Rise of the Lustful Evil Monarch (Re)

Third Person's POV

And it seemed that Ethan shaking his head in exasperation was enough to send the demon spiraling even further into rage.
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The air around Ethan thickened and warped as though space itself twisted at Zarghul's command.

The battlefield blurred in Ethan's gaze and the flat peak and bloodstained altar dissolved into a new, haunting landscape.

A sickly green sky loomed overhead and cast an eerie glow upon a once-proud castle—his childhood home.

But it was no longer the place he remembered.

The grand halls and towering spires that were once symbols of power and prestige were now decayed ruins.

The walls crumbled like ancient parchment and seemed hollow and lifeless.

A thick scent of suffocating and oppressive decay clung to the air as if the very land had long since died and was rotting away in forgotten time.

Then, figures emerged from the shifting haze.

His family stood before him including his mother and his grandparents.

Yet their expressions were carved from grief, betrayal, and something deeper, and that something clawed at the edges of his mind.

Even his Master Nyx clad in her signature spiked black armor appeared and stood rigid as though made of stone.

In the corner, Virelle and Velcy stood together.

Yet despite their differences in life, in this twisted illusion, one thing unified them and that was pain.

Their eyes bore into him with sorrow, anger, resentment, and unbearable disappointment.

Then, his mother reached for him and her fingers trembled in doing so.

"Ethan… why didn't you save us?"

Her voice cracked like dry leaves in the wind.

And before he could speak, before he could even process what she had said her form disintegrated into dust and scattered into the void.

A strange sensation stirred in Ethan's chest.

It wasn't grief. It wasn't sadness.

It was something foreign, unexpected. It was a hollow sting he had never known in either of his lives.

This was the first time he was experiencing the grief and shock of losing a loved one.

But deep in his mind, beneath the illusion's suffocating weight, he knew the truth that this wasn't real.

And yet, for a moment, he was grateful. Grateful that this Zarghul had shown him something invaluable.

The pain of loss and the knowledge of what he could never allow to come true.

Then, Virelle stepped forward.

"You promised to listen to me," she whispered as her crimson eyes brimmed with unshed tears.

"You swore to love me for eternity. To marry me."

Her voice hardened, and suddenly her sorrow twisted into unbearable rage.

"But how could you? How could you betray me? For that woman of all people?"

Her crimson eyes flared and a raw fury burned behind them. And despite himself knowing that all of this was fake and despite his ironclad resolve, a shudder ran through Ethan's spine.

The scene shifted again, and now, his master stood before him in her black armor glinting ominously in the dim, sickly light.

Her golden eyes were sharp and piercing as she looked at him with cold finality.

"You were never supposed to defy me," she said in a voice edged with quiet steel.

"You were supposed to belong to me alone. And yet, you chose to disobey?"

The words pressed against him like shackles, like chains that sought to bind his very will. But Ethan could sense the hidden bitterness and frustration in them.

Then, Velcy spoke as if her turn had come after Master.

She didn't look up at first and kept her head bowed. Ethan could see her beautiful silver hair matted with blood and dirt.

But her voice carried all the weight of agony and bitterness.

"Didn't you say you would protect me?" she murmured.

The wind carried her words like an echo through the void.

"You said you would help me find my family… that you would never let me feel that pain again."

Slowly, she lifted her head.

Her once-soft blue eyes were now hollowed out by despair and stained with trails of blood tears.

And when she spoke again, her voice was filled with something darker and something twisted.

"But you… of all people… sold me to those monsters."

Ethan's fingers curled into a fist.

It wasn't their words that shook him. It wasn't the accusations or the pain in their gazes. It was the sheer reality of it all.

The illusion didn't just mimic truth but it felt real.

The bitterness, the sorrow, the hate.

The raw emotions surged against him and pressed on his mind from all sides as they threatened to crack the very foundation of his mind and crush his fragile soul.

His vision spun and his thoughts wavered.

For a lesser man likely for an ordinary eighteen year old, this would have been an unshakable nightmare.

But Ethan was not ordinary.

He had lived two lives. He had walked battlefields painted in blood. He had faced horrors beyond mortal comprehension.

And he had learned something from all of it.

This wasn't grief. This wasn't the truth but it was a weapon.

A carefully crafted blade that was honed to perfection and designed to pierce through his soul and break him apart from within.

Realizing this, Ethan's lips curled.

Nice try, little demon.

A flicker of light stirred deep within him. It was the sacred white flame.

It was very small and unassuming just like a small ember but it was unwavering.

It pulsed in the core of his mind space like an ancient power intertwined with his very being.

Even though it had only awakened recently, Ethan wielded it as though he had always known it.

He didn't resist it and he didn't force it to act for him but he simply let it burn.

The white flame surged, and immediately, the illusion world cracked apart.

Like brittle glass, the illusion shattered. The shadows peeled away and were literally burned into cinders beneath the sacred fire's touch.

The false voices distorted and started unraveling into empty whispers before they vanished altogether.