The man seemed to tremble in rage and fear.
Michael could feel he was the cause of both—or at least a significant part of it.
“You bastard—”
“{Slow Curse}.”
The man’s movements froze. He couldn’t even widen his eyes in surprise.
Michael’s cold eyes looked at the beast in front of him.
Though he felt anger towards the man, he didn’t know what to do.
To be honest, hunting monsters was an easier task.
Michael stared at the motionless man in front of him as he recovered from his emotions.
“The city is in chaos now. I don’t know why you did this, nor do I care to know since I see no justifiable reason for it. Letting you off is impossible,” Michael said slowly.
What he didn’t say was that it wasn’t just him who didn’t want to let the man go. His family didn’t either.
Michael didn’t know why, but ever since his first encounter with demonic supernaturals—and the countless human deaths he had witnessed over the past few hours—his interaction with death had shifted.
Something told him that if he had the means, he could revive something amazingly different from these corpses—not the corpses themselves but something else entirely.
Unfortunately, he lacked the means.
However, even without the ability to act, Michael could feel the presence of death around him. It almost seemed to speak.
And right now, the two bodies in the room seemed to be screaming at him to punish the man in front of him.
The daughter’s body, in particular, radiated an ominous energy. It was the most potent, giving off an incredible sensation that Michael could extract something from her.
Unfortunately, all he could do was feel—he couldn’t act.
Moments like this made Michael long for an opportunity to join an organization like an academy, where he could expand his knowledge base.
An academy, an organization?
Yes.
In his free time, Michael had often pondered the purpose of an Awakeners Academy. He could see the logic in cultivators having academies, as their progress was steady and structured.
But when it came to Awakeners, the concept of learning things in structured terms didn’t quite sit right.
Sure, knowledge was important. However, teaching a group of people who relied on a system of various advantages—while beneficial—didn’t seem entirely necessary to Michael.
That was when it hit him.
Awakeners Academies were probably more like guilds, supernatural associations.
Perhaps even cultivation academies operated the same way.
Regardless of the details, Michael believed such organizations likely held a much deeper understanding of the supernatural world than anything he could find on forums.
While couldn’t help but feel he was missing out on something valuable, fate had its plans.
For now, his attention was on the issue at hand.
In the end, Michael realized that his options were limited.
While there were many things he could do, few of them felt appropriate—especially since some of his thoughts might lead to complications later.
However, just as Michael had said earlier, he couldn’t simply let the man go.
Only after a few seconds of thought did Michael figure out what to do.
Under the horrified gaze of the man, Michael walked closer and grabbed his hand.
{Slow Curse} was still active.
When manually controlled, the skill had no cooldown, but the mana consumption increased, and the control became less refined.
One upside, though, was that proficiency points increased faster.
“This will hurt, but you should be able to manage it.”
Crack.
Michael didn’t let the man process his words before breaking his right arm.
Sweat poured from the man’s pores, but under the effects of {Slow Curse}, he couldn’t even scream.
Michael didn’t stop there. He helped the man lie flat and continued.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
“Hmm… I think that’s okay,” Michael muttered, uncertain, as he looked at the man on the ground. .
His limbs were twisted at strange angles.
The man had fallen unconscious from the pain, but under the effect of {Slow Curse}, his eyes remained wide open.
Michael didn’t feel disgusted by the sight.
To him he felt the cause of it was because he figured it was because he knew this wouldn’t be a difficult issue to resolve with the technology of this world.
At the very least, this would stop the man from escaping.
When he was done, Michael released his skill’s effect. Then he turned to look at the bodies in the sitting room.
After restraining the man, Michael immediately felt a shift in the death energy radiating from the two corpses.
The daughter’s ominous energy felt calmer now, and the mother’s did too, though hers felt… sad.
To anyone else—perhaps even another Awakened—the situation might have seemed creepy, but to Michael, it was simply intriguing.
“Can they see me?” he wondered.
The thought felt absurd since there were no signs of life from the two, but his senses didn’t seem to be wrong.
“Ghosts?”
The idea felt far-fetched, but given the supernatural phenomena of this world, the existence of ghosts seemed almost normal compared to gods.
After pondering for a moment, Michael entered one of the rooms in the apartment, which turned out to be the couple’s bedroom.
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He grabbed a bedsheet and returned to the living room, where he used it to cover the bodies of the mother and daughter.
Again, Michael felt a shift in the death energy. It grew even calmer.
Michael paused, then spoke aloud. “You two can rest now. He’ll pay for what he’s done. I promise.”
He’d just been following his instincts, but what happened next completely surprised him.
[ You have brought peace to a Common ★ Level 1 Lingering Ghost ]
[ You’ve gained 15 Experience Points ]
[ You have brought peace to a Common ★ Level 1 Lingering Ghost ]
[ You’ve gained 13 Experience Points ]
Michael was taken aback by the sudden appearance of the panel in front of him.
He had known from the start that the situation was strange.
Based on his limited experience, death energy was something that accumulated over time.
A freshly deceased corpse would have some, but it wouldn’t be as intense as that of a corpse that had been decaying for a year.
This was already odd about the two corpses, but for them to develop into ghosts was something he hadn’t expected—let alone gaining experience points from them.