Michael lay there dying. There was only one way that he could possibly survive - if he could make a breakthrough in the law. Michael kept on trying to understand the second chapter of Endless Life Scripture. The text read:

> Life energy is common to all life. But life energy itself originates from a source - the source of life. I call it life force. It is the deriving force to generate life energy. As long as a body contains life force, it will emit life energy. Feel the life energy and trace it to the source. Feel the source. When you have an impression of it, grab it. Try to stimulate it. Make it grow. This will make your body more resilient to death.

Michael had read this summary many times in the past as well. But never had he succeeded in getting to the source of life - the life force.

As the curse spread, Michael felt more and more pressure to comprehend this life force. He kept feeling life energy and all the laws that were encoded within but could not even get a whiff of life force.

Soon, the curse reached his heart. As his heart slowed down, unable to pump any more blood, he got closer and closer to death. His body was shutting down. The stillness of death was encroaching upon him.

The pressure on his conscient from the desire to live as also huge. He kept on trying to feel life force but kept on failing.

In the end, Michael's body ceased its final struggles as he died.

But, what had died was his body. His soul was still intact. It was not wrong to say that an ordinary soul would die soon after the body but as people's soul grew stronger, they could withstand the death of the body as well. Immortal soul realm experts could live after the death of their body by possessing someone else's body. Michael's soul was at late-solid-stage realm but his soul energy was comparable to late-sublime-soul-realm. As his cultivation technique itself was based on death energy, it was not wrong to say that Michael's soul could remain in existence for a very long time compared to others.

When his body had died, Michael clearly felt something in his body go off. It was as if the source of his life had been extinguished. That was the only sensation that he was ever going to get of life force.

Michael activated his perfect-persona blessing and started to focus completely on the feeling of life force. As he did it, he entered a unique state of comprehension - also known as the zen state. He forgot about his surroundings and was completely engrossed in the second chapter of endless life scripture.

If anyone looked from outside, they would find Michael as a lifeless corpse but his soul was in a constant state of meditation. His conscient was in the state of comprehension and his understanding of the second chapter was growing at a rapid state. It was as if each second was countless years!

Stolen story; please report.

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Ragnar received the news about Ashley's disappearance at about the same time Ashley was trying to rape Michael. He stood up from his seat and called his attendant over :

> Amber, take care of the tasks in the mansion. I am leaving to find that girl. It seems that she thinks that she can hide from me.

Ragnar took an entire day to find Ashley. Finding her truly gave him a shock. Ashley was by the side of a corpse. Ragnar recognized the identity of the corpse. Michael Rageberg. This was indeed a promising kid but now he had died. He also found the message written by him.

Ragnar took Ashley with him after burying Michael as a sign of respect for someone who had protected his property. He investigated the entire matter after the war was over.

It indeed seemed that the assassins were targetting Ashley. Also, the killer that had attacked first was killed by the army and they had indeed found the Atrexia Royal Seal on the soul-guard. This pretty much confirmed the family's involvement in the plot.

Ragnar was beyond angry at this point. He returned to the castle and started preparing to question the Atrexia family.

Meanwhile, news of Michael's death was also confirmed by Ragnar. This caused the entire plane to have mixed feelings about the incident. Kandrif and Kevin were saddened by the loss and the rest were also affected. Most saddened were humans. After all, he was the hope of their entire race.

Rageberg family declared mourning. Entire Redster city was covered with blag flags of mourning. Ragnar did not hide his preparations of a large scale attack and asked the Atrexia king to give a proper explanation or there would be war. He also said that he would not attack Ragebergs or the families associated with them due to Michael's contributions in protecting Ashley.

Ragnar was not really thankful for Michael's sacrifice. He too had figured out that the Atrexia family's intentions were mainly to kill Michael and Ashley might have been caught in between or someone else may have given the mission for her assassination. But some things had to be done for political motivations.

It was as if a calamity was currently brewing for the humans. Atrexia family and the other nobles were already tensed and panicked. The loss of so many nobles would be a devastating blow to humanity as a whole.

Karslon too said that he would not interfere as long as the Ragebergs were not disturbed in their mourning.

All this was happening as one would expect it to except for one thing. Michael's family members were not really seen crying their eyes out. Even though they seemed to be worried, there was no grief in their eyes.

The reason was simple. Michael's life lamp had not shattered. Karslon knew the entire thing and had already informed the Rageberg family. He had also replaced Michael's life lamp with a broken one. He believed Michael had duped Ragnar as part of his plans. This was top-secret information and outside of Michael's family, no one else knew of him being alive.

The war had ended with Light Army's victory. As Michael was a great contributor, the light empire declared Michael as an Imperial hero. His share of rewards was declared to be given to his family instead.

Slowly, the entire fiasco died down and an entire month went by.

At that time, in the neutral empire's territory, a young man barged into a city's governor's office and took away his flying steed and no one could do anything to him!

The city governor was a perfect-realm expert.