CHAPTER 213: 213

After cultivating for a while, Michelle’s eyes snapped open. Something was approaching.

Instantly, she stood up, turning her gaze towards the spot.

"What an ugly thing..." she frowned, seeing a huge creature crawling towards her.

Its body was spider-like, with eight legs covered in black slime, which carried a nasty stench.

And the most disgusting thing was the creature’s head. A ball with nothing but a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs and a long tongue. Above the mouth, the monster had a black gem.

"A Life Stone?" Michelle lifted a brow. It meant the creature was a monster, not a beast.

She didn’t have the time to think about it any further, because the huge, disgusting spider lunged at her.

Dodging to the side, Michelle’s frown deepened a bit. The ground beneath her feet was uneven, so it was poking at the wound on her foot.

But there was no time to pay attention to that. The priority was to fight the monster.

Sweeping her gaze over the monster, Michelle considered the best way to deal with it. It didn’t take her long to realize that the monster’s weak spot was its huge mouth.

She was just about to summon her spirit energy to create a dark spear when she realized she couldn’t conjure any power.

Not only her spirit energy, but even her soul energy and soul leash were being suppressed by the surrounding space.

"So I need to go close combat..." she muttered, kicking into the ground.

The kick sent her flying straight towards the monster’s mouth.

Sensing the changes in the spirit energy around, the monster instantly opened its mouth and spat out something that worked like a net. It wrapped around Michelle, immobilizing her.

But Michelle didn’t mind it. Using all her strength, she rolled to the side as the monster jumped at her, just so a claw on the monster’s leg would scratch open the net trapping her.

Naturally, that reckless action also left her with a wound on her arm, but she didn’t mind.

Before the monster could lunge at her again, she got out of the net and jumped to the side. Then she crouched down and stopped moving, observing the monster.

So it seemed its sense of smell was terrible; otherwise, it would have long since reacted to the sweet scent of her blood.

For a long time, Michelle stayed hidden, observing as the monster moved around slowly. Every now and then, it would flick its tongue out like a snake.

That made Michelle consider that maybe, just like snakes, the monster had many chemoreceptors on its tongue, serving not only for tasting but also for smelling and sensing its surroundings.

But if that was the case, why didn’t the monster find her yet?

Or was it intelligent enough to try to fool her?

Another thought struck Michelle.

Maybe the monster didn’t have chemoreceptors on its tongue, but different receptors. For example, ones that could sense the spirit energy in the surroundings.

With that, the monster would have a perfect orientation around the space, but it wouldn’t be able to sense her easily unless it got really close and could feel the spirit energy leaking out of the blood from her wounds.

After some time, Michelle concluded that she had observed the monster enough. She had noticed some patterns, which could allow her to take it down without much difficulty.

Still, that didn’t mean what she was about to do wasn’t dangerous and reckless.

Standing up, Michelle slowly walked over the uneven ground towards the monster. Just until it sensed something was close by.

When it started showing signs of being about to discover her, she stepped back a few steps and got back down.

After tightening the bandage on her wound, she started silently crawling towards the spider.

She got even closer than before without the monster noticing her.

Or at least it didn’t discover her location. But it was already on guard, ready to lunge at anything that came close.

Michelle continued moving closer, flailing her wounded leg around to confuse the monster once it could smell her blood.

And it worked.

Once Michelle reached the distance where the monster could smell the spirit energy leaking from her leg, it froze. The spirit energy was moving around too haphazardly for it to understand what was going on.

So it didn’t lunge. It could instinctively understand, by the erratic movement of the spirit energy, that the opponent it was up against wasn’t the least bit worried.

Or at least, that was what it seemed like.

Michelle herself didn’t know whether she was worried or not. She was just fully focused on tricking the monster so she could kill it.

It was obvious that the monster didn’t appear there out of nowhere. Lavreth must have placed it in the cultivation room for a reason.

And the reason could have been the monster’s Life Stone.

Life Stones of monsters could greatly aid cultivation if used by a cultivator of the same element as the monster.

When Michelle got close enough, the monster no longer cared where exactly she was. It just wanted to get rid of the pest making the spirit energy swirl all around chaotically.

Sensing danger, Michelle jumped to the side. When she looked back, the spot where she had just been crouching was stabbed by a huge spider leg.

Before Michelle could even marvel at the fact that the monster could stab the ground like it was butter, another strike was sent at her. So she dodged again.

But with the jump, she got a bit closer to the monster.

The monster sensed that and spat a net at her.

Michelle was expecting that and squatted down, dodging the net. Then she continued rushing towards the monster’s head.

While running, Michelle had to endure the pain in her leg while also dodging the attacks of the spider’s legs and the nets thrown at her, making her progress much slower. But after about a minute, she was still right next to the monster, just under its head.

Then came the problem of killing the monster.

Without any spirit or soul energy she didn’t have any explosive power that could obliterate the monster instantly. So she had to use the old-fashioned way.

Before the monster could even realize the fact that a human was standing under its head, a punch was thrown at its head, making it screech in anger.

So Michelle struck again to make it even angrier.

The monster started shaking and jumping around, its head sometimes lower and sometimes higher.

And that was exactly what Michelle needed.

Waiting for the right moment, she jumped up and grasped each of her hands around one of the monster’s fangs.

The monster tried shaking her off, but Michelle was persistent, pulling herself up higher.

Feeling a sense of danger, the monster closed its jaw.

Michelle was forced to let go of the fangs, but she didn’t mind. She used the momentum of the monster closing its mouth to propel herself up, stretching her hands out towards the black Life Stone.

A while later she was already hanging from the black gem, her legs pressed to the monster’s forehead.

Raising her leg, she delivered a hard kick into the gem, making the huge spider stumble back.

Life Stones were very fragile, so a kick like that was enough to break it. And without a Life Stone, a monster couldn’t live.

Michelle had to jump off the monster’s head so it wouldn’t squish her to death as it fell. Then she observed the huge body hit the ground.

Dust rose around the dead forest and Michelle took that as a signal to go to the monster.

Rushing to the fanged head, she went for the Life Stone. It was already shattered into pieces.

Climbing the monster’s head, Michelle sat between the gem shards, closing her eyes to better concentrate. Then, she tried to discern the stage of the Life Stone.

What she found out was fairly surprising. The Life Gem was starting to disperse into the air.

That usually didn’t happen. Usually, when a monster died, its Life Stone would roll around on the ground until someone picked it up.

But the Life Stone of the monster in front of her was completely different. After the death of its carrier, it started transforming into abundant spirit energy, which Michelle could cultivate.

To not let any of the spirit energy go to waste, Michelle quickly crossed her legs and started cultivating again.

A bit surprising, the spirit energy was extremely easy to absorb into her body, even though the bloodsuckers of dark element had still to eat away the residue spirit energy around her.

After taking in the spirit energy of the black gem, Michelle jumped off the monster and was about to return to cultivation when a growl from the dead forest captured her attention.

Or she captured the attention of something in the forest.

It, too, was a monster with a black gem on its forehead. A majestic black wolf, showing pride in his power.

No other wolves were around, so Michelle thought it was safe to assume the wolf was a loner.

So another fight broke out.

And the wolf was much more cunning than the spider. It had a keen sense of smell, so it could tell where Michelle was hurt, and kept attacking the same spot.