Chapter 253: 253
Alexander watched Michelle stare down at the glass pebble in her hand. He had already seen the Eye of Nihil before, so it wasn’t hard to guess that Michelle wanted to contract it.
But she wasn’t exactly mobile, so she couldn’t do it on her own.
"Need help?" He sat at the side of the bed, taking the glass pebble from Michelle.
Michelle hated the feeling of helplessness she had. She didn’t like having to ask someone for help so much. But she didn’t have much of a choice.
"Yes..."
Alexander held the pebble between his fingers, staring at it for a while. Then he looked at the still-bleeding wound on Michelle’s chest. Blood was needed to form a contract.
"Move your spirit energy to the wound," he said lazily and pressed the pebble into the wound.
Michelle held back a hiss and started moving her spirit energy towards her chest. When it got there, Alexander could feel some movement in the pebble, so he let go of it. And just as he was expecting, when he retracted his hand, the pebble stayed in place.
Michelle felt her spirit energy and blood reacting to the pebble, forming a contract. At the same time, her contract mark appeared on her forehead.
A thorny rose pricking a snake coiled around it, with its jaws wide open, trying to swallow a butterfly sitting atop the flower.
"That’s an interesting contract mark you have," Alexander said as he pressed his index finger to Michelle’s forehead.
Michelle ignored him. Her full attention was on the Eye of Nihil. She could feel the contract forming.
When it was done, the pebble flew out of the wound and started changing its appearance.
From a transparent glass pebble, it turned into a white glass ball. Then, a black circle formed on one side and a purple circle wrapped around it. It became a glass eyeball.
Michelle felt slight dread for what would come next.
The glass eyeball was supposed to replace one of her eyes, and she was wondering how it would happen. It definitely wouldn’t be a nice process.
And she was right.
The eyeball floated up to her eye level, and some kind of black liquid splashed out of the pupil.
It landed on Michelle’s left eye.
Michelle shuddered at the sensation. It felt disgusting.
But before she could do anything, she felt a terrible sting in her eye. The liquid was corroding away her eye.
A groan left Michelle’s mouth as she lost sight in the left eye. Her body was still weak, so she couldn’t even lift her hands to rub the eye.
Even Alexander was surprised by what happened. He knew that the Eye of Nihil would replace one of its contractor’s eyes, but he didn’t expect it to happen in such a drastic way.
Michelle couldn’t see what was happening to her eye, but Alexander could.
Upon landing on her eye, the black liquid turned oily and quickly spread all over her eyeball. It corroded away the pupil and iris, taking away Michelle’s sight in that eye.
But it didn’t stop there.
The faint sizzling sound of acid working broke the silence.
Michelle’s eyeball started falling apart, and the white of it began mixing with the black liquid. Together, it dripped out of her eye like light gray tears.
Along with it, small trails of dark, blood-stained tears were left behind.
But they weren’t red like normal blood. The blood was mixed with the black liquid, so even the blood took on a black color.
Luckily, upon mixing with all the tissue of Michelle’s eye, the corrosive liquid stopped working, so it didn’t corrode Michelle’s skin as it flowed out like tears.
But that didn’t mean Michelle wasn’t suffering. Her eyelid twitched violently, trying to blink the liquid out. But as if something was gluing it, it could barely move.
The only positive thing about the process was that it was quite swift. The black liquid quickly flowed out, leaving behind only a gaping hole where the eye once was. A bloodied hole.
When the liquid was gone, the glass eyeball started moving again. As if someone smashed it with a hammer, it shattered into a bunch of shards and flew into the hole left behind by the liquid.
There, the shards stabbed into the wall and started connecting with each other.
Michelle was breathing heavily, feeling the glass eye forming. Slowly, the pain was subsiding, but it still wasn’t comfortable.
The shards connected and once again reshaped into an eyeball—with a black pupil and purple iris.
Except for the trail of black-blood tears on her cheek, Michelle once again looked normal. But she couldn’t see with her left eye.
However, as far as she knew, the sight would slowly restore, and then she would be able to use the Eye of Nihil’s abilities.
"Haa..." Michelle let out a sigh. "Never again."
Seeing the state Michelle was in, Alexander waved his hand on the left side of Michelle’s head.
"You have a blind spot here now, don’t you?"
He was right. Michelle couldn’t see his hand.
And it annoyed her. Not only was she weakened and unable to move properly, even her sight was compromised.
Seeing Michelle’s expression, Alexander chuckled.
"Now, now. Don’t be so angry at me. You were the one who decided to make a contract with it."
Michelle decided not to pay Alexander any attention. All she needed to do was wait for her sight to return to her left eye. So she just rested her head on the wall behind her and stared at the ceiling.
For the next half hour, she couldn’t see a thing with her left eye, but after that, she started recognizing some haze to her left. With time, it got better and better.
In another half hour, she was able to see things close to her and recognize the outlines of things a bit farther away. Her left eye was nearsighted.
But that was enough to examine the spatial ring and bracelet.
Moving her gaze to the spatial ring first, Michelle sent spirit energy mixed with soul energy to the Eye of Nihil.
At first, everything looked the same, but slowly, half-transparent windows with letters appeared in front of the ring. In the beginning, it was hazy, but when Michelle focused on it, it got clearer and even a bit bigger.
"How interesting..." she smiled as she read what it showed. The Eye of Nihil could see that it was a spatial ring, the size of its space, that it was filled to about a quarter, and contracted to Michelle Grace.
When Michelle focused on the two words Michelle Grace, a new window appeared next to the first one, showing information about her—her name, age, masteries and their ranks and levels, as well as what artifacts and creatures she had contracted, and the special skills she had mastered.
Moving her focus to the spatial bracelet, Michelle could see a list of creatures and eggs that were inside. Additionally, it told her how big the space was and who had a contract with the bracelet.
Seeing the results, Michelle was quite satisfied. Suddenly, she had the urge to see what she would find if she used the Eye of Nihil on Alexander.
So she did it. She moved her gaze toward him while the Eye of Nihil was still activated.
But the moment her gaze fell on him, she was left disappointed. Though a window appeared, it was empty—and it quickly disappeared.
"What a pity," she sighed.
But it was to be expected. The performance of the Eye of Nihil depended on the strength of its contractor. Since Michelle was so much weaker than Alexander, the Eye of Nihil couldn’t scan him.
Alexander saw the disappointment in Michelle’s eyes and chuckled.
"The results didn’t satisfy you?"
Michelle sent him a glare. She wanted to be able to move again, so she could finally leave the room. She wanted to find someone of lower level than her, so she could test the Eye of Nihil on them. She was curious about how much she could find out about a person using it.
Thinking about that, an idea popped into her mind. The room had a mirror. There, she could see whether a window would pop up about her.
Moving her gaze toward it, Michelle realized she was sitting in the wrong place. When she looked into the mirror, it was reflecting the door.
Glancing at Alexander, she decided to ask him for help again.
"Can you bring the mirror here?"
Alexander didn’t even move, and a black haze left his shoulder. It went to the mirror, wrapped around it, and brought it in front of Michelle.
"Good enough?"
"Yes. Thanks!" Michelle turned her full attention to the mirror.
When she looked at it the first time, she saw a window about the mirror—the price it could get at an auction, what it was made of, or how accurate the reflection was. But when Michelle focused on the reflection, the window changed.
"Michelle Grace – weakened upon a strike to her soul space"