Chapter 57: Don’t Look at Me
The three of them were about five hundred meters from the pillar of light when Ethan suddenly stopped short mid-stride.
Not because he wanted to stop, but because his body stopped on its own, like a rabbit in mid-run suddenly discovering an eagle circling directly overhead.
His spine went ice-cold, every hair on his body stood on end, and his legs went so weak he nearly buckled. This wasn’t ordinary fear. This was the instinct of a small creature when an existence on a higher plane took notice of it.
He slowly turned his head toward the dead city.
The Bone Demon Serpent was looking at him.
That colossal skull head, which had been aimed at the pillar of light all this time, had now turned around, and the yellow symbol in the middle of its forehead was glowing far more clearly than before. The tens of thousands of hollows across its body were all aimed at Ethan too, pitch-black and deep, like tens of thousands of eyes that had all opened at once.
Ethan gritted his teeth, instinctively wanting to activate the [Eye of Truth] to see what exactly the thing before him was.
But his eye wouldn’t open.
Instead, a cold line of text appeared in his vision, something it had never once offered up on its own before.
[Warning: Target exceeds the safe observation range.]
[Warning: Activation will produce reverse resonance. The target will become aware of the host’s existence.]
[Recommendation: Do not activate.]
Ethan went rigid.
Before this, whether facing the Bone-Winged Dragon, whether facing Damien Vale, this eye had simply opened and supplied him with information. Sometimes it couldn’t see through an opponent, like when it looked at the Harpy Queen, but it had never stopped him.
Now, it was telling him not to look.
Ethan immediately understood why.
His eye wasn’t a telescope, it was a scalpel. It didn’t just look, it pierced through. So if he used it to look straight at the Bone Demon Serpent, the Bone Demon Serpent would feel it too, and then the thing looking at him would no longer be a monster casually glancing at a speck of dust beneath its feet.
It would see him. See the eye on his forehead. See the thing lying inside his body as well.
And it would be angry.
Ethan immediately forced his eye shut, then dropped his head low, not daring to look straight at that monster for even one more second.
I’m just an ant. Pay me no mind.
Whether it was because he had lowered his head or not, the pressure bearing down on his shoulders gradually eased. The Bone Demon Serpent turned its head back, resuming its watch on the pillar of light, as if just now it had merely glanced at a rock beneath its feet.
Ethan let out a breath, cold sweat already soaking through the back of his shirt.
But before he could steady himself, a piercing shriek rang out right behind him.
Ethan turned his head, and his face immediately went white.
The Harpy Queen had caught up.
Her metal-black wings tore the wind, each beat producing a blast of pressure strong enough to send the dust and stone on the ground flying up. Behind her, hundreds of other Harpies, though they didn’t dare advance too close to the pillar of light, still wheeled around outside, screeching in encouragement for their queen.
"Run!" Ethan shouted.
But it was already too late.
In the blink of an eye, the Harpy Queen appeared right in front of him, cutting off the road to the pillar of light. Her speed was so fast that Ethan hadn’t even managed to see how she flew.
This was the gap between Bronze and Gold.
Her blade-sharp claws swept straight down at Ethan’s head.
Laira lunged over, shielding him, both hands erupting with deep red flame to meet that swipe.
Boom!
Flame and claw collided, producing a deafening blast, the shockwave sweeping out in every direction, forcing Lěng Ruò Yān behind them to hurriedly steer her three puppets in front of herself to keep from being blown away.
Laira was driven back two steps, her two heels plowing two deep grooves into the stone.
She held it off, but that was all she did, hold it off.
Because this was a Gold-tier Harpy Queen, while Laira was sealed at Bronze tier in accordance with Ethan’s rank, and on top of that one of her wings was still torn open and unhealed.
Under ordinary circumstances, a Harpy Queen would be nothing but a slightly larger bird in the eyes of a Crimson Dragon. But not now.
"Ethan!" Laira shouted while blocking the second blow. "Use Resonance! Show me its weak point!"
Ethan ground his teeth.
He wanted to use it, badly. Just one blink, and he could find this Harpy’s fatal spot, and Laira would immediately have her chance.
But the eye on his forehead was still burning hot, and that line of warning still hung before his eyes like a threat.
If he opened the [Eye of Truth] right now, the Bone Demon Serpent behind him would immediately take notice of him. Not only that, among the hundreds of monsters gathering around here, who knew how many other things would turn their heads to look?
Defeat one Harpy Queen, but wake an entire dead land.
That was a price he didn’t dare pay.
"I can’t!" Ethan answered, his voice raw with helplessness.
Laira froze for half a second, but she didn’t ask again. Because she understood that if he said he couldn’t, then there was certainly a reason.
But that half second of hesitation was enough to be fatal.
The Harpy Queen’s claws raked across her shoulder, tearing the scales open, red blood spraying out.
"Laira!"
Ethan lunged forward, the silver-gray armored arm raised.
He had no other choice. If he couldn’t use the eye, then all that was left was Disintegration, and even if the backlash tore his body apart, he had to try. In any case, standing there watching Laira die here was no different from suicide.
But at that very moment, a wind-tearing shriek suddenly rang out across the whole sky.
A ship came flying in.
That’s right, a ship.
It was about thirty meters long, its hull made of a glossy black wood, its prow curving up like a sword blade, silver patterns running along both flanks. Beneath its keel there were no wheels and no engine, it simply floated in the air, held up by a layer of faint light.
Its speed was so fast that when it shot across the sky, the air behind it was ripped open, producing a low, muffled boom that echoed across the whole valley.
The ship stopped in midair, right above the three of their heads, and a lazy female voice rang out.
"Harpy Queen, at your age you’re still out here giving a tiny little human a hard time? It really does make me feel like laughing."
Ethan looked up.
At the prow of the ship, a woman was standing.
She wore a robe of pure black in an ancient style, its sleeves wide and billowing, its high collar wrapping her throat, its long hem brushing the ground yet slit high up to the thigh. Over the black robe was a wide belt, silver chains draped across it swaying with each of her movements. Both her hands were gloved in black past the elbow, the wrists trimmed with a thin layer of lace.
Her hair was silver, loosely gathered behind her, a few strands falling down over her chest. Pinned in the bun was a black hairpin, tassels hanging beneath it swaying in the wind.
But the thing that drew attention most of all was her face.
If Laira was a wild and proud flame, then this woman was like an ancient painting hung in a museum. She was beautiful in a way that was ripe and full of authority, her pale gray eyes curving up slightly, the corner of her mouth lifting into a smile both razor-sharp and alluring. It was the kind of smile belonging to someone who had lived long enough to stop taking anything in this world seriously.
She stood at the prow, one hand on her hip, the other holding a hairpin, spinning it between two fingers as though at play.
Ethan looked at her, and in his mind there was only one thought.
Dangerous.
The eye on his forehead gave no warning at all about this woman, but his instinct did. Because a person who could appear in this place, right in the middle of a land full of Diamond-tier monsters, and still keep that leisurely air of someone out for a stroll, was certainly no ordinary sort.
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