Facing the monsters and beasts relying on speed, Michelle frowned a bit in thought as she stared at them. The beasts and monsters didn’t attack her just yet, waiting for her to take the first move. They had seen her kill off most of the beasts and monsters that came alongside them, so they were able to understand that she was dangerous. Thus, they didn’t dare act rashly.
Michelle could guess what the monsters and beasts were planning, so she decided to use the first move to test their speed. She knew that all of them would be troublesome to fight, but she wanted to see which would be the least troublesome and which would drive her crazy. So, in the blink of an eye, she sent the ice spears all around her towards the creatures at the highest speed she could make them fly at.
Most of the creatures were able to dodge, some barely, some easily, but there were a few who got hit or at least grazed by the ice spears Michelle threw, making her smile a bit. She would take care of those first before going for the faster ones.
When the creatures dodged, they instantly attacked back, knowing that Michelle would start attacking relentlessly from that point on.
Using her Shadow Spirit Steps, Michelle didn’t have any trouble dodging the attacks as she started preparing for her next attack, slowly moving the spirit energy within her to activate a skill she liked very much. But she had to be careful so the creatures didn’t realize that something was off, so she kept summoning ice spears and throwing them out, making the creatures think she was focusing solely on the spears.
The skill Michelle wanted to use was very easy to activate, and she had already used it a few times since she had learned it, but at the moment, she wanted to use it on a large scale, so she needed much more spirit energy than usual to start it up. And she wanted to not only prepare, but also activate it without the creatures noticing, so she could take the slower ones down without the others realizing. That meant she had to have perfect control over her spirit energy, since some monsters and beasts were very sensitive to spirit energy and would discover the activation of the skill if she made one wrong move.
Constantly sending the ice spears flying at the creatures, Michelle was starting to feel tired, but she had finally gathered enough spirit energy to activate the spell and get rid of the weakest creatures, and maybe even some of the more powerful ones.
So she started activating the skill, her eyes gleaming coldly as her maniacal smile widened. Soon, blood would spill all over.
Summoning her sickle, Michelle coated it in her ice element spirit energy and swung it at the few creatures nearest to her, sending them flying back. But that was just a distraction. In that one swing, she used a recklessly big amount of spirit energy—or so it seemed to an outsider—so when she sent her spirit energy into the surroundings, the creatures thought it was the spirit energy from the swing and didn’t think anything more about it, continuing to attack Michelle, some using their claws, some their fangs, and some even shooting balls of spirit energy from their mouths.
What the creatures didn’t realize was that shadows appeared surrounding them, all holding the same sickles as Michelle. Michelle successfully summoned about a hundred Spirit Clones. But with her level of spirit energy being below the Spirit rank, she couldn’t keep them around for too long. And the clones knew that, so they instantly lunged between the enraged monsters and beasts and started cutting them down. They weren’t powerful enough to straight-up kill the fastest and strongest ones, but the slow ones were at their mercy and soon died.
When the slower monsters were all dead, the clones kept wounding the other monsters for a while before they ran out of time and disappeared.
Then, Michelle frowned a bit. She could keep fighting the monsters and beasts if she wanted to, since she still had enough spirit energy to do so, but her body was physically tired and she felt the need to rest. But she knew she couldn’t rest until she had taken care of the monsters.
So she gripped her sickle even tighter and swung it around herself in a frenzy, forming something like a shield around herself, as she moved so quickly that it seemed like the blade was everywhere around her all at once.
While swinging the sickle all around herself, Michelle glanced at the ring on her hand. Her shifting weapon. She quickly made it shift into a dagger and slowed down the movement of her sickle. Creating a domain of a kind with the sickle was a possible way to slowly kill all the monsters and beasts, but her body was already reaching its limit, so she couldn’t keep that up for too long. So she had to use a more direct method, though it was more dangerous.
For some time, the metallic smell of blood filled the forest as Michelle once again remembered her skills from her past life, forcing her body over the edge and even more, to get the most out of it. She went by the saying that even a cornered rabbit will bite. But she made herself that rabbit. She pushed herself over the breaking point by constantly running between the monsters and beasts, stabbing recklessly here and there, not caring if she hit something.
She was aiming for a single thing: to exhaust her muscles to the point where she could barely move them. Because if she reached that point and then pushed just a bit more, she would get perfect control over every single muscle in her body, letting her deal with the monsters more easily. And the best thing about that method was that once she pushed herself over the limit like that, she would never lose control of her muscles as long as she didn’t end up in a new body or fall ill with a plague that would eat away at her muscles.
Very quickly, the monsters realized that something was wrong—that Michelle didn’t care whether she hit something when she swung her sickle or dagger. She clearly just wanted to swing it. And they couldn’t understand why that was.
Even the flying creatures perched up in the tree crowns noticed, and some chose to leave, deciding not to risk anything, because Michelle was clearly not in the right state of mind. The little human who had been fighting against them strategically until a moment ago was suddenly running around, swinging her hands around like crazy.
Some of the creatures on the ground turned tail and ran, but that was a much smaller percentage compared to the flying creatures, as the flying creatures had a good view from up above and could instantly see the change in Michelle’s behavior, while the creatures on the ground were at quite a disadvantage when it came to observing Michelle’s behavior.
After just a while of running around, dodging, and attacking the creatures, Michelle felt her muscles start to ache and get sore, but she just sped up. She also didn’t use her Shadow Spirit Steps so she could get to the breaking point faster.
And soon, the dangerous part came. Michelle’s movements started turning sluggish, and the monsters and beasts noticed, increasing the speed of their attacks. They didn’t know why Michelle was acting that way, but they all had honed instincts that were telling them she was dangerous. So when her movements started slowing, some decided to get rid of her. And one by one, the other creatures followed along.
Michelle realized the danger she was in, but since she had already started, she wouldn’t stop in the middle. Also, if she decided to stop at the moment, she would just end up like an easy snack for the monsters and beasts.
So even though her body was refusing to listen to her, she gritted her teeth and sped up, jumping up to kill one of the bigger monsters.
She couldn’t really call it big, because all the monsters that were able to follow her through her ice bridges belonged to the smaller side and were quite nimble, but the biggest of them were still the size of an adult man.
Dodging and counter-attacking, Michelle gnashed her teeth until her gums hurt when she felt intense pain start shooting through her muscles, making her feel like they were about to tear. But she let her spirit and soul energy swirl around her muscles in faint streams to make sure her muscles wouldn’t tear, as that would be the death of her.
Soon, the moment came when Michelle felt herself on the verge of breaking. Her muscles were throbbing and burning in pain, but she kept moving, refusing to slow down. Her eyes were back to purple. She wasn’t excited nor angry. Just in terrible pain. But she was able to bear with it, so it didn’t show in the color of her eyes.