Lying in the coffin-like box made of ice, Michelle had to wait for a long ti in silence before she noticed a change.
It was very subtle.
With not a speck of malicious aura and nearly nonexistent presence, a black sli-like creature crawled to the ice spread around. If it didn’t touch the ice, Michelle wouldn’t have even noticed it.
Swinging her eyes open, she stared at the jelly fluid moving around. If a seemingly harmless creature like that could move around so freely, it ant it was hiding its power.
Feeling it moving over the ice, Michelle knew that once it found the hole she left in the ice for breathing, it would slip inside. Then, she would be in dire trouble.
So she had to get rid of it before that happened.
Sending her spirit energy into the ice, she had huge black and whitish-blue spikes stab out of it, piercing through the sli. The next mont, she controlled the ice box to shatter and the shards flew away from her, pushing the sli creature away.
Michelle quickly jumped to her feet. She refused to believe it was just an ordinary sli. She was waiting for it to show its true powers.
She had already let her guard down once against the boulder monsters, and the consequences were nearly dire. She wouldn’t let herself make another mistake like that.
But even after being pushed away, the sli didn’t show any signs of hostility. It just tried to crawl closer to Michelle again.
A frown ford on Michelle’s face. Glancing down at herself, she wondered if there was a wound sowhere on her body. Maybe the sll of blood was what attracted the sli.
But she didn’t see anything. And she didn’t particularly feel pain anywhere.
So why was the seemingly harmless sli approaching her?
Michelle refused to believe it was just a harmless sli. It was ti to get rid of it.
Squatting down, she extended her hand towards it. At the sa ti, she took control over the small amount of poison elent within her body and moved it all to her hand.
The sli continued moving at the sa pace until it reached Michelle’s hand. Once there, it wrapped around, making it look like Michelle’s hand was stabbed through a black jelly.
Seeing that it wasn’t doing anything else, Michelle was confused. So she decided to try what the sli would do if it was in danger.
She started moving the poison elent spirit energy within her hand to the surface of her skin. From there, it entered the sli’s body.
At first, the sli didn’t show any reaction, not even noticing that poison was entering it.
But after a while, it started wiggling and stretching around Michelle’s hand. A while later, it was wrapped around her hand like a long glove.
"Just what is this..." Michelle frowned. It seed more like the sli wanted more of her poison elent spirit energy to enter it than that it wanted to get away.
Did it have completely no awareness of danger? Or was it immune to poison?
With a frown, Michelle flung her hand to the side, forcing the sli off. It fell to the ground with a wet plop. It wasn’t really a pleasant sound.
"What are you?" Michelle nudged at the sli with her foot. But it just stuck to her leg stubbornly.
Not liking it, Michelle combined all her spirit and soul energy in her leg and let it surge out of her leg, entering the sli’s body.
The next mont, she condensed the spirit energy and controlled the soul energy to turn into a black fire.
The explosion tore the sli apart and the black flas engulfed the scattered parts.
Thinking it was finally over, Michelle let the flas rage on for a while longer before retracting them. But the mont she did so, the scattered parts of the sli ca together and reford into the sli.
A spark of rage appeared deep within Michelle’s purple eyes. She was still keeping it contained, but it was impossible to tell when she would let loose again.
Feeling that from within Michelle’s body, Nyxaroth ca out and struck at the sli in his solidified form.
But all that happened to the sli was that it got squished to the ground. The mont Nyxaroth retreated a bit, it returned to its original state.
"Nyx, what is that thing?" Michelle’s voice was already icy cold.
Nyxaroth stared at the sli for a long ti before answering. "It’s not dangerous," he concluded.
That irked Michelle a bit. "So I should just let it follow around?"
"You move faster than it." Nyxaroth wasn’t really concerned. "Just get out of the radius where it can sense you."
"Fine, then..." Michelle wasn’t satisfied, but it seed that was the only way to get rid of the sli.
But before she could move a single step away she felt a strong, oppressive presence. There was no bloodthirst, malice, or killing intent in the presence, but Michelle still felt suffocated by it. Sothing was coming.
"I’ll be retreating." Nyxaroth turned into a speck of mist and returned into Michelle’s body.
Staring down at the sli, Michelle could feel it wasn’t the source of the presence. But she was convinced it was sohow connected to it.
Reaching down to it, she let it wrap around her hand again.
And the mont it did, the presence disappeared. "Nyx, can you still feel it?" Michelle quickly asked.
"No!" Nyxaroth’s raspy voice ca from within her body.
Flinging the sli down, Michelle felt the presence instantly return. And Nyxaroth felt it the sa way.
"I knew it wasn’t normal!" Michelle hissed in anger.
"Maybe as long as the sli is on you, the creature won’t approach." Nyxaroth thought about it for a mont.
Michelle shook her head. "What if the presence is always around since it appeared, but when I touch the sli, it just dulls my senses?"
Nyxaroth hadn’t considered that. "But I can feel the presence vanish too."
"But, Nyx..." Michelle still believed her theory. "You are my contracted beast. What if the sli affects you too?"
Nyxaroth went silent for a mont, before a thought struck him. "Serith doesn’t have a contract with you!"
So Michelle asked Serith. And the answer was the sa as Nyxaroth. The presence vanished whenever Michelle touched the sli.
Letting the sli wrap around her arm again, Michelle sat down on the ground, waiting for what would happen. She refused to believe the creature wouldn’t co to her just because of a small sli.
And she was right.
After so ti, Michelle could see sothing approaching from the distance. From all sides. It was crawling over the shattered buildings and the used-to-be street.
At first, Michelle couldn’t make out what it was, but when it got closer, it struck her. It was an army of slis just like the one on her hand.
"If I’m not dead now, I really don’t know..." Michelle frowned, moving her free hand to touch the sli on her other hand.
Michelle started preparing for the worst. From her experience with the first sli, the slis couldn’t be killed, so she needed a way to get through them. Because if they were hostile, once they got to her, she was dead.
But before she could even think of a plan, she felt her soul energy move. Serith was trying to communicate sothing. "They are Shadow Slis."
Reading that, Michelle didn’t know what to think about it. She had no clue what Shadow Slis were.
So Serith went on to explain.
Apparently, Shadow Slis were one of the few creatures which could use not spirit or soul energy but shadow essence. And they were uncontrollably attracted to those with the potential to beco Shadow Masters.
The fact that the first one approached Michelle ant the group was uncertain whether Michelle had the potential. And after the sli confird it, they all ca out.
"So, are they dangerous to ?" Michelle asked. "What do they do to those with the potential?" she added.
Serith had a vague answer for that. The Shadow Slis never intentionally hurt anyone with the talent.
From that one sentence, Michelle could tell her safety wasn’t guaranteed. Just because they didn’t hurt others intentionally didn’t an they couldn’t still hurt her. Accidents could happen.
Thinking about what to do, Michelle stood up, looking around a bit. There wasn’t really anything she could use to get herself out of the situation. And she really didn’t feel like leaving her life up to whether the slis kill or don’t kill her accidentally.
"Are they weak against sothing?" Michelle suddenly asked.
Serith could only guess. "Probably light." It was a well-known fact that creatures cultivating the shadow essence tended to avoid light. But it was hard to tell whether they were weak against it.
Still, Michelle decided to try it. It was her last resort.
Summoning her ice elent, she ford a ball of Ice Fire on her palm, letting it grow rapidly. She wanted it to create as much light as possible.
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