Third Person's POV
He could still see the pity in their eyes, but he knew that, unlike the crowd, it was not pity for her, but pity for him.
That alone put him on guard, as he knew that there was no way such brazen arrogance and such unchecked madness that the Sangrial girl had could exist in a place like the Abyssal Sanctum without soone powerful shielding her from consequence.
Soone with enough influence to embolden her recklessness, and to nurture her rotten pride into a weapon, and that soone was here.
And this ant that his slap was not the end of this matter, but it was only the beginning.
Knowing full well that this incident was far from over, Ethan still felt no real concern as he trusted in his own strength, and besides, he wasn't alone.
There were many allies who stood at his side and were silent assurances that he would weather any storm that tried to engulf him.
Just then, a prickle of awareness crept across his skin.
A cold gaze had settled on him.
He turned his head and found the source.
It was the petite werewolf girl with the strangely striking platinum-gray hair whom he had struck down in the forest during the day over the struggle for the bunch of the mango-like Blood Crystal Fruits that he had eventually won over.
Her sharp eyes, which were gleaming faintly in the dimming light, were fixed on him with open hostility, and her expression frosted over even further when she saw him standing beneath the blood banner.
Her lips were stained with the remnants of dried blood in the form of faint and crusted around the corners of her mouth.
Though instead of ruining her appearance, it gave her delicate features a savage edge.
But her frosty expression and the cold glint in her eyes didn't rattle him.
With a deliberate ease, he curved his lips into a warm smile and lifted his hand slightly in a gesture of goodwill.
His intention was simple, as instead of being mocking, he was attempting to smooth over the sharp edges of their earlier conflict and to let it dissolve into nothing.
But what he offered as peace, she perceived as mockery, to his disappointnt.
Her eyes narrowed with an icy and sharp edge in them, and Ethan finally realized that his attempt at goodwill had been seen as an insult.
Realizing that, he grew disinterested as he was not the one to worry about what people thought of him.
Though behind her, her five retainers shifted uneasily.
The mory of Ethan's earlier ferocity still lingered in their bones.
Especially, the brute whose bone he had broken so thoroughly that he seed to shrink back a step, and his face paled at the re sight of him.
The busty female werewolf who had once been under Ethan's thrall pressed her lips together tightly, and her eyes flickered with a complex storm of emotions.
Yet, unlike the others, her fear did not run as deep.
Instead, a shaful, forbidden sensation stirred within her chest, an inexplicable pull toward the crimson-eyed youth she should have hated.
A desire to lower her head and to submit to him coiled within her, and sent a surge of heat rushing to her face.
The realization struck her like a blade, and panic clawed at her chest as she ground her teeth, silently resisting with all her will.
This was wrong, and she was effectively betraying her family and race.
She was of the wolves, and he was supposed to be one of her worst enemies.
They were mortal enemies, and yet, no matter how she tried, hatred would not rise in her heart.
Instead, she felt guilt at the way she had sneered at him arrogantly in the day and the lesson he had taught her in return for daring to say such things to him.
The fear she had felt under those dark crimson eyes was like a dangerous, humiliating allure that gnawed at her heart continuously, that only grew stronger and deeper with every stolen glance she gave him.
Her mind swirled in chaos, while Ethan remained oblivious as he hadn't done anything consciously to influence the internal conflict inside the mind of the busty wolf girl.
Even the spy soul worm he had planted in her was not ant for this; it was a precaution and nothing more.
He was not so despicable as to toy with her will over so re verbal altercation and a conflict over so treasure that he deed to be a minor one.
Unaware of the storm raging in her, Ethan's gaze turned toward the stage.
The last rays of the sun bled across the horizon, and shadows of the tall castle spires and walls lengthened as dusk claid the square.
Just as the young n and won were becoming impatient, a figure appeared in the square.
It was a towering demon that strode onto the platform, nine feet of bluish-gray muscle wrapped in tightly fitted dark robes.
The cloth clung to his fra was simple and severe and without a wrinkle, as it emphasized his monstrous physique rather than concealing it.
His presence fell over the square like a mountain casting its shadow in a suffocating and absolute way.
Ethan's eyes narrowed, and every fine hair on his skin seed to rise in instinctive warning.
The air itself grew heavy and beca charged with a palpable aura of danger as he and everyone else knew at this mont that this guy was no ordinary person and was most likely a high-ranking mber of this Sanctum.
Every inch of that demon's body radiated unshakable authority and brute power.
Ethan could feel it deep in his bones with a hundred percent clarity that this being stood firmly in the Sky Realm and was far stronger than the dark knight he had fought in the City of the Vord.
Just as he was thinking such things and analyzing the guy as if he were an opponent, the brute spoke.
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