Resting in the cave, Michelle didn't want to sleep during the night, but Nyxaroth told her that she had to sleep since her muscles were still tense, so she reluctantly went to sleep. Cold Flame also curled up next to her, and fell asleep. Only Nyxaroth stayed awake inside Michelle's body as he didn't need to sleep because of his high cultivation level.
Not even knowing when, Michelle fell into a deep sleep and had the best sleep since she woke up in Michelle Grace's body. In the morning, she rubbed her eyes and saw Cold Flame still next to her, but he was already clearly awake. She stretched her body and was pleasantly surprised that her muscles were no longer aching. "Shall we go home now?" she asked lazily as she stood up.
Cold Flame flapped his wings and flew out of the cave before anyone could stop him and Michelle slowly walked out. "Nyxaroth, no one approached this place during the night?" she asked as she walked through the long cave.
"No one..." Nyxartoth answered as he bubbled around Michelle's body. "How was your sleep?" he asked.
"Perfect... I don't remember the last time I slept so peacefully," Michelle answered truthfully.
When she said that, she felt Nyxaroth seep into her dantian. "That's because you now have dark element spirit energy, so darkness is calming for you. If you start cultivating, you will be able to see I'm the dark and spread your senses throughout the whole darkness, so you will know everything that's happening around you."
Michelle lifted a brow when she heard that. "It probably has some downsides too, right?" she asked as she walked out of the cave, the sunlight forcing her to squint her eyes.
"Of course." Nyxaroth took that as obvious. "Just like after having ice element, you don't like the fire element, after getting the dark element, you won't like the light element. You will be able to stand in the sun and everything, but if a person with the light element attacks you, you will get much more hurt than if someone with a different element with the same power attacked you. Aslo, you will be subconsciously evasive towards spirit objects working based on the light element spirit energy."
Michelle carefully listened to Nyxaroth as she walked over to Cold Flame, who was carving something with his beak on a tree branch which broke off when Michelle was using her scythe to destroy the trees. "That's not so drastic..." she said after Nyxaroth finished speaking. Then, she leaned over to look at what Cold Flame was carving. It looked like a tomb stone. "That's for Rivenaar?" she asked.
Cold Flame nodded as he finally finished carving "Rivenaar" into the branch. "Yes, Michelle! So he has a grave like everyone else!"
Michelle took the branch from Cold Flame and smiled a bit. "That's a good idea. And I have another idea. Though we can't bring Rivenaar's body out to bury him, we can bury him in the cave. Will you help?" she asked as she glanced at the cave entrance.
Hearing that, Cold Flame's eyes shone. He wanted to bury Rivenaar since he was a respectable and powerful monster from the heavenly realm. "Yes, Michelle! What should I do?" he asked.
Seeing Cold Flame's eagerness to help, Michelle smiled a bit. "The trees I chopped down yesterday. Go collect their bark and small branches and bring them to the cave entrance!" Before she even finished speaking, Cold Flame screeched and went to collect the tree bark and branches.
"Should I help too?" Nyxaroth asked as he came out of her body.
Michelle glanced at him and nodded. "Sure. Can you carry the tree trunks in the cave and put them in a line from where the cage bars were to the cave entrance?"
"Consider it done!" Nyxaroth said and flew over to the nearest chopped-up tree. It looked a bit strange to see a huge white bird the size of a person carrying tree bark and small branches in his claws, while a bunch of black mist carried chopped tree trunks deep into a cave. Michelle couldn't help but observe the two for a while before getting to work. She started taking the small branches and tree bark that Cold Flame brought over, and she started covering them with her ice element spirit energy so a layer of dense and thick ice would form on them, and she had to be careful so as not to condensate the spirit energy, or it would explode.
After covering most of the tree bark and branches in ice, she put it in her spatial ring and carried it into the cave. There, she started putting it in the spaces between the chopped-up, barkless tree trunks.
A few hours later, all the wood from the trees she destroyed was in the cave. Michelle leaned against the cave entrance, holding the branch on which Cold FLame engraved "Rivenaar". Nyxaroth returned to her body and Cold Flame flew to the cave entrance, staring at the tree trunks in a line towards where the cage once stood. "Michelle, what now?" he asked curiously.
"We now have just one more thing to do, and it might take a long time," she said as she walked back into the cave, walking towards Rivenaar's corpse. She took her coat from her spatial ring and threw it towards the monster's corpse. It formed into a weak protective sphere, which would just be enough to protect the corpse from one blast. "Flamie, we now need to fill this whole cave up with thick ice!" she said as she walked over to the cave and started spreading out her ice element spirit energy, letting ice form in front of her. At the moment, she had no skill to form ice right away, so she could just slowly and ineffectively form it.
Cold Flame went to a different corner and lit a freezing fire there, which slowly froze over the whole cave walls. Then, he started forming walls of ice one on another, filling up the cave. "Michelle, leave this to me. You go rest for a while." Michelle nodded a bit and walked out of the cage, sitting on a rock there.
After about half a day, Cold Flame finished filling up the whole cave with ice and looked at Michelle. "Flamie, go a bit further and rest," she said as she pressed her hands on the ice. Having ice element spirit energy herself, the coldness of the ice felt calming for her.
When Cold Flame flew away, Michelle inserted her spirit energy into the line of wood. She could do it as it was covered in ice made by herself, so she could control it.
Closing her eyes, Michelle channelled her spirit energy to the furthermost corner of the ice and then condensed it. The ice within the cave was made by her contracted beast, so she had some control over it, so she controlled it to turn into a hard mass of ice element spirit energy, and using her own spirit energy, she condensed it all at once.
Then, she got thrown back by the impact of the explosion that followed. Luckily, the spirit energy was somehow considered hers, so she wasn't hurt by the explosion, but she was rudely thrown on the ground far from the cave. To lessen the impact, she fell into a roll on the ground, rolling a few good meters further. Cold Flame was also blown away, but he flapped his wings and flew upwards, to not fall to the ground painfully.
Deep inside the cave, the protective sphere protected the corpse from being torn by the explosion and then, it got covered by falling rocks from the ceiling. The whole cave sunk and Rivenaar got buried under.
After the rocks stopped falling, Michelle stood up and walked over to the former cave entrance. Cold Flame formed an ice spear in the air, and she pressed the branch with the name Rivenaar to one of the stones. Cold Flame then threw the ice spear at the branch, stabbing it into the stone. The ice spear was made of unmeltable spirit energy ice, so it would stay there forever.
Staring at the so-called grave, Michelle remained respectfully silent for a while before she heard Nyxaroth's voice. "We should leave now. Something's coming."
Hearing that, Michelle frowned and asked warily: "What is it?"
"A powerful being, one I could never rival. I don't know if it's a monster, beast or a human, but it's not even hiding its presence." Nyxaroth spoke direly and Michelle glanced at Cold Flame. Being big enough to carry her, he landed next to her, and she climbed on his back.
Quickly flying away, Cold Flame flapped his wings as Michelle turned her head to look back towards the cave. After a while, she saw a person clad in all black from head to toe standing where the cave entrance stood a while ago. Then, she felt the person turn his gaze at her, sending a cold shiver down her spine. That gaze was horrifying.
Michelle couldn't turn her gaze away, and her purple eyes widened. It was like she was hypnotized. It was only after Cold Flame flew far enough that she could tear her gaze away. She put her hand on her chest and felt her heart beat out of her chest rapidly. But it wasn't in fear. For some unknown reason, she wasn't scared, even though the gaze of the person was horrifying.