Rise of the Lustful Evil Monarch (Re)-Chapter 300: The Second Round

Third Person's POV

The world spun as he was thrown backward.

His body raked across the broken ground, leaving torn grass and earth erupting in his wake.

His clothes smoked, and his skin was charred and cracked at several points with blood trickling in thin streams.

The shock slamming into Ethan like a hammer to the ribs was a brutal reminder of how severely he had underestimated the monstrous might of the Sky Realm.

Flashes of his earlier skirmish with this knight last night flickered through his mind, and he realized that that battle had been too brief and short for him or the knight to give their best.

But after experiencing the full unchained power, a real truth seared itself into his heart,

If he slipped even once and if he let even the tiniest opening remain unchecked, he wouldn't just lose, but he would be crushed without mercy.

But even as his body screamed in agony, even as the iron scent of his own scorched flesh filled his nostrils, Ethan's face twisted into something terrible.

It was a wide and savage grin filled with uncontained exhilaration.

The pain only stoked the fire inside him.

At this moment, it reminded him that he was alive and that the blood raging through his veins had never been more real.

His expression was filled with both shock and savage excitement at this moment, and it formed such a bizarre and scary contradiction that the lackeys trembled on seeing his face.

The metallic taste of blood in his mouth, the searing heat across his burned skin, the roar of collision, and the electrifying hum of imminent death, all of it wove together into a tapestry of sensation that he hadn't felt for so, so long.

Memories of his previous life came flooding back, the deafening roar of blazing guns in the deep night, the choking smoke of detonated shells, the sharp, acrid stench of fear lingering in the air that all mixed into a symphony of battle.

It was so brutal, intoxicating, and addictive that he couldn't even begin to describe it.

This was what he had been starving for.This was what had been missing all along.

Thrown like a broken kite into the shallow lake, water spraying around his battered form and Ethan barely had time to brace as the ruthless and unrelenting Dark Demon Knight was already moving.

Coiled tendrils of black lightning wrapped around the knight's body and legs and crackled and hissed as his figure blurred into a streak of nightmarish speed.

The distance shrank from ten metres to five meters to four and finally two in a mere second,

But then, something went wrong.

A sudden, razor-sharp coldness gripped the knight's legs, and without warning, his footing betrayed him.

With a shocked grunt, his legs slid out from under him, and before he could correct himself, his massive armored body pitched forward and smashed face-first into the lake shore with a deafening crash.

The sheer momentum behind his charge made stopping impossible.

And as a result, the knight skidded across the wet ground like a meteor and gouged a deep trench in the mud and rocks before crashing headlong into the deep water with a monumental splash.

Sploosh!

The demon knight soon vanished deep into the lake and vanished from their collective vision.

Meanwhile, Ethan, with his face half-charred and lips split with tiny bleeding cracks, smiled in a ghastly and wolfish grin that radiated cruel satisfaction.

His plan had worked perfectly.

He had faked helplessness and lured the knight into overconfidence and then used the same unintentional trap that he had fallen into just moments before.

He had spread a line of a thin and faint invisible layer of slippery ice across the muddy ground to strike where it mattered most.

And that blind spot of his enemy was his trust in his own invincibility.

As a result, those few precious seconds bought him a lifeline.

Ignoring the agony screaming through his battered muscles, Ethan pivoted sharply, though he could almost feel the bones in his legs crack under the strain.

A burst of thick black smoke exploded from the winged tattoo on his back and formed his spectral DarkStorm wings that hurled him skyward toward his next target.

And that was the hulking black serpent and the demon prince group who were taking refuge on its top as it hovered above the lake with its poisonous mist spreading in the air.

The snake was an ancient demonic beast, so it immediately sensed the mortal threat rushing toward it.

Its eyes gleamed with feral instinct as it opened its massive jaws wide and vomited forth a rolling cloud of purplish-black smoke that formed a pulsating and semi-solid barrier of deadly miasma around its body.

But it didn't know that Ethan was already a step ahead.

From his spatial ring, he drew forth a small and ominous-looking black dragon badge.

Its surface was etched with an intricate carving of a dark dragon with shining, dark golden eyes.1

Without hesitation, he poured his mana into it.

In an instant, the badge lit up with a fierce and deep golden glow, and thick chains of runic light wrapped around his body like a second skin.

The protective cover snapped into place with a satisfying pulse and was strong enough to resist the deadly poisonous smoke, and even though its protective interval was less, it was all that Ethan needed.

His vision sharpened, and the world slowed down as adrenaline surged in his blood.

His target was that wretched snake's exposed underbelly that beckoned like a painted target.

And just as Ethan prepared to lunge forward into the poisonous smoke barrier with his saber gleaming hungrily in his hand —

BOOM!

A roaring column of water erupted behind him like a volcanic explosion and soaked the battlefield in a rain of muddy spray.

From the heart of it, the Dark Demon Knight shot upward like a black missile while roaring in rage.

Refer to Chapter 36 for this badge's first appearance