46

Feeling her blood being sucked into the book, Michelle felt like she was about to faint. But suddenly, her mind cleared up, and she found herself in a completely different place, where she didn't feel the nauseating energy that was in the cave.

She was in a huge basically empty hall with only decoration being all kinds of weapons in huge numbers being stabbed into the wall. And the most conspicuous weapon was a single huge scythe in the middle of one of the walls. "Senior?" Michelle called out to the monster, but she received no answer. Instead, she saw the black mist that was attacking her before appear a distance from her, in front of the big scythe.

Michelle frowned and stared at the black mist defensively, but to her surprise, it stayed still. Seeing that, Michelle still kept her guard up, but she slowly approached it. But the moment she came closer, the black mist started flowing in itself. Like water in a bottle when you shake it. Michelle froze for a moment, and the mist stopped moving. When she moved, the mist started flowing in itself again.

A frown appeared on Michelle's face. Unlike before, she felt no danger from the black mist, but she didn't like it. The way the mist moved only when she moved was unsettling, but also somehow intriguing.

Gritting her teeth, Michelle decided to risk it and walked towards the black mist. The faster she walked, the more the mist flowed around, but it never left its place. A few moments later, Michelle was just a few steps away from the black mist, and if she extended her hand, she could touch it. But she hesitated. She still remembered how the mist attacked her. But finally, she decided to trust her instincts and reached out.

When she touched the mist, for the first time after forming a contract with Snow, she felt cold. A shudder ran through her body as she felt like the mist was a cold hand holding onto her wrist. Suddenly, she felt a sharp pull and entered the black mist. It was so cold, she felt like she would get frostbites all over her body, but very quickly, the feeling subsided, and she felt the black mist seeping into her body. Surprisingly, it was a strangely comforting feeling.

After a while, the black mist was completely gone and Michelle breathed out a puff of black smoke, which surprised her. But when she breathed out again, her breath was normal. No longer seeing or feeling the presence of the black mist, Michelle directed her attention at the weapons stabbed in the walls of the huge hall. It was quite funny seeing weapons like bows and hammers stuck in a wall when they didn't have sharp parts.

Michelle walked over to the weapon nearest to her, a random sword, and pulled on its hilt, but it didn't even budge. She let go of the sword and tried the weapon next to it, and axe. But the result was the same. So she stepped back a bit and looked around. All the walls looked the same, with weapons stuck in them, with the only difference being the wall with the scythe. The scythe was just one in the whole hall, and it was huge; its blade was probably even bigger than the average human.

Just as Michelle was about to walk over to the scythe, she heard a voice in her mind. "Why would your most proficient weapon be a scythe...?" the voice was raspy and unsettling, making Michelle frown.

"Who are you?" she asked. "What do you want? Why are you in my mind?"

The voice chuckled, making Michelle's skin crawl. "Oh... You let me in..."

That made Michelle frown. "You are the black mist?!" she realized after a moment.

"You aren't that stupid..." Michelle felt something bubble within her body as the voice spoke.

"What are you?" she asked with a frown.

Suddenly, the voice went silent for a moment before groaning. "Now I'm part of you..." it said, clearly not liking what it said.

"Part of me?" Michelle raised a brow. "What do you mean exactly?"

The voice groaned again. "I was trapped in and controlled by that damn book, so when you dripped your blood on it and formed a contract with it, you formed a contract with me too..."

Hearing that, Michelle was surprised and asked: "Why were you trapped in the book? What kind of book is it?"

"I don't know..." Michelle felt the black mist bubble around her body, seeping into her veins. "Your veins are in a terrible state..." it muttered. Then it explained what it knew about the book: "I don't know what kind of book it is, I just know that someone trapped me in a sphere of a kind before a blacksmith merged the sphere I was in with the book, so I got trapped in there."

"If you were controlled by the book, do you know why the book made you attack me?" Michelle continued asking.

"You have to ask the book to know that!" the black mist answered.

Hearing that, Michelle nodded. "You said something about my veins. What's wrong with them?" she asked.

"I can't see now as we are in this damn place, but once we leave, I'll be able to take a good look." The black mist retracted from Michelle's veins and stopped moving around her body.

"And what's this place?" Michelle asked. "And how do we get out?"

The black mist stirred a bit in Michelle's body, as if looking around, before answering: "We're probably in your spirit domain. Truthfully, it's huge. Most spirit domains are just small rooms, but yours is a monstrous hall."

When Michelle heard that, she lifted a brow. Spirit domain was something every cultivator had in their souls. It contained their fighting techniques and styles, and all weapons they could use. If a cultivator was powerful enough, they could start taking the weapons out of the spirit domain, so they didn't have to carry them around, but Michelle didn't possess that power. And if someone was even more powerful, they could freely store things, even living beings at some level, in their spirit domain, so they wouldn't need to use spatial rings and bracelets.

The size of one's spirit domain was in accordance with their soul potential, and what it looked like was based on their mindset. For example, Michelle's spirit domain was empty except the weapons and dark with the only light coming from the weapons, because Mcihelle was an assassin and focused on efficiency, but a different person's spirit domain could be adorned with jewels, all shiny and bright.

Michelle looked around her spirit domain and lifted a brow. "How do we get out of here?" she asked the black mist.

"Well..." the black mist went silent in thought. "Every spirit domain works differently, but most people are right away able to take out from the spirit domain the weapon they are the most proficient with, so you should try to pull out that scythe," it said after a while.

Michelle nodded a bit, but she felt a bit skeptical. Slowly, she walked over to the huge scythe and tried to reach towards the handle, but it was just out of her reach. "What now...?" she frowned.

The black mist in her body laughed out loud. When it finally calmed down, it spoke again: "Use your spirit energy to call it to you. It should listen to you."

Hearing that, Michelle lifted a brow and condensated a bit of spirit energy on her palm. Sending it flying towards the scythe, she ended up being blown away. But the walls remained untouched. The black mist broke into a fit of hysterical laughter, and Michelle could feel it rolling and bubbling around her whole body.

"Shut up!" Michelle sat up, her eyes red with rage. "What did I do wrong?" she asked, her voice tingling with anger.

The black mist couldn't calm down for a long while, and when it finally calmed down, it coughed to clear its voice and spoke, its voice filled with amusement. "Did no one ever teach you to work with your spirit energy?"

Michelle frowned. "No... I'm self-taught..."

When Michelle's words fell, the black mist went silent for a while. "Then... you have my respect for even being able to condensate your spirit energy... But that's one of the most useless things, because even in fights, it's rarely used. What you need to do with the scythe, you need to let your spirit energy course through your veils, before slowly letting some seep out of your body and go towards the scythe. Then, wrap the spirit energy around the handle and pull it to you."

"I see..." Michelle nodded a bit and sighed. She knew she would stay in the spirit domain for a long time. Closing her eyes, she let her spirit energy course through her and slowly tried to let some seep out of her body, but eventually she ended up condensing the spirit energy, and it blew up again.

After three more tries, Michelle succeeded in letting her spirit energy seep out of her body and sending it to the scythe, but as she tried to pull the handle, the spirit energy exploded because she condensated it again accidentally instead of pulling it back. So, Michelle tried again and finally, the scythe flew towards her and stabbed itself into the ground next to her. The whole scythe's blade was as big as Michelle, so to take a hold of the handle, she had to use both hands, but once she touched it, the scythe shrunk in size, so its long handle was only as tall as Michelle when she held it next to her, the blade was just above her head.

After the scythe shrunk, Michelle felt her vision blur and something pull on her. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, she was lying on the ground with Cold Flame sitting on her chest, looking at her worriedly. "Flamie, I can't breathe..." she mumbled, and Cold Flame instantly flapped its wings to fly up a bit. Michelle sat up and looked around.

She was back in the cave, but the nauseating energy from the runes was gone, and all the walls were smooth, like the runes were never there. Next to her was the book which made the black mist attack her, and the huge monster was sleeping.