CHAPTER 216: 216

While Anastasia and Pete were fighting monsters of the ice element, Michelle was sitting in the snow, cultivating. All the time, she was making the soul energy within her body rage through her veins to speed up the process. And slowly, she was getting used to it.

The queen bloodsucker was right. It was unsustainable to keep cultivating like that in the long term under normal conditions, but Michelle found a way to get around it.

In her veins, there was a set amount of spirit energy that could be stored there at once. In other words, that was also the limit of how much spirit energy one could take in at once.

But that didn’t include the small veins around the organs, because they usually didn’t carry spirit energy.

And that was exactly what Michelle used.

At first it hurt a bit, but while cultivating, she started pushing her spirit veins into even the smallest of her veins, making the cycle area much bigger.

It was a nasty, pressing feeling on the organs, but Michelle was able to bear it. And if she didn’t use it during a breakthrough between ranks, she wouldn’t get hurt. During rank breakthroughs it could be dangerous, because during those, spirit energy exploded within the veins a bit, and it could damage the thin veins.

Still, Michelle knew what she was doing. And she had no plans of stopping for a while.

Residual spirit energy kept gathering around her, and not only the ordinary bloodsuckers but even the queen bloodsucker was latched onto her body, eating it away.

Meanwhile, Anastasia and Pete were at the limit of their strength. The two of them couldn’t use spirit or soul energy, but the two monsters they were up against could for some reason, so it was insanely hard to defeat them.

Especially since the two monsters were of the ice element within a field full of ice. In such an environment, they could easily recover their lost spirit energy.

But that wouldn’t make Anastasia and Pete give up.

Using tricks, traps, and weapons, they were able to damage the monsters greatly, and they just needed to land the killing strike. Then they would have two days to rest. It wasn’t that much, but it was enough for them to recover after the prolonged fights with the monsters.

Still cultivating, Michelle momentarily opened her eyes to check on them. What she saw was a tad surprising.

Anastasia had the attention of both monsters on her while Pete was carving something into the snow.

When he was done, he shouted at Anastasia and she rushed into the middle of the formation.

Nearly constantly using their spirit energy, the two monsters launched attacks at her, and she narrowly dodged.

The two attacks hit the carved formation, which absorbed the spirit energy.

The next moment, the snow within the formation started twisting, coming together to form something.

Michelle sensed that something was wrong and opened her eyes again. There, between Anastasia and Pete and the two monsters, she saw something that made even her own blood run cold. "Summoner Killer..." she mumbled, watching the snow figure take on the shape of a grim reaper in a white cloak, with a set of white chains hanging from his bony hands.

"Your friends are remarkable..." the queen bloodsucker stopped eating away the residual spirit energy and came to rest on Michelle’s lap to observe what was about to happen.

Michelle couldn’t help but nod as she stopped cultivating. Since the queen bloodsucker wanted to observe the fight, there was no need for her to generate more residual spirit energy.

When Michelle stopped cultivating, the ordinary bloodsuckers got off Michelle and went to hide beneath the snow. And they would probably have gone to hide there even if Michelle hadn’t stopped, because the Summoner Killer summoned by Pete and Anastasia was giving off an oppressive aura the bloodsuckers couldn’t endure.

Taking a quick look into the memories from Rivenaar, Michelle searched for knowledge about Summoner Killers. All she knew from the books in the lower realm was that Summoner Killers were creatures summoned through complex formations, and there were very few ways to kill them.

After going through Rivenaar’s memories, Michelle turned to stare at Pete with a slight frown. With skills like that, he must have been quite high in rank in the Dark Palace.

Summoner Killers were creatures summoned to kill the one whose spirit energy summoned them. To make matters worse for the summoner, they were resistant to the summoner’s element and could use more elements, which depended on how intricate the formation was and what spirit energy was in the surroundings.

The surrounding spirit energy was more important because Summoner Killers didn’t have their own spirit energy. Their bodies were just big channels that could control spirit energy. In other words, they could rapidly suck in spirit energy and then send it out in a massive attack.

The two monsters felt the danger coming from the Summoner Killer that appeared after their attacks struck the formation. Nearly instantly, they turned to flee.

But the grim reaper in white was already locked on them. The chains hanging from the bony hands moved and flew at the two monsters, wrapping around them like snakes.

The grim reaper then tugged the chains and pulled the two monsters to him. They struggled against the chains and even tried to attack their killer, but it was pointless. After letting go of the chains, the bony creature stabbed his hands through the two monsters’ Life Stones along with their heads, killing them instantly.

"Ew," Michelle frowned at the scene. Even she didn’t kill people in such a disgusting way.

But the Summoner Killer still had something to do. It let go of the monsters, retracted the chains, and returned to the formation. Lowering itself a bit, it used the chains to change the formation in the corners.

And then came the last thing every Summoner Killer did. Channeling a huge amount of spirit energy through its body, it sent it into the formation.

The formation absorbed the spirit energy and activated. It lit up with brilliant white light, hiding the grim reaper from everyone’s sight.

When the light disappeared, the Summoner Killer was nowhere to be seen. All that was left behind was visible spirit energy of the ice element floating in the air. It was the same spirit energy that had summoned the reaper. It was returned by the formation.

"I didn’t expect it to end like this," Michelle commented before returning to cultivating. Since the fight was over, it was time for her to continue creating more residual spirit energy. That was her deal with the queen bloodsucker: she would create enough residual spirit energy for even the queen to cultivate, and the bloodsuckers wouldn’t attack Anastasia and Pete.

So for the next two days, the snowfields were silent and peaceful. Michelle was cultivating with bloodsuckers stuck to her, and Anastasia and Pete were either resting in the snow or fighting each other to improve their combat.

Pete was much more experienced than Anastasia, so he was coaching her.

And that wasn’t coaching in the sense of teaching her martial arts or forms. He was showing her underhanded tactics, lethal strikes, and the most efficient way to move one’s body to use the least energy for the biggest impact.

On the third day, two monsters appeared again. They were clearly weaker than the two monsters they fought before, so Pete left Anastasia to try and fight them by herself. If she seemed to be in life-threatening danger, he would step in. But if she was just in danger of an injury, he would leave her to it. That was so Anastasia wouldn’t rely on him too much—so that she felt some sense of danger and urgency.

Anastasia wasn’t able to defeat the monsters by herself. She ended up with a gashing bite mark on her arm while pinned in the snow beneath one of the tigers.

So Pete stepped in, giving the tiger a solid punch to the side. Even if he wasn’t able to use his spirit energy, he was still a Divine Paragon, so his physical strength was enhanced. Coupled with the fact that he was a monster, he was able to punch the tiger away without much effort.

Over the next two months, Anastasia kept improving, her combat skills growing to the point where she could kill a pair of the same type of tigers that had nearly killed her two months earlier. She no longer required Pete’s help with that.

But there were more powerful monsters that could appear—some with which even Pete had trouble.

Still, over the next two months, they didn’t have to summon the Summoner Killer again. They were able to deal with all the monsters together.

When the second month came to an end, Michelle stopped cultivating again and turned to the bloodsucker queen. She had the feeling that Ivona had already broken into the Divine rank, so she wanted to go outside to bring her in.

The queen bloodsucker wasn’t against it. As long as Michelle returned to continue cultivating, she had no reason to stop her.

So while Anastasia and Pete continued fighting a pair of monsters, Michelle went to the door leading to the hallway.