Chapter 224: 224
When Michelle finished reading the skill book, the time she couldn’t fight in the arena had passed. She could come up to the platform again. So she walked out of Mavreth’s private room and went out of the building, heading straight towards the platform where she fought before. A fight was just ending.
When the fight came to an end, and the fighters were transported to the resting room, Michelle stepped up to the platform.
Everyone remembered the promise Mavreth gave. Whoever was able to kill Michelle would be allowed to go into the Fiend Dungeon.
Since it was a tempting offer, it didn’t take more than five seconds for a woman to jump onto the platform. She was an archer, holding a bow made out of fire.
Seeing that, Michelle showed a slight frown. She didn’t like fire. But she had her Everfrost Mantle on to keep her cool.
The moment the array under the platform activated, the woman didn’t waste a single moment. She created a fire arrow using her spirit energy and shot it at Michelle.
Instantly, Michelle dodged to the side. She could feel the explosive energy coming from the arrow, so she knew blocking it with her soul energy was basically useless.
And as she had guessed, when the arrow hit the ground, a massive explosion blew up on the platform, creating a hole.
Seeing that, Michelle quickly summoned her sickle and momentarily closed her eyes to get her focus to its peak as she started gathering soul energy on the sickle.
The moment she once again felt an arrow approaching her, her eyes opened and she sliced towards the arrow.
A wave of void flew from the sickle’s blade and sliced through the arrow. It exploded even before it could reach Michelle. And the explosion even hit the woman.
But the arrow was created from her own spirit energy, so the explosion was harmless to her.
Still, it angered her.
Gritting her teeth, she poured spirit energy directly into her bow, making it grow in size. Then, she started creating arrows again. They were much bigger than before. And the explosive power in them could be felt even when they were still touching the bow.
Michelle reacted quickly and started gathering soul energy in her chest.
The woman in front of her was a much more troublesome opponent than the tall man she had fought before. He had mostly relied on his physical strength, enhanced by earth-element spirit energy. But the woman was directly attacking her with explosive fire-element spirit energy.
That was something Michelle was weak against. She was an ice-element Spirit Master, the complete opposite. And at the moment, she couldn’t even use her spirit energy so she wouldn’t expose her Spirit Soul Blood.
When she was still in the lower realm, it could be tolerated when she used her spirit energy. There was a very small chance someone could recognize her Spirit Soul Blood from it. But in the middle realm, it was a completely different story—especially since she was in an arena full of people who had already been in the upper realm.
So Michelle had to use her soul energy to fight. And against an archer, her sickle wasn’t really effective. She could use it for large-scale attacks, but that was about all there was to it, no matter how skilled she was at using the sickle.
But an idea popped in her head. If she could use her soul leash, the Binding Chains, properly, she might be able to copy the woman’s skill and retaliate in a moment of surprise.
It had just one problem. To do that, she would need to take a hit and figure out how the woman was aligning her spirit energy in both the bow and the arrows.
Since the array could revive her the first time she received a fatal hit, she had one chance. At the moment, she didn’t know of a way to get hit without it being fatal—especially since the woman was so much more powerful than herself.
While the woman formed huge explosive arrows with her spirit energy, Michelle formed a layer of soul energy on her body.
And beneath her clothes, she had the Binding Chains wrap around her. If she timed it perfectly, she could use the Binding Chains to propel the soul energy towards the arrows to wrap around them. Then, before they hit her, she would be able to analyze them.
Once they hit her, she would have a moment to analyze the explosion.
When the woman finished forming the arrows, she shot one at Michelle. At the same time, Michelle had the Binding Chains under her clothes fling at the soul energy around her, sending it flying at the arrow. So a fiery red arrow met with a black mass in between the two beautiful people.
Everyone was expecting a massive explosion, but instead, the black mass wrapped around the arrow like a snake, which slowed it down a bit. But the next moment, it still crashed against Michelle. It impaled her chest, letting blood gush out. And once it tasted her blood, it exploded into marvelous fire over half of the platform.
Michelle felt her body falling down, but before that, she let her soul energy and Binding Chains spread out, sensing around the particles.
The scene looked like something from the pits of hell—blazing flames with black tongues and golden-black chains in between, all coiling around each other. And in the midst of it, the body of a young person was falling to the ground.
But the scene didn’t last for long. The moment Michelle’s body hit the ground, the Binding Chains and soul energy returned to her. At the same time, the array activated, forcing the explosion to disappear.
And then, the red light wrapped around Michelle and brought her back to her feet. It was a nasty feeling to die in an explosion of flames, but she still had a smile on her lips.
As the barrier around the platform turned red, she gathered Binding Chains and soul energy in her hand.
The next moment, she was holding an eerie black bow. The bow itself was made out of thick soul energy, and the bowstring was made out of the Binding Chains. Except for the color, it looked exactly the same as the bow the woman was holding.
When she saw the bow in Michelle’s hands, she felt like she was being insulted. Instantly, she prepared to fire a few arrows at Michelle.
But Michelle was faster. Creating three arrows, her shooting technique was completely different from that of the woman. She turned the bow horizontally and placed the three arrows next to each other. Then, she shot.
Seeing that, the woman scoffed in disgust, sending her own arrow to crash against Michelle’s. She thought it would be simple since Michelle was so much weaker than her.
But to everyone’s surprise, the fire arrow disappeared once it touched the three arrows. The three black arrows swallowed it.
And the reason was actually simple. Michelle’s soul energy had the properties of void. And she had absorbed a lot of void into her body. So she was able to make the soul energy act exactly like void. So once in contact with anything, they swallowed it up and grew in size.
Seeing the three void arrows flying at her, the woman rapidly blew all her arrows at them, but that just resulted in the three arrows growing in size. The woman realized it was impossible for her to dodge or block the attack.
A moment before the three arrows landed on the woman, they merged into one.
That was the biggest difference between soul and spirit energy. Once spirit energy lost contact with its caster, it would just continue on its trajectory unless it was created by a special skill that left it in the control of the caster. But soul energy didn’t need such skills. If the soul energy was still within a certain range of the caster, they could control it however they liked.
And that was what Michelle used.
When there were three smaller arrows, it was easier for them to swallow the big arrows of the woman. But to create the most damage on her, they needed to merge into one.
Once again, the red light appeared on the platform to revive the woman. And the barrier changed into an even richer shade of red.
The fight continued. The woman was enraged. And Michelle was excited. The upcoming clash would be detrimental to their lives.
Both drew their bows and formed arrows. Michelle created three of them, and the woman followed suit. She refused to believe Michelle’s three arrows would be able to swallow three of her arrows at once.
And she was right. Michelle’s arrows could only swallow one arrow at a time.
But that didn’t mean she would let the woman’s arrows hit her.
While she created the arrows, she made more of her Binding Chains appear, having them wrap around the arrows.
So her arrows were no longer black. They were black with golden chains coiled around them.