CHAPTER 381: A MOMENT OF REALIZATION

Third Person’s POV

Her body shuddered mid-flight before going limp, and her anger and resentment were frozen into her features even as unconsciousness claimed her.

But Ethan had no time to look back as the storm of bone spurs descended upon him, being sharp enough to pierce stone.

He moved like a shadow, and he twisted and rolled in the air while his cloak whipped in violent arcs.

Some he slipped past by the width of a hair, and others he shattered mid-flight with the snap of a conjured blade.

A dark dagger, jagged with frost, spun in his grasp as he carved through the barrage.

Each impact with it rang out like steel striking steel and sent shards of bone clattering against the ground.

Still, more spurs came, and forced him back a step, and then another.

His boots gouged lines into the dirt as he advanced with calculated precision and drew closer to the cluster of four werewolves huddled near the treeline.

They were frozen in place, as pale as corpses.

A moment ago, they had been hooting and mocking, convinced their mistress would triumph, and their grins were wide with victory as if they were the ones who had defeated him.

But now, seeing her limp body sprawled and bleeding in the dirt, their faces drained of all color.

Yet, when Ethan staggered briefly beneath the relentless rain of spurs, their hope flickered again, and they dared to cheer and forced shaky laughter from their throats as that was the only way they could overcome their fear.

But then came the kick, the moment their mistress was hurled like a broken doll and blood poured from her lips, that fragile hope died instantly.

Their faces froze mid-laughter, and their smiles shattered into grotesque masks of dread.

One of them gulped so hard his throat clicked audibly in the silence.

His trembling lips fumbled around the words, and he stammered as though each syllable weighed more than he could bear.

"W-We... we are finished... completely finished."

Another had his knees knocking as he forced a broken whisper past his dry mouth.

"M-Master... h-he won’t forgive us. He will tear us apart... he’ll—he’ll—"

The rest of his words died as Ethan’s crimson gaze finally flicked toward them, cold and unyielding.

The last of their bravado crumbled, and finally they could feel a raw and suffocating fear that coiled around their throats like a noose.

And yet, even as terror consumed them, the ground shuddered once more, an ominous sign that the real counterattack had only just begun.

They attempted to flee, but Ethan’s voice cut through the clearing like a blade dragged across glass.

"You should be good boys and girls and not flee... otherwise, I will kill you all. If not now, then sooner or later."

His words weren’t shouted, yet the calm certainty in his tone carried far more weight than a scream ever could.

The fleeing figures instantly stiffened, and a ripple of unease that they had never felt shuddered through their movements.

Without waiting for a reply, Ethan somersaulted through the air.

Using the thick trunk of a nearby tree as a springboard, he twisted mid-flight and launched himself like a dart straight toward the thin demon, Alrin, who had ambushed him just now.

Alrin’s brown eyes remained calm as he had expected and had been waiting for this.

But the moment he realized his ambush had failed, the sharpness in his gaze flickered to something colder—calculation.

And instead of meeting Ethan head-on, he pressed both palms to the ground, as his wiry frame bowed like a predator before a strike.

A turbid yellow light covered his palms and spread across the nearby earth like ripples.

With a guttural sound, the ground split open, and a forest of jagged, earthen spikes burst forth and stabbed upward in all directions.

They weren’t wild strikes but precise, guided spears of stone that chased Ethan mid-air and sealed every path of escape.

"Tch."

Seeing that, Ethan clicked his tongue in irritation.

Soon, his skin shimmered, and a layer of icy armor crystallized over him in jagged, translucent plates.

Two short green knives materialized in his hands, their blades humming faintly with energy.

The first volley descended.

Ethan spun in the air, and his arms blurred as the knives traced icy greenish blue arcs through the air.

Spurs shattered into shards under his strikes and rained around him like splintered glass.

The few spikes that slipped through his defense collided with his ice armor and cracked it, but failed to pierce deeper.

He landed hard, and his knees bent as shards of earth crunched under his boots.

Yet the spikes weren’t done.

They slithered along the ground like serpents, and changed direction mid-flight like some heat-guided missile, and it seemed as if they had a mind of their own.

"Persistent little trick."

Ethan darted sideways, and his feet barely touched the ground as he twisted and carved through them.

Each movement was precise, elegant, but filled with the efficiency of a predator too experienced to waste effort.

Finally, with one last flurry, he shattered the last of the pursuing spikes.

He took deep breaths, a little tired from the continuous fights and loss of energy he had suffered in the last few minutes.

Seeing the dust and fragments of stone lingering in the air and hazing the clearing, he realized that this was the first time he had seen and brunt the impact of a pure magic spell.

Normally, his fighting style was similar to close combat aura fighters who augmented themselves and their bodies with their magic.

But unlike them, his talent in his two elements was off the charts, and he didn’t need to become an aura fighter, but he also knew that this was his style, and he couldn’t be a pure mage who was incapable of close combat.

Looking over the past few minutes, he suddenly realized that he had yet to learn a lot of things.