CHAPTER 270: 270

After resetting her shadow essence cultivation, Michelle looked at the horizon again. The sun could barely be seen. Soon, she would find out what Mavreth was really planning. But she could already guess it wouldn’t be pleasant.

The moment darkness overtook the forest, Michelle frowned. She felt something strange in her shadow dantian.

She couldn’t feel it anywhere else on her body.

Before she could identify what it was, a burst of black mist suddenly left her body and formed into a giant shadow looming over her.

Michelle didn’t even have the time to marvel at what it was. She had to jump away quickly because the shadow creature lunged at her.

The place where she had just been standing had a big dent.

The mist around the shadow creature cleared.

A huge, disgusting caterpillar was staring down at Michelle, clearly planning to kill her.

Of course, Michelle wouldn’t let herself be killed so easily.

She dodged every attack, observing how the caterpillar moved. She needed to find its weakness.

All that was being watched by Alexander. He knew what was going on, and he had no plans of intervening. He just stepped back, to give space to the fight.

Noctis and Unlucien landed next to him. "My Lord, shouldn’t we go help?" Noctis asked with a frown.

Alexander shook his head. "This is something she has to do on her own," his voice was calm.

Noctis glanced at Alexander. He had a question on the tip of his tongue.

What if Michelle failed?

But he didn’t ask. Asking the Dark Lord something like that, about someone he was showing twisted interest in, was basically suicide.

And Noctis valued his life.

He would only ask something like that if he was tired of living and wanted a quick death.

Unlucien, on the other hand, didn’t exactly care about his own life. So he spoke. "There’s a low chance she can win against that caterpillar. What if she dies?"

Alexander’s black eyes went cold. He didn’t turn to look at Unlucien, which made it even scarier.

But Unlucien wasn’t scared. He knew his master and Lord, so he knew his reaction would be like that. So he just shut up. That would let Alexander calm down.

But still, he was curious as to what Alexander would do if Michelle died.

Would he get back to normal? Or would he get even more twisted?

There was no time to think about that. The huge caterpillar fell to the ground, dead.

Michelle found its weak spot. It was right under its head. When she stabbed there, the caterpillar stopped moving. And when she made a big slash, it fell to the ground.

But Michelle didn’t let her guard down. Since the caterpillar was so easy to defeat, she was expecting that something more powerful would appear soon. The caterpillar was just a warm-up.

Seeing the lifeless caterpillar shadow creature on the ground, Unlucien glanced at Noctis. Both nodded a bit.

It was a silent agreement that they should never go against Michelle Grace.

Not only did she capture the interest of their Lord and master, she was able to subdue a creature like that in a matter of minutes.

Whether it was Noctis or Unlucien, it would take them at least a few hours to eliminate the caterpillar.

It wasn’t because it was exactly strong.

The caterpillar was created by the Essenceless Night.

If a Shadow Master not possessing any shadow essence got caught up in the Essenceless Night, it would measure their talent. Then, it would summon a caterpillar for them to fight. And the caterpillar would be stronger than what they could achieve with their talent.

Still, that was fine. Both Unlucien and Noctis would have been able to survive that. But what came after that was dangerous.

Michelle quickly stepped back when she felt the aura around it shifting.

Her eyes narrowed when she saw the corpse mending back together and changing shape.

A moment later, Michelle, disguised as Michael Grayson, was standing in front of a completely black figure, looking exactly like Michelle Grace. As if it was her shadow.

There was no need for anyone to tell Michelle that she was in trouble.

Michelle could feel the bloodthirst from the shadow creature. She knew it would strike.

But it was still incomplete, so it wasn’t yet moving.

Michelle used that.

Kicking into the ground, she lunged at the shadow. If she struck while it wasn’t at its strongest, she could weaken it. Maybe she could even prevent it from getting any stronger.

But Michelle didn’t know the shadow could move even when it was incomplete. It just chose not to because moving would slow down its completion.

So when Michelle was about to strike it, it moved its hand.

Michelle could barely see the movement with her eyes. But the pain in her abdomen told her exactly what happened as she flew back.

Landing on the ground, she touched her stomach. Luckily, there were no bones broken.

If the shadow moved with that strength, it could have shattered her ribs. And with that speed, it could have even gone for her head.

The fact that it didn’t could mean two things.

Either it wanted her to survive until it got to its peak so it could then fight her, or its speed and strength were better while it was still being created, so it could protect itself.

For Michelle, it would be much better if the second possibility was true. But she didn’t put her hopes on it. The probability of something like that was low.

Michelle no longer attacked the shadow creature. She just stayed on guard and watched it. She didn’t know anything about it, so while it wasn’t complete, she wanted to find at least something out.

From the start, she could tell the shadow looked exactly the same as her. But she wanted to check if something was different. But she couldn’t do that when she couldn’t see her body. So she swiftly took off the disguise mask.

She didn’t even bother to store it away. She just discarded it on the ground. The worst that could happen to it was that it would break while Michelle fought the shadow.

With the disguise mask gone, Michelle looked down at herself. The shadow was the exact same height as her, had the same body shape. Its hair was the same length.

But what bothered Michelle the most was the way it was standing. Exactly the same as her when she was just lazily standing somewhere but couldn’t lean against a wall.

All body weight leaned to one leg, and the other leg crossed behind it.

If the shadow mirrored her behavior, did it mean it had her memories? Or just habits?

If it had her memories, Michelle would be in even greater trouble than she thought. Because then it would be able to use her skills and predict her moves.

But she wouldn’t be able to do the same to it because she didn’t know it. It was clearly more powerful than her, so how could she know it didn’t have some additional skills?

While Michelle was observing the shadow, it got completed. And it struck.

Michelle’s eyes widened when she recognized Shadow Spirit Steps.

She still didn’t know whether the shadow had her memories, but it could definitely use her skills.

With a frown, Michelle quickly activated Shadow Spirit Steps too and dodged an attack. The shadow tried to strike a punch into her chest.

But what Michelle noticed was that it was no longer as fast as when she tried to ambush it.

She didn’t even hope for it, but it came true. The shadow was only temporarily stronger so she couldn’t strike it when it wasn’t complete yet.

But Michelle couldn’t let her guard down. The shadow was still clearly stronger than her. A moment of distraction could cost her her life.

When using the Shadow Spirit Steps, the shadow was faster than Michelle when she used the skill. But Michelle didn’t feel discouraged. She put her mind to defeating it.

She wouldn’t just survive. She was planning to completely dominate the shadow creature.

But first, she needed to check if it had her memories or not.

Because if it had them, she would have to completely change her tactics so it wouldn’t be able to predict her moves.

So she started retaliating. Each time the creature tried to strike her, she barely dodged and sent a strike at it.

The shadow didn’t let her land a single one, but the way it was blocking made Michelle narrow her eyes.

She couldn’t be sure just yet, but it seemed like the shadow couldn’t predict her movements. Otherwise, it would have known the trajectory of her strikes beforehand.

That made things a bit easier for Michelle. She could trick and fool it.

It was clear it didn’t feel any emotions, so even her manipulation would most probably be useless, but it could get fooled if she used enough bloodthirst.

The shadow didn’t replicate her bloodthirst. It created its own. It was quite strong too, but Michelle could surpass it easily.

In the end, the shadow was just a creature made to kill a single person. Michelle had killed hundreds. Her bloodthirst was from experience, while the shadow’s bloodthirst was from duty.