Chapter 672: The Silent Needle

Third Person’s POV

To reach its present position, it had fought and struggled throughout its entire life, relying on its intelligence and strength to rise far above the status of a mere labor slave.

And yet, despite everything it had accomplished, Trozon had casually reduced it to nothing more than a ’lowly demon’ due to a single mistake.

Those words struck directly at the deepest part of its pride.

Immense humiliation and fury bubbled within its hollow chest, and for a brief moment, it had the urge to lash out at the arrogant, ugly creature standing before it.

But in the end, it remained silent.

It knew very well that there was a considerable gap between its current condition and Trozon’s strength.

More importantly, after the battle with Ethan had left it severely wounded, it was in no position to provoke someone even stronger than itself.

Therefore, no matter how much humiliation and anger continued to churn within its chest, the sheep demon could only swallow it down and endure.

Meanwhile, the deformed creature suddenly turned its gaze toward Ethan, after mocking the hell out of the sheep headed demon.

Its cold gray eyes settled upon him for a brief moment.

And then—it vanished.

There was no flash of light, no explosion of energy, or any fluctuation of aura, left in its wake.

It simply disappeared as though it had never existed in the first place.

The moment Trozon vanished, or to be exact became invisible, Ethan’s expression became serious.

He immediately spread his soul sense in every direction around him like a spiderweb to detect any existence that might enter it.

Yet despite seconds going by, the attack he expected didn’t arrive.

No matter how thoroughly he searched the surrounding area, he couldn’t feel even the slightest trace of that deformed creature’s presence.

It was as though the creature had completely vanished from his perception.

Even his instincts, which had always warned him of approaching danger, could offer him nothing more than an inexplicable feeling of unease.

For an instant, Ethan’s mind went blank.

He had no idea where Trozon was.

That was precisely what made the situation so dangerous.

He couldn’t see it with his eyes, nor did his soul sense detect its existence.

He couldn’t even determine the direction from which its next attack would come.

And yet, Ethan knew one thing with absolute certainty that he was the target.

Realizing this, Ethan didn’t panic.

Instead, he gradually calmed himself down and focused entirely on his surroundings.

He remembered the guidance his Master Nyx had once given him.

Nyx possessed an extraordinary affinity for the space element, and during his training, she had taught him that relying solely on soul sense to perceive one’s surroundings could eventually become a weakness.

A powerful soul sense was certainly an advantage, but it was not omnipotent.

There would always be stronger existences, mysterious energies, and strange anomalies capable of surpassing or interfering with its primary functions of basic spatial awareness and battle perception.

More importantly, if one became overly dependent on such an ability, the other senses and instincts of the body would gradually become dull.

Yet he had unconsciously become far too dependent on his overwhelmingly powerful soul sense.

His soul sense had always been so powerful that it allowed him to perceive even the smallest fluctuations around him, making it easy for him to rely on it whenever he fought.

However, he now realized that this reliance had caused his natural fighting senses to become somewhat dull.

After all, when one could perceive almost everything through their soul sense, there was little reason to consciously pay attention to the subtler sensations conveyed by the physical body.

But that very reliance had now become a weakness.

Ethan slowly closed his eyes.

If his soul sense could not find his enemy, then he would have to rely on something far more elusive and esoteric, which was a being’s most primitive sense, the sixth sense.

It was known as the power of intuition.

He didn’t need to see the creature.

He didn’t need to sense it with his soul.

He simply needed to feel it with the power of his warrior’s intuition.

A faint surge of icy mana immediately spread through his body, flowing along his nervous system and soothing the tension that had gathered within his muscles and nerves.

His expression became as cold and still as the frozen world around him.

Then, he began to feel.

The snow drifting down from the heavens and landing gently upon his skin.

The frigid wind brushing against his face.

The subtle currents of air shifting around his body.

Even the heavy, ragged breaths of the wounded sheep demon nearby became distinct within his awareness, each exhalation sending a brief wave of warmth into the surrounding cold.

Ethan didn’t try to search for anything.

He simply allowed every sensation to reach him.

Slowly, the world around him began to reveal itself through sensations that his soul sense had long taught him to ignore.

Ethan slowly began paying attention to all of it.

He could hear the subtle changes in the surrounding air, and his breathing gradually became slower.

The sounds around him seemed to fade into the background as he focused entirely on the surrounding space.

For the first time since Trozon had vanished, Ethan stopped trying to find it.

Instead, he simply allowed himself to become aware of everything around him.

The sounds around him seemed to fade into the background as he focused entirely on the surrounding space.

He could even distinguish the subtle disturbances caused by the sheep demon’s movements and breathing.

But Ethan knew that he could go even further.

So he completely emptied his mind.

He suppressed every distracting thought.

Thoughts about Erius.

Thoughts about Arlene.

Even thoughts about his mother and Aurelia.

For the moment, he pushed them all aside.

There was only the surrounding space, his body and the faintest sensations reaching his senses.

His mind gradually approached an almost entranced state.

It was then that a silent blue needle suddenly appeared out of nowhere.