Chapter 452: A dark knight

To Ethan’s surprise, it didn’t take long for Hilda to actually start using him as a seat.

Before that, he had been sitting sideways on the couch, his legs draped over the armrest.

Hilda, who was sitting on his lap, pushed the young man’s torso back until he was lying flat on the couch. Then she lay down on top of him, her back to his chest.

Ethan let out a quiet huff as her weight settled on him, warm and pleasantly heavy. Her soft butt pressed against his hip, the plump flesh spreading out as it molded to him, her legs stretched out over his, and her head came to rest on his chest.

She slowly bent her knees, propping her books against her own thighs while she sketched what would become the future of the Goldenveil Navy.

The handsome young man didn’t resist.

One of his hands rested on the exposed top of those enormous, fat tits, his fingers sinking lightly into the warm, soft skin, the flesh giving way beneath each fingertip and leaving deep dimples wherever they pressed.

The other slid across her slim stomach, his palm gliding over smooth caramel skin, feeling her flat belly rise and fall with each slow breath.

If that little piece of delicious caramel wanted to use him as a throne, who was he to refuse?

She held the paper high enough that her own breasts wouldn’t block her view, and over her bare shoulder, Ethan watched the fine lines take shape.

She was a mage at the peak of the fourth stage. Even if she wanted to draw without using her hands and without looking, she’d still be able to.

“What was the human God-Emperor like?” Ethan asked curiously after a few moments of silence, his chin resting on her shoulder, his thumb tracing idle circles around her navel.

Hilda stopped drawing for a moment. She closed her eyes, thought it over, and then resumed sketching.

“Strange,” she replied honestly.

“He wasn’t very connected to the world, nor to… well, anything around him. He was hard to deal with,” she said, glancing out the office window. “He used to be cool, but then…”

It was raining outside, heavy raindrops pounding against the glass.

“Little by little, he began to withdraw from government affairs. He never took a wife, nor did he seem concerned about leaving heirs should he die.”

“In the last thirty years before I was caught in that explosion, I stopped showing him my new creations. It didn’t make sense anymore… He seemed to be suffering from some kind of poisoning that was consuming his soul.”

“Hm…” Ethan nodded slowly.

By now, both of his hands were on Hilda’s breasts, squeezing them slowly, his fingers sinking deep into those dark, squishy orbs, almost completely bare.

The warm, heavy flesh spilled over his fingers with the squeeze, swelling above and below the tight strip of fabric—perhaps four fingers wide—that cut horizontally across her breasts and tied at her back.

His fingers slipped beneath the fabric, reaching her chubby, rounded nipples. He rolled them slowly between his thumb and index finger, feeling each puffy bud stiffen against his fingertips.

Hilda remained silent, biting her lip to stifle a moan. A faint shiver ran through her, one Ethan could feel along the whole length of his chest.

The rain outside showed no sign of letting up. It looked like Ethan would have to sleep there tonight.

***

Meanwhile, about seventy kilometers from Goldenveil.

It was a dark night.

Black clouds dominated the sky, and the rain fell without stopping.

A flash of lightning lit up the dense treetops for a second, thunder rumbling close behind, but beneath the canopy there was only darkness and dampness.

In the middle of this forest, there was a small clearing, and in it, a camp.

About thirty tents of varying sizes, along with a few crude wooden huts, sheltered just over a hundred criminals.

Three men huddled in a watchtower, sheltered from the rain only by a leaky roof. Water dripped into puddles around them, and the smell of rotten wood and cheap booze hung in the air.

Two of them were counting gold coins by the dim light of an oil lamp.

“Damn… travelers from Goldenveil are way too rich! When we go back to the Black City, I’m going to wallow in whores until my dick falls off, hahaha!” one of the criminals laughed, finishing his count and stuffing the coins into a small leather pouch.

“Ah… too bad those damn Fallenwinter guards showed up first and we couldn’t take the hostages. Did you see how strong those men were? They’d make good labor slaves.

“And the women—well… how the hell do they manage to carry tits that big? I’ve never seen such hot women in my life! The rumor that they’ve all received the blessing of the Goddess of Life herself—and that of Beauty too—must be true!” the second criminal said, watching the rain fall on the horizon.

Then his eyes wandered, landing on the youngest of the three, who sat in a corner working a short blade over a piece of wood, carving a wolf into it.

The young man paused the blade for a moment without lifting his head. “What? You want me to skin your face?” he asked with a sadistic smile.

“By the gods, young man, no. You’re the smart one here. What the hell is wrong with those women?”

“Ah…” The young man stood up, cracking his neck. “Mana density… Their bodies are stronger, their breasts firmer, their skin softer…

“Did you see their men? That damn guy—unarmed and with no training whatsoever—knocked down two of our guys with a single punch! He was just a damn merchant! I wonder if he died or if he got treated in time for the hole I punched in his chest.”

He grunted, stretching.

“And you guys are a bunch of assholes, too. If you hadn’t been fighting over what we stole, I would’ve managed to take one of them before those damn guards showed up, that one with the huge ass” the young man said angrily, spitting on the floor.

“Ugh… Knowing you, you’d take the woman back to Goldenveil and try to play the hero for a reward. You wicked son of a bitch. And you’d even kidnap her again after getting the money, wouldn’t you?”

“Nah.” The young man chuckled. “Did you forget what you said yourself? I’m smart, and those assholes in Goldenveil are too. I’d end up in prison for the rest of my life.”

The young man walked over to an open side of the tower, loosened his pants, and let his small, wrinkled worm out into the cold, damp wind.

He was about to take a piss when, in the darkness among the trees, he saw a pair of green crystals glowing. Then another. And then another.

Within seconds, dozens of pairs of eyes were staring at him, motionless, unblinking.

“Who the fuck are you?!” He didn’t even bother to pull up his pants, his hand flying to the sword at his waist.

Too late.

A huge, powerful hand, covered in steel, emerged from the darkness, rainwater streaming down the plates of the gauntlet.

It was clearly a human hand, but so large that it completely covered the young man’s head, the metal fingers closing around his skull like a cage.

It squeezed.

A pitiful scream, muffled by the metal, lasted less than a second before a wet, sickening crunch cut it short.

The young man’s skull collapsed, his eyes burst from their sockets, and half his head turned to nothing—just a paste of blood, bone, and brains oozing between the steel fingers. What was left of him sagged, pants still hanging around his thighs.

That was the knight’s left hand.

With his right, gripping a long blade, he slashed.

The other two bandits didn’t even have time to scream. An aura slash ripped through the tower, splintering the planks and tearing the two of them in half at the waist, the coins they’d been counting flying away in a spray of blood.

The mangled halves of their bodies fell with a heavy, wet thud, their guts spilling across the rain-soaked floorboards.

A fourth bandit, who was running toward the tower with a bottle of wine he planned to share with the other three, skidded to a halt midway, his feet slipping in the mud.

His lips parted to warn the rest of the camp, but no words came out.

A gigantic wolf, its jaws already gaping wide and full of sharp teeth, appeared beside him without making a sound.

It tore the man’s head off with a single bite, the neck bones snapping with a sharp crack, and swallowed it whole.

The bottle fell and shattered in the mud, the wine mixing with the blood gushing from the torn neck.

Nature’s magic welled up beneath the wolf’s paws, mana spreading across the ground as dozens of sharp vines burst through the soggy earth, rising up and crashing down upon a nearby hut.

They punched through the wooden walls as if they were paper.

Five screams of agony echoed as the vines pierced the hearts of those inside. Afterward, only the sound of the rain.

From the forest, nine more emerged—squires in heavy armor—with more wolves running among them.

The leader of the bandit group, a proud third-stage warrior, heard the commotion and burst out of his tent with his sword in hand, but there was little he could do.

He managed to exchange only three blows with one of the squires accompanying the sole knight on that mission—the steel clanging loudly in the rain—before dying with his throat slit.

Nine squires and a knight of the Order of the Green Sentinels, accompanied by ten wolves, wiped out the hundred bandits in just over two minutes.

When it was over, the rain was already washing the blood from the clearing.

The knight and his squires exchanged glances before heading back into the forest.

Tonight, they would bathe the darkness in the blood of all those who dared to harm the people of Goldenveil.