making her own dark element spirit energy fizzle and rage around in opposition.