Third Person's POV
'What if that madman turns on us next?'
The thought alone made their blood run cold as the mory of that icy crunch and the sound of bone being crushed and Jack's inhuman scream, sent shivers crawling up their spines, spreading from their feet all the way to their scalps.
Ethan observed all of this without the slightest reaction, and he did not spare those people even a glance.
In his eyes, they were nothing more than naless onlookers—weak-minded individuals who threw stones at others after being easily manipulated, despite having no stake in the matter.
He had lived long enough in his two lives to know that such people existed everywhere, and wasting attention on them was aningless.
Gritting his teeth, Jack seed to suddenly rember his lackeys and imdiately barked at them in a hoarse, cracking voice.
"Oiii! What are you idiots doing? You useless piece of trashes, beat this bastard down! N-No—cripple him! Break his arms and legs! Tear him apart!"
His words ca out incoherent and shrill, more like the squeals of a mad animal than the commands of a noble young lord.
However, to his dismay, Jack soon noticed sothing that made his rage spike even further.
None of his lackeys moved, and not even a single one of them stepped forward.
His furious glare swept over them, only to see that they were already retreating, inch by inch, disappearing into the crowd.
Their legs could be seen trembling visibly, with sweat pouring down their faces as fear stripped them of all courage.
The sight of such cowardice pushed Jack closer to madness.
Clutching his ruined hand, he turned his glare back to Ethan with hatred burning in his bloodshot eyes.
With a shaking motion, he reached toward his spatial ring with the intention of pulling out a healing potion.
But it was then that he noticed Lucy, who was now peeking out from behind Ethan's back.
At first, her expression was frozen in shock, but when she sensed him looking at her, it slowly changed.
Her lips curved upward, and a cruel, mocking sneer ford on her face as her eyes locked onto Jack.
The sight stunned him, and for a brief mont, even the agony tearing through his hand dulled.
From the day he had known her, Lucy had always been timid, fearful, and submissive to him.
That weakness was exactly why he had enjoyed tornting her and why he had always viewed her as nothing more than a future toy.
As for him taking her as his wife?
It had never crossed his mind, and in his eyes, she was far too inferior in both talent and mind for that.
But this expression of hers, this cold mockery—
It ignited sothing violent inside him.
Rage, unlike anything he had felt before, erupted within his chest.
And now, with countless eyes fixed upon him, humiliation and fury twisted together into sothing monstrous inside him.
Golden veins bulged across his skin and started spreading along his neck and arms like molten lines beneath flesh.
His breathing grew ragged as a single, obsessive thought consud his mind.
'This bitch… how dare she mock .
How dare you, you slut.
I will destroy you.'
As that raging intent swallowed him whole, Ethan and everyone else present felt a sudden shift in the air.
They couldn't help but notice that the sunlight and brightness in the surroundings seed to have increased.
They soon got an answer as a golden sphere of light began to condense between Jack's curved horns.
Streams of radiant, shiny mana surged toward it as it spiraled and gathered with increasing intensity, the pressure thickening as the unstable power continued to build.
Being the center of Jack's focus, Ethan suddenly began to feel sharp, stabbing hints of pain crawling all over his skin.
It was as if invisible blades were scraping against his flesh.
The sharp golden rays gathering between Jack's horns glared with an unnatural brilliance and seed to pierce straight through Ethan's eyes and into his body, even before they were fully unleashed.
His eyes watered painfully and his vision blurred under the stabbing pressure, and just as he instinctively shut them tight, his instincts scread of danger and a warning thought flashed through his mind.
'Not good!!'
Almost at the sa instant that thought surfaced, Virelle's urgent shout reached his ears.
"Ethan, dodge!!!"
But Virelle didn't need to worry as Ethan's body reacted before conscious thought could intervene and moved as if it had sensed the danger long before his mind caught up.
One of his hands thrust outward and released a controlled burst of dark mana that struck Lucy and sent her flying sideways in a rush of air.
The shockwave carried her away from the danger, though the rebound force still injured her hand slightly.
Ethan had deliberately angled most of the force toward the ground, and as a result the counterforce flung him backward in the opposite direction.
Even so, he wasn't fast enough to avoid everything as a golden ray erupted violently from the condensed sphere between Jack's horns and struck his shoulder even though he had dodged so perfectly.
The mont it made contact with his skin, a chilling sensation tore through him.
The ray was neither hot nor cold, yet it carried an absurdly lethal sharpness.
It instantly shredded nearly a quarter of his upper robe and tore it into ragged strips, while a series of sharp, one-inch crisscross gashes opened across his arm and shoulder and a small cut even appeared along his neck.
Blood spilled freely from the wounds and stread down and dyeed his arms and chest red as Ethan was still airborne, his body spinning slightly from the impact.
Shock surged through him as he knew his own body's toughness well.
Ordinary weapons couldn't pierce his skin, not even slightly yet this golden ray that had just grazed him had inflicted such severe damage.
Seeing blood flow from Ethan's shoulder, a cruel smile slowly spread across Jack's face.
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