Rise of the Lustful Evil Monarch (Re)-Chapter 314: Rewriting Memories
Third Person's POV
The question had lingered in Ethan's mind for some time, like a shadow trailing his every thought.
He had pushed it aside as he had been occupied with survival and rising threats but the pieces were falling into place now.
That silver crown, the overwhelming aura, that so-called Eternal Throne… It all pointed to one terrifying possibility.
But he exhaled and shook the thought away.
'Forget it, why am I getting distracted from the main task I have to do now?'
Turning his gaze to the unconscious prince, Ethan placed both hands on the sides of his head.
His skin was pale while faint tremors still ran beneath it.
Ethan's eyes narrowed as these were the signs of an unsteady soul. Taking note of this, he didn't delay anymore and reached inward.
He held his eyelids and forced his eyes open.
Looking into his pupilless eyes, he activated the first spell: Soul Veil Manipulation.
Just as he did that, the world around Ethan dimmed to a hush.
The sea of silver responded, and a subtle signal rippled through it as a portion of it began to rotate and started to form a slow, hypnotic whirlpool that seemed to tug at the very threads of the soul.
From Ethan's half-lidded eyes, a dreamy shower of ethereal light surged forth and slipped silently into the mind of the guy who was slapped unconscious just moments ago.
As he descended deeper, Ethan began crafting illusions, and he didn't do it with brute force but with a surgeon's care.
He delicately planted false memories into the demon heir's mind with each thought slotted with practiced precision.
He didn't erase the prince's pursuit of him from the day before, as that would have left too many inconsistencies.
Instead, in its place, he reshaped the dangerous ordeal he had suffered.
The rolling meadows were replaced with a narrow, shaded valley that was shrouded in creeping mist.
There, the prince and his companions were ambushed by hooded enemies cloaked in living shadows.
These shadows were the agents of the True Dark, a sworn enemy of the Infernal Spring's bloodline.
As the thoughts of the enemy turned, Ethan embedded the details meticulously, including the slithering death of the monstrous black snake, the fall of the red-haired demon Declan, and his reckless minions, with each event tailored to make the illusion seamless and without any obvious gaps.
He portrayed Telor, the demon knight, as the primary and strongest defender of his life.
And he did that by locking himself in a destructive clash with the enemy's leader and shaking the valley with bursts of destructive black lightning and a consuming all-dark that devoured it.
As for the duke's son himself, Ethan let him play the brave fool who fought valiantly while even being successful in felling one assassin, before being finally overwhelmed and knocked unconscious by a sneak attack.
Within the recesses of Aram's soul, a silver mist spiraled across the mindscape and quietly disassembled and replaced memory fragments with ones spun from Ethan's will.
Finally satisfied, Ethan paused for a breath, though his gaze soon wandered upward within the demon's soul.
His eyes glinted with restrained curiosity as he considered the untouched memories, the secrets that were yet to be uncovered by him.
With a faint smirk, Ethan released a broader surge of silver light from his eyes and threaded deeper into Aram's mind.
He drifted upward and ascended into the unseen layers, until he hit resistance.
A webbed lattice of crimson light stretched like a burning net across the higher reaches of the soul space and throbbed with a warning pulse.
Seeing such a scene, Ethan's brows drew together as he instantly recognized it to be an embedded soul-ward, a protective seal likely placed by a powerful hand.
He hesitated for a breath.
Then, with cautious boldness, a single filament of silver mist uncoiled from his presence and reached toward the lattice.
The moment it made contact, agony tore through him.
An inferno of soul-searing heat surged down the tether and started burning his will with a scorching jolt.
Ethan recoiled sharply as a sharp soul-burning pain flashed across his senses.
And to his dismay, at that exact moment, Aram stirred.
His eyes fluttered open in a dazed and unfocused state.
Confusion bloomed across his face as he tried to recall what had happened, but everything was dark around him.
The faint scent of burned leaves, the ache in his limbs, and the pitch-black space surrounding him made his breath hitch.
He had never faced such a thing, and soon a raw and instinctive fear began to take root.
In his altered memory, he had been captured by the same assassins who had ambushed his group, and now he feared that he was their prisoner.
Ethan stood a few feet away in the shadows and watched silently with a pained face as the rewritten truth took hold.
Suddenly, the prince's blurred vision cleared, and the first thing he saw was a pair of blazing. soul-searing red eyes.
They weren't just angry, but they were filled with a simmering mix of pain, wrath, and something even darker.
Looking into those coal red eyes, he was truly suffocated.
He blinked in a confused state as he tried to process everything happening around him, but before he could even register what he was seeing, a wave of raw terror surged through him like an icy flood in his veins.
Then, a loud cracking sound filled the air.
Ethan's hand flashed across his face in a sharp slap strong enough to throw him back into unconsciousness.
His body slumped limply, but Ethan's fury had not yet cooled.
Grabbing a fistful of his hair, Ethan slapped him again and again.
Each resounding slap was an outlet and a release of the frustration of being burned by that demon knight in the real world and now by this idiot in the astral world.
It had piled up, and it was reflected in his impassive face and stormy eyes.
