Rise of the Lustful Evil Monarch (Re)

Third Person's POV

And just like that, the battlefield returned. Ethan exhaled in a slow and steady manner with his mind as calm as still water.

The suffocating weight was gone.

The false voices distorted and unraveled into empty whispers before they vanished altogether.

And just like that, his mind returned to the battlefield.

Ethan exhaled in a slow and steady manner and he found his mind as calm as still water.

The suffocating weight that his mind had been feeling under those accusatory gazes was gone and the fake emotions were erased.

The illusion had been nothing but a trick, nevertheless, it had served as a great lesson that he would remember for a long time.

His gaze lifted and locked onto Zarghul's crimson eyes.

The skull avatar hissed as its essence flickered and its form shifted in agitation.

But before Ethan could fully ground himself and before he could even react, a burst of killing intent exploded from his blind spot.

The howling of a blade split the air in front of him.

His instincts screamed.

Move!

Ethan twisted his body at the last possible moment.

A black-bladed bone broadsword, wreathed in the ghastly gray Netherflame, cut through the space where his throat had been just a heartbeat earlier.

But though he was successful in avoiding instant death, he wasn't unscathed.

A sharp and searing pain burned across his neck.

A black mark smoldered against his skin and tried to burn his trachea, vocal chord, and all the nerves on his neck as it continuously burned with gray cursed flames.

His breath hitched and his mind roiled in immense pain. It was unlike anything he had experienced.

Even the dying bullet that had pierced his chest in the last moments of his previous life did not hurt as much as this bit of gray Nether flame did.

But despite his eyes watering and him nearly fainting from the pain, he focused on that small white ember in the deepest part of his consciousness.

It responded to his cry for help and a searing white flame appeared on his neck and started fighting with the ominous gray flames.

Finally, he was able to breathe easily.

That was too close.

Though it sounded long, it happened instantly and he had no time to process any countermeasures or anything further.

No time to process. No time to hesitate.

In the air before him, a Bony Knight pressed forward as it wielded a broadsword burning with gray flames in both hands like an extension of death itself.

Ethan barely had time to throw himself backward in the air when the broadsword swung again and this time a gray line of sword slash shot out from its edge and burned the air itself as it created a vacuum.

It continued to the flat dark peak and melted through it like butter.

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The force of the strike sent tremors through the air, and the cursed energy left a corrosive mist in its wake.

He flipped mid-air and twisted his body in a way that defied normal human balance yet the knight was already on him.

It was another strike and another and another.

Each swipe of the broadsword blurred with terrifying speed and its void-tinged edge barely missed Ethan's limbs by inches.

He knew that If he made even a single misstep and if his reflexes lagged even slightly—his body would be cleaved in two before he could even register the pain.

His body burned with the strain of high-speed evasion and his muscles screamed from the relentless dodging.

His mind was sharp, and focused, and yet—he could feel the pressure mounting on him.

He did not even have time to steady himself, so how could he think about a counterattack?

Ethan's movements remained fluid, but deep inside, he knew that this couldn't continue.

The gray Netherflame flickering along the knight's blade pulsed ominously as it sought to consume him whole.

The cursed flame corroded everything it touched. Even the mere proximity of the energy felt like it was gnawing at his very existence.

His fingers tightened on his broken saber. There was only one way to counter this.

The sacred white flame within him stirred even more as if responding to the challenge before him.

It was as if it was alive and wanted to rush out on seeing the gray Netherflame causing havoc.

Feeling it, Ethan didn't think too much as a smirk tugged at Ethan's lips.

Fine then. Burn.

He willed it forward.

The white flames roared to life as they licked up the length of his broken saber.

The fire coalesced and swirled at the shattered tip of his broken saber before it forged itself into the curved edge of the saber and completed its unfinished state.

It was now a blade reborn from pure and unrelenting flame.

For the first time, a thick curved saber fully formed in his grasp.

Its upper half burned in a glowing white fire while the dull black hilt and the lower part remained the same.

Unlike before, when they had simply been a passive force but now they were like a living entity and responded to his intent and fed off his will.

The moment the cursed gray flames clashed with his sacred fire, they shrank back and resisted as though it was recoiling from something fundamentally opposite to their nature.

Ethan's eyes narrowed.

So, the Netherflame wasn't invincible after all.

His movements shifted. He was no longer just dodging but he was adapting, calculating, and had started countering.

The knight swung its broadsword downward as it aimed to split him in half.

Seeing those familiar crimson flashes in the bony knight's helmet he knew that the Nihility Demon was fighting him on his own this time.

In response to the threat to end his life, Ethan didn't retreat.

Instead, he met the attack head-on. His white fire flared as it surged to meet the gray Netherflame.

The moment they collided, the battlefield erupted in a flash of clashing energies.