I Can Contract Beauties

The gasp of shock by Aaliyah startled Miguel into a frown.

"What’s wrong?" He asked worriedly.

A pervading silence echoed in the air, Aaliyah did not know what to say.

"You... you are showing signs of demonization," Aaliyah pursed her lips worriedly as she looked at Miguel.

She gritted her teeth and revealed what she saw on his back.

At the left side of his broad back was a clump of purplish veins swirling like electricity. They were stagnant and was not moving, but they looked very demonic and scary on Aaliyah’s perspective.

Her was pale in worries as she describe the purplish veins on Miguel’s back.

"Purplish veins..." Miguel recalled the heart of the Luminous Giant Frog and the Short Leg Hound earlier.

Both of them were of the color of deep purple.

Miguel hissed as he tried to cast [Mystic Mend] on his back.

"It’s not working..." Aaliya commented.

She gritted her teeth in worry. A certain memory surfaced on her head right at this moment.

"Sigh... As you’ve said, this is clearly a sign of being demonized," Miguel stood up and wore his shirt.

Getting demonize was the last thing he wanted to experience.

As far as he knew, there was no cure for this kind of thing. If there was, countless lives would have been saved and many beasts would not have been infected by such a strange thing.

"It’s alright don’t worry about me," he said as he patted Aaliyah’s shoulder, trying to ease her up. He could feel her worry at this moment. It was very intense.

"You can go back inside the grimoire for now," he said calmly.

However, Aaliyah merely shook her head, disobeying Miguel’s order for the first time.

At the same time, she reached out and held Miguel’s hand tightly with hers. She was aware that even though Miguel may appear calm, he was actually very anxious at this moment. The last thing she could do right now was to leave him alone at this point.

Even though she was embarrassed by her own actions, Aaliyah still mustered up her courage to let Miguel know that she was here for him, no matter what.

After seeing her actions, Miguel’s heart softened as his anxiousness calmed down a little.

There was no use worrying about something he could not solve for the time being.

Being demonized was one of the few dangers in this world, due to that, he knew that this won’t be resolved easily.

The case of the demonized beasts were like they had contracted some strange disease, making them act berserk and lose their usual demeanor.

However, his recent actions of being easily irritated, cloudy judgment proved that this demonization was indeed a huge problem. He recalled the actions of the demonized beasts he faced from before and sighed at the thought of becoming like them in the future.

He did not know how long it would take him to fully transform into such a state. However, Miguel would not simply wait for his demise.

In order to solve this problem, he must think of where it came from first.

"Well, can you walk along with me?" he asked politely.

Aaliyah nodded her head as she and Miguel walked side by side along the creek, going upstream.

Miguel did not forget to remind her about the corpse of the demonized hound as well. Regarding that, Aaliyah simply sent a ball of fire towards its location as the corpse slowly melted from her Incineration.

The moon shone bright and was reflected on the surface of the creek. A slight illumination allowed Miguel and Aaliyah to discern the path forward as they walked along the edge of the creek.

Miguel began to recount what he had been doing to Aaliyah. Telling her his actions as to let her help think of where he first contracted this disease-like situation.

He looked back and realized that his mood and attitude seemed to have changed after he arrived at the creek.

"Could it be from all of the demonized beasts you fought and killed?" Aaliya suddenly asked.

Miguel looked back and realized that he had indeed faced a lot of demonized beasts lately.

It was said that when other beasts consumed the flesh of demonized beasts, they would also be infected and would turn into another demonized beast.

"I have never consumed any of their flesh before..." he said with a frown on his face.

As for contracting this disease-like demonization situation through coming into direct contact with the demonized beast’s blood, Miguel thought that it was impossible.

After all, with how many cases of mercenaries facing and killing demonized beasts, it should not be possible for them to not come into contact with a demonized beast’s blood before. If coming into contact with its blood can indeed cause an infection, then it was impossible for this knowledge to not be spread for now.

However, Erika and the other mercenaries did not mention this before, so Miguel thought that this was not the case.

The cause of him being infected was surely not due to this.

Just like how a beast could be infected through consuming the demonized beast’s flesh, Miguel thought that this disease might only be spread through consumption or intake.

’Intake...’

As these words lingered on Miguel’s mind, he suddenly recalled that he had been cultivating in this area before.

This situation started when he came to this creek. It was also around this creek that he faced a lot of demonized beasts.

He still did not forget the theory that Erika shared before.

One of her teacher’s theorized that the demonic miasma, the first source of the demonized beast being infected and going berserk came from a place they termed as hell.

As for where hell was, none of them know. It could be anywhere and it could be everywhere.

The hell that Miguel knew from his previous life doesn’t have something like this.

’Could it be that there’s ’hell’ around here, and I happened to absorb some demonic miasma while cultivating?’ Miguel said, starting to piece the puzzle of his current predicament together.

However, he soon frowned as soon as he arrived at this thought.

’It shouldn’t be possible.’

When he cultivates, it would pass through the grimoire first before he collects it and refine it into a drop of Origin Energy.

And besides, the Origin Energy was the purest of all energies. It was the origin of all things and was untainted. How could it be infected by a mere demonic miasma?

"Where have I contracted this..."

As they walked and talked, Miguel felt that he had reached a dead end on his thought process. He felt frustrated.

How, ironic. The Boundless Sage of Knowledge getting troubled by a small disease like this.

If any of his acquaintances from his previous world knew the current situation he was in, they would surely laugh and think that it was just a joke.

However, Miguel was indeed in a pinch this time.

His Boundless Sage of Knowledge Innate Skill also did not work this time around.

So much for being a skill that can see through on everyone else. It could not even see through the origin of the purplish veins on his back.

In the end, Miguel could only sigh as he knew that blaming the skill was not of any use.

In the first place, the skill only came to be due to his countless years of accumulating knowledge from his previous life. For the most of it, it actually won’t work if he was unaware of something.

Sometimes, it would just work like some kind of intuition, only appearing and working at the most random times.

As of now though, it was very silent.

Time slowly passes by.

Miguel and Aaliyah walked side by side at the edge of the creek.

Aaliyah’s daily duration for being summoned was now nearing its limit.

Aaliyah knew of this and could do nothing other than to accompany Miguel on this silent and serene walk, holding hands together peacefully.

Distracting thoughts seemed to have disappeared from their minds at this moment as both of them focused on searching for the cause of Miguel’s current predicament.

Unfortunately, the time for Aaliyah’s summon limit still arrived before they could find the problem.

"Don’t worry about me," Miguel stated, trying to ease her worries.

"I know. You’ll transcend this predicament for sure. I believe that you will find the answer soon. Just let your mind be flexible like water and don’t focus too much in one area."

Aaliyah replied with the longest sentence she ever said ever since she became Miguel’s Innate Beast.

Although these were just words she said out of her concern to Miguel, what she did not expect was for Miguel to actually remember something out of her words.

"That’s it..."

______

A/N: Let’s go guysssss. Only a few more power stones before we reach 200. Let’s reach it before the day ends today for 2 more Chapters.

P.S: Also, special thanks to DaoistgVx4FY, Michael_Coyle, and theo_macedo for always sending their golden tickets.