Chapter 252: 252
After finishing brewing some poison, Mavreth stood up. "It’s time for my disciple to wake up," he muttered and waved his hand lightly.
The next moment, the space in front of him tore open, creating a tunnel leading to the door to Michelle’s room.
Well, it wasn’t exactly a tunnel. Mavreth would only need to take a single step and he would be on the other side.
When the door to the room opened, Michelle lifted her gaze. "Did I pass the test, master?" she asked with a tilt of her head.
"With excellent results..." Mavreth nodded, walking over. "Now, this should be taken out." He stretched out his hand in front of Michelle, and once again a black spike appeared.
The next moment, he drove it into the already healing wound, messing it up again.
A hiss left Michelle’s mouth. But at least it didn’t hurt as much as before. Though the spike looked exactly the same as the first one, the feeling it gave off was different.
And the black net spread across Michelle’s body reacted to it. The parts of it in the wound started connecting to the spike.
Alexander watched from the side, his eyes narrowing a bit. He knew what would come next.
After waiting for a while, when the net was tightly connected to the spike, Mavreth gripped it tightly and pulled on it.
Michelle shuddered in disgust and pain as she felt something move under her skin. The net moved along with the spike.
"Don’t faint now!" Mavreth kept pulling on the spike. When it was out of the wound, it was connected to it by a bloodied black net.
So he let go of the spike and took hold of the net, proceeding to pull it out.
Michelle gritted her teeth, holding back a curse. She wouldn’t faint. No matter how painful it got.
But there was one thing that really annoyed her.
Mavreth was clearly taking his time. If he wanted, he could pull the net out all at once, but he was pulling it out slowly.
Lifting her leg, Michelle sent a kick toward him. She didn’t care whether Mavreth would dodge it or take it. It wouldn’t hurt him either way. But at least she could somehow show her anger.
She couldn’t exactly talk because of the pain. Especially since part of the net was stretching even over her neck, messing with her throat. That made any sound she made much more painful.
Mavreth couldn’t be bothered to dodge Michelle’s kick. "I can’t pull it out faster." He knew what Michelle was going through, so he could guess what she was so angry about. "If I did, remnants would stay behind and spread all over your body. You would die."
That angered Michelle. But she couldn’t do anything about it. Except send another kick at Mavreth.
But it didn’t affect Mavreth the least bit. He just kept slowly pulling the net out, making sure no remnants would remain under Michelle’s skin.
When it was done, she let out a groan, breathing in slowly as she let her back fall on the bed. "That was hell..." she mumbled.
Mavreth didn’t pay it any attention. "You should check if anything has changed in your body," he said, turning around to leave.
That made Michelle shoot him a glare. "Do I have to do it now?" Much more, she felt like just lying around to rest and let her body recover.
Mavreth didn’t even turn to look back. He opened the door as he spoke: "It will be much easier now than after you recover."
With a sigh, Michelle tried to sit back up. But her body was in a terrible condition, so she couldn’t exactly move.
While pulling out the net, Mavreth had cut through quite a lot of things under her skin, making her nearly immobile.
Seeing Michelle struggle, Alexander couldn’t help but smile. "Need help?" he came over.
Michelle moved her gaze to look at him. She hated that smirk of his.
"Help me sit up..." she finally said.
Alexander bent down to her level and took hold of her shoulders, lifting them up a bit. Then, he wrapped one of his hands around her waist to support her back. Finally, he pulled her up into a sitting position.
"Can you keep yourself up like this?" he asked carelessly, still holding her.
Michelle frowned. She could feel that once he let go of her, she would crash back down. "Can you lean me against the wall?"
"Certainly..." Alexander lifted her up to move her to the part of the bed touching the wall.
A hiss left Michelle’s mouth. The movement tore something open.
Alexander glanced down at her and put her down against the wall. "It will heal just fine."
That made Michelle frown. "How can you know that? You aren’t a doctor or a healer."
"But I’ve seen people in the same condition as you. They all healed within a few days no matter how bad their condition was."
Alexander’s answer only deepened Michelle’s frown.
Did that mean she would heal even faster because of her extreme healing abilities?
Or could wounds created by the spike and black net bypass all advantages of special healing abilities, and, no matter who it was that had them, they always healed at the same speed?
Alexander retracted his hands from Michelle and stepped back. "You should be checking your body, not sinking into random thought."
"Oh, right..." Michelle snapped out of it. Then, she closed her eyes.
She conjured up a wisp of consciousness and let it flow around her body to check if something had changed aside from all the wounds.
So she proceeded to send it into her soul.
But there, too, everything was the same as before.
"What could it be...?" Michelle mumbled. When Mavreth had stabbed the first spike into her, she felt something change, but she just couldn’t find it.
Since she had already checked both her body and soul, the only thing left to check was the space storing her soul.
Just like before, Serith’s soul was floating around there. And one additional thing had appeared—a strange transparent mass just floating around.
"Serith, can you check it?" Michelle requested.
Serith moved to the mass and moved around it.
After a while, he came to a conclusion. "It’s the mass of two contracts combined."
When Michelle read that, she raised a brow. "Can you find out what contracts form it?" she asked.
So Serith returned to exploring the mass. "To some kind of space artifacts."
Michelle’s eyes gleamed at that answer. She looked down at her hand and stared at the spatial ring and bracelet. Those were the only spatial artifacts she had.
"How does it affect them?" she wondered.
She decided to test it.
She tried to reach into the ring, but something blocked her. She couldn’t access what was inside.
So she tested the bracelet, and the result was the same.
Seeing that, Michelle remembered something. Back in the Land of Exile, she took three artifacts for herself. She had already contracted the Everfrost Mantle, which always kept her cool, and the Whispering Serpent, a pendant which let her use subtle and quick manipulation much better than before.
But she had put off making a contract with the Eye of Nihil, which would let her see into the souls of those of the same or lower rank as her, and see into the essence of things.
She didn’t contract it because the Eye of Nihil, also known as the Eye of Truth, would replace one of the user’s eyes. Though it would look exactly the same as the original eye, Michelle still didn’t like the idea.
Especially since her eyes could change color from purple to red because she had Spirit Soul Blood. She doubted the Eye of Nihil could do that. And the idea of having different colored eyes made her uncomfortable, even if it only happened when she was going through intense emotions.
But at the moment, Michelle was really considering making a contract with it. She could use it to see why she couldn’t access the spaces within the spatial ring and bracelet.
It had just one problem. The Eye of Nihil was within her spatial ring. So she couldn’t get it out.
"What do I do now?" Michelle kept staring at the spatial ring until an idea popped up in her head.
When she tried to reach into the spatial ring, she didn’t have anything specific in mind that she wanted to take out. And the spatial ring was connected to her consciousness.
So maybe, even though she couldn’t check what was within the ring, she could take things out.
Or maybe it was just her wishful thinking.
Anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to try.
Closing her eyes, Michelle remembered what the Eye of Nihil looked like and envisioned it in her mind. Then, she reached into the spatial ring again.
A slight shimmer appeared around the ring, and the next moment, a small glass ball plopped onto Michelle’s hand.