Rise of the Lustful Evil Monarch (Re)
Chapter 349 349: The Blue Scorpion

Third Person's POV

But to his dismay, he only had an instant to tilt his neck aside with sharp instinct.

A chill crawled up his spine as an invisible hook-shaped projectile whizzed past his neck.

It was so close it made the hairs on his skin rise while his heart slammed once in his chest, but even with all that, his face didn't flinch.

Instead, his brows furrowed deeply and locked into sharp concentration, as he inhaled slowly and grounded himself.

Instantly deciding on his action, he let out a low, rumbling growl and released a surge of power.

In the next instant, ice burst outward from his body and exploded in every direction.

Bluish white shards with icy dust erupted like needles and instantly froze about a one-meter radius around his body into a brutal thicket of jagged frost.

Due to his instant and indiscriminate attack, not differentiating between friend or foe, it resulted in him being encased in ice, too, but he didn't resist.

Within the crystalline prison, a faint shimmer finally revealed itself.

It was a small, ghostly creature the size of a football, with its translucent blue body now locked within the ice.

It was a scorpion, and in its stillness, the shimmer of its form began to solidify.

But before Ethan could even make his next move, a blood-curdling shriek erupted from the creature.

The high-pitched screech stabbed through the air and pierced Ethan's ears like shards of glass.

His head instantly started pounding, and the world spun around him, but he gritted his teeth and refused to fall unconscious as he held on with determination.

The creature started struggling madly and soon cracks started to appear in the thick ice prison, but this small period of its inability was enough for him.

Ethan's crimson pupils dissolved completely into black, and his eyes turned into wells of midnight.

As if the darkest ink had spilled across paper, darkness bled outward from him, and in a mere instant, seeped into the ice, and corrupted its purity.

The entire gleaming icy crystal structure that sparkled like a beautiful diamond under the sun turned obsidian while its brittle shine was devoured by an all-encompassing darkness.

The creeping blackness didn't stop and soon spread while swallowing the light around him and forming a murky five-meter shroud.

Some distance away, Nyx stood silently on a branch with her waterfall-like dark hair unmoving in the breeze.

Her dark golden slit-pupiled eyes observed him with cold precision, yet a flicker of unmistakable satisfaction flickered behind them.

Unbeknownst to even her, a second watcher remained unseen and hidden from her senses in the glow of the sun itself.

It was that same wraith-like woman in white, the one who had lingered earlier.

She currently stood among the sunlight with her form now perfectly merged with the shimmering beams.

Her presence bent the very light around her like a prism and made her fully invisible.

But her beautiful an unreal cerulean blue eyes betrayed her surprise, while her veil fluttered gently as she observed Ethan.

So young… and yet that instinct… those elements…

From her perspective, he was merely a boy, but what a remarkable boy he was.

The speed of his reactions, his dual elemental control, and his unshakable confidence left her in quiet awe, and her breath caught ever so slightly as she observed the spectacle that most likely Nyx had set up to test him.

As expected of her, he could have been seriously injured, but she truly planned it thoroughly to test him..

As such thought ran in her mind, she couldn't help but feel that it had been a long time—too long—since something had genuinely caught her interest.

Her eyes narrowed with intrigue as she thought quietly,

I haven't even seen his face… and yet I already understand why Nyx chose him. His presence… his appearance, even his hair—it's so unusual and rare.

And she had always sought rare things, be it priceless treasures or people with potential that defied the mundane, as her standards always ran toward the exquisite.

But in all her countless wanderings, across all the realms and continents known and unknown, not once had she found something or someone that truly stirred her to the core.

And yet, a slight frown marred the ethereal beauty of her unseen yet angelic face.

Her narrowed eyes, though hidden, were locked onto the scene below with a strange mixture of intrigue and unease.

It was that darkness—the deepest, and most suffocating shade of it-that bled from the boy like a living entity.

At her level, she could clearly tell that it wasn't like the simple shadow of night or the darkness wielded by random dark element carriers, but it was something deeper… denser and unnatural.

But what amazed her the most was its pureness and intrinsic quality and effect that was so potent even in such sunshine that was devoid of such darkness that would have surely lent its support in making it even more formidable and unfathomable.

As she thought such things, her chest tightened slightly, and she breathed in slowly, with a silent resistance accompanying it.

She hated such darkness, but not out of fear, but for innate dislike for what it stood i.e, pure chaos, and corruption.

It was this very kind of abyssal power that had been an integral part of her whole life, and she knew that she couldn't deny that, even though she was a person who now walked and lived while clothed in light.

Still, as her gaze flickered from the spreading darkness to the quiet figure of Nyx standing at a distance, her thoughts churned.

Her delicate jaw tensed, and her pearly white teeth pressed together behind rose-colored lips.

The glint in her ice-blue eyes turned harder and colder as she steeled her resolve.

"So be it," she thought. "It's just an element... and he also holds the chill of ice within him. I can still shape and mould him into something..."