"Haa....Haa...—!"
The sharp lurch of his body, huddled forward and seated, made it clear that his breathing was not under control.
The cold glint in his eyes cut through the room, observing it as if possessed, moving around while taking in the decorations of the royal chamber: the curtains, the delicate golden lining around the walls, the flower vase, and even the pungent scent filling the whole room.
As he sat there, his chest heaved, revealing sharp, well-toned abs.
A bead of sweat trickled down to his sharp jawline, with the neck vein bulging as if it had its own heartbeat, slowly allowing the bead to travel down to his chest curls.
Both hands clenched tightly on either side of the bed, and his abdominal muscles curved up into four peaks, causing the sweat to linger, reflecting the sight beside him.
The lid of a woman was bare, but her body was covered by a thin sheet, with the bed much softer, as if alive.
Indeed, the seat he was on was not just fabric; a soft fur scattered around the nine-tailed area had now become his seat, with both hands clutching the tail.
He heard a whinny.
"...haahh.... Crown Prince?"
It was a voice of such melodious quality that even honey might feel embarrassed and stop flowing.
The moon might just hide itself, and the air might freeze for a moment to take a glance at her beauty.
As her eyes blinked, the silver within her pupils looked towards the man seated on the bed, breathing heavily, something unseen and unimaginable coming from a beast like him.
This caused her mind to stop for a moment before she felt the pain of his grip on her tail.
'!'
She swiftly sat up.
"Huuh..." Rudwick took a lungful of breath to feel that right now he wasn't in that battlefield filled with smoke and energy that was killing him from within, checking his energy centers one after another and finding everything normal.
It appeared he had regressed back in time, which was expected, considering he possessed a bloodline that allowed him to return whenever he died.
Each time he died, he would regress back to the moment when he consummated with the strongest female vessel.
A charge point he himself had created by manipulating and mating with one of the most potent female mates existing in the whole empire.
"R-Rudwick—" Hela softly muttered, her hand stretching as she tried to touch his bare shoulder, even though she was bare, with one hand clenching the bed sheet to cover the bruises, red marks, and hickeys on her milky white skin.
But her eyes trembled as she saw the lion—the strongest masculine energy she had chosen in the whole empire—tremble like that, with a fear she never thought she would see in him, causing her to doubt what nightmare he must have sown to become like this.
"Don't touch me." Rudwick said, without even turning his eyes to look at the woman for whose glance every single male would go to war.
His tone was so cold that her heart flinched.
The eyes of a woman who, after giving herself to a man, found herself rejected the next morning, having swayed through passion, when she thought she had tamed the strongest man in the empire—the crown prince—felt the sting of such a cold rejection.
"Wh-what?" Hela's mouth twitched as she looked toward him, seeking an answer for such words.
But instead of even a single glance or a reply, what she got was him slowly standing up from the bed.
As he did, the nail marks on his back, caused by her, became visible.
Swish
He didn't even look at her as his fingers gripped the edge of the blanket and tore her protection away.
"R-Rudwick—!?—!" Hela's eyes widened as he snatched the blanket from her, without looking back, his cold demeanor exposing her shoulder as he pulled the blanket away, leaving her bruised and red skin exposed to the sharp morning light.
The air caused her to clench her jaws and swiftly cover her bare body with the soft, fluffy tails that now resembled a white throne, while she hugged them with an expression breaking, as she felt the humiliation far worse than her pride could handle, clearly trembling beneath the actions of the man whom she thought she had made surrender.
"W-what is the meaning of this, Rudwi—!"
"Leave Hela, or I will kill you."
The man standing while knotting the blanket around his waist slowly turned his gaze towards Hela, meeting her silver eyes, which carried the rage of humiliation.
Looking back at his golden wounds, which didn't even flinch, he stated those words in a sharp voice, clearly as if her use was over and she was thrown aside after being fully consumed.
Swish swish
While both of them were glaring at each other, suddenly two shadows arrived behind Hela, kneeling, wearing the black robes marked with the nine-tailed red emblem of the Firefox Clan.
As they arrived, both of them emitted pink energy that filled the whole room, leaking through the door, making even the guards standing outside tremble before falling to their knees, holding their groins as they were met with the strongest aphrodisiac energy that even numbed the elders of the clans.
But Rudwick remained unfazed.
"Mind your words, Crown Prince!"
One of the shadowy figures yelled, her voice sharp and clearly filled with killing intent, as such humiliation of the Princess of the clan was deemed utmost disrespect.
She made the move personally, and even the one beside her didn't flinch in front of the Crown Prince of the Southern Empire, warning him in an even deadlier tone.
"Don't forget it was the Princess who chose you; mind how you treat her—!!"
The voice was firm, belonging to a middle-aged woman, so strong that it resonated within the frequency to which a human heartbeat syncs, clearly possessing the power to grab someone's heart from the outside and pull it out or crush it without them even having the chance to respond, just by the vibrations of her sound.
But he—
"Begone, ants."
Rudwick uttered, just once, and instantly, a sharp roar of energy piercing all the pink energy filling the room surged out of his body.
The undercurrent instantly neutralized all the aphrodisiac effects while the walls beneath cracked.
The whole room trembled, and instantly those two women were thrown back.
Their bodies were flung like ragdolls, with the clear horror in their eyes widening through the gaps in their fabric, hitting the wall behind with a clear gush of saliva surging out of their mouths before they fell on the floor, revealing the crater formed on the wall made of etherite mixed with high-quality magic circles, broken by a sword that those two were already dead.
"What are you even doing, Rudwick!?" Hela yelled.
She jumped, not to attack him, but more like to retreat.
Somehow, she felt threatened and at the same time humiliated by the man she surrendered to, like a beast whose body was marked by her.
The killing intent of a lion ruling the world like a forest was enough to intimidate everyone, including her, as he exuded an intimidating aura of a berserker that instilled fear in everyone, including her, who was a nine-tailed fox existing supreme under the female archetype as the vessel possessing the most potent fertility, strength, and feminine energy to drive any man to madness.
Her body swung in mid-air before landing.
'Ah..' As she did, she felt her legs itching with a clear hint of a stumble, the pain from being used all night making her bones tremble from sheer agony.
Yet she stood, her tail covering her body like a cloth, a gown made of fur circling around her like a regal presence, hiding her milky white skin, which was just mildly dustier than the whitest tail.
And her silver eyes reflected him standing while glaring at her with nothing in his gaze.
If one were to consider her, she was the embodiment of beauty.
With soft furry ears, eyes blinking like liquid silver, lips softer than petals, and a face so smooth that even a small cold breeze might leave a red mark, she stood there, bare and covered in fur, appearing like a goddess.
Yet she was met with his cold gaze holding nothing—no reaction, no lust, not even...
Forget anything else; there was just disgust and hate in his eyes.
"Haah," Rudwick breathed, clenching his jaws as his sharp canines hinted at the clear amusement he felt in his core.
The sensation—a burning lust akin to the pride of lions known for their mating stamina—could ravage the whole forest whole week, burned within him.
It was as if he had lost, no, evolved that fire into a center where just a crimson cocoon existed, belonging to none other than that woman.
His golden eyes slowly revealed themselves as his eyelids opened, looking towards Hela.
But only a sigh escaped him as he calmed himself down; he felt he was going mad to even feel the woman standing before him, holding a beauty he once thought comparable to goddesses that now felt hollow.
He felt within him that indeed, it appeared no one like that woman would ever enter his mind, causing him to sharply call to his shadow, "Ronewen."
Swish
His words hadn't even finished when suddenly a shadow emerged from the ground, its aura instantly calming the intensity that seemed to belong to the deer race.
This race possessed a pheromone ability that emitted a scent soothing enough to calm the mind, yet tender enough to make them prey of the strongest monsters in the empire's forest, just as he was now serving under the crown prince of the empire.
"Orders, Your Highness."
He had two antelope-like horns on his head, branched brown with brown hair, and he gave a bow with one hand on his chest and the other at his back, clearly following the route of a butler, but much more precise and with a mind empty, unfazed by the energy leaking from Rudwick.
Clearly, it was just external.
Internally, even his heartbeat was racing and hitting his ribs violently.
"Cease the attack on the Land of Arcadia this instant."
His voice was firm, laced with a clear decree that flowed not just through his mind but from his heart, which clenched with the absence of the woman he realized was still far away from his grasp.
'!?!'
"M-Master, we are about to win—" Ronwen seemed to falter in his posture.
The calm, composed persona he usually held broke as he swiftly lifted his head at the Crown Prince's demand.
Given this was the single event that might decide his reign to the throne, and he was literally dropping the achievement he had worked for on his own, it made him want to give a suggestion.
But as he lifted his gaze and saw those golden eyes, everything seemed to freeze, even his soul, as he trembled.
Nothing—he just stood there like a statue—until the man himself, holding the insignia of the lion, slowly moved forward, uncaring of the suggestion.
Even the butler, who had seemed composed until now, turned his gaze down while trembling, feeling just a touch on his shoulder from the king.
The king then moved toward the balcony, arriving and standing there while looking towards the sky.
Hela was ignored.
Maybe not just her; any woman seemed to have lost any kind of attraction to him.
A cruel grin formed as his canines became visible in the rising sunlight, which enhanced his golden eyes, filtering the pupil, glinting dangerously as he looked toward the horizon, where he, as the Crown Prince, had ordered an attack on one of the faraway lands involved in conspiracy for choosing human kingdoms instead of the Empire of Rowelia.
No, he didn't just want to capture it; he wanted to burn it down.
But he felt that fire he was about to ignite had just returned to his heart in the form of crimson flames, as he muttered with a determination far stronger than that of the time he had decided to become emperor.
"You will be mine, Astara... soon."