Third Person’s POV

Yet despite the pressure Ethan was continuously imposing upon her, Elis was not someone who would lose her composure so easily in battle.

Even though the flow of the fight seemed to have completely entered Ethan’s tempo, the experienced wood elf forcefully steadied her mind and raised her ancient wooden staff with both hands.

A soft and serene green glow immediately started radiating from the staff.

At almost the same moment, a similar faint green light quietly spread over the cuts and bruises Ethan had received throughout the battle from her vines and leaf attacks.

In the next instant, Ethan suddenly felt an itching sensation spread through the wounds across his body.

The feeling rapidly intensified, giving him no time to think.

To Ethan’s shock, dizziness abruptly assaulted his mind while a strange heaviness spread through his limbs.

His thoughts slowed slightly.

At the same time, tiny vine-like tendrils suddenly started growing slowly from the shallow wounds across his arms and shoulders and started wiggling like worms.

Seeing this horrifying sight, Ethan’s mind instantly turned cold.

A chill even ran through his spine as he finally realized just how sinister and dangerous this wood elf woman’s magic truly was.

Those vines and sharp crescent leaves had secretly injected some kind of invisible plant poison into his body during the battle.

And now that poison was attacking both his mind and body simultaneously.

Wave after wave of sluggishness assaulted him while a strange desire to sleep and rest continuously rose inside his mind.

If Ethan had truly been an ordinary mage, he would have already collapsed unconscious by now with his mind completely numbed by the poison.

But unfortunately for Elis, Ethan’s body was too strong, and he managed to resist the poison.

The terrifying cold permeating every part of his body naturally slowed the spread and effectiveness of the plant poison drastically.

The icy constitution created by the Arctic Sovereign Body Strengthening Manual prevented the poison from properly invading his organs and mind.

After only a few moments, Ethan had already regained most of his clarity.

However, he did not reveal that fact outwardly.

Instead, his eyes deliberately became hazy while his footsteps started stumbling unnaturally upon the floor like a drunken man struggling to remain conscious.

At that moment, a cold thought surfaced within Ethan’s mind.

He no longer merely wanted to subdue this woman.

Instead, he wanted to teach her a lesson she would never forget in her entire life.

He wanted to utterly crush her confidence and force her to understand exactly what kind of existence she had dared to provoke.

Seeing Ethan finally begin stumbling after being infected by her wood poison, the tension within Elis’s heart gradually eased.

The pressure she had felt earlier rapidly disappeared, and her tense nerves slowly relaxed.

A satisfied smile slowly appeared upon her beautiful face as confidence returned to her once more.

She even patted her chest lightly as if calming herself before leisurely walking toward Ethan while raising her wooden staff again.

But what Elis did not notice was the faint devilish silver glow hidden deep behind the haziness covering Ethan’s crimson eyes.

The vines surged forward once more, and this time, Ethan deliberately allowed them to bind him.

The thick green vines tightly wrapped around his arms, chest, and legs while slowly dragging him backward.

Seeing this, Elis finally relaxed completely.

She walked toward him calmly and eventually carried the seemingly weakened Ethan back toward the white bed.

Then she looked down at his handsome face that still contained traces of anger and unwillingness despite his hazy state.

The sight strangely pleased her, and a mocking smile appeared on her lips as she sat beside him upon the bed.

She lightly tapped his cheek with her fingers and said in a teasing voice,

"Hehe, let’s see how you try to escape next time.

And remember to speak to this lady a little more respectfully in the future."

After saying this, Elis finally stood up confidently and prepared to turn around.

However, a strange cold sensation suddenly spread across her neck.

At first, she only frowned slightly at the discomfort, but in the next few seconds, that sensation rapidly intensified into an unbearable freezing pain accompanied by a horrifying choking pressure.

Confusion instantly surfaced within her mind because Ethan was still lying upon the bed behind her with a hazy and weakened expression upon his face.

So then, who exactly was choking her?

A fear of the unknown slowly rose in her heart.

Her breathing became erratic as panic finally surfaced within her emerald eyes.

Her body instinctively struggled violently.

The sudden movement caused her to stumble and fall backward onto the floor heavily while desperately clawing at her own throat.

Then suddenly, a strange silver whiteness spread before her vision.

In the next second, as her vision swam in the whiteness, the luxurious royal room distorted, and the floor twisted. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

And in the next instant, Elis found herself standing once again at the exact same location where she had first confronted Ethan earlier in the battle.

But this time, everything was different.

Her wooden staff was no longer in her hands.

And before she could even process what was happening, she realized with horror that Ethan was standing directly before her.

One of his icy cold hands was tightly clasped around her neck while his other arm forcefully restrained both her hands behind her head.

Then he violently pinned her against the smooth white wall behind her.

A loud sound echoed throughout the luxurious chamber as her body collided helplessly against the wall.

Elis choked violently and desperately tried to say something, but the simple mocking look within Ethan’s crimson eyes made her feel overwhelming terror instead.

Even now, she had not realized what had truly happened for her to be subdued so easily and in such an incomprehensible fashion.

Only Ethan knew the truth.

The moment she had relaxed her guard after believing Ethan was poisoned and helpless, her soul had unknowingly fallen victim to Ethan’s soul infecting spell, Labyrinth of Lucent Lies, the third of his innate bloodline spells.1