Rise of the Lustful Evil Monarch (Re)

Third Person’s POV

For the first time since entering the Glaciem Ice Abyss, the despair in their eyes completely disappeared because, after eight years of separation, they had finally found him.

Seeing their miserable state, Ethan’s heart was filled with pain, while an intense fury slowly burned within him.

He blamed himself for not noticing them earlier in the academy’s square, even though he knew that something had clearly been wrong with his senses at that time.

There had been that strange feeling of discomfort, and that faint sense of suffocation and muddled perception that he had experienced while looking at the gloomy sky.

At the time, he hadn’t been able to determine its cause.

Now, however, he understood that someone or something had deliberately clouded his senses and prevented him from noticing the two people he had been searching for.

And somehow, at the very last possible moment, he had still ’coincidentally’ happened to notice them behind him.

The thought alone made Ethan feel a chill, yet there was no time for him to dwell on it.

He had a faint suspicion about the identity of the culprit behind it.

Countless negative emotions surged through his mind, but Ethan forcibly suppressed them as he flashed his emerald-green dagger in his hand.

Swish!

The sharp dagger moved rapidly.

One grayish-blue spike after another was cleanly severed, freeing Eleanor and Aurelia from their restraints.

The sudden loss of support caused both women to fall forward, but Ethan was already prepared.

He caught them before they could hit the ground and carefully lowered them beside the wall of a nearby ruined building.

His movements were gentle despite the anger and confusion raging within him.

Ethan immediately crouched down and began pulling the remaining pieces of grayish-blue bone spikes from their limbs.

The moment he examined them more closely, his expression became even colder.

These spikes didn’t merely possess an intense coldness.

They also carried a strange and highly corrosive demonic energy.

The demonic energy had already begun spreading through the wounds.

The skin surrounding the places where the spikes had pierced their bodies had started turning black, with faint traces of rot appearing around the wounds.

Seeing this, Ethan’s fury intensified, yet strangely, his expression became even more impassive.

There was no visible rage on his face, as he didn’t shout or release an uncontrolled outburst.

Only the darkness behind his crimson eyes seemed to deepen.

It was as though the greater his fury became, the calmer he appeared on the outside.

After removing the remaining pieces of bone from their limbs, Ethan casually threw them aside and immediately took out several potions from his spatial ring.

He first used potions specifically designed to neutralize and heal wounds caused by demonic energy that he had collected during his time in the Blood Veil Continent.

These potions could only be found in that continent, and he carefully applied them over the blackened areas before using another healing potion to repair the physical injuries themselves.

His movements were careful and methodical.

There was not even the slightest tremor in his hands.

But Eleanor and Aurelia were watching him closely.

Their eyes never left his face.

And the more they observed his attempt to suppress his emotions, the more certain they became.

This was truly Ethan.

The Ethan they remembered had always been like this.

He had never been someone who openly displayed his negative emotions.

Whenever he was worried, angry, frightened, or troubled by something, he would instinctively hide those emotions from the people he cared about.

He didn’t want them to worry, nor did he want his problems to become their burden.

That habit hadn’t changed even after eight years.

Only now, it had become much more deeply ingrained within him.

Eleanor quietly observed her son’s face as he worked on her wounds.

Now that she could observe him from such proximity, she could clearly see how much he had changed over the years.

His facial features had matured into those of an exceptionally handsome young man, far removed from the boyish appearance she remembered from eight years ago.

A faint sense of pride naturally welled up within her heart as she looked at him, knowing that this handsome young man was her son, her flesh and blood, and a part of her who had somehow grown up without her by his side.

At the same time, his body had grown considerably taller and stronger, with a well-developed physique that carried an entirely different presence from the little boy she had once known.

Despite the pain she felt as the miraculous potion slowly treated her injuries, its strange medicinal properties even beyond what she could fully understand, her eyes seemed to be filled with stars.

There was an unusual mixture of pride, affection, and a strange obsession in her gaze as she quietly looked at her son after so many years apart.

She could feel that his entire aura had become colder and more restrained.

Yet the moment she looked into those familiar crimson eyes, she could still see the things he was desperately trying to hide.

The weariness and loneliness he never allowed anyone to see, and the countless experiences he had endured without anyone from home beside him.

The toughness and indifference he displayed toward the world were merely the outer shell he had gradually built around himself.

And Eleanor, as his mother, could see through that shell more easily than almost anyone else could.

And for some reason, that realization hurt Eleanor more than seeing his current strength ever could.

Her eyes became slightly red.

She slowly raised one hand and gently stroked Ethan’s cheek.

Ethan’s movements paused for the briefest moment as he moved his gaze up from her wounds to her face.

Eleanor didn’t say anything.

She simply continued stroking his face with the same tenderness she had shown him when he was a child.

That simple gesture finally cracked something within Ethan.

His crimson eyes slowly became misty, despite his attempts to stop it, and at this moment, he wanted to desperately hug her.