Rise of the Lustful Evil Monarch (Re)

Third Person's POV

But instead of charging at his enemy, he stopped in his position as something in the scene ahead forced him to freeze mid-motion.

His glowing crimson eyes widened in disbelief as the image before him pierced through his rage-clouded mind.

There stood Ethan in his wounded, scorched, and blood smeared state, but unbowed and without fear and seemingly fully in control.

The same boy Telor had attacked with full killing intent and more than once was now calmly standing with his blade pressed against the throat of his most valuable target.

Telor's face twisted into a dark snarl, but there was no contempt left in his expression and only a grim realization.

His pupils tracked the edge of Ethan's wicked saber blade, gleaming coldly in the moonlight and resting lightly but lethally over the exposed and pulsing neck of the unconscious ducal heir.

He knew that a single twitch, a single misstep, and that blade would cleave through flesh and end the bloodline of a Duke.

The demon knight's fists clenched at his side, and the air crackled around him as his power instinctively surged. But it wasn't with aggression anymore.

Instead, it was filled with restraint.

For the first time in this long and twisted chase, he realized he had lost control of the battlefield.

What had begun as a swift and merciless hunt had been flipped on its head, and the boy whom he had underestimated had now turned a fatal game into a dangerous stalemate.

Telor exhaled slowly and the tension in his shoulders eased slightly as he grounded himself in the harsh truth.

He gritted his teeth and growled in his usual gravelly voice, though the anger had drained from it and only left behind a reluctant respect and bitter acceptance of his condition.

"What do you want?"

His voice was rough, but was now void of venom.

The knight had come to terms with the fact that he stood across from someone who could no longer be dismissed as a nuisance, and his once wounded pride now bowed before pragmatism.

Seeing the demon knight's gradual submission, Ethan's expression remained unreadable, and his gaze sharp as glass.

A slight breeze tousled his blood-streaked hair, and his voice emerged low and deliberate.

"I want a simple thing, and that is…"

The rest of his words seemed to have been swallowed by the wind, and only his moving lips betrayed the fact that he was still speaking to the knight, though even the speed of his lip movement appeared blinding to Virelle and Velcy, hidden in the tree.

Even though the danger had passed, they had forgotten to alight below beside Ethan as they were fully focused on the final confrontation below with bated breaths.

When Ethan's lips stopped, Telor suddenly snorted, and his armored form turned rigid as he interrupted with cold finality.

"That's impossible! It can't happen. You are deluded to think that can happen."

His voice carried the certainty of someone who had seen what Ethan now hoped for and watched it crushed a thousand times before.

The knight shook his helmeted head while his words rang with reluctant authority.

"Give me another condition."

There was no hostility but only a sense of inevitability as if Telor already expected Ethan wouldn't snap and kill Aram out of frustration after he denied his request so vehemently.

He seemed to have judged that this young warrior seemed to be more than a hot-headed fool.

Ethan's brows furrowed, and a flicker of irritation pulsed in his eyes at such a direct refusal.

His fingers flexed on the hilt of his saber, and it was not with rage but with a calculated cunning.

"Aren't you just a contracted mercenary under the Vord Dukedom?" he asked as his voice bit with underlying challenge.

"If that is the case, then why is there no room, even a sliver, for negotiation? Have you truly started considering that lecherous Duke as your master?

If the answer is yes, then I am sorry to say, but I expected more from you, Mister Dark Knight."

His tone was laced with contempt, but beneath it simmered something more dangerous.

Even while holding a hostage in front of a dreaded Sky Realm Aura fighter, he was brave enough to mock him into submission.

As Ethan's words rang in the meadow, the wind howled across the ruined meadow.

The lake rippled quietly behind them. And the final embers of the night's blood-soaked madness smoldered on the blade's edge.

Ethan's grip tightened subtly on the chain as he studied the demon knight before him with his eyes gleaming with calculation.

He didn't bluster, and he didn't issue crude threats as he had no need to do so.

For all his youth, Ethan knew that pressing a man like Telor into a corner, especially a demon knight with his centuries of bloodlust and fights hardened into deeply ingrained instinct, was a fool's move.

He knew that threatening the ducal heir would do little but provoke a suicidal retaliation from the knight, so he needed this exchange to end on his terms.

While such thoughts ran through his mind, his mind moved like clockwork in a quiet but relentless manner.

Suddenly, the chaos of the recent events played back through his thoughts.

From the ruthless and dogged search in the city, the enigmatic words of that hauntingly beautiful woman with the raven hair, the terrifying influence of Duke Vord, and the simmering power of this Infernal Empire as a whole.

Each memory fed into his next words while his calculated approach sharpened like a blade in his head.

"This is none of your business boy, so stay out of it. Also, release the prince now, and maybe I will let you go while you scurry back into your rathole."

Telor's deep and unyielding voice cut through the cold night like a whetted axe, and Ethan could clearly see the threat buried beneath his false calm.

But Ethan only smirked as his jaw clenched in quiet contempt.