CHAPTER 271: 271

The shadow creature leapt relentlessly, striking at Michelle, its bloodthirst growing more intense. But Michelle successfully dodged every attack. At the same time, she always sent a strike back at the creature.

Her demeanor was still calm.

Well... at least she wasn’t showing any panic. And not a speck of bloodthirst could be detected around her.

She was short of breath, and her eyes were narrowed from how hard she was focusing, but otherwise, she looked basically normal.

It wasn’t yet time for her to unleash her bloodthirst.

She wanted to see the full extent of the creature’s bloodthirst. She wanted to experience it firsthand.

So she kept acting annoying, provoking the creature to increase its bloodthirst.

With each strike, the air grew more stifling.

But Michelle didn’t mind.

After a few more strikes, the creature’s bloodthirst stopped growing. Michelle guessed it had reached its peak.

And she had to admit—it was strong. Even she felt a chill in her bones from it.

But not enough to downgrade her performance.

And since the creature could no longer increase its bloodthirst, it was time for Michelle to unleash hers.

Her right eye flashed red with excitement. It had been a long time since she had last let her bloodthirst out. And even then, it wasn’t at full power. She hadn’t let it run free. But against the shadow creature, she could afford to do it.

There was no one around whom it could harm. Just Alexander and Unlucien with Noctis. Those guys would be unaffected by her bloodthirst.

Most probably.

Michelle wasn’t sure about that part, but she didn’t care. Even if Alexander and the rest were affected by her bloodthirst, it wouldn’t be that bad. They definitely wouldn’t end up fainting or going into shock from feeling it. With their power, their resistance had risen.

After dodging a few more times, Michelle saw the right moment. The shadow creature was going for a strike at her head.

Without a moment of hesitation, she instantly unleashed the full extent of her bloodthirst, drowning the clearing in it.

If a non-cultivator had been around, they would have fainted. A small animal would have gone into a state of shock, neither conscious nor unconscious. Weak cultivators would freeze up, maybe even have trouble breathing.

Behind Michelle, Noctis and Unlucien were clearly a bit uncomfortable. Because Michelle was much weaker than them, her bloodthirst wasn’t affecting them as much, but they were still affected. The tension in their stance showed it.

If she ever reached power closer to theirs and unleashed her bloodthirst, there was no doubt they would end up completely messed up.

Next to them, Alexander was completely unaffected, but his gaze was a bit twisted. If Michelle saw the smile on his face, she would have been utterly disgusted.

But she didn’t have the time to care about something like that. She was closely watching the shadow. Its power was basically the same as hers, except that it had the shadow essence she had discarded.

That was a big difference, but not big enough for the shadow to be unaffected by Michelle’s bloodthirst.

Others of its power would have ended up paralyzed with fear, but the shadow was still moving. It had the mind of a killer, so fear couldn’t paralyze it.

But it was still greatly affected. That black body was moving much slower than before.

Michelle let the shadow land the strike on her face. She wanted to see how much its power decreased because of the bloodthirst.

The punch landed hard on her face, forcing her to take a few steps back. The shadow’s brute strength hadn’t decreased in the least.

Michelle wasn’t exactly surprised by that. It was just an artificial being. That gave it a slight advantage against her bloodthirst.

Still, Michelle wouldn’t let it win.

Able to unleash the full extent of her bloodthirst, long-kept tension left her body. Because of that, she was able to show more of her power than before—especially when it came to her speed and reaction time.

Alexander watched with glee in his eyes as Michelle lunged toward the shadow. With its senses drowned by her bloodthirst, its reaction time was slower, so it barely blocked her attack.

Michelle sent a barrage of punches at the shadow, her hands reinforced by spirit energy. There was no one other than Alexander and his subordinates to watch her. In other words, there was no one to notice she had Spirit Soul Blood. So she could unleash her full power.

Ice formed beneath Michelle’s feet and chains gathered around her arms. She summoned her soul energy too.

Soon after, an ice field had formed around the lake. Soul and spirit energy made the air prickly, pulsating with the bloodthirst of their master.

Using the ice-element spirit energy to push down the temperature, Michelle started gathering her dark-element spirit energy in her hands. At the same time, she reached into her spirit domain, retrieving the huge sickle that was waiting there for her.

Once she had it in her hands, she coated it with dark-element spirit energy, also adding to it the chains around her arms and her soul energy.

Michelle had never done that before. So the shadow creature didn’t know what kind of skill it was. Michelle had only ever done similar things—and they had to be countered in a different way.

Lifting the sickle beside her, Michelle kicked into the ice, sending in more spirit energy. With that, four ice walls formed around the ice field she had created.

It wasn’t to prevent the shadow from escaping. It was clear it wouldn’t run.

It was to create more ways of attacking and also to prevent the shadow from pulling too much shadow essence to itself.

Of course, while Michelle was preparing, the shadow did the same.

Its shadow essence formed into two snake-like shapes wrapped around its arms. At the same time, another snake-like form wrapped around its waist.

Michelle frowned a bit.

Was that Liquid Shadow? She hadn’t even fully mastered the skill, so how did the shadow have it?

But Michelle wasn’t exactly worried. She had prevented the shadow from pulling in any more shadow essence, so it couldn’t overwhelm her with the skill.

Michelle and the shadow finished preparing at the same time. Well, they had to—because the moment the shadow finished, it struck at Michelle. So even if she wanted to do something more, she had to start defending herself.

The two snake-like forms on the shadow’s hands flew at her at high speed.

She quickly dodged and slashed toward them with the sickle. The dark-element spirit energy on the blade slipped off and flew at the two.

But just as Michelle had expected, it only passed through. Different energies couldn’t affect one another.

That made Michelle frown a bit. She glanced at the ice walls she had made. They were made out of spirit energy, so the shadow essence could theoretically pass through them. But the spirit energy was already reformed into sturdy ice, so there was also the possibility that it wouldn’t pass through.

So Michelle had to check.

She no longer had shadow essence in her body, but she still had the shadow dantian, so she could sense shadow essence.

But she didn’t really have the time to do that, because the two snake-like forms were once again flying at her.

Since she couldn’t strike them, she quickly dodged. The snake-like forms were constantly attacking her, but she couldn’t even block them. So she had to strike at the source.

Turning her gaze to the shadow, her eyes narrowed.

The next moment, while dodging the onslaught of the snakes, she closed the gap between herself and the shadow. Then, she struck at it with her sickle.

As if mocking her, the shadow didn’t even dodge.

And to Michelle’s surprise, the sickle passed straight through the shadow.

Instantly, Michelle jumped back. While doing so, she barely dodged another attack.

It didn’t take long for Michelle to understand what was going on—and that just fueled her excitement. Her already red right eye turned an even darker shade, while the glassy left eye remained the same.

Quickly, she assessed the situation. The shadow was made out of shadow essence, so nothing other than direct physical contact could touch it.

So Michelle had to figure out whether her spirit energy, when solidified, acted like a physical object or like any other energy.

And she already had a way to check—since she had the ice walls built up already.

Quickly, she retreated to the corner of the big ice box and momentarily closed her eyes. She needed to sense the shadow essence all around—especially the shadow essence outside the box. She needed to know whether it could pass through.

If it did, Michelle would be in big trouble. She would quickly need to regain her shadow essence so she could retaliate against the shadow.

Because solely her physical strength wouldn’t be enough to kill it.