historical

Skinny Face had already wet his pants witnessing the frightening and horrifying scene taking place in front of him. He somehow put all his ethereal energy into his legs and tried to run for his life. He thought that if he stayed any longer, even his corpse wouldn't look anything like him.

Damien didn't even turn around to look at Skinny Face. He simply lifted his right arm and pointed his finger towards Skinny Face. A blood-curdling jet black lighting streak giving off a more abnormal aura than usual escaped from Damien's index finger and stormed towards Skinny Face, twisting the air around it.

Skinny Face was running at the maximum speed possible without even looking back. He had already covered more a few hundred meters using his movement skill without holding back his reserves of ethereal energy.

Noticing that nothing was happening, a smile formed on his face thinking that Damien had let him escape.

'Hah...wait till I report this monster to the Imperial Ethereal Court. He would—'

*Crackle*

*Sizzzz*

Within just a second after Damien raised his finger, a small crater was formed on the place where Skinny Face was. Black smoke was streaming out from the crater, filling the air.

There was absolutely no trace of him left! Only black charred particles were floating in the air, which also soon disappeared till there was no evidence of Skinny Face even existing in the first place.

Unlike Igor, Skinny Face died a quick death without even realizing what happened to him.

Damien's aura returned to normal as he instantly deactivated Undying Wrath. His Origin Seed stopped spinning and returned to its usual state and his depleted ethereal energy didn't have any traces of Anti-Energy anymore.

Having all his energy totally spent, he collapsed on his knees as his body finally slumped on the ground.

Damien was violently gasping to regain his breath. He felt that inside his body, all his energy and blood was violently thrashing about. A back flow of blood almost came out from his mouth, but he swallowed it back. The ethereal energy in his ethereal core was thoroughly emptied and he was weakened to the point he could barely keep himself awake.

He had activated Undying Wrath with just a meager amount of ethereal energy after all. Before he activated it, he had spent a significant amount of his ethereal energy reserves trying to fight Igor.

He slowly twisted his head in the direction of the Imperial Palace while lying on the ground.

'I have to get back to the palace...Lily must be waiting for me..' He felt his eyes becoming languid and saw the scarred face of the white cat staring at him with its glittering ruby red eyes in curiosity.

But before he could even think about anything else, he fell unconscious.

——

A few hours later, Damien recovered some of his consciousness, with pain stemming from all over his body. In order to kill Igor, he had paid a large price, larger than he had expected.

Activating Undying Wrath was extremely strenuous not only on his ethereal core but also his body. Some of his blood cells had ruptured, nearly half of his muscle cells had dehydrated and his broken ribs had almost pierced his lungs.

But suddenly he felt his body becoming warm and comfortable. His blood was being rejuvenated at a steady pace and his ethereal energy was slowly recovering! Damien was surprised inwardly how he could possibly be recovering this fast. But he noticed a foreign ethereal energy not belonging to him at all, as the cause for this sudden recovery process.

'Who is trying to help me..'

His consciousness again went silent basking in that comfortable feeling. Finally after some time, his fingers twitched, as he tried to open his seemingly heavy eyelids slowly using his will power.

What entered his eyes were faint sunlight trying to slip in between the foliage of the huge trees.

As soon as he completely opened his eyes, he could properly feel his body and all four limbs.

Even though he felt his limbs slightly heavy, he found that he could still control its movements.

He also noticed a bit of ethereal energy had gathered inside the originally empty ethereal core.

This energy helped him facilitate his bodily functions and even allow him to make simple body movements which includes trying to get up.

Damien grabbed the ground, gritted his teeth and struggled to sit up.

But his eyes suddenly froze as he caught sight of a small and exquisite figure....a girl whose age only seemed to be around ten years or so. However, what caught sight of his eyes were her waist length rosy pink hair and glittering ruby red eyes. But her face was scarred with stripes of claw marks right from her forehead till her jaw which blemished her beauty.

But Damien suddenly gulped and shifted his eyes since the girl was buck naked!

'Who is this girl?' Damien wondered.

But a certain detail popped in his mind...her bright ruby red eyes. 'Wait a sec...she can't be..'

The girl was standing close to Damien and slowly approached him. She was having a quizzical expression on her face seeing Damien's strange movements.

"Luna...who is she?" Damien mentally asked Luna.

"She is not an ordinary ethereal beast." Luna plainly said.

"Wait...what? Ethereal beast? You can't be kidding.." Damien was inwardly slack-jawed as he couldn't believe how an ethereal beast could have a human form.

"It's not strange for ethereal beasts to take human form. Once their cultivation is at least at the Profound Ethereal Realm, their intelligence skyrockets and they would be even capable of speech. And if they are ever able to break through to the Noble Ethereal Realm, they can start assuming human forms. But the reason I said she is not ordinary is because with her mere Nascent Ethereal Realm cultivation it should be impossible for her to take human form." Luna said in a slightly fascinating tone.

'Wow...so even beasts can take human form. But this girl..' Damien was enlightened by this new information but just as Luna said he wondered how an ethereal beast could take human form like this girl.

"Then is she the one who—"

"Yes, she is the one who helped you recover." Luna interjected and continued, "It seems like she is proficient in Water Laws but not pure Water Laws. It's more like...no, that's too absurd. For now, I can say that she's proficient in Blood Laws. You can consider it as a mutated version of Water Laws." Luna said in a thoughtful tone.

"Blood Laws? Mutated? You mean she is like a vampire?" Damien was surprised hearing that a blood sucking girl was standing before him. Then he noticed that there were two bite marks near his neck. He guessed that the girl must have tried to heal him by biting into his neck.

"Vampire?" Luna asked with confusion.

"Nothing...haaa.." Damien sighed but feeling something, he turned his head around to see big ruby red eyes staring into his eyes.

"Whew.." Damien got a little startled as he stumbled a bit backwards. The girl had slowly reached towards Damien while he was conversing with Luna. She was at first a bit wary of Damien when he woke up. But seeing that he didn't do anything, she slowly approached him, curious why Damien had his head turned around and his eyes closed.

Damien quickly took off his cloak and held it out towards the girl trying not to look at her petite body.

"Little girl, here, put this on."