Chapter 74
The Archduke stared at Michelle as she succeeded in binding her soul energy and soul leash, the binding chains. "Since you’ve connected them, now you have to control the soul energy with the binding chains," he started speaking. "But that alone is quite easy, so to make you grasp and master it perfectly, I’ll keep attacking you with my own soul energy, and I’ll only stop if you can block my attack and retaliate with your soul energy!"
When he finished speaking, he didn’t even give Michelle the chance to prepare and straight away formed blades all around him without explaining anything further. The blades flew at Michelle at a dangerous speed, showing her that he was serious about attacking her, and that if she was too slow, she would get hurt.
Michele quickly dodged the attack and frowned, frying to focus on the binding chains. But before she could achieve anything, another wave of blades flew straight at her.
Groaning in frustration, she dodged again, rolling to the side. The Archduke’s blades were relentless, and he had excellent strategic thinking as the blades went into a formation around Michelle. To dodge the formation, she had to pit her full concentration into it, leaving her no room to think about the binding chains.
And that was exactly what the Archduke wanted. For Michelle to still be able to form the binding chains even when she would have to put her full focus on something completely different, because if she succeeded in that, she would be able to use her soul energy no matter the situation she ended up in.
After having to dodge her father’s formation for a few times, Michelle realized what his plan was. At first, she didn’t understand how he wanted her to learn on her own how to control the binding chains when he didn’t give her any chance to think about it, but after being kept in such a state for long enough, she started calming down and understood his intentions. And she liked the way he thought, the way he wanted to teach her.
When the Archduke created another formation of blades around her, Michelle put a bit of her focus on remembering it, so she would have an easier time dodging it the next time. She did that for the next few formations, and though she still had to put nearly all her concentration on the formation, slowly, a part in her brain went back to her binding chains, thinking quickly about ways to use it.
After dodging a few more formations, the golden chains reappeared on her neck and spread from there to her hands like snakes crawling over her body. When they reached her arms, they solidified, and she held a thick chain in each hand. But no matter how thick the chain was, it was still short, so she couldn’t use it to defend against the Archduke’s attack and had to dodge again.
She retracted the chains back to her neck before solidifying them again, trying to make them longer. But they were still each just a meter long, so she had to dodge the next formation too.