CHAPTER 273: 273

Watching the shadow creature fall apart, Michelle stretched her hand out and touched its face. It was the last thing still intact.

It was a strange feeling to touch a face that looked exactly the same as hers.

When even the face started falling apart, Michelle stepped closer and leaned toward it.

While retracting the ice walls all around, she moved her face just millimeters from the shadow face. Then, without any warning, she placed a kiss on the shadow’s lips.

It didn’t have that much of a meaning. It just felt strange to see her own face. Maybe feeling a bit narcissistic, Michelle had the whim to kiss herself.

While Michelle didn’t give it any deep thoughts, Alexander on the side was deeply dissatisfied. Without wasting a millisecond, he sent his shadow essence at the remnants of the shadow creature.

Before Michelle could even move away, the shadow face was scattered by Alexander’s power.

Turning her head to look at him, she had a slight smile on her face. "What was that for?" she asked.

Alexander stared at Michelle’s smiling face. His expression was fairly calm, but Michelle could see in his eyes that he was quite annoyed. "Do you kiss just anyone?" He came closer.

Michelle kept her gaze on him. "No." Her smile widened. "I just couldn’t help but admire my own beauty."

Seeing the annoyance behind Alexander’s eyes, Michelle felt the urge to push his buttons. "Why? You want a kiss too?"

Alexander leaned down to Michelle’s eye level. "Will you give me one if I say yes?"

Michelle couldn’t exactly tell if he was just trying to counterattack, or if he really wanted a kiss, but she didn’t care.

Lifting her hands up, she lightly brushed them along Alexander’s neck to his chin. Then, she moved her hands behind his head.

Her movements were slow and deliberate.

Finally, she got on her toes and pulled Alexander closer to her.

Moving her lips to Alexander’s ear, with a smile she whispered, "No..." Her cold breath washed over Alexander’s neck as she let go of him.

Alexander’s eyes narrowed a bit, but he didn’t say anything more.

Michelle stepped back and looked up at the sky. The moon nor the stars could be seen. If Michelle didn’t possess the dark element spirit energy, she wouldn’t have been able to see anything. Everything would have looked pitch black, shrouded by darkness.

"I’m going to master the Liquid Shadow now!" she decided. Before the Shadowless Night started, she had made some progress in mastering the Liquid Shadow, so she wanted to fully grasp it.

Alexander watched Michelle spread her shadow essence into the surroundings to gain control over the nearby shadow essence. Then, she pulled her shadow essence back and controlled the cloud that had formed in front of her to spread out even more.

It was still in its visible state, but Michelle didn’t care. She decided she would worry about the visibility only after being able to control the shadows completely.

The only reason why visibility could be a problem with the skill was that if Michelle wanted to use the Liquid Shadow against someone, and they could see the cloud of shadow essence, they could predict that she was about to use it.

Also, once she activated it, they could theoretically sever her connection with the shadows by somehow cutting through the visible parts. The skill would then get out of control and most likely cause severe backlash for her.

So Michelle sunk deep into training, testing, and coming up with new methods, until she finally reached a breakthrough.

The whole time, there was just one step keeping her from mastering the skill. And she only realized it because she had fought the shadow creature.

When the shadow used the Liquid Shadow, it resembled a shape familiar to Michelle—a snake.

So, to cast the spell, Michelle most probably had to use her imagination to the fullest. She had to visualize exactly what she wanted the Liquid Shadow to look and work like.

Since the shadow creature had used snake-like forms against her, she decided to try imagining that. It was easier to picture something she had already seen before.

Putting her full concentration into it, Michelle repeated the whole process—from sending her shadow essence out to get a hold of the foreign shadow essence.

She kept her eyes closed for better focus, so she couldn’t see what was forming in front of her. But she could tell she was on the right track, because very quickly, she started feeling drained. Her mental power was depleting fast.

When the drainage stopped, Michelle’s eyelids were heavy. She didn’t feel like opening her eyes, but she wanted to look at her creation.

As if she had been asleep for a long time, her lids were slightly stuck together, but Michelle forced her eyes open.

When her gaze focused on what was in front of her, she completely forgot about her tiredness. Her eyes remained wide open, not even blinking.

"Why is it alive?" she finally turned her head to Alexander.

In front of her was a huge snake. It didn’t make a single sound, but it was clearly alive with how it moved.

Alexander stared at the snake and a smile spread across his lips. It was finally clear to him how much potential Michelle carried.

"How did you imagine the snake?" he asked.

Michelle shrugged. "I was inspired by the shadow creature’s snake forms."

Alexander’s eyes narrowed a bit when he heard that. He didn’t like the shadow creature. It had already scattered, but if it hadn’t, he would have made sure to personally wipe it off the face of the earth.

Michelle noticed the darkness in Alexander’s black eyes, but she didn’t comment on it. She just wanted an answer to her questions.

Alexander pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind and explained to Michelle what had happened.

What the shadow creature was using wasn’t exactly the Liquid Shadow.

Being created from Michelle’s talent, it had the potential to use the Living Shadow, but it was restrained by the fact that Michelle had yet to even try to learn it. So all it could do was peek at a skill that Michelle was just starting to develop, imitating the Living Shadow.

In other words, the snake-like forms were closer to being a Living Shadow than a Liquid Shadow.

Since Michelle was inspired by that when she tried to use the Liquid Shadow, she ended up learning the easiest part of the Living Shadow first.

And the reason why that was possible was actually simple. Just like the Gas Shadow—though never really used—was a grade below the Liquid Shadow, the Living Shadow was a grade above it. In other words, it was made out of Liquid Shadow.

If one didn’t have Liquid Shadow mastered to a certain level, they could never learn the Living Shadow.

Well, and Michelle had just reached the level where she could already start to use the Living Shadow.

Listening to all that, Michelle raised a brow. Turning her gaze at the snake, she still didn’t understand one thing. "This is just the easiest part?" she asked doubtfully.

Except that the snake was silent, it seemed like any other big snake.

Alexander nodded. "It doesn’t have its own will. Right now, it just resembles the shadow creature you fought. It, too, couldn’t make a sound and didn’t really have much free will. It was just strategizing to kill you."

Michelle raised a brow. "But it’s still an intelligent being, isn’t it?"

Alexander shrugged. What was considered intelligent? "It can understand you and execute any orders you give it. But it won’t be able to improvise or understand things you say in between the lines. It will take everything literally."

Michelle understood. So it had enough brains to receive orders, but not enough to analyze them and make connections between bits of information.

"How do I make it disappear?" Michelle finally asked. She wanted to once again concentrate on the Liquid Shadow.

"It’s made of shadow essence under your control, so you should be able to make it scatter."

Michelle nodded a bit.

Then, after focusing on the snake for a moment, the black turned to gray, and it turned into a haze that dispersed into the surroundings.

With that, she was finally able to get back to training to use the Liquid Shadow.

Since imagining the snake forms turned out bad, she decided to try something that would never end up alive. But she wanted it to still be a challenge.

If she wanted to, she could imagine a knife and count that as success, but that wouldn’t satisfy her.

Closing her eyes, she imagined something she quite liked to use.

Alexander stared at Michelle and the small black cloud in front of her. Considering the frown on her face, though what she was creating was small, it was definitely intricate and needed her utmost care. That made him think it could be something from her past life.

If that was the case, he was quite curious about it.