Rise of the Lustful Evil Monarch (Re)

Third Person's POV

He cried out in real deep pain and it was convincing enough for the demon who attacked with even more fervor.

Ethan continuously rolled away on the black stone peak as his saber trembled in his grip.

"Your bloodline flickers, little prick," Zarghul mocked.1

The knight raised its sword for a killing strike.

"Let me extinguish it."

Ethan's chains snapped out again, not at the knight, but at the ground.

They coiled around the black stone rubble in the corner and yanked him sideways as the blade cratered the earth where he had just stood.

He lunged and his chains now spiraled around the demon knight's legs.

White fire surged through the links and seared the cursed black armor.

Ethan's muscles tensed and bulged as a deep blue glow flickered over them and he yanked the demon toward him with his full strength.

The knight staggered towards him, and Ethan flew in the air as he struck, not on its skull but at its sword arm.

The white-flamed saber bit deep into its arm and cracks spiderwebbed through its jagged cursed armor.

Zarghul screamed as the knight's grip faltered.

Ethan pressed even harder with his full strength to sever its arm while his chains whipped around the knight's torso at the same time and bound it.

For a heartbeat, it worked.

Ethan's face glowed for a moment until the knight's armor shifted and jagged black spikes erupted to shred the chains around its waist.

A skeletal hand clamped around Ethan's throat and lifted him off the ground.

Gray Netherflame seeped into his skin as it burned and consumed his skin and flesh.

"You lose," Zarghul rasped with a malevolent grin on its bony face as its ferocious skull was inches away from Ethan's face.

Ethan grinned through the pain as blood dripped from his lips.

"No," he choked.

"You do."

He opened his mouth and suddenly spat with full force on Zarghul's face.

The purple Astral Purge Essence glowed like starlight in the night as it sprayed on the demon's skull face at point black range.

The effect was instant. The Essence hissed like acid as it ate away into the crimson bone.

Zarghul's horrifying and agony-filled scream split the air as the knight started crumbling to ash.

Ethan collapsed and gasped as the last of the Netherflame sputtered out on his skin.

His weak white firm mended the black burns on his neck and waist as he panted for air.

The battlefield fell silent, save for the faint crackle of his white flames.

Zarghul's shattered skull on the ground hissed as its hate-filled and blood-curdling crimson gaze locked onto Ethan's face as its voice faded into the darkness.

"This… isn't… over…"

Ethan staggered to his feet and extinguished his saber while his chains dissolved into darkness and slipped back into his body.

"It is for now," he muttered before he sank to the ground.

Looking at the broken saber which had regained its original appearance, he suddenly said something into the emptiness without turning his head.

"Come out, old man. I know you are already there."

Ethan's voice carried calmly across the battlefield but his muscles remained tense.

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The Eterna Nexus had already revealed to him that a Sky Realm Blood Slave had been observing his fight in secret.

More importantly, the Nexus had hinted that this hidden figure was likely an ally.

He had long suspected that the mute old carriage driver who accompanied him was far more than he appeared.

And now, after sensing the silent yet potent gaze lingering on him throughout the battle, he was certain.

Just as the thought crossed his mind, the hairs on the back of his neck rose.

A chilling presence settled behind him and he could feel an oppressive yet eerily restrained air hitting his back.

At that moment, Ethan realized something unsettling—if this old Blood Slave had wanted to end his life just seconds ago, he wouldn't have been able to resist in the slightest.

Cautiously, he extended his soul sense backward, and his vision was filled with the image of a hunched, cloaked figure standing far too close to his back for comfort.

The old man's dusty black robe barely moved in the wind, and his weathered gray skin gave him the appearance of a long-dead corpse.

His face was devoid of any expression, but his half-closed eyelids revealed faint flickering red lights like the dying embers of a long-forgotten fire.

When it spoke, its jaw did not move.

A rasping and wet voice slithered directly into Ethan's mind and Ethan felt as if dragged from a corpse's throat.

"You fought… surprisingly well… young master" the Blood Slave murmured.

"Far beyond my expectations. To think you could slay an avatar of an Extra-Terrestrial Void Nihility Demon alone…"

The words struck Ethan like a thunderclap but he forced himself not to flinch.

The thing's proximity made his skin crawl. Its aura was like a lifeless void that sucked warmth from the air.

This was no living man. A Blood Slave's soul was shackled to its corpse and it was a puppet animated by vampiric curses.

Yet his instincts stayed silent as he sensed no danger here from the old man or better to call it an old corpse for now.

"You watched the fight the entire time," Ethan said flatly as he turned around slowly to face it.

The old Blood Slave's robes swayed without wind and its posture was unnaturally still.

"Were you here to clean up my corpse if I failed?"

The crimson lights in its eye sockets pulsed.

"To observe. And intervene… if necessary. Master Altheria… wished to test you."

Ethan's jaw tightened.

Test me?

He bit back the retort.

That little prick and her little games.

But the Blood Slave's next words froze him.

"The Void Nihility Demon…is a rare foe. Few survive its avatars."

Ethan's grip on his saber tightened.

"You know what that thing was?"

He had assumed that the information the Eterna Nexus provided was rare and...

Don't ask me how he knows about the bloodline awakening.

The ability of a great rank six being to sense is out of this mortal's mind capacity to judge.